Betting Against Apple

You can learn a lot by watching human behavior.

In fact, smart marketers never take their objective eyes off of how consumers enjoy their products and services.

Over a year ago I let you know that I believed Apple was going to announce a tablet mobile device to tuck in nicely between its laptop line and handheld devices like the iPhone and iPod.

Steve Jobs took his good time doing so – although sidelined with a liver transplant along the way. And last Wednesday Jobs announced that Apple, indeed, was going to start selling the Apple iPad.

Now here’s where it gets hairy, but also where we can all learn to be smarter.

The basic version of the iPad will not be available until March (WiFi only) and the larger more tweaked out version starting in April (3G, more storage).

But something fascinating has happened -- lots of people have suddenly become a critic.

Some have complained that the name iPad sounds like a feminine hygiene product.

Reviewers who, by the way, have not actually had a demo model of any iPad in their hands, have criticized it by emphasizing what the iPad doesn’t have – the ability to use many features at once (multitask), play flash, not big enough, too big, too much like an overgrown iPod Touch – you get the idea.

In our own backyard, the radio trades have been touting the iPad as a device that will allow users to hear radio – which is true -- if you use an app or call up a website. What is not helpful is ignoring that the iPhone and iPod Touch allow you to do that now and still few people listen to radio on these devices. Many download radio apps, but a huge number of them don’t use them.

These accounts also fail to mention that even an FM chip would likely not turn a device like an iPad into a radio. Sadly for them, nothing will turn a modern day mobile Internet device into a radio.

Radio will have to turn itself into a modern day content producer and marketer for mobile Internet devices.

Much was made of the FCC’s approval to allow FM HD stations to increase power to widen coverage, but HD radio is like a model T. Antiquated and irrelevant except to historians. In HD’s case, Edsel would be a better comparison than Model T.

So what we’re seeing again is total ignorance on the part of managers, CEOs and strategic planners – the very people banks lend money to, and investors trust their savings to.

They don’t get it.

It’s not about consumer industry analysts, or technology writers or for that matter, radio people who still in 2010 want to bring radio back with a new coat of paint.

My wife was at the Apple store at Scottsdale Quarter the day after Jobs made his announcement. She was there when it opened – I forgot a cord I needed for my Mac while I was around the corner doing my Media Lab. She counted 29 people lined up at the door waiting for the Apple store to open.

I have seen polls online on Apple news sites asking whether readers intended to buy an iPad. I realize that these readers are more likely to be Apple fans so I was less interested in yes or no answers and more interested in the fact that respondents checked off which iPad they most wanted to buy.

And it was the most expensive model – in the $800 range with 3G and, sit down for this, the Evil Empire of cellular carriers AT&T (again).

In other words, it is bad enough Apple fans have to put up with a crummy carrier like AT&T for their iPhones, but if they want a 3G version of the iPad, AT&T is not the right choice but the only choice (or more accurately no choice at all).

But don’t tell this to the experts in consumer electronics, or broadcasting or for that matter the music industry. They are convinced that the iPad will fizzle. Record industry blogger, the outspoken Bob Lefsetz, sent out an email blast to his readers basically saying he doesn’t need one. Another 50-something trend setter!

Not.

Well, you’ll never see me say what I need and then deduce that the marketplace will be like me. In fact, it is frequently the other way around.

The Time Warner AOL merger, perhaps the worst media merger ever, happened because AOL and then Time Warner thought it was best for them. Not the consumer. The consumer voted and Time Warner lost.

Comcast-NBC Universal merger isn’t for the good of the marketplace in spite of what the two desperate media companies are telling the Department of Justice. No monopoly, Uncle Sam. Of course, that’s a crock.

My money is on Steve Jobs because Jobs never takes his eyes off the people radio groups have lost of sight of for almost two decades now – the consumer/listener.

The iPad will be a big winner.

Why?

Because consumers will love watching movies on a 10-inch brilliant color screen (young people already do a lot of their TV and movie watching on their laptops. Jobs noticed and apparently others are not impressed).

They will like gaming, music, photos, calendars, addresses, word processing, the Internet, email, books and periodicals and the things Apple will surely add in the coming months to make the device event more robust.

I said I have my money on Steve Jobs and I mean it literally.

The stock market which usually discounts a stock upon performance and raises and lowers its value on speculation about the future has voted on the iPad already and Apple stock has lost a lot – seven dollars on Friday alone, the day after the announcement.

That’s all I need to know.

I told you I put my entire USC pension account into Apple a little over a year ago in this miserable recession and I have been rewarded by doubling the pot. So now, on Monday, I will buy Apple at $192.06 or lower. Apple could be a $300 stock within a year.

The lesson: if you want to know why the music industry and radio business can’t seem to make even one decent decision, look no further than management that doesn’t care to know what consumers want.

They haven’t learned that the mobile Internet is where the future is and they’d be conjuring up growth businesses right now if only they would look at their audiences who have adopted everything but more radio listening and record buying.

That’s the main reason why the entertainment industry recession is not about to end when the economy gets better. Write that down and check back with me.

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Radio’s Dirty Little Secrets

Have you noticed how Clear Channel is going from market to market to either eliminate or cutback expenses on local morning shows? This has been going on under the radar for several months now while President John Hogan is engaging a willing press in the thought they he could be Howard Stern’s next employer.

The Stern stuff is all fantasy made up by Hogan. Stern rebuffed his public overtures. Apparently Hogan needed Stern more than Stern needed Hogan – at least to run interference for Clear Channel’s continued extermination of morning talent.

Anyway, Hogan is just being a little shit -- playing with Mel and trying to drive the price tag up for any Stern Sirius XM renewal.

But there is a lot going on under the radar these days and the best way to shine sunlight on dastardly and cowardly treatment of good radio people is to – well, tell the world.

How Clear Channel Employees Protested Last Year’s Firings

I’ve always said even the Soviet Union couldn’t keep people behind the Berlin Wall. And now it seems the Union of Clear Channel Republics has a silent protest on their hands:

“On January 20, I spoke with a Clear Channel Market Manager who told me that most of his employees were wearing black that day. Men in black suits & black ties, women in black dresses, pants blouses. Even the engineers and on-air/production people wore black pants and t-shirts.

The Market Manager thought it was a quiet protest against the President's first year in office. No, an employee told him, ‘it's to honor the 19 people you fired on this day last year.’ I contacted 6 more CC markets and found only 1 other having the same quiet protest, but the Market Manager said his employee told him they ‘were spreading the word across CC markets and next year's protest would be bigger’”.

Cumulus Spins a Firing

When the syndicated Rickey Smiley Morning Show was added to Cumulus' Urban WEAS E93 FM in Savannah, GA, WMNX 97.3 FM in Wilmington, NC and WYNN 106.3 FM in Florence, SC the PR came out in force.

But this is the best part from the news release:

Cumulus VP of Urban Programming, Jim Kennedy adds, "This is an impact program that hits the ground from day one. The only people more excited than I am about adding Rickey Smiley are my programmers in Savannah, Florence, and Wilmington. They have been literally counting down the days."

Does he think anyone really believes the local program directors had a say in the matter?

Oh ... and Cumulus then proceeded to fire the Urban VP they forced to spit out all that bull – Jim Kennedy. Obviously, don’t go looking for a replacement.

Cumulus’ Lowest Commission Check Ever

This has to be a record!

Don’t believe it? Here it is straight from one of my repeater reporters:

“I am an ex account exec at Cumulus. My last check? $211.09 on almost $20,000 sales.”

How to Sue for Your Commissions

Here’s someone who did it twice and won – twice!

“Back in the ‘good old days’, about 18 yrs ago when consolidation was just beginning among smaller groups, I took 2 radio owners to the labor board (in a row) over commissions owed. In those days there were no pre-nups (signing away your rights to commissions beyond the day you leave work) and the California Labor Board was favorable to employees.

I did have to get a lawyer for the second one but he merely represented me in front of the board, it never went to trial. I received my money both times. After those experiences, I seriously considered writing an e-letter for broadcast employees regarding the ins and outs of the broadcast system and the legalities or illegalities of owners. The idea was inspired by Inside Radio but I never pursued it. Nevertheless, the actions you describe (in Inside Music Media) are all illegal but those employees have to be willing to fight.

