#3 Radio Geo’s Media Blog (The Fairbanks Management Conferences.) 5/30/22

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The other day my brother Reg and I were discussing how inspirational the Fairbanks Management Conferences always were, especially Jim Hilliard’s opening remarks.
The conferences were held annually around Thanksgiving, and because suits and ties were mandatory, many of us took the opportunity to unveil our new winter wardrobes.

Every rule of course, has an exception, and ours was WNAP’s, Cris Conner.
Cris showed up in a mechanic’s smock with record patches all over it, which prompted Ron Chapman of KVIL, who was at his first conference, to say, “Oh, I see; if you get the ratings, you can wear anything you damn well want.”

The salespeople had to bring an open mind and big balls because the numbers Jim wanted them to bill in the new year we’re going to look undoable. In fact, when Dick Yancey looked at his number for WIBC, he  said, “Jesus Christ, Jim, What if we don’t get the numbers?”
“Well, that’s just gonna make it a little tougher, Dick, Jim responded.”
The programming people also had to bring an open mind plus a presentation tape that we could use later to knock the socks off our National Sales reps.

Most of the conferences were held in Indianapolis but occasionally, we’d do it in Dallas or South Florida where the best was in Miami (lots of bars) and the worst in Key Largo. (no bars)
In attendance were the corporate folks and all the GMs, SMs, PDs, with some Engineers, Promotional and Financial people sprinkled in.. (see on top)

Jim made most of the sessions about where America was headed so we could be there waiting for it when it arrived.
In fact, we were so prepared for the future that some of our best years occurred during America’s worst years.

The sessions would always begin with Jim’s opening remarks, which were designed to get our attention right from the get-go.
One of them that has stuck with me for over forty years was, “Intelligent people, reasonably informed, seldom disagree.” Wow, I thought, how could you possibly disagree with anything Jim said from that moment on?

Thank goodness Jerry Bobo from KVIL saved the day when he said, “Jim, you lost me at intelligent.”
(To hear what Jim, pictured above heard as he approached the podium at one of our Fairbanks sessions, click the link below.)

RADIO GEO’S LIFE-LINERS

Everybody wants to be the exception to the rule, which is why I’m first in line but not to worry, you’re first behind me.

Sometimes preaching to the choir is the only way to get anything done.

It only takes action from 5% of the population to change everything. Maybe we should applaud them and ignore the rest?

A lot of talented people come from the dark side, but unfortunately, that’s where most of them stay.

Love is blind, which is the best part and worst about falling in love.

If all women really want is equality, why don’t they give up their special privileges?

You’ve gotta go all out all the time if you want to end up with anything at all.

I still remember the day Jack McCoy said to me, “You wanna get rich, just write a book that contains the exact number of how much money is enough.” I still haven’t come up with it.

So, when can we watch a movie or a TV series where black people and women are not smarter than everybody else? If it’s true, where the hell is their cure for cancer?

Why does the media think that they have the right to report that America was involved in the sinking of a Russian warship?

All this kind of reporting can do is put our families in danger. You change tomorrow by first changing today.

According to my buddy Big Bob, if you limit how many words a woman can use each day, the world would become a much better place.

To become successful, you usually need an enemy.

The best way to get better at something is by working with people who are better than you.

If I ain’t teasin’ ya I ain’t lovin’ ya!

From difficulty comes opportunity.

How come Biden hasn’t noticed that the oil companies made 48% more money this year than they did last year?

Wow, Ray Liotta (Goodfellas) died.

What a great Indy 500; Marcus Ericsson wins. 

COMMENTS

Jed Duvall: Hello, George: As your nephew might tell you, part of Amtrak’s problems is that they have been traditionally underfunded, and they do not have absolute priority over the train tracks they travel. When the railroad owners ran passenger trains, up until 1960, almost all passenger trains had priority over freight trains and usually ran at 79 m.p.h. (or higher). Most Class 1 railroad today run their trains at 49 m.p.h. or less and do not give Amtrak clear tracks as was the practice 65 years ago. The western railroads (Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe) do a better job of running trains than the railroads east of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers (Kansas City).
Geo: Your right, Jed; the freight trains do have priority because the freight train companies own the track. When I asked my Nephew why the passenger trains didn’t put more time on the clock at all stops so they could shorten the duration of each stop if needed. He said they would have to publish times that may cause people to fly instead.
However, I love riding the train so much that I don’t care how late they are, but I sure don’t want to wait for one.

Buster Bodine: Brilliant. (Misfits Part 2)
Geo: Brilliant is a bit of a stretch, Bo, but I do appreciate your thinking so..

Radio Radio Geo’s Media Blog is a politically incorrect inside look at Radio, TV, Music, Movies, Books, Politics, Social Media, and Life, primarily intended for men.
For a sneak peek at some upcoming Blogs, or to see some that you may have missed, go to  GeorgeJohns.com. On Twitter @GeoOfTheRadio. Sharing and commenting is not only encouraged; they’re appreciated.
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6 thoughts on “#3 Radio Geo’s Media Blog (The Fairbanks Management Conferences.) 5/30/22

  1. Wendy: Your buddy Big Bob has a disgusting attitude towards women, one that I don’t appreciate. I’ll bet he’s one of those Ice Age men who would want all women to be subservient to all men and he would most probably want abortions to be banned in America! Yikes, not someone I’d like to know. (Fairbanks Management Conferences)
    Geo: Thanks for the read Wendy but a couple of things you may have not noticed. In the fine print below I state that my blog is definitely not politically correct and is also written mostly for men. With that in mind occasionally a few folks are gonna find some things they disagree with which I long for.
    I believe that communication leads to understanding and your comments are duly noted. Keep ’em comin’

    • Wendy: No worries George! I’m a women’s libber from the ’60s and I will remain one till the day I’m no longer on this earth. Can you imagine my attitude in the great beyond?? I’m sure I’ll rattle a few bones, pun intended!! Yikes! (Fairbanks Management Conferences)
      Geo: You Go Girl!

