J. Douglas Blackburn

March 12, 1945 - September 3, 2010
Rest in Peace, my friend

Added....from RadioDailyNews.com: "Jay Blackburn, who'd served in Vietnam in combat, died in San Antonio where he and his wife Chancey lived. His major radio achievement was the creation of The Loop in Chicago with his partner Bruce Miller Earle. He and Earle consulted and/or programmed many radio stations in the United States and aboard, working for Art Holt, a radio station broker and station owner whose career goes back to years with Gordon McLendon.

Jay authored "The Radio Gypsies" and was a mentor for Claude Hall's eNovel "I Love Radio." "Jay and Bruce Miller Earle were close friends dating back to the 1960s," said Claude Hall, once Radio-TV Editor of Billboard Magazine and later a college profession. "I considered them lovable radio rascals and will miss Jay Blackburn immensely."

Read J's obituary from Legacy.com here.

Read Claude Hall's thoughts on J here (scroll down to "Blackburn Matters")

Bruce Miller Earle corrects the record on WLUP here (scroll down to "Loop Matters")

Read Chicagoland Radio & Media's post here.

Chicago Sun-Times article on J (9/8/10) here.

Listen to WLUP's March, 1977 sign-on here (via Tom O'Toole; MP3 download)

More on J. Blackburn from this blog here.

Sunday Night Odds & Sods

63° - scattered clouds at 11:19pm

Good Evening from Okemos.

Reading: The original WLUP/Chicago Format Guide written for its debut in March of 1977. It was a gift I found in the mail Friday arriving home from the day job. Very cool to read the philosophy and formatics of a station I listened to heavily back then. 52 typewritten pages.

My thanks to its author and first WLUP Program Director J. Blackburn for sharing this bit of history; and being quite candid through emails on his hits and misses throughout his career.

I've written about his new radio novel; his website here.

Conclave wrap: Have been checking out the Conclave reports on the R&R site. Some great info on promotions and text messaging; no surprises with the discussion about performance royalties (what is the debate in a room full of radio folks?) and a great session on show prep and websites.

The McVay seminar with legendary voice talent Nick Michaels appeared to be a hit. If you were there, I am envious. Waiting to read what Lee Abrams offered on Friday.

Good stuff: "What are YOU doing to make your listeners' lives better today?"

Read some great examples via Jaye Albright here.

A late post today. My free time spent on the internet radio project, still getting music together and experimenting (can I play the new Coldplay song, Uriah Heep, The Temptations, Zeppelin and AC/DC on the same station? Hmmmm....). I don't want to hype this more than it is: a hobby effort with a hobby budget and nothing more.

Have a good night.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

71° - clear at 12:18pm

The radio project. Still ripping, trimming and normalizing tracks for my soon-to-come internet radio project.

Takes me back to putting a new station on the air and dubbing all the music to cart; this time I'm doing it all by my lonesome!

Last night: I was half-asleep with the TV on; waking up this morning, I wasn't sure if what I remembered was real or just a (bad) dream. But alas...it was real:


Whatever it takes to pay the mortgage...lol. Back to radio:

The Radio Gypsies. Jay (J.) Blackburn's new novel. I mentioned here the other day that I did read it all in a night. Great stuff. Jay's stories of traveling from market to market as a "fix it" expert is fascinating.

Nearly everything written actually happened (but it is a novel); most names/locations/call letters have been changed to protect...well...Jay.

One set of call letters in the book that are real: WLUP/Chicago; and Jay devotes a number of chapters in the book describing the switch from the former jazz station (WSDM) to The Loop in 1976-1977; and that alone sells the book.

The station was launched on a bare-bones budget; and the descriptions of the setup and what was happening behind the scenes is fantastic. The role engineering played to make the station a female-friendly AOR is well-described in the book.

