What A Week!

No shortage of news...

• Clear Channel managers learn about a new batch of available "programming options" from San Antonio
  
• Ascertainment is back...hey let's find out if we are serving our communities--good idea
  
• Less wasn't more--PSA's are back
  
• Edison Research and Arbitron release a new study that shows young radio listeners are listening less
• Portable digital media devices are STILL growing and fast
  
• 42 million Americans are listening to radio on-line--and lots more competition from non-traditional radio providers like Pandora
  
• A heritage AM station in NE PA goes dark...maybe for good

...and on and on and on

Not a great week the for biz really--repackaged initiatives, discouraging research, and short-sighted operators doing more of what they do every week. Certainly, there are positive nuggets mixed in, but for the most part it's pretty cloudy out there. Innovation is practically a dirty word in the hallways of many companies these days.

I feel compelled to repeat myself a little today:

• Non-stop music machines are not the answer to excite listeners--in the long term even with PPM (long term? yeah, I know)
• Playing 30 and 40 year old classic rock on stations hoping to attract a passionate following of 25-34's is a losing strategy
• Ryan Seacrest can only be on the air for some many hours in any given day
• Why can Top 40 stations play mostly currents and recurrents for women, but most believe that strategy can't work for a "guy" station? (It can, and I am doing it successfully)
• Talk radio is not about political parties, but entertainment...period. (and no, Limbaugh is NOT the leader of the Republican party...good rhetoric though)
• Sometime soon we need to commit to attracting some young new voices to our ranks and encourage them to talk to their peers in ways that 50 year old's can't.
• Commercials are a necessity, how about reinvesting in the process of writing and producing better copy and audio?
  

I'm sure you have a few of you own. Feel free to contribute.

It's a lot easier when we all assume the position of "get along and go along" but that is not what our industry needs right now. We need a revolution of sorts. Evolution ain't gonna cut in anymore. This type of action won't come from cashflow positive stations since no one will risk that type of upheaval--understood. So we wait. We wait for grim reaper of failure to cast its ugliness upon us, and then...