Change ... Restless Radio Bosses and Saying NO

Jimmy Carter in his homebase Nashville.

Managers and the publicity people are an artists' NO people ... "No! We don't want to do this ... and NO .... do you want to do that? NO, NO, NO ... "No, we won't do this TV show" and "We don't want to play at that venue."

Sometimes you feel like you need to say YES to people. Taylor Swift's YES things often sound good on paper, but in reality don't turn out for the best. The NFL thing sort of felt that way to me. The reaction to her on the Internet was ugly ... Taylor before a huge football game? One person twittered you must be crazy.

TS fans are 6 to 60, but this show seemed to be booked by very careful customers. Playing it safe. Not sure that Taylor was a good fit for that TV audience anyway. I care about her and spend a lut of time defending her to a restless radio audience.

"Restless" remains the word that best describes a lot of the things these days.

The country politically sure seems restless. The radio industry and the relationship it has with its highly-paid morning people sure seems restless, too. The big contracts still happen, but the companies hate paying for the support people. I see that every day in radio and TV.

Radio lost another big local guy this week when Gerry House and his crew announced their departure from Clear Channel's WSIX. Everyone leaves at some point and this was his time. Not a shock for a 100 reasons but a pattern over the last five to 10 years. High-paid morning guys are not as valuable as they once were to the corporations. Howard Stern may be leaving Sirius. Opie and Anthony, too. IF they leave - Howard, anyway -- I will want to pay less.. I still like my NASCAR channel and a few others. But some will cancel . They may take that risk.

Change ... when going gets tough in TV news, they always change the set and graphics. But they rarely change the people who made the decision for the ugly set and graphics in the first place!

Radio ... bean counters hate the high-priced people and management seems to resent them. "We can make it without the sports guy or producer or all that support crap." Opie and Anthony's producer LEFT recently ... not renewed or whatever. House's support canned, too, in the past year. That started the train moving toward the door.

The restless management. Keep changing until you reach the desired goal. Remember this: You are paying now for not developing a replacement crew the last 15 years. You cut out overnights ... you cut out nights. Then you voicetracked and cut out middays. Ah, ah ... duh we can't find any people for crap. So let's put on a Bubba show from out of town; that will do it ... and that is where we are.

You are so bare-bones that you can barely standup. I don't know how you fix that. Just like no one Democrat or Republican can jump in and fix an economic mess that took 40 years to get here.

The electronic media is needed now more than ever. It takes a HUMAN being to report the news and deliver it. Takes a reporter to write the website story and go get the news -- a job that isn't being done well right this minute. The news is NOT being covered, my friends. No one has time to do anything but cover the fire down the block ... and even then that is hard.

Simple as this obvious point might be, but you do NOT need someone to play music; that is a fact. BUT ... and here is the BUT ... I have an iPod, dumb ass. If I want music I am not going to wait until your 20 minutes of commercials are over with. If you are not going to cover a news story I am going somewhere that will!

You have to have someone who will entertain or inform the listener. Jukebox has never worked. Remember HITPARADE by Bill Drake? Chase the audience with tricks like playing the PPM game and you will lose that battle, too. And lose your job ... but you just work for a higher power and they have a golden parachute. Damn, this is difficult!

Corporate big wig OWNERS -- hey! Just do your job and hire good people. If you can't afford to do that, then sell to someone who will. Cut your losses and get out before there is nothing left to sell.

The Internet gave me the story last night of the explosion in San Bruno ... Got it from Twitter. Then online via the websites of KGO-TV. Great radio coverage on my iPad from KCBS. I told others on Twitter and Facebook. They tuned in. Meanwhile, the traditional media choked ... Nothing for a long time, then a few seconds here and there. Pitiful effort in the first five hours of the event. The SF newspaper had NOTHING early on ... double-pitiful DINOSAUR!

It happens time and time again. When The Weather Channel is the only national service with real-time coverage like that, with amazing fire footage, that is a problem!

Better get with the technology ... understand it is PEOPLE-based. Without people to do it and without people to consume it you have nothing.

Voicetracked ... canned ... unresponsive crap WILL close you down sooner or later ... and probably sooner. You, in a canned voicetrack -- while your city is hit by a tornado --will take you out even faster! You kill your rep in five minutes that took generations to establish. Trust the radio to tell us ... whoops!

CHANGE can work very fast in this world right now. Just ask our current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Change swept him into office and Change has ... well, we will see about that part. RESTLESS.

You have to be on the page with the people you work for. Politics or broadcasting. You can't ignore the needs and trends like the record companies have. RECORD companies even their name is a non-starter. I'm not sure my 13-year-old knows what a record is!

Meanwhile, here on Earth .... First local awards show the 2010, Americana Honors & Awards, growing in position. Big names, but what is this Americana? A parallel universe to "modern" Country music?

The bluegrass world has always been in another universe. Now you have "Americana." John Mellencamp was the show opener, with Roseanne Cash winning Best Album.

Is this a real genre catch-all for artists who are Grammy-level quality, but can't get on mainstream Country radio? Not sure, but some very talented artists. Heavy on content. Light on mainstream appeal. What do you do with all this?

I did not intend to write this today, but I love radio and broadcasting. 9/11 was a shining day for the industry in a very troubled time for our country. I hope the industry could serve the people as well today as we did nine years ago. Could your company? I would say there's 30% less of a chance in the world I work in, but in time we could. Five years from now, continuing the current way we are going ... I'm not so sure. But it's not too late.