Sunday Evening Odds & Sods

75° - clear at 9:15pm

Good Evening From Michigan. Most of the weekend spent ripping music for the internet radio project. Did catch a bit of Bob Stroud's Rock 'N Roll Roots show this morning on Chicago's WDRV - first of a two-part salute to The Who.

Catching up on reading:

Great posts - both related. Fred Jacobs wrote Friday on a new JupiterResearch study showing that "despite all the other music discovery media and methods, radio is still #1" for discovering new music. Fred's post here. And back on Thursday, Mark Ramsey wrote a piece on Pandora - and radio's advantages - both music and non-music. A must read here.

Dave Lange. Dave asks "Sales solves all problems?". Read here.

Industry heros ignored. This past week Lee Arnold blogged that "the inductees for 2008 into the National Radio Hall of Fame were announced today (Friday). Scott Muni, Tom Donahue, Bill Drake, Thom O'Hare, Bill Vermillion and Jack Benny were not among the inductees." Lee - I think you and I need to start a campaign for next year. I'm certain others would join the effort.

Chicago Radio Spotlight. This week Rick Kaempfer interviews WERV/Aurora production director Jim McInerney. More great radio stories here.

Larry. Getting back to the state broadcaster's conference I attended early this week. Tuesday Night the annual Michigan Association of Broadcaster Hall of Fame Awards were announced. Five individuals were inducted into the Michigan Broadcaster Hall of Fame - all very deserving.

Among the five: Larry Estlack.

Larry has been in the business since his high school days in Muskegon, Michigan; has been an air personality, programmer, engineer, teacher and friend to many.

His influence is statewide - having (as engineer) constructed many facilities throughout the state - plus (at least) two television stations from construction permit to air in Lansing. Larry's day job is that of Director of Technology for the state broadcast association.

As an air personality and programmer, Larry's been on-air at several Lansing area stations during his career - and for the last 20+ years, has been hosting the All-Request Saturday Night Show on the classic rock station I formerly programmed here in Lansing.

Accepting his award Tuesday Night, Larry thanked one guy for the music he plays - and thats consultant Fred Jacobs. Larry and Fred attended (and taught) at Michigan State University together.

It was Fred Jacobs who nominated Larry for the Hall of Fame this year. Fred, along with many others were at the ceremonies to see and hear Larry accept the award; and yours truly fortunate to be there too. And glad to call Larry Estlack a friend.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

64° - cloudy at 10:10am

Good Morning from Okemos and welcome to the weekend.

Winter Arbitron. Numbers still rolling in. The Big Story in the last day has been in Tampa - where Cox's WHPT rose from just over a 2 share to almost a 5 and a half.

This growth via the addition of Bubba The Love Sponge in AMD. All Access headlined the news with a line about "worst to first".

AA reports that Bubba "took top honors in Persons 12+, 18-34, 18-49, 25-54 and 35-64, unseating crosstown WFLZ/TAMPA rival MJ from the top spot across the board in a very tight race."

My take: Bubba's strategy appears to be right out of the old Randy Michaels playbook.

In Kansas City, KCFX continues to climb. 12+ demo shows the heritage classic rocker climbing book-by-book. The station up over a point and a half since Spring '07.

Contributing to that growth somewhat has to be the flip of KYYS to AAA; but KCFX is a great sounding radio station nonetheless with an airstaff that really talks to its listeners.

In Denver - the race is pretty tight between Clear Channel's KRFX and Entercom's KQMT. Looking at 12+ there's only two tenths of a point between the two.

The Fox (KRFX) just did a "no repeat April" while KQMT has reportedly tightened up its playlist in recent months. I hope to look at how deep The Fox went with music in April here soon.

WKLH/Milwaukee is up a tenth of a point while crosstown WQBW remains flat.

Noted: Someone on the radio engineering list I subscribe to observed an interesting "race" in 2008 Radio Hall of Fame nominations. In the same category are Dr. James Dobson (Focus on The Family) and....Howard Stern. Miles apart but both have made their impact on the industry.

Also in that same category (national) are Bob Costas and Dr. Laura. Voting is now open here.

Jay Mitchell. He's back with a new post after a long absence - but he's been a busy guy. I should have - but didn't realize this - Jay is also publisher of the Small Market Radio Newsletter.

While I haven't seen SMRN personally in years, I can highly recommend for any medium and small market broadcaster....each issue filled with programming, promotion and sales ideas.

Jay's blog is here.

Hello Phoenix. In the email this morning was a note from Mike Mallace, GM of KAJM and KNRJ.

Mike grew up in Chicago and started in the business about the same age I did - and during his high school years worked at the same suburban radio station (a few short years after I did). Mike blogs about radio, media and life here.

More here over the weekend.