One promotion WLUP did - which I thought was brilliant at the time (still do) - was the Beatles Guide promo. All a listener had to do was pick up a Loop Beatles Guide at a White Hen Pantry store (a better 7-11 back then) and log every Beatles song played on the station between 6am and Midnight.

Jay notes that the quarter hour maintenance was incredible and the recycling through dayparts awesome.

I don't remember this in the book; but Jay mentioned to me years ago that there was more than one competitior crying "foul" with Arbitron. But the promo was OK then under the ARB guidelines at the time. I remember having my own Beatles Guide - picking it up at the White Hen Pantry downtown on McClurg Court. I was working next door at WBBM/Newsradio 78 at the time.

Again, names were changed; but those in the know will recognize who's who. Chicago radio vets will remember some guy in the mid-late 70s programming NBC's Chicago properties. In the book, he's known as "Spittman". And that rhymes with something.....lol.

Jay's website is up: www.theradiogypsies.com. The site includes book excerpts. Jay welcomes comments and mail at:

jblackburn@theradiogypsies.com

The Radio Gypsies is a great read for any radio programmer or radio geek. I do recommend.

Steve Downes. I got to know the name Steve Downes years ago when he was the host of Westwood One's (syndicated) Superstar Concert Series. Steve currently does morning drive on Chicago's WDRV...and his voice is also heard in the current smash video game "Halo".

Steve also one-time host of "Rockline"; and has been hosting the syndicated show "The Classics" for a number of years now.

Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight interviews Steve this week. Read here.

Have a great Sunday.

Nightcap

72° - partly cloudy at 9:42pm

Good evening from Michigan. Spring weather appeared to finally arrive today as we hit 79 today.

Few odds and ends from around the 'net:

David Lee Roth. Found an MP3 online of David's isolated vocal tracks from Runnin' With The Devil. Enjoy: link.

Later: sent the DLR link to friend and production pro Roger King at KRFX/Denver who then told me they were all over it in January (err.."VAN-UARY")...and shared these sweepers.

Dr. Pepper and Axl Rose. Mentioned here last month. And now from Ad Age comes the story behind the story. It all started with a couple of rock 'n rollers working at Pepper's parent company. Read here.

Radio History. I was going through my bookmarks tonight and found one I marked years ago. Some great stuff here from a name you know if you're a longtime reader of this blog.

More. Jay (J.) Blackburn - retired programmer/GM/owner - now has his website setup for his new novel "The Radio Gypsies".

This past Monday, I received my copy from Jay and spent the entire night reading. More on that soon.

Check out Jay's site here.

Wednesday Blogs

41° - overcast at 8:25am

Good Morning from Okemos.

AC/DC on Classic Hits. Sean Ross writes about a classic rock/classic hits station that decided to test a few AC/DC titles with surprising results. Read here.

Perhaps surprising to them; but as a one-time PD of a "classic rock that rocks" station, its not surprising at all. A quick look at Mediabase should give you an idea of the variety of titles being played on classic rock stations around the country as well as the gold on the mainstream AORs.

Free Webinar Today: 2pm eastern. Edison Media's Tom Webster and Arbitron's Pierre Bouvard will present a session titled "2008 edition of The Infinite Dial: Radio's Digital Platforms". I'm trying to arrange my schedule to catch as much as possible. Get info and sign up here.

Jay Marvin. Jay writes about this week in 1967 when Tom Donahue put KMPX in San Francisco on the air and started the underground format - which evolved to progressive rock, then AOR...and later classic rock and AAA. Quoting Jay:

"Today when radio publications have conferences they invite big name guests who don't know shit about radio. Sorry but it's true. Why not find what old heads are left and have them talk about what they did, and how they did it."

I couldn't agree more. Read Jay's piece here. And I'll extend that to include later programmers like Jay Blackburn, Frank Felix and Mike Joseph. Just to name a few. Added: OMG - there's soooo many more I could add - with just some casual thought.

