Wednesday Blogs

82° rain - a downpour at 11am - nice!

Last day of the spring book...

From my blogosphere:

Day of Silence. From what I've been able to read this morning, it appears yesterday's effort generated plenty of consumer action.

Bridge Ratings offers the first of a two-part release on the day's impact here (scroll down on page). Jerry Del Colliano offers his thoughts on the day of silence here. Update: Latest RAIN coverage, including links to press articles here.

Performance rights: Clear Channel is asking independent musicians to waive their rights to performance royalties for consideration of airplay- and its something the Future of Music Coalition (FMC) isn't happy with.

Attorney David Oxenford recently discussed the Clear Channel offer on NPR's Morning Edition - and offers more on his blog here.

My take: Clear Channel is doing the right thing - its a win-win for both broadcaster and artist. You cannot enjoy the benefits of promotional exposure and fairly collect performance royalties for that exposure.

Perhaps the real issue with any coalition or licensing organization might be one of control.

HD Radio. McVay Media's Dave Lange writes "We all know the saying Hindsight is 20/20 all too well. As I keep looking at HD Radio there are so many things that we, as an industry and Ibiquity as a producer, could have improved on."

Read Dave's complete piece - plus comments from some guy in Michigan - here.

Harland Williams. We wrote here a few months back about actor/comedian Harland Williams and his daily afternoon drive show on Denver's KRFX.

Last week the Rocky Mountain News ran an interview with Harland - discussing how the radio gig came about and how its put together. Read here.

Mark Ramsey with Seth Godin. Mark has his full interview with the Agent of Change - discussing radio's future - both audio and transcript - on his blog here.

Buzz Marketing. Fred Jacobs offers up some examples of some great buzz marketing campaigns on his blog here. Good read!

Roger King

Meet Roger King. On my list of heroes and influences. Roger is Creative Services Director of Clear Channel's KRFX/Denver (103.5/The Fox).

He's one of a few to teach me that station imaging is much about bonding: to the music, artists, market and audience.

Roger's Day: "I get into work around 11:30a and am usually finished by 7:30 or 8p. Answer e-mail first, download audio from Harland Williams. Then edit, add music and sfx to Harland's stuff for afternoon drive, and hand place it in the log..."

"..Meet with the PD and write copy, produce imaging for the station (everything from daily cross promos for the morning, midday, and evening show, to topical legal ID's - to music imaging). Next, I groom the rest of the log - and the last thing I do is the bit of the day."

Just to explain: Comedian/celebrity Harland Williams does afternoon drive on the station via recorded tracks from LA (or wherever he may be).

Not too many years ago, Roger made the point of inserting specific imaging into the log after it was generated:

"Yes, I still groom the log w/ production. I don't hand place every single piece, but like to insert rockin' production into rockin' songs, slower prod for slower songs, and some production is song or artist specific... ie: Seinfeld/Kramer drop into BTO's "Takin' Care of Biz", "Immigrant Song" intro by Jack Black (on the special features DVD from School of Rock), "The Office" drop - when Michael Scott's talkin' about Doobies, Letterman, Leno, Ellen, or any show where they introduce artists that play on the station."

"I also like to groom song to song without production and match the beat or create a tasty segue by marryin' the fade with the ramp. It's time consuming, but worth it. I'm familiar with all the imaging loaded in the system, so it just makes sense."

"Prophet/NexGen is the system we use at Clear Channel. It allows you to create a color coded daily log of what's on the radio station including commercials, songs, DJ voicetracks, traffic, and production. You can listen to and move each element and "groom the log" so that everything runs seamlessly."

Aside from station imaging and promos, Roger also produces "The bit of the day" - a comedy piece - everyday - five days a week. He syndicates this to other Clear Channel markets plus stations in non-CC markets.

Check his website here. Click and listen to both "King Calls" and "King Bits". Awesome stuff. Listen to Roger's imaging on The Fox stream here.

Roger King. One of the best in the business.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

Welcome To Friday. Today we're making a road trip to see family just outside Keokuk, IA; love the long drives - one hand constantly tuning the radio to hear all the stations along the route.


In case you missed it:

Stupid DJ Tricks. Fred Jacobs writing here about promotions that get attention (without endangering your listeners). And this morning its Fred on the power of late night radio...impossible with voice-tracking. Click here.

Seth Godin. Seth has a great post that applies so well to radio. Don't accept the mediocre. Trade production efficiencies for quality. Read Seth here.

Give A Listen: Garner Goin - PD of KRFX/Denver has always been an innovator. Now he's snagged comedian/actor Harland Williams for afternoon drive.

You'll likely best know Harland in his debut movie role as the State Trooper in Dumb and Dumber back in 1994. Give a listen to the stream weekdays 3-7pm Mountain Time.

Gotta hit the road - have a great weekend and a good Easter. More here late Sunday.