Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

33° - light snow at 12:02pm

Snow! Woke up this morning to snow just starting to come down here in Mid-Michigan. Enough had fallen in just a few hours to motivate #2 son to go out in the backyard and take advantage of the changing season.

He's outside and away from the computer and the TV...cool!

Listening this morning to Bob Stroud on Chicago's WDRV. This morning Bob featuring the music career of Joe Walsh. Later: WKLH/Milwaukee and Steve Palec - who's featuring Aerosmith this morning. Nobody does puts together sound bites (especially on the local level every week) like Steve Palec.

FMQB: The magazine has a great piece online this week: a cover story interview with KSWD/Los Angeles (100.3/The Sound) PD Dave Beasing. Read here. One highlight of the interview is Dave's enthusiasm for his employer - Bonneville:

"This company sees an economic slowdown the way Warren Buffett does, as a good time to invest. Our marketing director, Sammy Simpson, is brilliant, and he’s going to be just as aggressive throughout 2009 as he was during our first few months."

And on The Sound and the AAA format:

"In many ways, AAA is today’s Album Rock radio. It’s simple, really. We’re playing good music from all eras and artists. There are several good Rock stations here already but they only play a tight list of hits, and that’s a smart strategy for them. But there’s room for one station that dares to be different."

Radio stories. This week Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight shines on Jeff Schwartz. Jeff not an on-air talent, but someone who's been behind the scenes at some of the Windy City's top radio stations.

Among some great stories - Jeff shares how the infamous 1979 "Disco Demolition" came together. A great read here.

And if you want video - here's a 25th anniversary Keith Olbermann broadcast remembering the event:


More video on YouTube here.

And...back on Tuesday, I heard an interview with Howard Stern sidekick Artie Lange this past week on NPR's Fresh Air program. Artie holds nothing back with Fresh Air host Terry Gross. Listen here.

Added: Caught this on The Consumerist website: "Sirius XM Merger Reveals True Face: Fewer Channels And 'Sanitized' Programming". Read here.

Have a great Sunday.

Monday Monday

54° - partly cloudy at 7:15am

Hello from Okemos.

The weekend spent on the forthcoming internet station. I'm confident that online beta testing will begin by the end of month, perhaps sooner. Still have some key library categories to fill. Stay tuned!

Bob & Tom. Radio on TV. In Friday's FMQB, the dynamic duo out of Indianapolis discuss their new deal with WGN America. Read here.

Fall book begins in ten days. Along with the next PPM cycle. Its never too late to prep. Jaye Albright offers some tips for program directors here.

Meanwhile, author/agent of change Seth Godin writes about "Fixing The One Big Thing". Very relevant to radio on the air and off. Read here.

Radio Stories. Rick Kaempfer chatted with WBBM-FM/Chicago's Eddie Volkman. Read here. I grew up watching Eddie's dad on Chicago television.

Live Tracks. Doing a "live cuts" weekend? These have been out for several years - but found them on Ebay and got them cheap for the internet project: SNL25/Saturday Night Live: The Musical Performances Volumes 1 & 2.

Some great stuff, though much of it out of the traditional classic rock format.

Volume 1 features Elvis Costello's 1977 performance of "Radio Radio", including the false start of what he was scheduled to sing that night.

The day job awaits. More later.

Late Shift Post

63° - scattered clouds at 10:43am

Late night additions before bed...

Earlier today consultant Dave Lange offered another chapter in his series of posts on "Authenticity - The Key To Reviving Radio". Part 2 is on "over-hyping". Catch up here.

Fred Jacobs today announced the first two names for the "President of Radio" project. Congrats to Jerry Lee, owner of WBEB/Philadelphia - and to Harpo Radio GM John Gerhon. 8 more names to announce and one could be anyone. Details here.

Speaking of: Fred and brother Paul Jacobs wrote a great piece last week in FMQB titled "What is Programming To Win in 2008?". A must read on the present day realities of our industry - and the role of the program director. Here.