Full disclosure: I'm reminded of Frank Felix (and Mike Joseph) by Sean Ross here. And Jay Blackburn - I spoke to him on the phone just yesterday.

Congrats to J Blackburn

22° - clear at 8:14am

Congrats my friend Jay (J) Blackburn on the release of his book "The Radio Gypsies". Today is release day.

I don't have my copy yet (Jay's waiting for his promotional stock); but from the stories he has shared with me in recent years, the book should appeal to almost anyone in the biz.

A little bit about Jay: Back in the late 60s and early 70s, Jay was connected with station broker Art Holt. Art would send Jay to various markets to do quick turnarounds on properties to increase their value prior to sale. Jay would usually manage and program the properties for a short period of time.

At the beginning of 1977, he was hired by the Chess family (of the legendary Chess Records) to turn around then-jazz WSDM. His solution was a female-friendly AOR format.

Jay said it took 3 months to rebuild the facility or as he puts it "that old tube station" (under a very tight budget as I recall from a conversation with Jay years ago); and after the rebuild "it took us 7 months to become the number 1 AOR in the market", eventually running ABC (94.7) and NBC (101.1) out of the format in Chicago.

Jay hired some air talents from smaller markets who have since become legends in the business: Bill Evans, Patti Haze, Dave Logan, Les Tracy and Tom O'Toole. Yours truly was a fan of the station while I was doing radio in the suburbs.

After WLUP was sold (and went on to even a bigger life under Lee Abrams), Jay went on to manage stations in Seattle and Madison - as well as station ownership. He's now retired and living in San Antonio.

"The Radio Gypsies" is a novel based-on-real-life. From the back cover:

I can't wait to read myself. Congrats again Mr. Blackburn! Order via Amazon here.

Free Seminar, A Thank You & A Book....

32° - light snow mist at 8:39am

Good Morning from downtown Lansing.

Busy week at the day job (The Michigan Assocation of Broadcasters) as the organization's annual conference takes place next week in Grand Rapids. A wonderful staff of 14 who pull it all together every year; and I'm honored to be a co-worker.

Tonight: Talent coach Jay Mitchell presents a free no-strings teleseminar with the legendary Jay Trachman. The two Jays will be talking about "the changes that have taken place in the radio industry ... what it takes to succeed in radio today ... and why it's still all about the "1-2-1."

The live seminar begins at 8:30pm eastern. Register online today here. And feel free to pass on.

Great story. I love to hear things like this. Had an email a few days back from WKLH/Milwaukee Rock 'N Roll Roots host Steve Palec.

This past Sunday he was featuring Fleetwood Mac and writes:

"The whole show was pretty much ready to go and I saw your comment about seeing Bob Welch's website and having him return your email. So I did the same and we had a great long recorded conversation with amazing insights I was able to add to the show this morning."

Very cool Steve!

The book. Been chatting via phone the past few days with another Jay: Jay (J) Blackburn. His long-awaited book "The Radio Gypsies". Its due for release March 17th...a week from Monday.

As I've written here before its a novel based-on-real life events from his years of programming and management. Jay's story is fascinating as a radio turn-around pro.

Order via Amazon here.

Monday Monday

+5° - light snow at 6:30am

Weekend leftovers:

Edison Media's Larry Rosin offers "Further Evidence of How The Breaks Kill Internet Radio". The internet fill issue. Larry's piece and reader comments here.

If you've been reading this blog for long, you'd know one of my pet peeves is the way stations handle their spot breaks on their streams. One of my early blog rants here

The story behind the show. Free Beer & Hot Wings. The syndicated morning show running on a number of rock and classic rock stations around the country. Read here. Thanks to Michiguide for the tip!

Jay (J.) Blackburn. We've been writing here for months about Jay's new based-on-reality radio novel. Jay - a retired programmer (and GM and station owner).

"The Radio Gypsies" will be released on March 17th; and available at Amazon, Borders and all the others.