I truly believe if they can handle it, they will get their money. I was always threatened that I'd "never work in the industry again" and it was untrue. That would be a pretty empty threat nowadays as there aren't any jobs anyway. I hope you encourage the readers to stand up for their rights and take it as far as they can stomach.”

Cumulus Buying Citadel?

Here’s what a Cumulus insider heard:

“I started with Cumulus … When the higher ups flew me into Atlanta to recruit me for Market Manager, it was mentioned to me then that they had planned on buying Citadel. They've made mention of this over and over again in Manager Meetings and other discussions”.

The Dickeys are so delusionary these days that maybe that’s their fantasy sport like you and I might play fantasy baseball or hockey.

Citadel is bankrupt.

But I’ll say this (and you may not believe me) but banks really like Lew Dickey. At the right moment he could probably get the funding especially if Citadel’s new owners (the creditor banks) want to cash out.

The Dickey’s never learned from the Susquehanna purchase that they couldn’t afford. Susquehanna was a great local radio company under David Kennedy. Look what the Dickeys did to it.

And radio CEOs don’t let a little debt get in the way of their big dreams – remember Farid Suleman’s purchase of ABC stations and networks? It eventually pushed Citadel into bankruptcy but it got Suleman another contract extension.

Based on that, don’t rule a Cumulus-Citadel merger out. What’s a little debt between friends?

Rate Your Favorite Consolidator

Here’s a site called Job Vent (“Reviews of Jobs We Love and Hate”).

Cumulus gets a -21.2 rating – zero people love it and ten hate it. See the downlow on Cumulus here.

Oh, and if you ever wondered why Cumulus hires so many people from Cintas uniform company, it may be because they are unhappy with their employer as well. Access the employee ratings of Cumulus’ favorite recruitment ground here.

Clear Channel gets a -18.54 with 1 “Love it” and 12 “hate it” ratings. See the damage here.

Good news travels fast, but so does bad news. The dirty little secrets of bad radio operators are coming out.

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CHIN02 - V/A "Windpipe Moods"

"The compilation eventually passes on a feeling of distanced unreality, of dreams coming true before your very eyes .... this comp is so vital and alive it's practically raw and bleeding. Impossible to package it, put a spin on it; it doesn't seem to represent a single 'scene' that dumb Sunday Times journalists could figure out; sometimes it's impossible to understand. Potentially, this could make you see things anew, renew your own world." - Sound Projector Magazine

A compilation of contemporary sound-poetry and voice/text/phonetic based sound-art, featuring otherwise unreleased tracks by some of the world's leading practitioners, including Jaap Blonk, C Spencer Yeh, Sue Tompkins, Erik Belgum, Penn Kemp, Joerg Piringer, and many more.



Originally released on Mukow CD in 2004, this Ergo Phizmiz curated compilation is available now, free, Creative Commons, 320kbps mp3.

Radio's iPad Wake-up Call

President Obama may not have attracted as much interest in his State of the Union speech as Steve Jobs did in his State of Innovation presentation yesterday.

Jobs delivered the new Apple tablet -- iPad -- with almost everything we expected and more.

And he's offering iPads for as low as $499 for the basic model starting in March with tweaked out models coming in April.

As you probably already know, the 9.7-inch LED screen delivers the web, videos, photos, 140,000 apps compatible with your other Apple devices and a book store. The new iPad may kill the Kindle which by comparison is black and white in more ways than one.

Calendars, a new iWork program that uses a pop up disappearing keyboard like the iPhone, textbooks, games in spectacular brilliance -- the perfect size for gaming.

Apple has deals with all the major book publishers and many newspapers. The question Steve Jobs did not answer was about the ability of publishers to run paid publications.

I'll answer it: it is absolutely on the way.

It plays your music library from the iTunes store and will allow you to access Pandora and local radio stations, but you'll have to use an app to do it.

Inside Radio put a happy face on the new Apple product that does not include a radio:

"'A great way to enjoy your entire music collection,' Apple CEO Steve Jobs says of their decision to integrate the company's existing music technology into the much-anticipated tablet computer unveiled today in San Francisco. 'It has a built-in iPod,' Jobs says. The iPad will run existing iPhone applications, such as Clear Channel's iheartradio".

That's it.

No HD radio, but then again no one wants an HD radio not even broadcasters.

No FM radio (yet). And if and when one is added, it will get the same lackluster results as the one on iPod Touch.

At my Media Solutions Lab today, we will be having at this powerful new device and the infrastructure that Apple brings with it. Because what iPad is is the opposite of radio.

It is content and applications on-demand.

And the birth of the iPad should be a loud wake-up call to the handful of CEOs who run the radio industry that more distance has been placed between the radio they want to do and the content that consumers seem to crave.

No one would ever invent 24/7 broadcasting today if it hadn't already been invented. When radio came on the scene, technology only allowed audio transmission on the AM band for consumer use. And consumers adapted by staying home and sitting around their radios to be entertained by audio.

When television came along, these same folks sat around a TV screen -- a little one with grainy lines and sketchy reception -- and watched. You can bet it was appointment viewing in the era that preceded video recorders and DVRs.

Radio adapted by changing its focus to music formats, news, talk and succeeded with a local focus.

But when the world changed two things happened.

The Internet came along and so did consolidators. And consolidators danced to the tunes of Wall Street while just about sitting the Internet revolution out (no major broadcast company spends even 3% of their operating budget on things digital).

Now the mobile Internet is here and will use the next decade to set a new standard of delivery and content.

On-demand has arrived.

Wake-up!

Radio is not going to survive in the bubble consolidators are presently living in. Radio must be local. Not cut-down versions of its former self.

Radio people will survive and in fact, thrive as they migrate into new media. Because consolidators have been foolish enough to let their talent go, they are now free to move about the country pursing new media.

So now that the radio industry downplays the fact that the iPad, too, has passed them by, I'd like to suggest a few things radio owners (or radio people) can do to be part of this revolution:

1. Conceive, produce and market podcasts using video, audio and text for the mass market. The localer the better (localer isn't a word, is it? It should be in radio). With the paid Internet on the way, charge $1.99 for a podcast or a set amount for a subscription. I am sure Apple will eventually be able to handle this seamlessly.
   
2. Hybrid websites/streaming content that will be built for the iPad. If you're morning talent looking for a place to put your show, design it for the iPad and that website will be available online. Fans can access it and enjoy you on that 9.7-inch device as easily as they would have listened to you on the radio. But adjustments will have to be made. Digital content is not necessarily radio or video.
3. Local businesses -- I like zip code specific content sites that have video, audio and text and that can be accessed on mobile phones and devices like the iPad. Anyone with meaningful content can eventually access the platform.
4. Newspapers and periodicals -- the handheld tablet in living color will be home to the next evolution of print. But trying to push a newspaper into a website and then onto an iPad is a mistake. That, too, needs to be reinvented for the available technology and how consumers want to enjoy the periodicals of the future. Apple reinvented many programs it included on the iPad and content suppliers will have to do the same.
5. Market e-books. Ricky Gervais has bestseller after bestseller on the Apple store and his e-books are routinely purchased by fans. Ricky's thing is comedy but the e-book concept just got brighter and better with the iPad. Gervais sells most of his e-books for $1.95 (a few for $3.95) and they fly off the digital shelf.
6. On-demand radio. That is, the personalities and music authorities that radio has been dismissing can return to their fans in this new genre. While the radio industry thinks that people will want to hear radio online, what listeners really will want is to hear knowledgeable authorities and personalities presenting music.
   

Keep in mind that if you're thinking the car is still a place for audio, you may want to think again. The car is an entertainment center that costs $15,000 or more (and they throw in the tires). Consumers will be texting, watching, talking, viewing and listening in automobiles.

The bad news is that the radio industry has locked out its talent from the very things it could produce so well.

The good news is that payback is a bitch and radio people have just seen their new careers and their former employers as the endangered species.

