Week of March 23, 2009

Spring is coming and the outdoor promotion season is upon us. Car/truck prices are way down. Perhaps, now is the time to work a deal with a client for a new remote truck, car, camper, or anything that will call attention to the station. How many remotes did you do last year? Take the value of the remote times the cost of the van. I suspect it will return an ROI faster than you think! Have a great weekend!

How do you do remotes? I had a conversation with a manager last week lamenting about the quality, and how bad they sound on the air. Um, but isn't that our responsibility? Old Marti units, bad cell phones and improper engineering back at the station will not only make a remote sound bad, it will guarantee the client will never do them again. You can watch digital quality TV on line from around the world; surely you can get audio from three miles across town. (Can we ever write the word "surely" in a sentence without remembering the movie "Airplane"?)

I think it's time to make digital initiatives within the cluster a separate division. I am not sure over-the-air sales people can sell digital products, too. It's simply a different metric of measurement, and language that begs a different sales effort. The recession is going to end someday (hopefully soon!) and the station or cluster in the best position to capture ad money will return to growth first.

What if we were given a transmitter that enabled our station to be heard around the world? Better yet, this transmitter had the ability to show video and display information about the station and its attributes to everyone with a computer, and soon, a cell phone. Now imagine if there were no FCC restrictions regarding public file, modulation, or even payola? Now imagine if it was the fastest growing segment of the advertising world? Isn't it called the Internet? I am stymied at stations that don't stream.

It's nice to see an old-fashioned Top 40 war waged by CBS and Clear Channel in L.A. and N.Y. The more attention and noise they make in the pursuit of listeners is a good thing for the business. Big radio wars fought in the media capitals of the country can only call attention to our medium and its attributes. It may also force these competitors to market, research, and throw everything at the most neglected side of consolidation since 1997 -- the listeners!