Welcome back Jay Mitchell. Jay's been MIA on his blog; but he's just been real busy - and that's always good. More here.

Late Day Update - more wisdom from consultant Alan Mason:

"We don’t get it that our DNA controls who we are, and that each radio station has it’s own DNA. If you want to know what happens when you try to mess with what your DNA is, look at Michael Jackson."

"The point is that in the modern world, you can’t just decide what you are going to do on your own, and then force it down the throats of the listeners. You have a DNA factor to pay attention to, which will lead the listeners to decide what you can and can’t do."

Alan's complete piece here.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

37° - overcast at 11:09am

Listening: The usual Sunday Morning fare. WDRV/Chicago - and Bob Stroud with Rock 'N Roll Roots.

Stroud segue: "She's A Rainbow" (Stones) into "Susan" (Buckinghams). Both with that 60s psychedelic violin thing. Later: Heard Leon Russell's "A Song For You". I've forgotten what a great song that is.

Wondering: Where is Steve Palec? Steve hosts "the other" Rock 'N Roll Roots program on WKLH/Milwaukee. Station has been filling his slot the last few weeks with various syndicated programs. Hope all is well.

Caught my ear: the new Gatorade TV Commercial. Music is "Sparks" from The Who's Tommy album. Very nice.

Caught another Gatorade spot during SNL last night with the bass riff from Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side". It's a classic rock party!

Underwhelmed: Consultant Harve Alan tries the new Ford/Microsoft Sync voice command system and declares it "not ready for prime time".

Harve also notes that while the voice command system works through the radio - there are no voice commands for the radio. And that's wacked. Harve's blog here.

Still waiting: but not complaining - for Jay (J.) Blackburn's (JDB) radio novel based-on-real-life. "The Radio Gypsies" due out in just weeks.

JDB sharing the cover artwork with me in an email back on Thursday.

I'm on the list for one of the first copies off the press. And I promised JDB I'd plug-plug-plug. Stay tuned!

Goodbye: To the "One-To-One" Newsletter. Publisher Jay Trachman writing in the last issue:

"I am closing it down because the enterprise is no longer profitable, and the industry is – to me – no longer recognizable.

"There was a time when I could write “Talent Tips” columns with the comfort that hundreds, if not thousands, of jocks would read and consider the advice. It’s just not that way anymore."

Read Jay's sign-off in FMQB here.

Jay Trachman's words remind me of something Randy Raley had on his blog here at the end of a post about the late KYYS:

"The business I miss is no longer the business anymore."
-Randy Raley March 2007

It ain't like it used to be. I don't think anything ever is. I go back to my hometown in the Chicago suburbs and its nothing like the small village I roamed all over on my Schwinn bicycle as a child.

My parents said the same thing about the town when I was a young.

In the mid-70s at age 18 - I joined CBS' WBBM/Chicago as "Continuity Director" - replacing a retiring gentleman by the name of George Clare. George's time at WBBM extended back to radio's first golden era.

Back in the 40s he was a sound effects guy on radio drama and entertainment programs. I remember George sharing stories from that period of his career and echoing something similar to Randy Raley's line above.

Speaking of WBBM: Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight this week shines on Newsradio 780 morning traffic anchor Bart Shore. A good read about a great radio career here.

Thanks: To WGRF/Buffalo PD John Hager for the kind words in an email this past week. Also to media sales pro, radio station broker (and lifelong friend) Roger Rafson for the nice note too!

More here tomorrow morning. Monday Night; the jobs getting in the way of the blog again!

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

30° - overcast at 11am.
Where did all our snow go???

Good Morning. Another week where income took priority over the blog. Lots of catching up to do....

Listening. Bob Stroud's Rock 'N Roll Roots on WDRV/Chicago. All Xmas!

Still Reading: Scott Beddome's story of WQFM/Milwaukee; its battle against crosstown AOR WLPX - and Lee Arnold's Who promotion.