Now, it's time to learn more about technology and the sociology of entertainment. Steve Jobs said Apple makes such compelling products because they understand a blend of technology and liberal arts.

Radio owners understand how to drive a good business down.

Radio people know how to entertain and inform and I'm telling you the future just got brighter today.

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The Apple Tablet’s Effect on Radio

Today, Steve Jobs will finally tell us what the much anticipated Apple tablet is all about.

A lesson for the advertising community: appreciate the value of silence.

Steve Jobs has gotten millions of dollars worth of free publicity from a product that consumers have imagined. Apple has had help from the media but not since the introduction of the iPhone have consumers been so spellbound.

I have seen some estimate that Jobs has already garnered $40 million worth of free publicity.

Wow!

Of course the radio industry should be taking this product introduction very seriously because what Apple does from now on will absolutely either drive a nail through terrestrial radio or give it new life after an extensive reinvention.

One of my readers and attendees at my Media Solutions Lab sent me a great piece from Popular Mechanics about “Six Industries Apple's Tablet Could Shake Up”

They are: comic books, magazine publishing, newspaper publishing, mobile gaming, netbooks and PC parts. The article is excellent and I’ll let you see for yourself their take on the next Apple device.

But I want to focus on radio and music.

If the new tablet is anywhere near what intelligence reports (and speculation) has hinted, this mobile handheld device will feature a colorful screen, a virtual keyboard and the mobile Internet. I’m also expecting Jobs to have a few manufacturing marvels for us and I say this with little fear because this product is his baby.

Fortunately, the day after the Jobs announcement, my Media Solutions Lab will convene in Scottsdale and we’ll have an opportunity to put the technology into a business as well as a sociological perspective.

The effect of the tablet will in the long rang be devastating to terrestrial radio as it has evolved today.

Nevermind that any mobile Internet device can pick up streaming media. That will not be enough. Heck, only 3% of all terrestrial radio listening comes from the online stream now thanks to laptops and desktop computers and smart phones. Could that number double or triple?

It just doesn’t matter because the mobile device that made radio what it is was a portable or car radio. Now, everything changes.

Time for innovation in the radio and music businesses.

Consumers get to read, hear and see video on-demand using these new devices so there are lots of new choices and the tablet will likely have a nice sized color screen.

I feel badly for the gaming industry because like radio it was once flying high and unlike radio its prosperity did not last many, many decades. The gaming industry is toast once Apple gets these tablets into consumers’ hands.

Newspapers should be counting the seconds until this device comes along because they have a second bite at the apple (small “a”) so to speak.

But, newspaper publishers can’t take crowded websites with inferior reporting and push them to consumer tablets. They’ve got to come up something worth paying for because I believe the tablet, utilizing the iTunes store, will make it possible for publishers to charge micropayments.

That’s why I say it is worth the effort to not only study the device but how consumers enjoy that device.

The TV industry is already in real trouble without the tablet.

While consumers like to watch video entertainment, the networks must compete with so many non-traditional sources that TV time is reduced almost as much as attention spans. TV networks and a whole new category of content producers could make what I call “Hulu television” – shorter programs, designed for mobile and with a new form of monetization.

Again, Jobs is likely to offer existing cable channels such as ESPN for a monthly subscription fee and because the tablet will be so cool and consumers trust Apple to be the aggregator of such content, the monthly fee concept will likely work where it has failed before.

The music industry shoots itself in the foot every year. Jobs is going to help them out (and help himself first and foremost). He will offer LaLa-type streaming music that consumers can also add on to their monthly bills. If the Apple platform gets big enough, it could generate nice profits for labels, artists, publishers and Apple.

The missing link to the Internet revolution has been the mobile Internet. Don’t get me wrong. It was always there. Now it will be cool, intuitive, interactive and portable.

Apple is going to do for the mobile Internet what it did for mobile devices (iPods) and phones (iPhone) – putting cool devices into the hands of consumers.

That brings me to radio.

Radio could do the same thing, but ...

The geniuses running radio into the ground these days have pissed away almost all of their original content. You see, these guys think it's cheaper to be everyone’s iPod. And the People Meter has turned out to be the radio industry’s bitch – that is, their excuse for dumping air talent in favor of constant cheap music programming.

In other words, critical mistakes were made to dilute local radio -- news, talk, music – and do repeater radio. So now that there is a device that consumers will likely buy (estimates are between 1-10 million the first year for the tablet), the elements radio listeners would like to have accessed on this thing are gone.

Let me be clear – I am not saying a traditional morning show will work five years from now on an Apple tablet, but traditional morning talent using new formatics, social networking, the connectivity of the mobile platform and new means of monetization will work and succeed if new entrepreneurs want to come along and get into that space.

Radio has shut itself out.

For everyone else, there’s my Media Solutions Lab tomorrow morning.

Radio may be deader than a doornail on the burgeoning mobile Internet but radio talent is alive and kicking. Mobile Internet is the future. The mobile Internet is radio people’s next career.

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Howard Stern on Clear Channel

You gotta love Howard Stern.

This guy is the shrewdest, smartest radio talent to come along ever! Now you may not like what he does on-the-air – that’s your call. I’m talking about the way Howard Stern understands the hypocrisy we call the radio business these days.

So Stern’s $500 million Sirius XM contract is up this year and you know what that means?

Stern threatens to leave the satellite network that made him Rush Limbaugh rich.

And then deny interest in being censored on terrestrial radio. It’s pure theater of the mind or pure mindf#@k.

All that threatening makes good programming. In fact, it makes good comedy.

But the funniest thing I’ve heard is that Clear Channel may want Howard Stern.

In a story first broken by Joel Denver’s All Access, Clear Channel President John Slogan Hogan professed his potential interest in hiring Stern.

Apparently thinking all those talented morning shows Clear Channel was and is firing were chopped liver, Hogan says his is as big as Mel’s (Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin).

Hogan told Bloomberg BusinessWeek:

“We clearly have both the willingness and the financial wherewithal to consider high-profile talent. We would be the most logical company for him to optimize his exposure and financial return”.

What?

I thought Lex and Terry got wasted for money reasons. How about cutting back the outstanding Gerry House moneymaking show? How about all those other shows that Clear Channel just couldn’t afford.

Boy, Hogan is working overtime to make me look good because I’ve been saying all along that Clear Channel’s interest in firing people is what keeps them going. After all, imagine how many more unemployed morning personalities and air talent will be “laid off” should Clear Channel in their dreams turn Howard Stern’s show into Ryan Seacrest Hamburger helper.

Hamburger Helper radio-style means the stuff you add right from the box that makes your local radio stations cheaper to operate.

Could Clear Channel afford $500 million or more for Howard Stern?

Of course!

Could Clear Channel afford to pay local personalities?

What do you think?

Hogan bragged to Bloomberg BusinessWeek that the fact that Clear Channel employs Limbaugh and Seacrest proves they could employ Howard Stern, too.

If I’m a Clear Channel employee right now I’m getting really pissed.

One minute the company cries poor mouth.

The next minute it’s shooting its mouth off to the business press about spending half a billion or more for Howard Stern.

How can that be good for business?

Do the math.

Say Clear Channel pays $500 million for four or five years of Howard Stern. They could fire enough morning talent to more than cover the salaries of local people over that time period plus…

Save on benefits and health care.

Now how evil is that?

But don’t worry. Stern is not likely to be a Clear Channel employee. He doesn’t even like them. And, Hogan can’t handle Stern. Stern’s a very bright guy. And Hogan? Well --

There would be one benefit to Stern on Clear Channel stations.

It would sure be great radio listening to hear Howard Stern make fun of John Hogan every day. How long do you think the thinned skin master of slogans could take that?

If you go back to where I started – you know, the part about Stern being the shrewdest, smartest radio talent to come along then you’ll just giggle at Hogan and Stern as they pretend to dance with each other.

There would be no Howard Stern without Mel Karmazin.

Period.

Say what you want about Mel but he is also a champion of free speech. Karmazin has spent a nice tidy sum on defending Stern against the FCC and others during his Infinity and CBS employment.

Mel’s got thick skin. Howard can take him apart on air but to Mel it’s all business.

