CBS Radio News will provide a number of its programs to affiliate stations for podcasting or station Web site use. Beginning this week, CBS stations will be able to access the material via an affiliate Web site. Programming will include regularly scheduled programs and features, as well special in-depth series. [Story at MediaWeek.com]
New office
You might have noticed some construction in my office-cam photos. Big remodel underway at Learfield Intergalactic with lots of office reshuffle and this blogger is leaving his home of 15 years (something like that) and moving to a different office on the other side of the building. They’re letting me keep an office (only a little smaller) because I’ve been with the company for 21 years. And I appreciate the gesture. I’ll be closer to the IT Gods and that’s a good thing. Still have a window and a better view. Soon as we get moved in get the cam going going, we’ll point it that way.
Update: Photo above was taken nearly 20 years ago in the old Learfield offices located on McCarty Street here in Jefferson City. We wore suits and ties back then.
No way out
Got a call today from a guy I knew from my affiliate relations days. He left the radio business for a couple years but is once again managing a station in southern Missouri. When I mentioned this to Data Daddy David, he said it reminded him those movies where where somebody escapes, is recaptured, and paraded before the other prisoners as the screws take him back to his cell.
“Like in Cool Hand Luke,” I observed.
“I was actually thinking of Steve McQueen in The Great Escape,” DDD replied. “I can see the guy sitting on the floor of his office, bouncing that baseball off the wall, hour after hour.”
I’ve been trying to come up with other movies where someone escapes, is captured, and brought back. Submissions may sent to stevemays@hotmail.com.
Is that a podcast in your pocket?
Following its launch of all-podcasting KYCY (KYOU Radio) San Francisco, Infinity wades deeper into the pod pool by announcing it will offer free daily podcasts from its nine news stations, with flagship WINS (1010 Wins) New York set to lead the way in July. The podcasts, which will vary in length, will include local and national news, sports, business and entertainment headlines, as well as weather and traffic updates, plus content developed exclusively for download. [MediaWeek.com]
Halley Suitt on class reunions
“Within one week, two fairly nice, rational, reasonable guys I know told me about 1. (first guy) attending a college reunion and loathing the experience and 2. (the other) told me how he was dreading attending an upcoming reunion. I’m sorry, but what the HELL WERE THEY THINKING? Why put yourself through such a thing? Remind me why people even bother going to reunions? If you’re doing a lot better than the people in your graduating class, surely you have something better to do than go rub your former classmates’ noses in it. If you’re doing worse, that’s reason enough not to go. If you still see and like your college friends, have a party at your house and invite them over. Aren’t reunions just a wallet-cleaning activity for the alumni fund-raisers? Wait, wait, do guys go so they can see who ended up with what woman? This might have some logic to it, but what a waste of time!”
Twenty-one years ago today.
I started working for Learfield Communications on June 4, 1984. The company had one statewide news network (The Missourinet); one sports property (University of Missouri Tigers); and a farm network (The Brownfield Network). Blink.
Radio News Blues
In an article titled “Radio News Blues,” Tom Laskin –a staff writer for the “Isthmus:” — reports that “local reporting is dying in Madison (Wisconsin) and across the country.”
“Upwards of 1,000 of about 5,500 U. S. (radio) stations dumped their news operations between 1994 and 2001, according to Vernon Stone, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.”
“While the number of news/talk stations continues to grow around the country (more than 1,300 stations now embrace the format), radio stations have taken a hatchet to their news staffs — staffing was cut by a whopping 57% between 1994 and 2001, according to the Radio-Television News Directors Association.”
Mary Quass spoke to this point in the interview I did with her this week:
“We stripped everything out of our music formats years ago. I believe we need to be able to look at our products and say what can we provide that our audience wants in a today kind of fashion? And if that means that we go back to doing news on the hour –but that news is relevant to the audience– then, you know what? That’s what we ought to be doing.”
Hmmm. I wonder if broadcasters will someday wistfully recall a time when listeners tuned to them for hourly newscasts.
It`s good news week,
Someone`s dropped a bomb somewhere,
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the sky,
It`s good news week,
Someones found a way to give,
The rotting dead a will to live,
Go on and never die.
AgWired.com
Since I started blogging (February, 2002) I’ve probably helped a couple of dozen folks get started but none drank the blog Kool-Aid like long-time friend Chuck Zimmerman. He didn’t just take a sip, he’s started chugging and hasn’t stopped. And his blog, AgWired.com is rapidly becoming one of the best sources for news about agriculture in the midwest. His focus is agrimarketing but he’s branching out quickly.
Chuck is a blogging machine. He is single-handedly covering more news than a bus-load of NAFB reporters and tired old print publications. He recently rolled out a new look and his blog is easily the best looking ag site on the net. Chuck is a classic example of citizen journalism. From their home, Chuck and his wife Cindy are demonstrating how just two sharp people armed with a laptop and a digital camera can tell a story. Tell a lot of stories.
Prediction: long after a lot of tired old print publications go belly up and begin collecting dust in the basement, AgWired.com will be a major source for agriculture news for thousands of daily readers. You heard it here.
Interview with Mary Quass
Mary Quass has been doing the radio thing for a long time. She bought her first station in 1988 and was right in the thick of the consolidation “land rush” of the late ’90s. Mary’s from a small town in southeast Iowa (Fairfield) and got her first radio job in 1977 selling advertising at KHAK in Cedar Rapids. She became sales manager of the station for two years (1979-82) and then served as GSM at KSO Des Moines until she returned to Cedar Rapids to purchase KHAK.
Ten years later, Quass Broadcasting merged with Capstar to form Central Star Communications, and Mary oversaw all aspects of the radio stations in her region. In July 1999, when the company merged with Chancellor Media to become AMFM Inc., Central Star Communications consisted of 66 stations in 14 midwest markets.
I’ve known Mary for a long time and she’s been a good friend to our company. Mary is one smart lady and she doesn’t think out of the box because she doesn’t know there is a box. So I called to get her take on what’s happening “out there.” I asked her about satellite radio, podcasting, consolidation, blogs, Internet radio and a bunch of other stuff.
AUDIO: Interview with Mary Quass 30 min MP3
Correction and update: I knew that Mary had been interviewed by Radio Ink in 2003 –and mentioned it in the interview– but when I went back to check a couple of things I thought I was looking at a new interview. I wasn’t. But I found a couple of interesting nuggets while re-reading the piece. Remember, this was two years ago.
“We cant just stick our heads in the sand and think that the Internet wont have an impact on Radio. This is the first technology to mean that anybody can have a radio station as good as, if not better than, whats out there today and it has nothing to do with a license. I want to be in and out of the business by then. When I was growing up, I could tell you my favorite radio station, and I was adamant about it. Well, a 12-year-old today can tell you the artists, but they may or may not have a Radio station where they know the DJs. Im very concerned about this, because we havent remained relevant to these people.”
“As an industry, we got away from that and have lost sight of the fact that we must give people product that they cant get everywhere else. If we dont differentiate our product when the Internet becomes wireless, it will be a whole new ball game for all of us. We had better be ready, or the frustration we feel will only grow.”
Nokia 770
This might be the way I’ll listen to Internet radio and consume Google news with my Cheerios. The Nokia 770, which will go on sale this fall for about $350, is a miniature tablet intended primarily for surfing the Web over a Wi-Fi connection. It’s designed for the casual Web browser, at home or at the nearest cybercafe. The tablet, which uses a 4.1-inch touch screen, can play videos and download music, photos and syndicated news from the Web. The rechargeable battery is good for up to three hours of browsing.
I can imagine myself turning this rascal on instead of booting up the Thinkpad.