Thirty Chapters of "WHOoPLA: The Greatest Rock Radio Stunt Ever" posted here so far .

David Martin has also been reading WHOoPLA - and under "full disclosure" offers these words (here) on Lee Arnold: "In the previous century I served as valet, defense attorney and part-time concierge to the great Mr Arnold".

Explained: Lee Arnold spent time in Detroit as PD of WLLZ. And the VP of Programming for owner Doubleday was the one and only David Martin. Very cool indeed.

The last year has been great for radio books - both released and planned.

Chicago's Rick Kaempfer released his radio novel "$everance" this past year.

John Gorman in Cleveland just released "The Buzzard" and the story of his days at WMMS.

Now Scott Beddome's "WHOoPLA". All great works!

Looking forward in early 2008 for "The Radio Gypsies" - written by programmer Jay Blackburn ("JDB") - a novel-based-on-true-events "The Radio Gypsies". Written and already at the publisher.

And now JDB is writing a follow-up book and recruiting others to contribute stories to the cause...yours truly invited to contribute.

JDB - along with DJ and engineer extraordinaire Bruce Miller Earle - was recruited by broker/consultant Art Holt back in the late 60s and 70s to travel market to market to do turnaround projects. I'll save more for later - but there's many stories waiting to be told - most for the first time.

One JDB turn-around project was WSDM Chicago; and out of that WLUP was born. JDB describes the station as one he fell in love with.

HD Radio's New Campaign. Lots of words being written about a new campaign launched by the HD Radio Alliance. The campaign positions HD against traditional AM/FM. Yipes! That all from Fred Jacobs - one of the few ouside the Alliance to hear the commercials.

After reading Fred's comments - posted here on Thursday - I found that the link to the actual spots on the HD Radio Alliance website had become password protected. I can only assume the Alliance doesn't want anyone to hear them now. Huh?

Like Fred - I really do want to see HD Radio succeed. More consumer choice and more opportunties for programmers from the smart operators. However - I don't feel HD can succeed given the Ibiquity licensing fees.

Make the addition of HD in radios attractive to the manufacturers so it becomes "standard" - and then begin some smart marketing.

You can't sell HD like satellite radio.

Mark Ramsey sums up Fred's comments (and the reply from Alliance head Peter Ferrara) here by correctly concluding:

"The right thing for Peter and the Alliance to do isn't simply to reply to a blog post (although that's a good start), but to invite Fred and others who care about radio's future to serve on an industry board of advisors, just the way Arbitron does."

More later.

Wednesday Blogs

84° - sunny at 5:45pm

Good afternoon.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving. Fred Jacobs blogging on being the focal point of talk and even some controversy. Here.

Arbitron Trends. Have I mentioned here before that rock is UP? Dave Lange provides some comment and insight here. And Edison Media's Sean Ross writes "Rock Radio Is Back...But As What?". A good read here.

Great to see. Steve Rivers programing again. All Access reports that he's been named PD of CBS Top 40/CHR KBKS/Seattle. There has to be dozens of legendary programmers waiting for an opportunity to do it again.

Speaking of Legendary: On my list of great programmers is Jay Blackburn. We've mentioned it before - but he's a novel loosely recounting his days traveling market to market - fixing broken radio stations. And launching WLUP/Chicago.

"The Radio Gypsies" should be out in about six months. I've been promised a copy - autographed - for my collection. More to come. And Jay should be running a radio station again.

Short post today. Busy. My 8 year old starts flag football tonight. Driving to Detroit tomorrow to pick up guests flying in from Denver.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

63° - overcast at 9:15am

Yesterday: With tickets courtesy of my wife's employer, we attended the Michigan State/Bowling Green game at Spartan Stadium here. Perfect weather and a great game - despite sunburn and some questionable officiating.

This Morning: Listening to Bob Stroud's Rock & Roll Roots on WDRV/Chicago. Lots of Ringo Starr this morning from a new collection - plus some BS&T. Nice!