  2. Jed Duval: George: I don’t know if you heard this, as I believe you arrived from CFTR-AM, Toronto, later in the week, but I started at WIBC on Monday, May 14th, 1973, the day after I graduated from Indiana University, Bloomington. Jim Hilliard hired me as a go-for intern, assigned to Gary Todd, with the proviso that I was essentially was also “on-call” for any assignments Jim, Gary and someone yet-to-be-named (you) had for me.

    I was very intimidated by Jim, you after you arrived from Canada to occupy the office across from Gary’s, Fred Heckman, Cris Conner, Mike Griffin, Chuck Riley, Dick Smart, Mr. Fairbanks of course, Mr. Fairbanks’ major domo Alice Bayne, and the wheeler-dealers from both WIBC’s and WNAP’s sales department. Most intimidating were Dick Yancey, WNAP’s sales manager Dave Spence and WIBC sales savage, John Kilcoyne.

    My second day at the two-brick (2835 North Illinois Street), I was coming down the hallway off the lobby past engineering when coming the other way was an intense, well-dressed man briskly marching past the coffee machine (10-cents-a-cup, if the cup fell first before the coffee, tea or hot chocolate started streaming). The man glared at me, as we passed each other, then he grabbed my shoulders, turned me around and slammed me against the pale green cinder block walls of the hallway. Now Dick Yancey is about the same height as I am (five-foot, six-inches). He lifts me up by my neck, puts his face close to mine, sneering, “Are you happy in your work ?”! I am about to do No. 1 and No. 2 in my pants ! Slowly, the sneer breaks into a huge grin, as he lets me collapse onto the linoleum floor and says, “Welcome aboard !” I am a quivering mess as other 2835 staffers stare at me in a heap on the floor against the wall.

    As the months and years passed, I found Dick to be demanding, but generous. He may be one of the finest sales motivators ever. But to his credit, you, Jim and Dick (and later, Jerry Bobo) gave the sales staffs ways to generate revenue beyond just the advertiser/agency “cost-per-thousand” metric, like huge events (WNAP 50 % Off Free Fair”, “The Magic Ticket” and “The Prize Catalog”.

    When I was hired by Jim, he asked me a question that at first, I did not know how to answer: “What is more important, the accomplishment of the mission or the welfare of the men ?” In my mind, being a producer/programming sort of guy, I always thought, well of course, it’s the welfare of the men. Now I know, you cannot do best for your employees if you do not accomplish the mission. Jim has always known that to accomplish the mission, you have to march to the garbage can every morning ! (Fairbanks Management Conferences)
    Geo: Jed, every General knows that it’s the accomplishment of the mission but they can’t afford to say it out loud because it would ruin their career.

  3. Barry O’Brien:2 white women and 28 white guys. Boy, have times changed! (Fairbanks Management Conferences)
    Geo: They sure have, Barry, along with the ratings and billing.

  4. “If I ain’t teasin’ ya, I ain’t lovin’ ya!” George, your line is remarkably similar to what my dad used to say to his grandkids! Like you, he loved to tell stories. Another of his favorite lines was, “Now, if you’ve already heard this…don’t stop me, because I want to tell it again.” (Fairbanks Management)
    Radio Geo: I completely understand what he was talkin’ about, Bruce

  5. Jerry Bobo: George, during those long sessions, one year, Jim gave me a plaque with our annual billing goal on it, which looked like an unreachable amount for KVIL, and told me to hang it on my office wall as a daily reminder.
    Like the sometimes cocky SOB that I am, in October of the next year, I got a nail and scratched a big CHECK mark on it and sent it back with a note that said, “DONE, what’s next?” That was the last time he gave me a plaque.
    One of my goals was to charge and get the highest price per spot in America. What I wanted the KVIL clients to understand is that KVIL wasn’t just another radio station. It was a special breed and the best in all of radio broadcasting so they had to pay more for being with the best.
    In fact, I wouldn’t allow clients to buy just the Ron Chapman show; they had to purchase other dayparts as well. Ron did not voice spots except for one “Grandfathered” auto dealer. His endorsement was strictly for KVIL and our audience. It pissed a lot of clients off, but they soon got over it once their store traffic increased.
    Several months before it came time each year to raise the advertising rates, I would annouce to the sales staff that I was raising the rates much higher than I would actually but I would always raise them a little over half of what I had announced. So AE’s had the clients thinking a big increase in the spot rate was coming, and when it was much less than expected, everyone accepted the new higher price with ease.
    We were billing over $2 M a month back in the 1980s; that’s why Richard M gave me a new Mercedes one year. Boy, those were the good old days of radio. (Fairbanks Management)
    Geo: Jerry, it was you who gave me my consulting career. When you hit your first million-dollar month, my phone started ringing off the wall. I had two choices answer their questions for free or sell them the answers. I chose, Faster Cars, Older Whiskey, Younger Women and Mo’ Money.
    What a ride, Jerry, love ya man!

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