Cynthia Segal who is from Winnipeg but now lives in Hollywood Florida sent me a Facebook message that said “Hey I notice your from Transcona, you’ve come a long way baby” I replied to her with a short poem about going to school there while starting bands and stuff. Now here I am stuck in front of my computer staring at the screen as I try to rhyme my whole life for some unknown reason. Hopefully I can resist publishing it but I doubt it very much!
Speaking a little of Canada I just realized there are no color (colour) photos of The Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup!
Just watched a sneak preview of Dave Fulton’s new Version of his movie/documentary “Naptown Rock Radio Wars” which will be shown April 19 on Channel 20 back home in Indiana. The only effect it had on me was to make me want to call up the old Buzzard Boys, Cris Conner, Buster Bodine, Freddie Fever, Mike Griffin, John Gillis and Tom Cochran to say … “Get the hell out of bed we’re going back to Indy to kick some ass”
For some reason this is the year of my past. Not only is the movie “Naptown Rock Radio Wars playing this month but next month I’m going back to Winnipeg for a CKY reunion which was wear my whole radio career started. Even Burton Cummings is coming by to say hi to some of the great jocks we used to listen to like Deano Corrie, Jimmy Darin and Mark Parr who also spun our our early records. Word is that Burton is even going to honor us with a few tunes. No I’m not reuniting The Jury!
Anger is just another name for fear.
I wonder if the starting 5 of the Champion Wildcats are smart enough (lets check their grades) to realize that a bunch of innocent looking young girls just fell in love with them. These sweet young things are getting ready to make their new found love known to these young lads. I guarantee they aren’t going to allow any form of birth control to be used as they prove just how deep their love is. They will soon own more than half of all that money the NBA is going to pay each one of these guys and they don’t even have to go to practice. Hey they already know how to do what they do, they don’t need no practice.
Dan Mason claims that over the past 20 years the Dee Jay’s role has been watered down and it has been done by a dictate.
If the Arabs didn’t have so much oil would we pay them any mind. Aren’t they all about yesterday.
A few years ago if you ever wondered who was over paid at a radio station you just went back to the accountants office and asked him because he always had an opinion about it. Now that they’ve moved up front we soon found out they must have really thought everybody but them was over paid. They soon fixed that!
How come the first time you usually start cheating on your taxes is when you can actually afford to pay them.
How short do we have to make the basketball season so we don’t pay all this money for tickets just to watch some of the Super Stars just coast.
Back in the day it was a lot more productive using Jim Hilliard’s name rather than my own. It sure got things on the air a lot faster.
In TV commercials it always shows Black guys and White guys all hanging out together. I don’t see that happening much in real life.
How do you explain to your Daughter that the god like creatures she thinks she sees up on the stage are really just very needy self absorbed people who only care about themselves when you see them back stage.
When the FCC was stronger Radio sounded better and made more money.
Where the hell do the smart phones come up with the embarrassing words they put in your text instead of the ones you typed.
Why did they stop calling traveling in the NBA.
The first time I ever heard Hey Jude I remember thinking “The Beatles ran out of words how can that be”
The two events that changed my life were the births of my two daughters which happened 28 years apart. Both births made me a different person.
Lee Masters (Jarl Mohn) whom I tried to hire many times over told me he was very lucky he didn’t take me up on any of my offers because he probably would have enjoyed it too much. He instead took a job in New York and when they wouldn’t let him do any of his on air magic, he quit and created E entertainment.
When they wheeled Muhammad Ali out at the opening of the new Marlins Stadium on National TV it was hard to watch. I don’t think they should have done it … Very very sad!
Bill Stairs told me you have to have at least a thousand friends on Faceback to have any shot at influencing even one PPM device. With the amount of time it takes to recruit and communicate with thousands of people on Facebook one might be better served spending that time on show prep instead.
Your last comment is so right. What’s the point of “communicating” if you’ve got little or nothing of value to say? To bastardize the lyric “what have they done to our song?”
If your in Sales Dan it’s the cold calls that you need to do in programming it’s show prep. Neither is done very often.
No personal offense meant to Ryan Seacrest, but sadly, Dan Mason is correct: We live in the era where our greatest communicator is the face of the E ! Channel and host of “American Idol”. Compared to Ron Chapman, Howard Stern or Larry Lujack, Mr. Seacrest is a glorified booth announcer (or game show host), pleasant, amiable and guaranteed to offend no one. He is the Mitt Romney of radio and TV. Corporately, he must be absolutely loved for his predictable reliability to say and do what is expected, but no wonder audiences are diminishing everywhere. Does one ever expect something unexpected and exciting to come out of his mouth (other than to announce the winner of “American Idol”)? I do give him credit for recognizing that the Dick Clark empire had no successor and for positioning himself as Clark’s protege (although whom would you rather have had as a mentor: Clark = “The Pat Boone of Radio” vs.