And keep in mind that Mel was not the Sirius CEO who actually hired Stern – Mel was still serving his time under Sumner Redstone when Sirius paid $500 million for Howard’s services. Of course, it was genius because nothing made a second rate satellite network first rate faster than a real giant sized radio personality.

Duh!

Sirius wanted to attract subscribers.

Hogan lusts after more savings.

Mel really does fight for free speech and has the check stubs to prove it.

Hogan would flinch when the heat is on.

Oh, and one more thing.

What about that “zero” tolerance debacle Clear Channel announced years ago to suck up to the FCC? Remember how they pulled Stern from their stations rather than put in more delay or cleanse the show by broadcasting it an hour later after their censors had made it pristine?

What about that, John?

Looks like Bloomberg BusinessWeek should have asked anyone in the radio industry to come up with better questions for John Hogan.

What Stern ought to do after having conquered terrestrial radio and became rich as the marquee Sirius satellite radio attraction is move forward into new media – not back to an industry that is working hard to kill itself off.

No.

My money is on Stern staying at Sirius. He’ll be paid well – real well. And Mel will protect him as will the fact that satellite radio does not follow the same standards as terrestrial radio.

Stern’s no fool.

The fool is John Hogan for blowing his cover on the rationale for massive cutbacks even as he has been eliminating morning shows or reducing costs in the last 30 days.

And for thinking that Howard Stern would work for radio’s version of The Terminator.

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How to Rehire Radio People

For the past two years, the ranks of American radio stations have been reduced by thousands and thousands of people.

Consolidators who found that they could not repay the loans they took out to buy their stations had no other way to cut costs. After all, the biggest expense at a radio station is talent.

Of course, the biggest asset at a radio station is also talent.

So, consolidators like Clear Channel, Cumulus and Citadel devastated their local operations, invented
cheap ways to import networked, syndicated or voice tracked programming and while they were at it -- committed one more act of hari-kari.

Firing sales people.

Now there are disturbing signs that the firing of managers, sales managers, account execs, program directors, air personalities, support personnel and engineers was more than just a way to save money.

Cumulus, Clear Channel and Citadel actually are practicing a nondiscriminatory version of ethnic cleansing. Nondiscriminatory because these consolidators will fire anyone regardless of their age, talent, race, importance, desirability or productivity.

Firing experienced and therefore more expensive personnel and replacing them with wet behind the ears cheap workers.

Cumulus replaces fired workers from a uniform company.

Clear Channel thinks ex-hotel workers and out of work Enron execs make good replacements.

Citadel hires whomever will work for their company at the cheapest pay grade.

Then, last week, as I commented in this space, the Broadcasters Foundation under the leadership of Phil Lombardo decided to take what is reported to be a $125,000 “gift” from broadcasting disgrace Lowry Mays and name an award after him as thanks.

What an uproar it caused. Jimmy Carnegie's RBR poll shows over 60% of the respondents think the Mays money is tainted.

This boys club – The Broadcasters Foundation – did what it does best. That is, running an elitist group.

That turns out to be spitting in the face of all the other people not named Mays who have given money year in and year out to the Broadcasters Foundation to help it do its good work – support the downtrodden, unemployed, ill and disadvantaged broadcasting industry employees.

Lately, that’s a lot of people.

But ask around – few radio people even know of The Broadcasters Foundation. And even though there are no doubt legitimate examples of how television and radio people have been helped in their time of need, the Mays debacle has focused attention on this group of big spenders who live high off the hog while gifting less money than they could to our needy brethren.

Just look at the IRS tax returns for this non-profit organization.

Salaries and expenses from the most recent 2008 fiscal year reveal Broadcasters Foundation execs Gordon Hastings and Jim Thompson accounted for one-tenth of the entire operating budget. It must cost a lot to employ executives to give out money to unemployed radio people.

Hastings made $189,000 and Thompson earned $72,000 accounting for over 15% of The Broadcasters Foundation annual revenue. No doubt these are two talented guys, but come on – The Broadcasters Foundation is a charity.

Is it full time work?

You be the judge.

Eight employees.

Doing what?

What’s worse is that expenses exceed the gifts made to help needy broadcasters.

There's $45,900 for rent - $3,825 per month for "pricey digs" in midtown Manhattan. As one of my readers remarked, “Why isn't this outfit based in a Quonset Hut over in Bayonne?” Bayonne is nice this time of year.

Another $65,000 for "office expenses."

The salaries and expenses come to about 41% of the total budget.

Comparing The Broadcasters Foundation to other organizations of this type reveals that effective charities keep salaries and overhead under 25% of their annual budget.

The Broadcasters Foundation, therefore, is ineffective by that gold standard.

As one watchdog tells me, “To add more insult, this outfit LOST money on its investments last year - something Hastings & Thompson should be monitoring closely”.

The board of directors seems to be bullied by the oversized personality of Lombardo.

This matters because good people and good companies are giving substantial money for good works and their money is being – well, let’s just say, not optimized at a time of great need.

And maybe that’s how the "Lowry Mays Excellence in Broadcasting" award came about.

A social club for the working and well paid elite disguised as a mild mannered charity to help less than one percent of the victims in years of Lowry Mays firings.

This is insane.

My friend Eric Rhodes, the publisher of one of my favorite trade publications Radio Ink, is a great booster of radio. But in a rant the other day, Rhodes lost it:

“Recently an industry blogger wrote a vicious attack on the Broadcasters Foundation, encouraging others to stop supporting the organization because it had named an award after Lowry Mays, whom this man claims "raped" the radio industry with the cost-cutting practices at Clear Channel”.

That industry blogger is me – my name is right there on the article. I'm not hiding.

I never used the word "raped", though.

And the attack was not as vicious as what Mays and Clear Channel and the other establishment radio groups have been doing to their employees.

Incredibly, Rhodes said:

“No matter what you may think Mays has done to the industry, at least he's giving back to it. As far as I'm concerned, the foundation could do a Larry Flynt Award if it brought in the income to save the families of struggling broadcasters”.

You’re kidding, right Eric?

Mays giving back to an industry he pillaged.

Well, that’s not where I’m coming from.

So let me lay it out as simply and clearly as possible:

1. Don’t make donations to this poorly run, misguided and insensitive Broadcaster’s Foundation. Start a new one that exists to be a charity.
2. Let’s go to Bob Neil and Bruce Reese and Dan Mason and a number of other good operators and establish a real outreached for fired employees. Get volunteers to administer the charity. They can help. So can the NAB if it wanted to.
3. Give away at least 75% of what you raise for helping people in need.
4. Let’s make sure everyone in radio who needs help knows how to get it (not the ineffective excuse The Broadcasters Foundation has for getting the word out).
5. Put a few unemployed people on the board of directors – that’s one way to keep a clear conscience and make some better decisions.
6. Make retraining part of the new charity’s mission. I’ll donate a special “lab” on this topic and you won’t even have to name an award after me.
7. And for God’s sake, have a formal way to funnel job openings to the people who were “laid off” so they can get back to work in a meaningful way.

But no matter what happens, let’s agree on this.

From now on, let’s not turn our backs on the people who built radio into the industry that Wall Street coveted so much that banks bought everything in sight.

Let’s have some respect for the talented folks who still toil under bad conditions doing more than one job without the resources and often without the gratitude.

And let’s not ever think it is okay for the biggest, baddest consolidator of all, Lowry Mays, the man who caused the most destruction of local radio, to be pardoned by an elitist social club hiding as an ineffective distributor of charitable gifts.

If Mays wants his image to be rehabilitated, he can start with “I’m sorry”.

Then, proceed by rehiring the people his company fired.

He can keep his $125,000.

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CHIN01 - The Travelling Mongoose "Singin' In The"

An evocative collage of sound-recordings made during 2009 by UK based sound-artist, filmmaker, and designer The Travelling Mongoose. A multitracked journey through natural and artificial sonic environments, the juxtapositions produce a strange narrative through subtle incongruities, with compositional sense of movement and reflection. "Singin' in The" is an almost theatrical, "mood" piece of sound-art, containing a very quiet Surrealist edge, creating an audio picture of the natural world that doesn't quite behave how we expect it to.

