Seeing Wayne Newton perform at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas at the height of his career…depressing. Seeing Wayne Newton perform at his theater in Branson, Missouri in the twilight of his career…real depressing. Going backstage with your grandmother to stand in line to meet Wayne Newton after the show…a Brush with Near Greatness for little 12-year-old Lane.
Long-time farm broadcaster Jerry Passer was working at WMT-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the mid-70’s, when a young Mary Hart came over from South Dakota to do feature segments for the midday news-farm show. Jerry recalls those million dollar gams looked great in the mini-skirts that were popular at the time.
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
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.
I’ve wondered about this but not as thoughtfully as Ben Compaine, who posts on the Rebuilding Media blog:
Can the media survive on advertising? Lots of folks are counting on it. Broadcasters have always had this single revenue stream. Daily newspapers get about 80% of revenue from advertising and the hot print properties, such as the give-away Metro dailies, depend about 100% on advertising. Now much of the Web is counting on advertising: Google, Yahoo! and increasingly AOL to name just a few of the biggies.
Either the pie gets bigger or somebody gets a smaller slice.
Lance Armstrong says he could come out of retirement to try for an eighth straight Tour de France victory.
“I’m thinking it’s the best way to piss [the French] off. I’m not willing to put a percentage on the chances but I will no longer rule it out.”
Armstrong believes he is the target of a “witch hunt” by the French media. French sports daily L’Equipe reported in August that urine samples taken from Armstrong during his first Tour victory in 1999 tested positive for the banned substance EPO.
That’s the rumor (unconfirmed but good source) from Kennett. Happened Wednesday at undisclosed location. I could find nary a word on the net. Could it be you heard it here first?
Another thought-provoking post by Jeff Jarvis on the “value” of owning content or distribution:
Owning the printing press, broadcast tower, cable plant, movie theater, or chain of stores is a cost burden when your competitors and customers can, without friction, effort or cost, bypass your distribution and even your marketing. So don’t own the content. Help people make and find and remake and recommend and save the content they want. Don’t own the distribution. Gain the trust of the people to help them use whatever distribution and medium they like to find what they want. It’s hard for somone raised on the value of owning content and owning distribution to let go of exclusivity and instead value openness and participation.
I’ve been blogging long enough to buy into the idea of the web as a conversation but it’s a damned hard concept to explain. Much easier to grasp the idea of producing programming (content)…pumping it over some kind of distribution channel (radio/TV signal, newspaper, etc)…mixing in some ads…and feeding it all to the consumer (audience).
Online publishing salaries of recent graduates are higher than broadcast or print media salaries, according to the 2004 Annual Survey of Journalism and Mass Communication Graduates (PDF) conducted by The University of Georgia’s James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research.
The survey found that the median online publishing salary in 2004 was $32,000. By comparison, the median salary for TV was $23,492; for cable TV was $30,000; for daily newspapers was $26,000; for weekly newspapers was $24,000; for radio was $23,000; and for consumer magazines was $27,000. [CyberJournalist.net]
Of all the challenges facing my beloved radio these days, that median salary of $23,000 might be the most frightening.
The death of Peter Jennings (from lung cancer) last week has lots of folks thinking about smoking. I remember when smoking was allowed on airplanes and ash trays were common desk accessories in the office. Ash tray. A tray for your ashes. Do they still manufacture ash trays? I’m sure they do.
My favorite “ash tray” is The Smoker’s Oasis. The grand daddy of ash trays, The Smoker’s Oasis has sprung up like big, stinking mushrooms outside offices and buildings across America. When we drove our smoking employees outdoors, we had to come up with someplace for them to put their butts.
We had one outside our offices for a while. It was originally located 30 or 40 yards from the back door of our building. The next time I saw it, it was right next to the building, so smokers could get a little shelter from the rain.
I went searching for it to take a picture for this post but it’s gone. When I asked one of my smoker co-workers where it was located, she would only mutter, “It’s gone. I don’t know where it is.”
My current theory is our Smoker’s Oasis has become like Dracula’s coffin. Only smokers know where to find it and you can never spot them going to or from the secret location.
Do our closeted smokers take turns emptying our Smoker’s Oasis? Is there a secret duty roster somewhere, showing who has butt chores this week? And where do they dump the butts? Do they bury them in the woods behind our office, taking care to spread leaves over the shallow grave?
Do they dream of a day when they are once again in the majority and can come in from the cold? Will we have nice, cut glass ash trays on every desk, with the company logo proudly imprinted on the side? Will we see a day when there is no longer a need for the Smoker’s Oasis? We can only hope.