Sunday Afternoon Odds & Sods

49° - light rain at 5:43pm. Left: downtown Lansing webcam. current image

Good afternoon from Michigan.

Late start on the blog today. I'm not quite sure why. I did wake early - for what is referred to in our house as a "Panera Run".

Panera a regional chain of excellent bakeries; a nice treat as the rest of the house awoke, especially on Mother's Day.

Promotions: Destination Zeppelin. Have seen a few promos for the new Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach, featuring the Led Zeppelin Roller Coaster. WAXQ/NYC here. KKFM/Colorado Springs here. Lee Arnold posted about Hard Rock Park here.

Second phase promos: WAOR/South Bend offering a "Flat Screen A Day In May". Here.

Gas: WTPA/Harrisburg is offering free gas here.

And from WBGG/Miami comes "Petty cash". Very cool name - and a very cool graphic. More here.

This is a very sleepy spring in terms of promotions, most likely due to the tight or non-existent budgets in the current economic climate. Fewer stations with "Workforce Cash". The "Harley Days of May" - once a classic rock staple, appears to be gone. Perhaps its time for change, but these promos appear to be replaced by nothing.

Around the blogs:

Seth Godin. Seth posts a great piece this morning (he says its ten years old) on "what every good marketer knows" that is very radio relevant.

Read here.

Wonderful stuff: Rick Kaempfer talks this week to the brilliant Ron Britian. Ron shares memories of WCFL/Chicago; and his own weekly "Subterranean Circus". It was my first real exposure to a lot of album rock...on a 50kw AM blowtorch!

Read Rick's interview here.

More tomorrow.

Monday Monday

84° - sunny at 12:30pm

Good afternoon from Michigan

Halloween. I'm reminded by KMJX/Little Rock of a great way to drive traffic to your station website: a list of haunted houses in your area. Easy to do. See their list here.

Perhaps your sales staff pitches it to one of those seasonal halloween costume/supply stores to sponsor. Just thinkin'....

Managing Talent: McVay Media's Dave Lange writes this morning about coaching your talent. Dave notes that he's seen "PDs crawl behind the computer screens dealing with the 'machine' that seems to run the programming" while the talent is "just rolling along on the air" (without much help from the PD).

Dave offers up some great tips:

• Avoid the Critique - Looking back at all the mistakes or blown breaks and ranting while the talent squirms in the chair won't improve their game;
• Listen - Not just to their shows, but also to them. What are their struggles?
• Don't scare them - The more they dread the 'meeting' with you the less productive it will be.
• Lastly make sure you have a plan for each of the people you work with.

Read the complete post here. And thank you Dave. Its nice to read that I'd been doing something right in recent years...

The streaming factor. From Arbitron via Jaye Albright. Released last Friday. "..less than 1% of in-tab diaries continue to contain listening to Internet radio." Jaye advises:

"If you haven't done so yet, contact your ARB rep and get the latest internet listening report for your market. If more than 1% of your total station's total quarter hours come from your streaming, DO NOT STOP STREAMING. BUT, do reassess the verbiage you use to tell your listeners about it."

"Consider the phrase: 'turn your at work computer into an FM radio..' or something similar. The day will come when you'll be able to sell that streaming audience for enough money to make it worth showing it off on its own, but that day is not today with 45% now streaming our audio, but 8 out of 10 of us still unable to honestly call our streams a simulcast."

(The study update just released is based on the returned Spring 2007 SIPs: 45% of AM/FM stations indicated streaming. 20% of AM/FM stations reported 100% simulcast streaming.)

Arbitron calls streaming a simulcast when 100% of the on-air product is on the web. That includes all commercials; if you're covering/inserting spots on the internet, its not a simulcast to Arbitron. But you knew that already. I guess the trick is hoping those online listeners with diaries think they're listening to the radio and record it as such.

She don't read so good. Not that it matters. KGB/San Diego has the winner ("Stacy") from the "Hottest New Employee" contest on the web - doing a weekly entertainment news update.

Not that it matters what she's reading. See Stacy's videos here.


Led Zeppelin. We mentioned earlier today CIRK/Edmonton's Led Zep reunion flyaway.

Another station in the Zeppelin mood is Miami's WBGG - who doesn't have a trip - but has a great Led Zeppelin tribute ("Zepptober") on their website.

See here.

Calling All Drummers. Back in June, KYYS/Kansas City put together a promotion - scoring a Guinness World Record for the largest number of guitar players playing the same song at the same time. Refresh memory here.

Now KZOK/Seattle is part of promotion to put together to break the world record by assembling the largest number of drummers with drum sets playing one song simultaneously. And its a charity project too. Very cool.