The Travelling Mongoose produces field-recordings, electroacoustic music, electronic music, foley, radio, and rock'n'roll, who has worked extensively across a wide range of contexts across the past fifteen years, including short films, children's animations, rock'n'roll bands, live sound-collage, and mash-up radio.

This is the first release on Chinstrap, the new netlabel from Ergo Phizmiz.

Download album (Archive.org)

Download album artwork:
CD cover - Print 1 - Print 2 - Print 3 - Print 4

Clear Channel’s Latest Salary Dump

Wednesday, after I wrote about the Broadcasters’ Foundation selling out to Lowry Mays’ image rehabilitation program – a donation for an award named in the founder of Clear Channel’s honor – one of my readers wrote to remind me that it was probably an April Fools joke.

In radio lately, every day is April Fool’s Day it seems.

But my reader has the right idea for Phil Lombardo and the Broadcasters’ Foundation – just declare the “The Lowry Mays Excellence in Broadcasting Award” an April Fools joke.

Donors have written to say they are pulling Foundation funding as long as the Mays funded award exists. One even sent me a copy of a letter he wrote to the Foundation to inform them they will be getting no more funding from his group.

The Foundation insult has turned into a lightning rod for the thousands of talented radio people who have lost their jobs at the hands of the big radio operators and their lemmings – most notably Clear Channel, Cumulus and Citadel.

Lest we forget, one year ago Clear Channel orchestrated its second mass firing almost as if it were a promotional activity. The timing couldn’t have been more insulting since it was Inauguration Day.

I thought you’d appreciate an update on the people who lost their jobs and the kinds of under the radar tomfoolery the consolidators are still trying.

It’s awful – on one hand you get slapped in the face by a Foundation that supposedly exists to help out of work and downtrodden radio people and on the other that same Foundation names an award for the biggest unemployer in the history of broadcasting.

Last year's Inauguration Day massacre was sold as a necessary step to right the Clear Channel ship. Many victims of Mays and company have not been able to find employment in the industry they love. Some have told me they subsequently went to work at Wal-Mart. Others have taken non-industry jobs to pay the bills – obviously they are not getting rich like the Wall Street equity holders who screw up and take a bonus.

Few victims are still working in radio.

Some are ill – or they have family members who are sick. They just want to get through it.

Another thing I’m just going to put out there so you can hear it – is that many, many fired radio people have lost their self-esteem since their livelihood was taken away. Fired en mass in some cases. Relieved and then shown the door in others without being able to say goodbye or take their personal belongings.

Nothing about these layoffs has been done with dignity.

Cumulus, the lean mean Dickey machine, has even been accused of trying to keep people they discarded from working for competitors by threatening to enforce non-competes. In other cases employees were forced to sign non-competes after they were let go to get their final paychecks.

Citadel is apparently coming up lame with severance money – guess that bankruptcy is just another excuse.

And Cumulus among other radio groups is being accused by former employees of not paying commissions owed upon termination or resignation.

Bullying is a big tactic as lawsuits are being threatened against fired employees as a seemingly standard operating procedure.

I wish this were all a bad dream and we could wake up and take radio back, but what I am relating to you is what I have been hearing from other victims of radio’s demise. The very people who built radio into businesses that investment bankers overpaid for in the first place.

But it gets worse.

Clear Channel is back to salary dumping again apparently learning that mass firings come off like the executions they are so now the new way to put people out of work is to do it quietly and not tell truth about it.

Look at Clear Channel.

They fired two top rated personalities in Pittsburgh within the past few weeks. See the stories at these links. Click here and here. Note the repeater radio that is used to replace some of the fired --- cheap programming from their bevy of Prime Choice, Tainted Chuck or whatever they call syndication programming that isn’t as good as local radio.

It’s not an isolated example, Clear Channel did the same thing in San Diego – another week/another market. Dumped a huge morning show in San Diego, Dave Shelly and Chainsaw who'd been at KGB for over 20 years.

Clear Channel said they couldn’t reach an agreement but they then ran an add looking for a morning show for KGB – a cheap morning show.

And in Texas, Clear Channel is ever so politically correct as it ditches Lex & Terry as a local show on KEGL, Dallas which had served as their flagship station. Their syndicated show survives to help eliminate the need for local talent salaries in other markets but as far as KEGL -- well, they want more music, less personality and cheaper talent even if it happens to be local.

But it's not just Clear Channel.

Here’s what a former radio employee named Ted Turner had to do when he ran up against the Lean Mean Dickey Machine:

“After working over 10 years for the money grubbing Dickey's they let me and several others go - yet wanted me to be bound by my non-compete. I had to hire a lawyer to make the non-compete go away. For others who have been intimidated by the Dickeys and their non-compete contracts.

"My Lawyer pointed out that they have been inconsistent in enforcing their non-compete clauses and in my case owed (me) more more (sic) as stated in my contract......We got the money and the non-compete was never an issue again. Don't let the Dickey Boys and their in house Lawyer frighten you. That same lawyer tried to call me after being contacted by my Lawyer that I was represented by him as my Lawyer. He then had to refresh the (Cumulus) Mouth piece about Lawyering 101 - " All communication must go through my Lawyer " We never heard from them again”.

But the worst of all is that one year almost to the day after Clear Channel fired 1,850 more people – and 11 months after they started exterminating careers more quietly under the radar, guess what the Evil Empire does?

Participates in the PhoenixHires job fair in Phoenix according to local TV station ABC15.com and becomes one of 21 companies who the TV news site said were ready to hire people on the spot.

On the spot!

Just like Cumulus hires wet behind the ears cheap workers to replace higher salaried and more talented employees to continually trim the budget.

So here is my conclusion.

The major radio consolidators disrupted lives, ended careers and doubled or tripled workloads to get an opportunity to cleanse their groups of people earning a livable wage.

One year later, never forget – what’s happened to radio is what has also happened to the country and our economy.

The banks have had their way with the radio industry propping up the likes of Dickey, Mays and Suleman and they skate away having ruined the industry and decimated the work force only to live another day under bankruptcy protection with all the radio stations they've compromised still firmly in their possession.

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The Tipping Point for Radio

Radio will be left out of Steve Jobs' new mobile tablet device that he is expected to announce next Wednesday.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book of the same name defined the tipping points to be "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable".

My friends, we are about to witness history next week when Apple provides the electronics, the infrastructure and the consumer confidence (no small thing) to save traditional media.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal alluded to Apple's goals. No one will know until Apple CEO Steve Jobs comes down from high to announce the next big thing, but speculation is running rampant.

The tablet could allow for cable television subscriptions customized by the user and billed to their Apple account. Music may be streamed and safely tucked away on a "cloud" for instant access anywhere on any device -- again, for a monthly fee.

Monthly fees have failed miserably in the music sector but Apple could pull it off with a cool new device that allows consumers to read books, save the newspaper industry from itself, access school textbooks, read PDFs, go online, use apps from Apple's app store, play video and movies at a whim, listen to Internet radio and Pandora and on and on.

But what appears to be left out is radio -- terrestrial radio.

You see, the tipping point has already been reached in radio and the momentum cannot be stopped. Consolidators and their followers have killed off local programming and local personalities. They've done this with a smile on their faces (after all, remember a year ago when Clear Channel laid off almost 2,000 people and said that was going to fix the industry?).

Maybe it would be better to rename the tipping point the Dipping Point in the case of the radio industry. Turns out less was never more. Any idiot knows less is not more.

Even an alien from Mars would know that to dilute local radio for the economies of repeater radio, Imus in the Morning, syndication, voice tracking and cheap programming is compromising the industry's future.

And now, next week, radio will see just what bean counter planning earned it -- a footnote at best on the most fabulous new consumer device and entertainment platform ever devised.

Radio is not necessary to people other than radio executives.

Yes, I know -- 236 million people listen to radio every week according to Radar and big CHR stations still pull in millions of listeners (if you count People Meter metrics as listeners).

I would respond, if radio is strong at 236 million people, why was the industry declining even before the recession? I know from my work teaching the next generation -- radio has by its own hand removed itself from the soundtrack of its listeners' lives.