More tomorrow.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

57° - clear at 10:20am

Very cool: KUFX/San Jose has put together some great packages that the station will be auctioning off to benefit local charities. What makes this special is that each package involves a member of the station's airstaff, including morning guy/musician Greg Kihn. Very cool. See here.

Listening: This morning to Bob Stroud on Chicago's WDRV. Featuring three hours of this week in 1969.

Very tasty stuff. "Sweet Cherry Wine" by Tommy James playing right now. My evil twin also loved "Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon" from Paul Revere and The Raiders. Thanks Bob.

Later: Stroud played some Booker T & The MGs. Iinspired, I found myself at Amazon.Com to buy some Booker T downloads: "Time Is Tight" - plus a not-to-major hit titled "Melting Pot" - some great tracks I long forgot about.

Most of Booker T's work recorded at the sloped-floor (a former movie theater) studios of Stax Records in Memphis. But I digress.

Once again, this promotion thing the music industry uses (called "radio") works. Not the only downloads I purchased this morning either - thanks to radio. And my wife will remind me when she reviews our bank statement.

Last Sunday: We noted the words of Bonneville New Media Director James Webb - stating that we ought to think of our cume as "users" rather than "listeners".

Dave Martin blogged on the topic this past week and offered the words of one Chris Locke:

"we are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. we are human beings - and our reach exceeds your grasp. deal with it."

My take: With respect for all parties - whether you call them listeners or users - they're one of two sets of customers (the other being advertisers). Let's find ways to serve and engage both on the air and off. Its all about relationships.

How to ruin a relationship. Mark Ramsey points us to what I hope isn't a trend. As a program director, one of my primary duties was being an advocate for the listener and preventing things like this from happening. Please read.

Just a good read: Highlights from FMQB's Think-Tank Symposium. Here.

More radio stories. Rick Kaempfer interviews WCBS afternoon news anchor Steve Scott here.

Added: Michael Mallace on "Big Ron" O'Brien - and WCFL - here.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

17° - light snow at 8:54am
left: downtown Lansing early this morning

Snow here again this morning. 3-4 inches possible today. Relief in sight with temps predicted in the 40s sometime next week.

That said - welcome to Friday. Reading this morning:

Reality check from Fred Jacobs:

"It's time to stop all of the hand-wringing about PPM, declining revenue, satellite radio, and all of the other excuses. Sure, these are problems, but the solutions are right in front of our faces. Who does event marketing better than radio? And what medium lends itself best to digital solutions."

Fred's complete post here.

Mark Ramsey on the radio & the internet: "What would we be and do if we didn't have a broadcast tower at all and only had a website? How would we build this thing?" Its a great read from Mr. Ramsey here.

The Clear Channel Pespective. From the company's EVP of Content Development Tom Owens. In this week's FMQB.

Read highlights here.

Monday Monday

Heat Wave. Winter has left Mid-Michigan - at least for a day or two. Today's high 61 - almost 70 about 25 miles south of here.

Coming home tonight: my 12-year old filled me in on new cool gadgets at the CES in Las Vegas - watching coverage on G4 TV.

Catching up on blogs from our industry leaders:

Station Review: Dave Lange writes this morning about keeping your station fresh.

As Dave points out - first of the year is a great time to take a look at everything. More here.

As you review everything - keep this in mind from Lee Abrams today:

"I’ll never forget when I was in Australia and a noted programmer asked “Why is it that all American radio stations give away prizes to the ‘9th caller’? It is some sort of regulation? I replied “Sheep”."

HD2 done right. We profiled WRIF/Detroit's "RIFF2" HD channel here back in August.

This morning RIFF2 Program Director Mark Pennington blogged about putting it all together - and lessons learned. A great read via jacoBLOG here.

PPM: Look Before You Leap. A great piece from Arbitron's Gary Marince. Gary shares:

"Case-in-Point #1: I routinely hear “cut way back on station IDs and calls.” Whoa! The rationale looks good on paper but falls short in practice. Certainly the PPM device will know which stations are being heard by which listeners. But the assumption people are already listening to my station, therefore I don’t need to clutter my air with calls and frequency mentions, might be compromising a wonderful marketing opportunity."

