For those wondering what Barb does when she’s not cooking and scrubbing, we refer you to the American Health Lawyers Association’s Guide to Legal Issues in Life-Limiting Conditions. Barb is a co-leader of the task force which produced the guide and a teleconference that explained it (“The Role of Family and Health Lawyers in End-of-Life Decisions”). It’s all abaout “the important legal and practical issues that arise in the care of individuals who face a life-limiting condition.” I think “life-limiting condition” means “you’re dying.” [News release]
Pitch my tents
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.
Seth Godin keynote at NAB
Couple of nuggets (via Radio and Internet Newsletter) from Seth Godin’s keynote this morning at the National Association of Broadcasters annual meeting in Philadelphia:
“With the web and satellite radio and WiMax, radio’s not going to be one-way communication any more — it’s going to be two- or three-way. You’re either going to embrace it or not.”
“The FCC is the reason you exist,” Godin said. “It’s about limited spectrum. If there were a million FM stations, you couldn’t sell any advertisements.” But with the advent of TiVo, Xbox, DVDs, Yahoo!, Escient, home theaters, 400 TV channels, 10,000 magazines, and more, “the TV-industrial complex is going away. What are you going to do about it?”
He challenged his audience,”How many podcast subscribers do you have?”, noting that one New York City station has 50,000 subscribers now and will someday have 500,000 subscribers — “and each one of them is someone who’s not listening to you.”
Responding to the speakers before him who extolled the value of radio’s localism, Godin noted, “Local doesn’t necessarily mean local on a map; it can mean local based on interests.”
Can we go back to diaries?
Radio broadcasters, preparing to descend on Philadelphia for the National Association of Broadcasters annual convention, may find the ratings from Arbitron’s portable people meter trial in Houston a tough pill to swallow.
Overall, average quarter hour ratings are down by 20 percent compared to diary measurement, with morning drive, radio’s biggest revenue-generating daypart, taking the biggest hit, down by more than 35 percent. Midday ratings were also lower under the PPM, down 21.9 percent. Other dayparts were down on average by 12 percent. [Media Week]
Professional Sign-holders Wanted
Former Radio Guy Matt Zeni recalls a radio interview on his station some years back:
“I saw a want ad in the Branson daily newspaper for full-time opening(s) for people to hold advertising signs on Highway 76 and the job included full benefits! The job paid $8.50 – $9.00 per hour plus medical and insurance. You could only keep the job, according to the owner of the advertising business, if you constantly waved to all the cars driving or stuck in traffic.”