Radio studies layoffs and new ways to get health care companies to buy spots while consumers get their news and entertainment online and from mobile devices. And advertisers are now telling radio stations what they think of them by driving the price for commercials down to the lowest levels ever.

Steve Jobs studies sociology and then invents the technology.

Radio studies "layoffology" and then invents a breed of radio that is easily left off the next must have media device.

We've got it all ass backwards.

The Wall Street Journal article's only mention of radio is Internet radio.

Here it is:

"People familiar with Apple's plans say a central part of the new strategy is to populate as many Web sites as possible with 'buy' buttons, integrating iTunes transactions into activities like listening to Internet radio and surfing review Web sites. "

This is what we talk about in this space all the time and what I will cover at my Media Solutions Lab next week.

Innovation!

Yet, the radio industry is content to sit still and miss the next wave after having denied its way through the Internet revolution for the past decade. Why do you think every major broadcast company budgets less than 3% at best for Internet/mobile and digital operations? Isn't that wrong? The Internet will be the thing historians look back on 50 years from today -- not towers and transmitters.

Not good for companies whose money is tied up in FCC licenses and old transmitters.

One of my readers points out,

"When Google retreated from trying to sell radio advertising, radio companies saw that as a victory. I saw it as a defeat. When I ran radio stations, I embraced dMarc and then thought it was great when Google bought it. Pfft. Gone".

The Dipping Point for radio is next week -- when all the foolish, selfish, destructive things consolidators and their equity holders have done to the industry comes home to roost.

But the Tipping Point for new media also arrives on the same day. This exciting future -- creating content, marketing brands, selling things -- becomes a growth industry.

This growth industry isn't going to come to us -- we have to go get it. Learn about it. Retrain ourselves. Certainly, we must become adept at understanding generational media. (I am doing an impactful and entertaining module on generational media at my Lab next week. It will give attendees a sense of how to see the similarities and differences in generational media and what to do with them).

Radio people have all the raw talent to learn skills for the era of new media content that will be institutionalized next Wednesday when Apple speaks. The ones that sit back and refuse to think differently (as Apple would say) will most certainly be left behind.

The long-awaited digital future is days away. Let's watch it develop together and find ways to become a part of it.

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The Lowry Mays Excellence In Broadcasting Award

I’m going to puke.

And apparently you are ready to lose it, too, if my mail is any indication.

Excellence and Mays in the same sentence – are they kidding?

If you haven’t already heard, The Broadcasters Foundation of America has created the Lowry Mays Excellence in Broadcasting Award to “salute” the founder of Clear Channel.

Is this a joke?

Yes and no.

It’s true enough alright but it is still a joke and an affront to an industry that has been ruined by the very consolidation tactics Mays and his family used to line their pockets and reduce great local stations to repeater radio.

The Broadcasters Foundation of America has in the past been a pretty good group of people who, as part of their mission, offer money to out of work or down on their luck broadcasters in radio and television.

And no one has done more to put broadcasters out of work and down on their luck than Lowry Mays and Clear Channel.

I’ve never been much for political correctness so no one is going be tempted to give me any award even for trash collector. I’m just happy to have your vote every morning when you click to read me.

But are we all going to seriously sit around and watch a travesty put out there by this group that is embraced and promoted by the happy talk press?

I’ve got my baggage with Mays and Clear Channel so I’m going to lay it out there for those of you who don’t know before I say another word. We have no secrets. We tell each other everything.

Mays and Clear Channel sued my publication Inside Radio for $100 million. That’s right $100 million. Alleged RICO (racketeering). Said I made up the stories but never proved it. Ran a website that Clear Channel called a parody that denigrated my Italian heritage, insinuated that my father was in the mob (he was dead at the time and a good man, I can assure you).

I countersued for $125 million. Texas lawyers (theirs) vs. New York lawyers (mine). That alone could have stimulated the economy. Sit down for this. I spent $800,000 of money I really didn't have fighting them (selling my house, my office building, etc.) until they suddenly had a change of heart and decided to buy Inside Radio and make me richer than I deserved to be.

Money is nice but that's no way to get it. I was fortunate.

So, you can see why I am seeing red this morning when this group is trying to make that man a nice guy.

But if all of that never happened to me, how about the thousands of radio folks – many my dear friends – who were first asked by Clear Channel to take on more work, then hog tied with budget cuts and finally laid off (their term for fired). These folks are good people trying to send their kids through college, earn a living and do what they love to do – radio.

They didn't ask to be rich. Just employed.

Some were humiliated – sent home on the day they were fired with an escort to the front door, not allowed to clean out their desks.

Others were ill, some critically who were also compromised at a time when employment was crucial.

Clear Channel even made a promotional event out of firing by conducting a mass firing in the thousands like it was a sweepstakes on Barack Obama's Inauguration Day.

I’m sorry Lowry had a stroke. I really am. I’m not like that and I don’t wish personal harm or illness to anyone including him, but this urge to deify a “bad motorcycle”, as my 50’s readers might call him, is just plain misguided.

And … an insult to radio people who have seen their jobs vanish and the industry they love in various stages of decline at the hands of the likes of Mays, Suleman, Dickey, Hogan and the entire bankruptcy team.

That’s right – they made a fortune on the way to bankruptcy or at least selling out to avoid bankruptcy.

So now, a suck up foundation is going to make a saint out of this devil?

Not so fast.

Sometimes before we meet our maker we want to right our wrongs and show remorse for our sins. Even death row prisoners do this occasionally.

But I don’t hear Mays apologizing for anything at all – nothing -- and I have certainly not ever heard a word of remorse from this guy and believe me, I hang onto his every word as you might imagine after my brush up with Darth Vader.

If you’re not livid by now, take a look at what passed for a news release yesterday and how full of bull it really is.

Warning: You are entering a bullshit zone.

“Clear Channel Foundation and the law firm Wiley Rein have contributed $125,000 to fund the award, which BFA chairman Phil Lombardo says will honor a broadcaster each year whose work exemplifies excellence in broadcasting, with elements of innovation, community service, advocacy and entrepreneurship”.

What!

Clear Channel’s favorite law firm of the month gets anointed in a saintly fashion, too!

Have they no shame?

I wonder what it took to make the law firm of Wiley Rein to dig into their pockets and contribute to the $125,000 price package – perhaps a look at how much money they make suing people for and defending The Evil Empire.

My friend, John Rook, the outstanding and legendary program director was bankrupted by Mays and his crew – left virtually broke and with his three small stations hijacked because he couldn’t pay the lawyers to fight them.

But there’s more from the press release …

“I am humbled and honored by this tremendous gesture,” says Mays.

He should be ashamed for letting the Foundation embarrass themselves or asking them to.

“But, more importantly, I invite all broadcasters, no matter how long they’ve been in this great business, to contribute to the Broadcasters Foundation of America so it can continue its great work in helping others in the industry who have run upon difficult times.”

That’s it. I’m done.

This man put together the Evil Empire. He caused more difficult times than anyone up until recent days. Now he wants us to contribute to the Broadcasters Foundation in his name to help the kind of people he harmed en mass.

The Foundation is looking for nominations for this bogus award by February 15th and the first recipient will be named at the Foundation’s choke-and-puke fest at the NAB in the spring.

I would consider entering the witness protection program rather than have my name associated with the mass career murderer of the radio industry, I don’t know about you.

So, play nice if you must.

Piss and moan privately if you have to.

But I am no longer going to run free publicity for the Broadcasters Foundation of America as I have done in the past even for a good cause like helping broadcasters out of work or down on their luck.

Not when they honor the guy causing all the unemployment.

And I am certainly not going to ever write a check to this group.

The best way to send a message to Phil Lombardo and his brownnosers is to cut off the funds. It’s quite simple -- if you want to help broadcasters down on their luck, give them a job -- don't fire them.

And boycott the Las Vegas awards banquet and keep the pressure on until The Foundation recants and renames the Lowry Mays award.

Something like "The Lowry Mays Execution in Broadcasting Award" and there will be plenty of his friends and fellow consolidators who will be proud to receive it.