Very good. Read Gary's complete piece in FMQB here.

A name from my past: Broker Bob Heymann. Bob one of those responsible for me being in the biz; Highland Park, IL. about 38 years ago. Wow.

Bob home from college then - doing summer fill-in air work; yours truly just entering high school spending almost all my free time at a radio station. Bob Heymann in the news today as he opens a Chicago office for Media Services Group.

Calling it a night. Day started this morning shortly before 4; woke up during the nightt with my mind racing with ideas. A great feeling.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

59° - heavy rain at 11:35am

Welcome to the weekend.

"It may sound like a positioning statement, but Classic Rock is in fact music that has stood the test of time." -Fred Jacobs.

Fred notes this morning that some of the best selling digital downloads are classic rock songs. Read more here.

Realities that apply to both PPM and Diary markets: McVay Media consultant Dave Lange wraps up his five-part series today with "It's Time To Charge Up The Audience". Read here.

Dave wraps up his post with these thoughts:

"In the end it comes back to THE PRODUCT. Be compelling, exciting and entertaining - charge it up and it doesn't matter if it's meters or diaries you are a lot more likely to WIN. Get out from behind the computer and tweaking selector and focus on what really charges up the audience."

If you missed any of Dave's 5-part series - scroll back on his blog here.

Meanwhile: Paragon Media posts two more "rules" to its PPM Handbook here.

One of the rules includes "Don't Sweat The Rankers". As long as talent and PDs are compensated/bonused based on rank in demo, talent and PDs will "sweat the rankers".

Bonus from Dave Martin. His 9-step plan blogged over the past two days about shaping up your on-air talent now has a "bonus" 10th step. Dave labels it as the most important step in getting the most out of talent:

"When managers expect the best from performers they get the best. When managers expect the worst they get it."

"Expect great things and treat them like stars and you will get success beyond your dreams."

Dave's entire "Step 10" post is here. A must read. And...If you missed steps 1-9 - scroll back to Wednesday and Thursday here.

Sean Ross - today in FMQB - on cutting clutter without sacrificing content. Does radio really need to be more iPod-like?

Sean writes:

"..in case anybody thinks that streamlining a station will tear me away from the iPod, the function the iPod serves for me is as, again, an extra FM station -- playing the songs I like but can’t get from the radio. When I choose the radio instead, I am neither looking for uninterrupted music -- already available to me -- nor to hear 30 minutes of incorrect answers to “What is it that 63% of all women say they do every day?” I’m looking to hear some music that I wouldn’t necessarily program for myself in an entertaining package."

Read here. Have a great weekend.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

70° - sunny at 10am
Left: old bridge just up the road here

Welcome to the weekend. A busy one for our family - shopping for the kids - clothes, school supplies.

School resumes here on Tuesday.

PPM. Arbitron's Gary Marince writes in this week's FMQB: "WARNING: While learning about programming through PPM, resist the temptation to form hasty conclusions."

Gary continues with some observations on the PPM increases by male-dominated formats - especially rock:

"If you think about it . . . the majority of the workforce is male dominated. And someone who works is more likely to be out-and-about either working or coming to-and-from work. Often, the unemployed, which includes everyone not working, spends more time with TV than radio. More simply stated, there is a greater likelihood that an employed male is using radio – they have more listening occasions with radio."

There's lot more here - read Gary's complete piece here.

Meanwhile - Mark Ramsey "Seduces PPM" with a presentation at this year's NAB Radio Show.

Mark writes: "We looked at several months of PPM ratings across both Houston and Philadelphia with specific attention focused on what stations did from a marketing and programming standpoint, whether or not it worked, and how it worked."

More on the presentation here.

Big wow in Albuquerque. Its only a trend - but classic rock KIOT jumps from 12 to 6 in rank 12+. Congrats.

This blog is pretty low key on criticism - but KIOT really needs to fix their web presence. There's no (apparent) strategy. Someone doesn't get it - big time.

Say goodbye to KIOL/Houston. Radio-Info's Tom Taylor reports that the station will trade classic rock this morning for Jack. This move likely to benefit classic rock KKRW.

