This week’s BWNG is a…melange of brushes with near greatness. As a long-time radio guy, Jeff has met, interviewed or passed on the street…a lot of famous (or once-famous) people. He sat down in the BWNG studios armed with a long list of brushes and we didn’t get to them all.
AUDIO: BWNG #002
XM Ben attended the Rolling Stones concert Monday night (DC) and managed to get backstage where he had his photo taken spooning Ron Wood. I think that qualifies as a Brush with Near Greatness.
It flashed me back to 1964 (my sophomore year in high school) when the Rolling Stones were all over the radio. We had never heard anything remotely like them. How can they possibly be touring 40 years later?
Clear Channel Chief Executive Mark Mays, citing competition from satellite-delivered subscription radio, proposed that broadcast radio operators be able to own 10 stations instead of eight in markets where there are at least 60 stations and up to 12 stations in markets where at least 75 radio outlets operate.
“Free radio is struggling. The cost of competing with new technologies and increased listener choice is staggering and profits are down,” Mays said at a speech to the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Clear Channel, which owns about 1,200 radio stations, saw earnings decline 13 percent in the second quarter because of weak advertising revenues
“We are streaming the vast majority of our radio stations,” he said in response to a question. “From that perspective, we are cannibalizing ourselves and we feel like we have to be in that Internet space.” [Thanks to the Heater Man]
A few weeks ago I had lunch with some lads in the Missouri Senate information office and we talked about podcasting. They’d heard about it but didn’t think it was anything “the members” would be very interested in. They emailed me today to say that some of the members are eager start podcasting. Whoosh.
And all my MSM buds keep asking, “Are they making any money?” Uh, no. And they’re not paying us to distribute their programming either.
Kennett correspondent Viretta got an early listen to the new CD by Trent Tomlinson (son of Bragg City/Kennett basketball star Don Tomlinson) and tags it “incredible.” Trent’s been in Nashville for about 12 years and recently signed with Lyric Street Records, a division of Disney headed up by another good old Kennett boy, Doug Howard. Viretta reports the CD will be coming out soon and describes Trent’s lyrcis as “fantastic.” And she would know.
In other music news, we received an email from a nice lady at VH1 asking for permission to use some of the photos of Sheryl Crow at the dedication of the Aquatic Center for a news package they’re putting together. I confessed that all of the good pix were shot by professional photog Bill Greenblatt.
Bill Figenshu, former group head for Viacom’s radio group, more recently a SVP at Infinity and a Regional President for Citadel, and now a consultant, on a panel (“Future of Radio”) at the recent National Association of Broadcasters annual meeting:
“I’m concerned when I walk into Circuit City or Best Buy and I ask to see the HD radios — and I know they carry the Kenwood model — and the sales guy takes me to the Sirius display and tells me, “This is it! This is digital.”
More on the NAB at Kurt Hanson’s Radio and Internet Newsletter.
Charlene Li at Forrester writes that Whirlpool is podcasting. The podcasts are produced and moderated by Whirlpool’s director of customer insight, Audrey Reed-Granger, who has a background in broadcasting. And it shows. What’s interesting is the podcasts are focused on family issues and are not centered around Whirlpool products. Moreover, Whirlpool has done no overt promotion of the podcasts, preferring that they be found through word-of-mouth marketing. [via Blogspotting]
When I started working at KBOA (summer of 1972), Studio A (more commonly known as the “on-air studio” or “the control room”) was always manned. I believe Mr. Rudy was signing on in those days and later shifts were manned by Jeff Wheeler, Charlie Isabell, Charlie Austin, Ted Guffy and Keith Parker. And we were simulcasting the FM during the day with a part-timer running the Cardinal games at night. No automation. No computers. A real, live person cued up the records and played recorded commercials (or read them live). Not very cost effective but a lot of fun for those of us privileged to be “on the radio.”
Between 1984 (when I left KBOA) and around 2000, I traveled all over the midwest visiting radio stations affiliated with our networks. Most in small or very small towns. For many of those 16 years, there were still radio stations with live announcers throughout the day.
Are there any still doing this? I’m not talking about “breaking in” a couple of times an hour to do the weather… I’m looking for one station that still has live announers, sitting in a studio, running the show from sign-on to sign-off. Yes, I understand this makes no sense from a business standpoint. And I can’t give you any good reason why some station owner would be doing this. I’m just asking some of my radio pals to email me if they know of such a relic.
If I can find one, I’ll call them up and see if someone will talk with me about their station and what it’s like to work there (I’ll post the interview here). Better yet, I’ll take my camcorder and get in the car and go visit the station. I’ll record the entire day. We can make a project out of this, like tagging and monitoring Bengal Tigers or some other endangered species.
Story on the Broadcasting & Cable website about ad buyers shifting to new media:
“Advertisers are shifting as much as 20% of their media dollars away from traditional media—TV, magazines and newspapers—and moving them to emerging categories, such as the Internet or movie theater ads.”
Hello? Did you forget radio? Are we not part of traditional media? Or are we not affected by this? (I’m looking for the pony.) And please tell me advertisers are not really taking money out of radio to buy movie theater ads. I refuse to believe that.
I would say this is one of those bogus Internet things that make the rounds but my buddy Bob says his brother-in-law knows the minister featured in this recording.