The Weekend Classic Rock FM

51° - cloudy at 1:15pm

Left: classic Koss PRO4AA headphones - Randy Raley's new pride and joy as he prepares to hit the air on 1120/KMOX. More from Randy here.

Welcome to the weekend.

Watching this morning: Streaming video of Jacobs Media Summit 12 sessions. Great stuff. So far have watched "PPM Rocks" and "Punk Marketing". See here. These well worth your time this weekend. Noted some audio problems - just turn off your left channel audio.

In the PPM Rocks session - heard a fun exchange between moderator Fred Jacobs and panel member Charley Lake, PD of Greater Media's WMGK/Philadelphia; Here's Charley answering a question from Fred about having PPM data available weekly:

Charley: "Whereas before we had the 12 monthlies a year...so...you know once a month you sit down and get your data and go all through it and then you'd take it home. And you now get to do that about 52 times a year."

Fred: "So do you throw up every week now or how does that work?"

Charley: "Well some weeks more than others Fred."

Charley Lake. Watching the PPM Rocks video its clear that Charley is a very impressive programmer.

The respect he exhibits for the staff he inherited is admirable - and he was very candid about the fears and concerns he had about PPM.

Charley concluded his thoughts on PPM stating: "If you do good radio and if you have good personality and good content and good promotions and do your right music research and all of those things - believe me they are very very important - as important as ever". Yessir!

HD Radio. Some common sense from Mark Ramsey:

"HD must transparently appear everywhere. And the only way that will happen is if it's feasible to build it into a $15 dollar clock radio. The "HD advantage" must be free and invisible to consumers."

Mark's complete rant here.

Would this not make it reasonable to include HD as standard on car radios? More radios in the field justifies investments in HD programming, personnel and promotion - with less time and effort marketing expensive radios.

Yesterday: This blog mentioned John Landecker's exit from WZZN/Chicago. This morning we read that the great Greg Brown will be filling the 4-8pm shift at the oldies outlet. Kudos to him.

I wrote about Greg here a few months back.

More here over the weekend.

Mail, PPM, Zeppelin + Bruce & WPLJ

51° - overcast at 11am

E-Mail. A nice note yesterday from legendary programmer John Rook.

John shares notes from a conversation he had with another legend - Chicago radio talent Larry Lujack - after Mr. Lujack was named to the NAB Hall of Fame. Here.

Also a kind note early this morning from Dave Martin. Dave has a Lujack story on his blog too. Here. Earlier in the week email from Bob Stroud and Steve Seaver. Thank you.

Speaking of Chicago: Sad news. Rick Kaempfer passing along word that Citadel's oldies WZZN has made no offer to retain veteran air talent John "Records" Landecker. The Chicago Sun-Times story here. Its reported that John's 12+ ratings lead the station.

One of the coolest moments in my radio life was spending a few hours in the WLS studio back in the mid-70s watching Landecker do his shift (complete with "Boogie Check") and being able to chat with him off-mike. After moving here to Lansing a few years ago discovered than John also logged time here early in his career. An incredible talent.

PPM: Arbitron released latest PPM cume numbers in Philadelphia and Houston yesterday. Find them in the usual places.

Meanwhile - Arbitron and DMR Interactive have released a new study: "P1s in the PPM World: Insights into the listeners who matter most". Dave Martin breaks out the highlights and provides a link to the entire study here.

Fred Jacobs writes this morning about the "PPM Conundrum" - concluding with a question to ponder. Its a great read. Here. And I'm to believe that balance is the answer.

Led Zeppelin. Another radio station promotion taking advantage of the rock reunion of the decade:

Congrats to KYZX/Colorado Springs. I just really hope that if they (or anyone else) bought tickets off eBay, they've read this and have it covered.

Springsteen's "Radio Nowhere". On August 24th, I wrote here about a "certain New York City AC station" leaking the record before its official release to radio; learned through one of the playlist monitor services that morning. Just caught this from Bob Shannon writing on All Access:

"....according to Wikipedia, WPLJ's Scott Shannon and Todd Pettengill played this song twice on August 24th. After the first airing, a voice representing himself as a disgruntled Sony representative called in ordering them not to play it again I'm not sure if this was real or a bit. Either way, Scott and Todd told the caller they wouldn't play the song again as long as he was on the phone with them. Then, they hung up and played "Radio Nowhere" for a second time."

Now you know....(Paul Harvey pause).....the rest of the story.