Livin' In The '80s

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I'm living in the past. Or at least that's the way it feels lately.

A few weeks ago, I witnessed Steve Martin's Grand Ole Opry debut. More recently, I got the opportunity to interview the members of Spinal Tap (albeit via e-mail) about the faux group's forthcoming "Back From The Dead," a collection of new and old Tap tunes.

Facebook has also contributed to my feeling of deja vu. Just over a week ago, Gerry McCracken, the man who first hired me to work in radio in Parkersburg, W.Va., and a Facebook friend, asked me if I remembered Laura Dowler, our overnight jock at WXKX (Kix 103) back in the late '80s. I said I did and he let me know that he had just "friended" her and that he was sending her my way.

As anyone on Facebook knows, adding one friend generally leads to a steady stream of new friends connected to both you and your new friend. Before I knew it, I was back in contact with several other former employees of the station.

Suddenly it's 1987 all over again. Photos are flying and I'm 25 pounds lighter, bearded and with more hair.

Ummm, never mind.

The End Of An Era

Radio & Records is no more. As someone who spent seven years at the publication during two different stints, I have mixed emotions.

When I moved to Nashville in 1990 to work for R&R I was certainly familiar with the weekly newspaper from my days in radio. It was the publication for the radio industry and working there was a great entry into Nashville and the music business.

After four years in editorial and sales I moved on to Warner Bros., but R&R was still a daily part of my existence since it was my job to get records up its airplay charts. 

Three years ago R&R once again became part of my life when Nielsen, the company I was working for, bought it and closed Billboard Radio Monitor, the industry magazine I was writing for at the time. In March I was laid off from R&R in what was apparently a pre-cursor to today's news. 

There's a lot of speculation about the "whys" and "wherefores," but my own take is this: the editorial content that R&R offered, particularly on its Web site, was really no different than what could be found elsewhere. For readers and advertisers alike, there are simply more choices these days.

With few exceptions, the news that was on radioandrecords.com was the same news that was on allaccess.com and all the other radio industry-specific Web sites. With slight modifications, the "news" was simply a re-write of a press release. There was no further investigation or insight, which is something competitors Radio-Info.com and Inside Radio do very well.

As for the weekly magazine, the charts that were included were old news by the time they reached subscribers a week after they were first distributed via e-mail. Back in the day, before electronic distribution, I remember grabbing the magazine when it came in to A-B it with the station playlist. We didn't have local research and that was my way of finding out what was happening nationwide.

It's cliche to say that information moves faster these days, but it's the truth. I read more about the demise of R&R on Facebook in the minutes following the announcement than I did on any industry Web site. I'm sure Twitter and plain old texts spread the news quite quickly too. That's a fact that all newspapers and magazines face on a daily basis.

Is there a need for a weekly radio industry trade magazine anymore? My gut tells me there's not. Especially not at a time when information flashes past us in bite-sized morsels and radio programmers are stretched so thin that they don't have time to sit down.

Good Luck With That, Sherman

Sherman Murdock is out of his mind. The Tennessee State University senior has vowed to stay on-air at the campus station until he gets a job in broadcasting.

Murdock, who graduates on May 9, started a marathon airshift on May 1, and as of this writing, is still on the air. He has been offered a job, but it wasn't the one he wanted. "I've been offered a production job but I want to be a broadcaster," Murdock told The Tennessean.

Murdock hopes to land a broadcasting job in a top 25 market — his first choices being Chicago, his hometown; Los Angeles; or New York, he tells the paper.

Now I'm all for stunts designed to call attention to your hireability (if that's a word)—I once orchestrated a postcard campaign to lobby for what would turn out to be my first job in Nashville—but Sherm, think about what you're doing, son. 

Professor and station manager Joseph Richie has high hopes for Murdock, an honors student. "I think he's going to get a job because he's not going to stop until he gets what he wants," said Richie.

Professor Richie, what are you teaching these kids? Don't you know that a production job is your student's best shot at broadcasting in Chicago, L.A. and New York?

If Sherm can master production, he can write his own ticket. After all, voice tracking, which is nothing more than glorified production studio wizardry, is the wave of the present and future.

Heck, with Sherman's willingness to work hard—as evidenced by his marathon air session—he's already knocking on Ryan Seacrest's door. If he's willing to broadcast non-stop, without even stopping for a shower, he's a future radio star in the making. 

