Category Archives: Learfield

Learfield Sports Operations: Then and Now

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The Learfield Sports Operations Center is a real thing of beauty. Great equipment, well designed. A really nice place to produce sports broadcasts. It wasn’t always so. My recent photo spelunk turned up this shot taken in the basement of Learfield’s former headquarters, an old house on McCarty Street. Kim Steiner (the guy in the photo) was about 5′ 7″.

In 1984, we began producing the broadcasts for Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Kansas. We already had the rights to Missouri and were producing those broadcasts in a studio shared with The Missourinet. Because there was absolutely no more room for studios, the engineers jammed some small mixing consoles into a corner space in the basement (where the engineers also lived).

Cramped, dusty and… dangerous. You could always recognize the new guys by the contusions and lacerations on their foreheads.

“Introducing the Missourinet”

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A lot of our company’s history is jammed into cardboard boxes and I stumbled upon a little piece this afternoon. This is a copy of an ad [larger image] that ran in Missouri Life Magazine, sometime in the early ’70’s.

Now Missourians from border to border know what their neighbors are doing.

They know what is going on in Jefferson City… in the major metropolitan areas… in the arts… in science… business.

They’re listening to their local radio station… an affiliate of the Missourinet.

The Missourinet is a statewide news network… very similar in operation to the national news networks. Some 40 radio stations carry its hourly newscasts. It has the state Capitol’s largest full-time news bureau. And each week its programs feature hundreds of on-the-scene reports from correspondents and newsmakers over the state.

Missouri + net? Get it? The official name of our company was “Missouri Network, Inc.” back then.

23 Year Pin

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My first official day at Learfield Communications was June 4, 1984. I’ve posted on enough anniversaries that I don’t have anything fresh to add, but didn’t want the day to slip by without note.

Learfield PinA surprising number of people who were there on my first day are still with the company: Clyde, Roger, Charlie, Bob Priddy, Derry (no longer technically part of Learfield but always in my head and my heart), Greg, Clarice, Joyce… who am I missing?

The company has grown so rapidly in recent years, it bears little resemblance to the company I started with. But that is as it should be. Like that old Saturday Night Live bit… “Learfield has been berry, berry good to me.”

Radio Iowa: 20 years on

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Off to Des Moines for a couple of days. Can’t remember the last time I was there. Couple of years ago? But I remember the first time. It was early in 1997 1987 and we (Learfield) were starting a statewide radio network. I was managing our news networks in those days and –with help from Roger Gardner– was tasked with hiring staff. We did most of the interviews in the bar and lobby of the Savery Hotel. I clearly remember meeting Kay Henderson and Todd Kimm, two of the original staff who are still with us.

I was also responsible for signing stations to the network. I couldn’t tell you how many times I criss-crossed Iowa in my little Toyota Corolla, but I hit every town with a stick. And broadcasters were very receptive. I think we had 30 affiliates by the time we went live in July.

Seems like yesterday.

Probably can’t make it happen this trip but I’m gonna sit down with Kay and Todd and record a little oral history of the network. Be fun to remember those that worked in our newsroom; the big stories; the funny stories; the affiliates. It might be too hot to share but we’ll keep it someplace safe until we can.

Roger Gardner’s first MacBook

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My alternate headline was, “Gomer Does the Big Apple,” but the Jim Nabors reference would be either too dated or unflattering to Learfield President and Chief Operating Officer Roger Gardner, the latest Learfielder to break down and “Get A Mac.”

Like Phil and me, Roger has been flirting with the idea of buying a Mac for sometime. He’s been teetering at the precipice for weeks and finally went over the edge this week and purchased a 17″ MacBook Pro (with all the fixin’s)

In all fairness, Roger has two teenagers at home and they needed another computer and –like a lot of folks these days– couldn’t come up with a good reason not to try a Mac.

Radio Iowa Week in Review

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RIWIRRadio Iowa reporter Stella Shaffer produces “Radio Iowa: Week In Review” and it’s a nice toe-in-the-podcast-water for the network. She pulls together the top stories of the previous week:

“The old governor’s got a gig teaching law at Drake, the new governor wants a dollar-a-pack increase in the cigarette tax, and an economist tells us what that might cost. The new improved state minimum wage may also have unanticipated consequences, according to HeadStart heads. Bitter cold played a part in the apprehension of an auto-theft suspect, OSHA offered a helping hand to migrant workers while one mayor wants a fulltime cop to bust them, and we mourn two more Iowa soldiers lost.”

Another of our networks began repurposing feature programs as podcasts last year. But RIWIR is our first true podcast (by my definition).

We have some really good reporters working in our newsrooms. Historically, if they came up with a good idea for a new program, it could only fly if we could convince enough affiliate stations to “clear” it.

In the world of podcasts, they are only limited by their imaginations and the hours in the day. I’m hoping to hear some good stuff in the coming year.

Radio Iowa: The Blog, getting noticed

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Allbritton Communications launched The Politico today. It’s a free tabloid with an estimated circulation of 25,000 aimed at political junkies and Beltway insiders, and its companion website.

The Politico has garnered attention by snagging high-profile journalists to run the paper. Two of The Washington Post’s top political journalists — editor John Harris and reporter Jim VandeHei — left to become The Politico’s editor-in-chief and executive editor, respectively. Reporters have been lured from Time, U.S. News and World Report and the New York Daily News, among others.

Ben SmithOne of these superstars, Ben Smith, is blogging and includes our own Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa) in “Ben’s Favorite Blogs.” Just the latest high-profile link love for the Bloggerista.

In this 2003 post, I included Kay in my list of “Blogs I Would Read if They Existed.” And now it does. And I do.

More The Politico here and here.

Relaunching news websites

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Learfield NetworksOne of the first Learfield networks to have a website was Radio Iowa, our state news network in Iowa. That must have been around 1996 and it was created (using Frontpage) by Dan Arnall and Allen Hammock, a couple college guys we hired to help us figure out “this Internet thing.”

Dan and Allen went on to pursue new adventures a long time ago. And we’ve added lots of websites –for our company and for clients– since those early days.

This week we relaunched RadioIowa.com. We relaunched WRN.com a about a month back and we’ll be putting up the new Missourinet.com in a couple of weeks.

Our news networks are pretty narrow in focus. We cover the legislature, state government and –with the help of our affiliates– news from throughout our respective states.

Our websites reflect that focus. State news and sports, with an emphasis on the sounds of the news. We are, first and foremost, radio networks. Our websites are designed to complement them. They are not high-traffic, destination sites. Time will tell if this strategy is the correct one. The next couple of years should be interesting.

Our new sites are very blog-like. At WRN.com, we blog the sports and our news director maintains a blog. At Radio Iowa, News Director O. Kay Henderson is generating a real following for her political blog.

Time will tell if I have taken us in the right direction with these sites. If you like what you see, email me and I’ll put you in touch with Andy Waschick, the man behind all of Learfield’s websites. If you don’t… please don’t tell me.

Very fast thumb typing

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Because I don’t own a Blackberry or “smart phone,” I have not done any “texting” and have no thumb typing skills (I’m not even sure it’s called that). But many people are very adept at this, including Learfield’s own Tyne Morgan. Tyne is majoring in ag journalism at the University of Missouri and working part-time for one of our networks.

This little clip does not do justice to her amazing skill. She was keying –with one thumb– as fast as many people type with all ten fingers. And she doesn’t have to look at the keys. This might be more useful than the ability to make yourself invisible.