Alan Freed = “Everything provocative about Rock & Roll” ? But then Clark is wealthy and Freed died broken and penniless.).
Good stuff Jed.
And in the end there was only Herb Tarlek. All alone answering the phone In the lobby because it was more efficient to run everything from there. The studio’s and offices weren’t necessary anymore since everything was done from a central location.
So there was Herb and one lone desktop PC that was WKRP. Although Herb had gotten everything he had ever wanted he wasn’t happy. Herb sat there lonely, depressed and broken. He realized that he’d been too busy to notice that one by one all of his old friends had been fired due to some vague thing that corporate called progress.
Herb was now the entire staff of WKRP. He thought to himself it was no longer any fun because it just wasn’t the same without all the others to share it with. It was now just a mundane crappy job.
Just remember no matter how hard you try you can’t automate humanity.
E
Exactly!
This sentence jumps out: “Anger is just another name for fear.”
Theory: There’s nothing in the world but love and fear. What isn’t love is fear. What isn’t fear is love.
With you as her example, Geo, your daughter will figure it out if she hasn’t already.
LYB (Love Your Blog)
Jo
Jo I think you’re being too kind … I think!
1. You would have to buy an Indy FM first George and that will take many many chips. Or you could just set up an internet streaming station and have the thing voice tracked. Which is pretty easy to do and those of us with home studios would not have an issue uploading.
2. Jed you are correct about Ryan Seacrest, the only thing you didn’t mention is he is one of the few that get how clear channel works. Once upon a time he was just an afternoon card reader at an FM in LA.
3. What ever became of Greg Dunkelman, the other guy on American Idol?
When Idol was just a summer replacement series Greg quit because nobody was going to watch a show with mean judges like that. He thought Idol was a loser.
Hey George:
In regards to Bill Stairs comment…. Just like the radio station itself Social Media has to be compelling in order to attract an audience. It must be an extension of the station. A half assed effort will bring back the same results.
1000 + is the beginnings of a powerful tool. Especially if you do a lot of NTR events. But you must have a plan and approach SM (social media) seriously…. You can’t sit back and hope one of the Jocks posts something good…. Execution is key. SM can be an important part of your toolbox. Done well SM can effect your PPM and the bottom line. Done poorly also has it’s effects…. Mostly bad ones…. Negative perception etc….
I think having a successful Facebook page takes as much work as having a successful Radio Station. With as few employees there are at most radio stations now I don’t know how they do a good job of both.
Assign realistic value to new platforms and make it a part of the budget. Remember it’s one product on many delivery systems.
Back in 1975 at WVBF had Jim come to you and said “George WVBF’s signal can now reach the entire world! Plus we just bought The Globe, Channel 2, 4, 5, 7, 56, 38 and we also bought the post office and Western Union! George you can do anything you want with them!”
What would your answer have been? Radio’s long term survival depends on it.
The moral of the story is: Failure to embrace technology has cost Radio, Network TV, Record labels, Newspapers and now Motion Pictures many Billions dollars. It’s not like we didn’t have any warning because it’s really been going on in earnest since 1995. It’s here… It’s the elephant in the room. Do we get stepped on… Or do we make that sucker do hand stands for peanuts?
Eric I believe Radio’s survival depends more on product than technology. Growing up I listened to the personalities and can still remember their names.I don’t think my Daughter Cami knows the name of one Radio person because Radio has just turned into a utility, something you turn on when you need a little noise in your life. Cami likes what ever is hot and has very little loyalty to much. Thats what Radio lost the most, it’s fans!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3DmjXXxBm8&feature=relmfu
Seems the online home of wnap IS ON YOU TUBE… plenty of things to listen to when radio was something you could be proud of.
WNAP even has it’s own page called The Wrath Of The Buzzard fan club not to mention it’s own movie Lou.
I hope you have fun at the CKY reunion George.
You came from a wonderful place, and Cynthia was right when she said you came a long way baby……
The journey continues Margaret.
“In TV commercials it always shows Black guys and White guys all hanging out together. I don’t see that happening much in real life.”
You hit the nail on the head big time! Commercials bring out those things that are lies and that are unnatural.
Jay I once heard advertising referred to as legalized lying.
Your sleepy little southern market just became very interesting..
Its going to be fun watching a Radio Gunslinger taking on systems.
will be interesting to see what spins off…hit the bank error in my favor and flush with cash I didn’t have last week..checked it it’s real..amazing