Further sealing his fate, Sherm's LinkedIn profile says he's already interned for Clear Channel in its Chicago cluster. Bada bing!

If I seem particularly critical of Sherman's future, it's only because my first radio job was doing weekend nights at a station in Parkersburg, W.Va. With Clear Channel's recent move to a decidedly less local model—and the rest of the radio business de-emphasizing home grown talent—guess who would still be a speech pathologist in the Wood County, W.Va., school system if it weren't for live and local?

On the other hand, I don't think they're outsourcing the morning announcements at elementary schools. Yet.

Loco, Not Local

I don't know why I'm surprised, but I am, at least to some extent. None of the radio industry trades have offered any analysis of yesterday's announcements by Clear Channel regarding "Premium Choice" programming (sounds like a satellite television menu offering) and increased attention to localism. Each and everyone of them pretty much reprinted the Clear Channel press releases intact.

I take that back. Tom Taylor on Radio-Info.com does seem to view the proceedings with more than a little skepticism. "Now it’s up to the local PDs (says Clear Channel) to select 'large portions, single pieces or none of the offered programming'," Taylor writes. "But if a particular daypart hasn’t measured up lately – do you really think the option would be 'none'?"

The gist of the story is this: local programmers can select from a menu of "premium choice" programming options to fill their local line-up. Morning guy not working out? Plug in Ryan Seacrest. Afternoon guy's ratings starting to fade? Plug in Seacrest (his show apparently fits almost anywhere).

Now, I'm not a Clear Channel hater. I never have been. I have friends that work for the company and there are things I admire about it. These initiatives are not among them. 

Call me old fashioned and out of touch, but when I was a teen I remember driving with a group of friends to downtown Cleveland to see the Sunday night jock on WGCL (G98) do his show through a window that faced the street. He wasn't particularly friendly, but he was there.

I also remember calling in a request to Dancin' Danny Wright, the morning man on that same station, and then listening for him to play it back on-air.

Not any more.

These days the country station in Cleveland, WGAR, only has two local dayparts, mornings and afternoons. Middays and nights are voice tracked out of Baltimore and overnights are syndicated. Cleveland, Ohio. Not Cleveland, Tenn.

CC is also increasing the number of PSAs stations do and making it easier for local officials to reach station management. Go figure.

Dan Miller, a longtime local television anchor here in Nashville, recently died suddenly. Thousands of viewers in the area are still mourning his loss because they saw him as a trusted friend—someone who came into their house every night. Competing stations ran stories about him, and two of those stations even covered news and answered the phones at his former station while his colleagues attended his funeral.

That's localism. A couple more PSAs on a radio station with a few, if any, local talent is not the same thing.

I just don't get how radio station owners can continue to fight calls for localism regulation from Capitol Hill and turn stations into satellite operations.

Gerry House on WSIX has built a large and loyal following and when the day comes that he dies (hopefully no time soon), he will be remembered in the same way as Miller: a trusted friend who was a part of our lives.

Then what? The country version of Seacrest syndicated from Tampa or somewhere else? 

It won't be the same.

It's Not Just The Music Or Radio Business

I know this may seem obvious given the current state of the economy and the mega-mergers of the last few years, but music business and radio folks are not alone in their frustrations with the current state of corporate life.

Yesterday afternoon I attended an introductory seminar at the local office of Lee Hecht Harrison, a national "career transition" firm. In my class were former employees of Sprint and AIG, among others. Amidst the bitterness and head-scratching of my fellow unemployees (is that a word? Probably not), I found an almost universal shared experience when it comes to the lack of creativity, fun and inspired leadership in their respective businesses.

"The two cultures never meshed," I heard from one classmate describing the few-years-old merger of Sprint and Nextel. 

"No red flag was raised with management when a seven person department overseas accounted for 42% of our division's revenue," another executive said of the eventual fallout that occurred when financial markets fell considerably.

Another classmate shared frustration about the revolving door of management one level above her.

Suffice it to say that the refrain sounded in the room sounded eerily familiar, which was both comforting and disconcerting.

There's no moral to this story, at least not from me, but it does make me wonder about re-entering the corporate world that has been home for pretty much all of my adult life.