The Weekend Classic Rock FM

88° - scattered clouds at 4:08pm

Welcome to Friday. As this week progressed - finding time to post has become an issue.

My current "day job" - radio related - became real busy in the past few days. Lots of projects on the tabel. My dining room table. All good. A real desk and home office area forthcoming.

I've told a few folks over recent months that if I was back to programming full time, its likely this blog would be down to a post or two a week.

Stop marketing? A great piece from Fred Jacobs this morning. Fred: "With some great marketing, we could make radio bigger than life again."

Read more here.

Jumping through hoops. With online listening. I've been a fan of making it easy to listen online. Wrote about that here a few months back.

Today Larry Rosin of Edison Media Research sounds off on stations that require "registration to listen". Read "Stations Behind Bars" here.

My take: Many stations that require "registration" are gearing up to target specific banner and/or audio ads to listeners based on demos and location. This doesn't matters to the listener; its just another inconvenience.

Isn't there too much "registration" required on the 'net as it is? There's so many other choices - and with portable devices - who's going to want the hassle? Make it easy as point and click.

NAB next week. Both Fred Jacobs and Mark Ramsey have promised some great presentations during the conference. As I won't be there, I hope someone will be taking notes and sharing!

More here Sunday Morning if not before...thanks for reading.

Late Night Reading: Alan Mason

59° - clear at 2:05am

Good Morning...

Apologies for the lack of a post on Thursday; just one of those days where too many things - personal and professional - kept mind and fingers away from the blog.

Now a sleepless night....

Reading some recent posts by consultant Alan Mason. First one up from Wednesday is about coaching air talent.

Or not. Alan blogs:

"PD’s aren’t coaching talent to full development any more. Many on-air people never get a word of feedback. Some get an occasional, “Great show today.” Others find email instructions from time to time, and the rare ones have regular sit-down sessions with the PD and “go over a tape.” Except that it’s not tape any more. And the sessions are “critique sessions,” because everyone knows improvement comes from criticism."

"Very, very rarely, you run across someone who actually coaches their talent, who builds on their strengths and puts minimal effort into mistakes and what they don’t like."

Read here.

Alan's other piece tells of a successful station that died after a GSM left. They couldn't find a decent replacement and despite strong ratings - sales people got demotivated - business fell off.

To solve the problem - it was decided that a change was neccessary - in programming. Sad.

Read the story here.

Last: Woot pulls a Steve Jobs. And has fun in the typical Woot spirit. Read the "Emergency Open Letter" - Here. This will only be up Friday since Woot is all selling one product for each 24-hour period.

Back to bed. Hopefully more here sometime after the sun comes up.

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.

PPM + Fall Promos and Programming

73° - sunny at 10:45am

Good Morning from Michigan.

Left: from WQBW/Milwaukee. A small but great example of tying promotional efforts to current events! Fun too.


PPM and Stopsets: Inside Radio reporting of a "strategic shift" at Clear Channel's Houston cluster FMs - going from three stopsets per hour to two. Based on PPM research.

A letter to advertisers from Clear Channel notes "research with PPM shows us that people are listening through the commercial breaks."

IR adds that "Less Is More" inventory minute limits remain firmly in place, but stopsets will grow from a maximum of four minutes to five. They're also reducing station promos to one minute per hour, adding the inventory back to programming.

Added: Mark Ramsey offers commentary on the Clear Channel move here.

Programming note: KHYT/Tucson moves Opie & Anthony to overnights 3-6am. Just guessing its a "contractual obligation." Where is this show working in morning drive outside (perhaps) NYC?

Promotions: Seeing lots of on-air listen-to-win with Springsteen, Van Halen, Ozzy and Mellencamp tickets.

All "ready made" for classic rock radio; promotions you can't go wrong with.

Speaking of Concerts: KSHE/St. Louis is giving three listeners a chance to become KSHE's "official station photographer". One winner each at three upcoming concerts receiving concert tix and a photo pass. Details here. Easy to set up ($0) and very cool for listeners.

WPYX/Albany is giving listeners a chance to win $1000 by designing a billboard promoting the station's morning show. Here.

KRXO/Oklahoma City will be kicking off their "At Work Workforce Payroll" with $100/hour - plus a chance for an additional $100 bonus if a payroll winner knows "the three things".

Special fall programming: The long-term payoff with strong programming features is far greater than contesting. Its all about strengthening the brand.

KRFX/Denver kicks off "The History of Classic Albums" - presenting the essential classic albums of the last four decades in chronological order. More here.

WBLM/Portland is putting together classic rock's "Top 500" albums of all time. The station has listeners, staff and local celebrities submitting top ten fav lists. See here.

And tonight: WDRV/Chicago is celebrating the life of Jimi Hendrix - on the 37th anniversary of his death - with a one-hour special.

Presented at the end of the day (11pm) for the diehard Hendrix fans; format/music credibility made all day long simply by promoting it.