Let’s get this nightmare over with and move on to the promise of the digital future.

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The people attending my Media Solutions Lab next week in Scottsdale are going to get a full dose of innovation about the digital future and the new mission for radio – learn from the best innovators, how innovation can change the future, ways to start your own media businesses with the skills necessary to succeed.

Want to attend?

Register for my Media Solutions Lab here.

The Mad Media Meltdown

The trades are all abuzz with news that radio may, in fact, be headed for another challenging year financially. And when the trades admit it, it must be bad because they like to keep their constituents’ spirits up.

Take NBC late night.

Conan and Jay are not just a TMZ gossip story. They are a sad commentary on the meltdown that is taking place across traditional media these days. How could NBC be so stupid?

And how could radio consolidators be so shortsighted to be firing their personalities and injecting voice tracked programming and network shows when the best defense against new media is doing local radio with favorites on-the-air.

Consolidators are in financial trouble not because of the recession (remember radio has survived many recessions in its history) but because stations have stopped innovating.

As one of my readers pointed out:

“I’m so tired of hearing radio CEOs describe a better 2010 using ‘it’s going to be easy to beat last year comps’. I’ll bet the guys at Kodak said the same thing after 9|11 … the economy would get better and people would take vacation pics. The guys at Kodak could never understand the magic in pictures was sharing the experience not the chemical processed film imagery. Cell phone cams didn’t have the picture quality but they sure where (sic) convenient. Sharing become easy and quick as pushing a button. Poof … no more Kodachrome. You know the story for radio”.

In spite of what equity lenders think, it is innovation that sells not bean counters that cut expenses.

After all, NBC Universal parent General Electric mandated deep cost cuts not a bounty of innovation and we see where that has led NBC.

As former NBC President Bob Wright said the other day the only cure for the problems at NBC is a sale to Comcast.

That’s what radio consolidators routinely do now – cut expenses at the risk of diluting their local radio product.

So what do Conan and Jay, advertisers cutting back and the demise of local radio have in common?

The companies that are perpetrating these crimes are guilty of murdering innovation.

Enter Steve Jobs, as he will on January 27th, and innovate once more to the delight of consumers and shareholders as well (I am both).

Apple will likely announce its new tablet device. I am hearing there will be a seven inch and ten inch model – the top of the line unit could cost $1,000. They may be available as early as March.

Of course, only Steve Jobs knows for sure but he certainly has our attention without spending a dime because he has a proven record for innovating.

Look, Harvard has earned its business school reputation by concentrating on case studies. The theory being if you see what has worked and has not worked for other companies, that makes you an outstanding executive.

Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey is a Harvard grad.

Harvard’s got its own problems as many institutions of higher learning do these days. They take their own advice which is why with record endowments, the school has lost its financial shirt in the stock market.

Back to Jobs.

Jobs is a dropout from Reed College in Portland, OR.

As frequently is the case, dropouts learn more than graduates and make their educational time count. According to Jobs' Wiki bio, "Although he dropped out after only one semester, he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy. Jobs later stated, 'If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts', he said".

Jobs could play top executive in the model of GE's Jim Immelt if he wanted to. Could have a corps of bean counters invade Cupertino, but no – that’s not an innovator's M.O.

Apple has hired its way through the recession not firing people.

It has grown shareholder value for its investors even during the worst economy of our lives (assuming you were not around for 1929).

Mel Karmazin was the media darling of Wall Street for years and all he talked about was building shareholder value.

Sirius XM stock closed at 67 cents yesterday.

Other radio CEOs did the same song and dance and some of them are now in bankruptcy, some are headed for bankruptcy and the rest are clueless as to where the future lies.

Fortunately for me, I have invested my USC pension in Apple – all of it! It has doubled in the past year. Doubled! In a recession. Now that's shareholder value!

So why can Apple do it with a one-semester Reed College dropout and Cumulus can’t do it with a Harvard alum?

I'm wrong.

Lew Dickey has a Bachelors and Masters Degree in English Literature from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard. Stanford is not chopped liver either.

Smarts only work when you know how to use them.

Back to NBC's mess.

How can NBC fail strategic planning by putting Jay Leno on in prime time while saving money on dramas, screw up their affiliates' late local news lead ins as a result and water down the one part of its schedule that prints money – late night? (And did I mention that they are going to lose Conan, the younger target demo talent to a competitor and pay him to leave?)

Can you say no inno? No innovation.

So it’s going to be a grim year – in fact, a depressing future for anyone who cannot learn to innovate. And that requires raising your consciousness as well as bringing out the talent of others.

That requires new skill sets.

Most folks in the media business have plenty of the old and cannot even identify the tools they need to access the future.

Yet Pixar produces hits.

Apple invents new businesses not just electronics.

Zappos sells shoes online by mastering the art of innovating great service.

Radio does what these days?

Oh, cut costs and dilute local programming.

Record labels do what?

Cut expenses instead of doing a full court press to find new music and learn from young people who actually know more than they do about the music industry’s future.

Newspapers do what?

Shrink the size of the paper. Try to force readers to buy it while giving away the content online for free (in return for running ads that don’t equal the expenses it took to gather the news).

No inno.

My readers tend to understand that the demise of traditional media was not necessary. It could have been saved.

Yes, radio could have evolved as it always has and found a place in the new world order of mobile devices -- perhaps not as a 24/7 broadcaster as much as a major content provider and marketer.

The music industry could have morphed into the digital world and pioneered the one thing people cannot live without – music. Ok, food and water, but you get the point.

Don’t let what killed them, kill it for you.

For those of you who would prefer to get Jerry's daily posts by email for FREE, please click here. Then look for a verifying email from FeedBurner to start service.

Thanks for forwarding my pieces to your friends and linking to your websites and boards.

The people who are attending my Media Solutions Lab next week here in Scottsdale are going to get a full dose of innovation – who does it best, how it can change the future and how they can acquire the skills to be more like Apple than NBC.

Want to attend?

Register for my Media Solutions Lab here.

The Paid Internet

If you owned a record store ten years ago and I walked in the front door and asked you to give me some of the merchandise you were currently selling, you'd likely throw me out on my butt.

However, at the serious onset of the Internet in 2000, business establishments, retailers, publishers and entertainment companies knowingly cooperated with the emerging free Internet and began to giveaway content for free.

In some cases, businesses resisted and consumers did a workaround. I'm thinking of the record industry where young people found ways to steal music, share it illegally or quasi-legally through bit torrent sites.

One of the few entertainment industry execs who refused to go along with free then was Mel Karmazin who was presiding over CBS/Infinity at the time. Mel's reasoning was that he was not about to give away content that he owned without being able to monetize it.

And monetization of the Internet worked better for some people than others -- namely Google who came along a little more than ten years ago and started selling search and the ads that surround search.

Google was an interloper.

It wasn't CBS. Wasn't Warner Records.

Google was a poacher, if you will, distributing other people's content -- the content the originators paid to put together. But Google made its billions by offering someone else's proprietary content to everyone in cyberspace. While they were at it, they made money off of that content without incurring the expense.

Few would argue that if Google had to actually run The Wall Street Journal rather than distribute its content for free, Google would be out of business on day one.

Instead the myth of the free Internet took hold.

Soon media companies and others panicked into thinking that if they didn't start offering their content for nothing, that they would miss the Internet revolution.

So they did.

Now some companies are considering withholding content from the public and/or search engines like Google and dare to make the public pay or the distributor pay.

And that's what I'm seeing.

I know this is controversial because I, too, have become spoiled getting The Wall Street Journal and New York Times for free instead of the whopping $900 a year it costs for print subscriptions to both.

Rupert Murdoch is now challenging the free Internet -- Murdoch is the owner of News Corp that publishes The Wall Street Journal and other publications. Competitors have tried to charge money for subscriptions and have failed -- The New York Times being one of them, although the Times is said to be close to approving a paid model (more here)

True, there are online niche publications that charge subscription fees but they are the minority and their content is specialized. And Murdoch himself was thought to be tinkering with making the Journal's paid site (they were an early adopter to paid subscriptions) free theorizing that free meant more eyeballs for advertisers.

