XM's Abrams is blogging

XM Radio "Chief Creative Officer" Lee Abrams is blogging. Today's post reads like it might have also been an all-staff memo (and not necessarily today's memo) but, hey, he's hanging it out there and I hope he keeps it up. Would be fun to get even a tiny peek behind the scenes at XM. Couple of nuggets jumped out at me:

I can’t think of ONE FM station that would be worth taping and playing to the XM Staff. There are some OK ones, but most really are doing nothing especially interesting, compelling or new.

Local radio is dead. It’s irrelevant. For us we should be ALL OVER THE NATIONAL thing. Big ‘n bad ass. Local radio is a quaint relic. BUT—We are NOT taking advantage of this if we aren’t Talking to America.

It'll be interesting to see if Mr. Abrams groks the "conversation" part of blogging (Turn those comments ON, Lee). He strikes me a a passionate, opinionated guy. Can he listen as well as he writes? We'll see.

Comments

[Andy Waschick]

Yes, it's great that he is blogging. And, I have to express my absolute shock, yes SHOCK! at his point of view that, as an exec at one of radio's big box stores, is declaring that local radio is a quaint, irrelevant relic.

I might wonder out loud who it is that could be responsible for turning so much of local radio into a vehicle for advertising car dealerships and mortgage companies? And, his answer is to speak to America as a whole. That's great, Lee. Just what we need, more big, authoritative, national corporate voices turning our culture into one homogenous lump of starch and telling people anything they might participate in in their local community just doesn't matter.

So nice that these are the sort of people in charge of the mirror we behold ourselves in. I'm glad there's the internet to serve as an antidote to these mass media dinosaurs.