Reading this morning:

Running yellow lights. Dave Martin with help from Tom Teuber and Gordon McLendon:

"The role of program director as sometime defense attorney. Here again, we are talking about the effective manager as protector. It's one of those additional duties as assigned and it's very important. Talent need protection. Providing the right environment for creative people to do their best work is certainly critical, however, standing up and being their advocate is equally important.

Over our recent lunch in Chicago Tom quoted Gordon McLendon "Get people to talk about your radio station." Very wise counsel. Long, long before it became vogue to hold forth on the power of word of mouth, viral marketing, et al, Gordon was making it by the truck load and to incredible affect. To get folks talking you need to do something. One needs to go off the rez and take a calculated creative gamble. This involves a measure of risk as does any successful creative endeavor. Talent will perform at their potential only when they feel they have an advocate to champion their work. Great performances come from talent being focused on performing rather than being preoccupied with consequences. Talent need to know they can run the yellow lights."

More from Dave on management here.

Radio stories via from Rick Kaempfer. This morning his spotlight is on Laura Witek. Read here.

And: looking forward to more radio stories (in the form of a novel) from Jay Blackburn. We mentioned a book here months ago. It just went to the publisher. More to come.

Have a great Sunday.

Weird Al, CBS-FM, Letters & More

69° - sunny at 10:30am

Last Night: Took my kids to see "Weird Al" Yankovic - appearing at our local Common Ground Fest. Near capacity crowd.

While a little bit of Al goes a long way with me - it was a good show - pretty much kid friendly; and I found that both my boys knew the words to most of his parodies. I later shook my head and began questioning my parenting skills. (I'm kidding. Well sort of...)


WCBS-FM returns today. 1:01pm in New York City. Streaming here. Interesting to note the artists featured on the revamped webpage; can you say "classic hits"? This morning Jerry Del Colliano wrote about the station and "classic hits vs. oldies" here.

Added at 1:19pm: Just caught a great year-by-year montage leading up to the 1:01pm kickoff of the "new" WCBS-FM. Great presentation. "The Greatest Hits of the 60s, 70s & the 80s". First song: "Do It Again" - the 1968 Beach Boys classic. First 80s definite "classic hits" type song: "Glory Days" from Springsteen. Start-ups are always awesome...and perhaps even more with this "rebirth".

Forwards or backwards? WCSX/Detroit kicked off "A to Z" this week. And in Houston, KKRW is doing it it reverse: "Ziggy Stardust" to "A Day In The Life". Backwards makes it fresh - especially if you've done A to Z in recently.

Streaming. With no quick legislative relief in sight - and a report today in RAIN that the US Court of Appeals has denied a stay of the new CRB royalty rates - many webcasters are making decisions about their future.

New rates kick in this Sunday.

Meanwhile: can you afford not to stream? Especially when there's a Wi-Max future not far down the road. Read Mark Ramsey's blog here.

A cool week for email....

Tuesday I received a nice note from Greg Solk, VP of Programming for Bonneville - on my posts about his company's WDRV/Chicago. Thank you Greg!

And yesterday brought wonderful things in my Outlook inbox: First from Marilynn Mee of Milwaukee's WKLH - writing that my comments about her show yesterday "made her day".

Listening to the stream, Marilynn made my day mentioning this blog on her air at least twice!

Another email was from original 1977-1978 WLUP/Chicago air talent Les Tracy - who stumbled across these posts written about WLUP's beginnings a few months back.

I put him in touch with original Loop PD Jay Blackburn and talent Tom O'Toole. Les (or "Lester" as he often called himself on-air) was one of my favs on WLUP "back in the day". His note also mentioned seeing Lee Arnold's name here.

Les Tracy is also a veteran of west coast stations KGB, KPRI, KZAP, KOME, KSMJ - and perhaps a few more call letters in his on-air and programming career.