Enjoy the last weekend of summer.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

75° - sunny & windy at 10am

Happy Friday from Okemos

New Bruce. Via Underground Garage affiliate guy Mark Felsot: a new CD from Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - titled "Magic" - is scheduled for an October 2nd release.

Longtime Springsteen producer Jon Landau labels the album as a "high energy rock CD". More here.

This (hopefully) means an album more radio-friendly than "The Seger Sessions" - and is likely a release classic rock radio should embrace and celebrate. Consider it as part of your fall programming plans.

Mike Bettelli. Yesterday, this blog suggested spending a day outside the station listening to both your own station and the competition. In this week's FMQB, The Jones Radio programmer/consultant writes:

"A critical part of the job of programming is to know and understand the competition. How much inventory do they air every hour? Are the other morning shows in your market more entertaining, relevant, or higher rated than yours? Maybe you’ll need more resources to level the playing field – especially with regard to talent. It is also possible that your talent can be improved with a little coaching and more tools."

Read Mike's entire piece here.

Tom Taylor: "One last thing about Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto, who died this week at 89: His contribution to Meat Loaf’s epic “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” about young love (or lust) helped make the song the overblown (and perfect) production that’s a staple of classic rock."

Sign up for "Taylor on Radio-Info" - for free here.

More here Sunday Morning. Have a good weekend.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

64° - light rain at 11am

Good Morning.

Fired up the WDRV/Chicago stream this morning - and Bob Stroud. Heard one hit wonder "Crow" and 1969's "Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me)". Nice.

Later: Bob wound up his show with "Lake Shore Drive" by Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah. Still a wonderful song to hear after all these years. You gotta be from the Windy City to understand; pardon this moment of self-indulgence.

WDRV doing a "triple play weekend" - 3'fers accompanied by some excellent artist imaging; hard to beat Nick Michaels' storytelling.

Speaking of music - I'm hearing all sorts of good things about a new Stephen Stills release "Just Roll Tape".

The CD features demo versions of many Stills classics performed in the studio back in 1968.

Bob Leftsetz writes here about the Stills release; Larry Estlack (Allen) at WMMQ wrote in an email last night: "Got it and it is very fresh, like finding a old photo in very nice condition." On my want list.

Added: With so many demos and unreleased versions of classic songs available now on reissues - can a special weekend be put together with this material? As only Classic Rock can do. The WXXX Basement Tapes or something. Just thinking...

Hype-o-licious. Consultant Greg Gillispie writes in this week's FMQB - here - about building momentum with buzz and WOM (word-of-mouth); and gives some examples of how the value far exceeds the investment.

Confessions of an Arbitron participant. Discovered consultant Harv Blain's new blog - and a post about comments some Arbitron participants have made on their own blogs. Very worth your time. Here.

Added: David Martin here on Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management and unwritten rule number eight. Added: Rick Kaempfer interviews KLKX-KKZQ Palmdale PD and syndicated "The Rockin' 80s" host Mark Zander. Here.

Have a great Sunday. Going to enjoy this rain - long overdue.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

67° - heavy rainfall at 11am

Happy Friday.

Bliss. I feel like I've been in a time-warp all week! Over the last several days, I've been enjoying reading David Martin's discussion about the ABC FM rock stations of the 70s as well as the AOR programmers from that era. Scroll back on his blog here.

There has to be hundreds of untold stories from this time that need to be written and preserved - and shared with today's programmers - especially those doing classic rock.

Right: KSAN does Beatles A to Z back in the day. That feature now a staple on many of today's classic rock stations.

I'm looking forward to Tom Teuber's contributions to the conversation on Dave's blog.

PPM and P1s. Lee Arnold writes here this morning about new PPM research - and P1 listeners. Another great read on how PPM will affect our future. Added: Morning Mouth Publisher Don Anthony offers PPM tips in this week's FMQB here.

Steve Loomstein. Who? Its Steve Loomstein day in St. Louis and the second annual launch of "Steve 96" radio. Ralph Cipolla of Jacobs Media explains what this is all about here. Its just great radio.

