Monday Monday

67° - sunny at 9:20am

Happy Monday.

Labor Day Weekend: what are you doing on air?

What we've seen so far: Top 500 Countdown (KIOL); "Perfect 10" Listener Playlists (WZBA); and a celebration of "The Top 30 Concerts at the Aud" - from Buffalo's WGRF. Here.

A to Z twist: After doing Classic Rock A to Z - then Z to A - WCPV/Burlington, VT is doing an A to Z "on shuffle". More here.

Who Are You? Following (or not) Buffalo's WGRF, KZOK/Seattle is asking for and posting listener profiles on their website. I wrote here a month or so ago about this concept about a month ago - and why it makes sense.

Read here. See the KZOK feature here.

Memo to Deep Purple's Ian Gillian: Get a clue. Fred Jacobs: "Ian Gillan now insists that Classic Rock radio stations are a "death sentence" for older bands because they just play vintage material rather than new music." More here.

Added: more comments from programmers on PPM today in Net News from All Access.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

75° - sunny at 12noon.
Left: MSU Beaumont Tower webcam. Current image here.

Happy Sunday. Slept in this morning; felt nice.

Back to school. Our area flooded with college students and their parents as Michigan State University ramps up for fall. Really noticed it this past week while shopping at our nearby Meijer store. Lines of shopping carts filled with all things dorm room.

Listening. To Steve Palec on WKLH/Milwaukee. His Rock & Roll Roots program featuring the music of John Mellencamp. Later: Toto. Thanks Steve!

P.S. to 'KLH: often your internet spot substitution audio runs long and upcuts your on-air audio; notice it most during Steve's program.


Watching: My wife in frustration attempting to get an update to Rhapsody to work on her PC; not the first time the service has caused grief; usually tied to the dreaded digital rights management with any "updates". Time wasted. Added: All resolved after removing and reloading both Rhapsody and Windows Media Player.

Congrats: To Lee Arnold for the wonderful salute yesterday on Dave Martin's blog. Meeting both Lee and Dave on my "someday to do" list; perhaps part of a midwest road trip.

Speaking of Dave: he shares some thoughts about making heros. Think local. Read here.

PPM Now. The above-mentioned Mr. Martin launches a second blog dedicated to the discussion and issues surrounding Arbitron's PPM. Here.

This follows a post on Dave's existing blog back on Thursday that generated a boatload of feedback. That post - and reader comments - here.

Thanks. To consultant Jaye Albright for the kind words on this blog earlier this week. I more often than not get something out of Jaye's Breakfast Blog everytime I surf by. Jay another industry pro sharing with the world.

Quote: "The audience doesn't care about you. So you'd better care about them." -Mark Ramsey - here.

More Bruce. The new single ("Radio Nowhere") offers a commentary on our business...not that it has to be this way:

I was trying to find my way home,
But all I heard was a drone.
Bouncin' off a satellite
Crushing the last long American night.

This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?
This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?

I was sitting around a dirt dial
Just another lost number in a file.
Been in some kinda dark cove
Just searching for a world with some soul.

Listen here.

Ridin' The Storm Out...

68° - rain - dark/cloudy at 10am

Late Friday afternoon (4-5pm) brought severe thunderstorms and funnel clouds to mid-Michigan - and a brief trip to the basement for me and my two boys.

Local TV went to continuous coverage. Lots of EAS activations with severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. The sky dark. Wind. Rain.

Closest touchdown to our location was a mile or two away. After spending years in the Colorado mountains, this was my first tornado experience since the early 70s growing up in the Chicago suburbs.

It was a first for my two boys - the oldest who was celebrating his 12th birthday!

More from WILX-TV here. Lansing State Journal here.

Back to radio tomorrow.

The Weekend Classic Rock FM

87° - cloudy & humid at 9am; more rain likely today. Left: eastern sky here this am

Happy Friday. Last night we caught just the northern edge of the storm that did damage in Chicago after it moved across the lake.

Springsteen: Been told that a certain New York City AC station spun the new Bruce/E Street Band single ("Radio Nowhere") this morning. Perhaps more than once. Later: more "leaks" detected around the country. Update: I just heard it. It rocks; what a song!

Added: The search engine buzz on this record is very strong - judging by this pings this blog has had via search engines with a post about The Boss days ago. Its great to see the excitement over new music from an important artist in classic rock. Added: Listen to the song here (via Hype Machine).

"The Workforce" drives numbers. We knew that - but PPM really shows it. Give me a live body on the air after morning drive to talk to (and bond with) at-work listeners on-air, on the phone and via email.

Points from yesterday's Arbitron's consultant fly-in - via Tom Taylor's Newsletter:

“I can’t emphasize it enough, that working persons drive radio listening.”

"...they’re the ones who turn out to be the star class of radio users – partly because they punch in their favorite stations while they commute to and form work, and because they may well be listening at work. In fact “working persons have 66% more radio listening.”

"(Arbitron's) John Snyder says part of the PPM success of stations like WMMR, Philadelphia is that men – its natural core audience – are more likely to be in the workforce."

More: Paragon Media Strategies posts about the "Major Differences Between Diary and PPM Results" Read here.

Lee Arnold: Lee with a great post about the most significant music album ever - released 40 years ago yesterday.

Read Here.

Have a great weekend; more here Sunday.