Read about "Woodstick 2007" here.

While they've got a song picked already - I'd love to hear the drum solo from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Just thinkin'.....

Getting Patriotic

77° - cloudy at 2pm. Rain earlier.

Good afternoon...

The Fourth of July is coming up...its a Wednesday this year. What is your station doing?

Here's some things we've seen so far:

WBGG/Miami is inviting listeners to sing or play the national anthem - and will play back 12 winning entries on July 4th. Audio and video entries submitted online. Details here. I really like this!

As we mentioned here - KUFX/San Jose holds their annual Kihncert on Sunday, July 1st (with KUFX morning man Greg Kihn).

The station is currently soliciting listener entries for the opportunity to sing The Star Spangled Banner to open the event. More here. Very cool!

For the people, by the people. WARO/Ft. Meyers is inviting listeners to submit their own 6-song music list to be played back on July 4th. See here.

KIGL/Fayetteville is giving away a catered July 4th barbecue party to a lucky listener. Its the Eagle 93.3 Backyard Bash. More here.

I'm sure we'll see/hear more as we approach the end of the month. Feel free to share!

Welcome To Phase Three

The last phase of the book starts today. But you knew that.

Some late-book promos from around the dial:

Harleys. WWUZ/Fredricksburg is offering listeners his and her bikes with on-air and on-site registrations. More here. Likewise, WBXQ/Altoona has a Hog with registration on-air and at remotes. Here.

Cash. Ain't nothing like it. KGB/San Diego is doing $1000 every morning during the month of June. Here. Likewise, WBGG/Miami morning duo Paul & Young Ron are offering $20k in 20 days here.

Fathers Day. Here's a cool promo out of KUFX/San Jose. The station is looking for "musical dads" with the top 5 to appear on the station's Greg Kihn Morning Show the week of 6/11-15. More here.

Let's Make A Deal. KISM/Bellingham is doing the 92 Days of Summer featuring the "5-Car Garage". Behind every door are some big ticket prizes including vehicles, bikes and more. See here.

Hummer. Tomorrow morning (6/1), WLUP/Chicago's Johnathan Brandmeier is giving away a new H3 by dropping a junk car from hundreds of feet in the air onto a numbered grid. Details here.

The station promises video on their website when its all over.

May all your book wishes come true!

Attracting Male Listeners

Stumbled across these while surfin' around early this morning:

Strip A to Z: Yesterday, KRFX/Denver kicked off artist A to Z - promising to play one song by every artist the station has ever played.

And there's a web component: everytime the station switches letters, "The Fox Babe" will shed one piece of clothing. Click on a letter here.

See Me. Feel Me. Paint Me. Miami's WBGG PM driver Doc Reno held an in-studio competition between 3 listeners to paint a vintage Who T-shirt logo on half naked women.

The video is certainly a great draw to the station website.

A Case Of The Mondays...

...no! Its the start of a great week!

This morning Keith Cunningham of Jacobs Media writes about radio's ability to react fast - but suggests it could be slow to get into the game. Read Keith's comments here.

Last Friday: We noted here that Cincinnati's WOFX (92.5 The Fox) is repeating the 6am hour of Bob & Tom middays 10-11am. Now Miami's WBGG (Big 105.9) is extending morning drivers Paul & Young Ron until noon.

Lee Abrams: Over the weekend Lee blogged about Washington, DC's new 94.7/The Globe - and wrote in depth about his XM Radio "check list" for a great station. Some more great thoughts from Lee on how to think about your radio station.

Added: Dallas loses classic rock KZPS - and with the change - Clear Channel gets rid of....commercials. Read here.

More: Fred Jacobs on KZPS - as quoted on All Access: "In a major market, for a classic rock station to change formats is really an anomaly"..."You could make a nice, long, healthy list of top five stations that are classic rock, and several would be No. 1 or No. 2 in their markets". Me thinks the door just opened for a new classic rock convert in Dallas; or adjustments at 93.3 The Bone.

Yet More: Dave Lange on the launch of the new KZPS "Lone Star 92.5" - here.

Tony Soprano rocks. If you saw last night's episode of The Sopranos, you heard another great classic rock moment.

Tony and Paulie hit the road with the radio cranked to Fredricksburg, VA's WWUZ/Classic Rock 96.9. That's too cool! Congrats to their staff.

Later this week:

Tuesday (4/24) - Iggy Pop/The Stooges on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel.
Wednesday (4/25) is Administrative Professional's Day
Thursday (4/26) is "Take Your Daughter (Or Son) To Work Day"