Have a great weekend. More here Sunday Morning.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

Left: Webcam shot this AM from Copper Harbor in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Latest image

In Okemos: 56° and overcast at 10am.

Listening this morning to Lee Arnold's internet station WORJ.COM; hearing some tracks I haven't heard since my free-form days in the 70s - some with the occassional pops and ticks of vinyl; and that's a nice sound. Thanks to Dave Martin for the tip.

While cleaning house yesterday, I had the laptop tuned into WDRV/Chicago's stream. The Drive was celebrating Pete Townshend's birthday - with some great produced pieces to intro Townshend/Who music. One that stood out what Pete Townshend talking about Keith Moon; with an example of Moon's drumming style.

Great production like this keeps the music and the station sounding fresh. And strengthens your station's image as the classic rock authority.

Also spent some time with WDRV's stream of its "Deep Tracks" HD2 Channel....hosted by Steve Seaver. Noted that WDRV is streaming this channel at 2x the bitrate of their main channel stream (64 kbps vs 32 kbps). A welcome and very noticeable difference in streaming audio quality - even on tiny notebook speakers.

Programming to win. In this week's FMQB, John Silliman Dodge writes about time management, procrastination and establishing priorities. A great read for any programmer or manager; even those "on the beach". Read here.

Summer's almost here. See lots of stations getting ready to do the traditional Memorial Day 500; many with listener voting on their websites. And summer brings outdoor cookouts. WZLX/Boston's morning show is soliciting entries for a live morning show broadcast from a listener's backyard.

Show us your fish. WRLO/Antigo, WI has listeners submitting pics of their catch. Here. And Cox Radio's WHPT/Tampa Bay has a complete fishing page on their website here. A great NTR idea you can pass onto your GM.

Have a great Sunday.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

Sunny and 53° here at 10am.

Minor League Baseball. Last night, the family and I attended another Lansing Lugnut game. What a great time!; And it didn't matter that the Lugnuts lost 3-2 to the Clinton (IA) Lumberkings.

Its the experience. The Lugnuts get it: from the greeting as you enter the front gate - to keeping it fun and involving the fans throughout the game - to saying "thank you and good night" as one leaves the stadium. The game itself is just a part "the Lugnut experience".

I've mentioned this before: Here in Lansing, the Lugnuts are the best family entertainment value for our dollar. Without question.

More on the experience: Read this from Bill Jacobs. And thanks to Bill for turning me onto the Fish website.

Listened to Bob Stroud - WDRV this morning. Bob mentioned that another Bob - Bob Seger - celebrated his 62nd birthday yesterday.

Last Sunday. We mentioned a piece written by Jim Kerr of Pollack Media on Lone Star 92.5/Dallas - and how that station was designed for streaming on the internet. Pollack Media now has it posted on their website here. A good read.

Breaking The Rules. When is it OK for the talent to break the rules? Never? Now and then? Jay Trachman writes about this in FMQB - here.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

Happy weekend. Caught some great writing this past week:

Dave Lange of McVay Media - a wonderful mind who helped me in a competitive battle years ago - writes about about Anna Nicole, Britney and XM/Sirius here.

Alan Mason - of Good Ratings - who I don't know but wish I did - quotes Mark Ramsey and writes about your station's community here.

Lee Arnold on two of radio's best here.

Radio Wars in Denver. Its country, not classic rock. But there's always something to be learned from watching any format battle. Jaye Albright has it here.

FMQB reports that Van Halen is apparently not getting back together (for now). And The Police sold out Madison Square Garden twice in 15 minutes; now doing another show at Giants Stadium on August 5th. Tickets for that show go on sale Monday.

Heard from old friend Jay Blackburn this past week. Jay was the mind behind the original WLUP/Chicago (pre-Heftel/Lee Abrams) and his work there was a big influence on my career (although he didn't know it until years later). Jay has written an autographical-based novel on "radio wars of the '70s as seen through the eyes of a couple of midlevel consultants. It's the whole story, from '70 to '79."

Knowing Jay's history, this should be a great read. Jay says it will be out mid-summer; once a firm release date is set, we'll pass it along.