Advertising isn't going away.

But the totally free Internet is.

Chris Anderson, author of Free disputes this in his excellent book. Anderson believes paid comes after free in the form of enhanced content. Ask ESPN -- that egg was laid a long time ago. Not much of a business model.

The reason I mention all of this today is I spent the weekend putting the finishing touches on the lesson plans for my upcoming Media Solutions Lab. One thing I am going to address is the prospect of the paid Internet -- what it means to the radio industry, records, new media, publishing and individual entrepreneurs.

We know this -- in the era of "free", Apple has ignored the free Internet.

You want anything from the iTunes store, you pay for it. You want apps, there is only one door to walk through in the virtual world and you'll pay Apple for it.

I am going to explain to the attendees at my Media Solutions Lab how micropayments will change everything. This blog for example will likely be $99 a year before the end of the year. But you can subscribe by the month. It's true that when "free" ends, many, many customers will not or cannot pay for the content but the ones who will are the ones the content will be customized for going forward.

Imagine the music and entertainment streams that can be accessed by people willing to pay a reasonable micropayment for them. The free Internet will always be available -- don't get me wrong. But those who embrace free as a business model must compete in a world of seemingly infinite competitors all looking to sell cheap ads for revenue.

I had that same problem when I intended to do my Media Solutions Lab with the traditional model -- sponsors. But sponsors want to book themselves as speakers and prejudice the debate. I decided to go to the fee-only model and it appears to be working out well. I have found a group of entrepreneurs and media business execs who value what they will get on January 28.

With Apple expected to introduce its portable tablet on the eve of the Media Solutions Lab, we will begin to see the future in a new way. Imagine, radio talent can build a brand, distribute it through the iTunes store while consumers can easily access that brand on mobile devices like the tablet. There are all sorts of options ahead.

Radio stations struggling to become part of the digital future could -- with some retraining and open-minded thinking -- develop streams of revenue that could constitute a growth business to make up for the slow decline in terrestrial radio revenue.

So as you see, we have a lot to talk about at the Media Solutions Lab (see the full agenda here).

You read me to hear it straight -- unfiltered by political correctness or influenced by advertiser's agendas -- and I want you to know that if you're expecting to master the paid Internet without being able to acknowledge that it is coming, you're hog tying yourself in the digital future.

On the other hand, if you are willing to track the changes we are beginning to see now and learn how to brainstorm ways to use them to your advantage, you've got a new media growth tiger by the tail.

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Whatever Happened to Odd Metre Swing?

When I got into trying to develop my rhythmic language and technique, almost 20 years ago now, I became really interested in three areas that I saw as being natural extensions of what I was already doing – i.e. things that would and could be organically developed from my grounding in the jazz tradition: subdivision, metric modulation, and odd metre playing. Of these three techniques, some work had been done already in jazz – Tristano had done some fascinating things with regrouping of triplets as far back as the late 40s, and metric modulation had been shown to be a wonderful, if difficult, technique that could be used to create seemingly contradictory statements of where the beat was, sometimes simultaneously. The third element – odd metre playing, was by far the least explored, especially in the swing idiom.

The first guy to extensively use odd metres in jazz was probably Brubeck, he certainly was the first guy to bring it to the attention of the public and players. Brubeck studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud, so I’d imagine the odd metre stuff came from there – there’s no real precedent for it in jazz before that as far as I know. Then there was Don Ellis’ work in the 60’s – his big band stuff used lots of odd metres, some really unusual ones. He was a pioneer in that, but I feel, (also with Brubeck), that what was interesting was the fact that they were interested in doing it at all, not so much what they did musically – because I don’t think that much of the actual music that was produced was very interesting as music in itself. But there is an interesting Andrew Hill recording from the 60’s - ‘Judgement’ - with Elvin on it in which they play a piece in 7 called Siete Ocho and Elvin gets a good swinging groove going, although the band gets a bit shaky from time to time. Actually it’s amazing how Elvin attacks the groove, and really makes it swing, especially considering it was quite probably the first time he’d ever had to play in 7, and certainly the first time he recorded it.

But the real breakthrough with odd metres came with the fusion (or Jazz/Rock as it was known then) guys in the early 70’s – Billy Cobham with the Mahavishnu in particular – that’s an interesting one. He was an out-and-out jazz drummer (with Horace Silver among others) and then suddenly became this odd metre virtuoso. Personally I think he got a lot of that stuff from McLaughlin’s knowledge of Indian music – (though Cobham would probably rather die than admit that!), a lot of what he does is very like the way mridangam players from South India play.






After the fusion guys we’re into the 80’s with Steve Coleman and Dave Holland etc. (the Dave Holland Quintet Albums Seeds of Time
and Razor's Edge are both classics in regard to rhythmic exploration), and the real breakthroughs with odd metres – the expanding rhythmic universe, (along with the Downtown scene in the 90s) starts there.

When I got into the whole rhythmic thing in the early 90s I was particularly interested in making what I already did in a jazz context work in the new rhythmic areas I was exploring. Since a lot of the music I was playing at the time was in the swing idiom I felt it to be a natural outgrowth of that to try and play odd metres in the swing idiom. And so along with my brother Conor and Mike Nielsen on guitar I got into trying to find ways to make odd metres swing – or to find ways in which one could swing when playing in an odd metre. We spent about two years on this – it was challenging, the swing feel was developed over 4/4, and that four in the bar feel is hard to achieve when you’re playing in 11! But we made real progress in it and I think we became very convincing when playing things like walking bass lines and the typical jazz cymbal beat in various different metres. The trio at that time played exclusively standards, but re-arranged everything rhythmically and harmonically. In 1993 we did an unreleased recording of standards unofficially titled ‘Fucked Up Classics’ in which every single piece was in an odd metre. It never got issued for various reasons but you can download it for free here

At that time I was convinced that what we were doing was the tip of the iceberg as far as rhythm was concerned and that it would only be a matter of time before others followed suit and we were about to witness an explosion in new rhythmic techniques. To some extent that did happen, but I have to say that almost nobody has convincingly dealt with the swing idiom in odd metres. The metric modulation thing has exploded and been heavily explored, but that’s not the case with odd metre swing. When I say swing here I’m not talking about a vague swing feel, but a real dirt under the fingernails, spang-spang-a-lang, walking ride cymbal + walking bass style swing. For sure standards are sometimes played in odd metres – Brad Mehldau has done some interesting work in this area (including a stunning live recording of All the Things) but even when you hear Mehldau’s group playing in an odd metre it doesn’t really swing as much as when they’re playing in 4/4. We really worked on that, to make sure that the swing didn’t diminish due to whatever metre we were in. Hasn’t really been done since in my opinion – not in anything I’ve heard anyway.

Maybe the reason it hasn’t been done is because it’s HARD! You have to not only figure out how to manipulate the rhythms to allow the swing feeling to flow, but you also have to make sure your melodic lines match up with the changes moving at the same rate of the metre you’ve chosen. It’s a voice-leading tightrope – a trial by fire of your rhythmic and harmonic technique. It’s much easier to cop-out by just playing over one chord and picking a straight 8 based rhythm – a cop-out that has resulted in far too much boring and quasi-faked playing over the past 10 years.

It’s not that long ago since jazz musicians couldn’t play in 3/4, and almost never did - how many 3/4 pieces did Bird record? None. But eventually jazz musicians figured out how to do it and to make it really swing. For an example of this evolution listen to Max Roach’s very stiff playing on Rollins’ Valse Hot and Elvin Jones’ loose and flowing playing on any Coltrane tune in 3/4. Within 5 years 3/4 swing had gone from stiff and unnatural to convincingly swinging. But now more than 20 years since the first explosion of interest in non-standard rhythmic techniques, odd metre swing is not that much further down the road.

If anyone reading this knows of any really convincing odd metre swing recordings please let me know, I’d be really interested in hearing it. I really enjoy playing swing in 11, 5, 7, 9 and 15 – it provides a wonderful vehicle for creativity and freshness. But there’s plenty of room for much more of this – it just needs the desire to do it and people who are prepared to put in the work. Any takers?