Triple A Radio

By Mike Lyons

Mike Lyons started his career in Orlando back in 1971 by publishing the city's first underground newspaper and promoting the first rock show at the Citrus Bowl (Cactus, Bloodrock, Potliquor and Dr. John for $3). He was MD/announcer for WORJ, WDIZ and WHTQ in Orlando, PD for Abrams' 98 Rock (WXTB) in Tampa, and spent the last eight years of his radio career as mornings/APD at WZTA Miami. From 1995-2000 he was VP of AAA Promotions at Lee Arnold Marketing. Lyons prefers to call himself a "post millennial pop culture theorist" instead of a "former record promotion weasel."

Editor Note: Triplearadio.com Contributing Editor and The Forest Columnist Mike Lyons has taken a temporary leave. Mike has been diagnosed with Pancreatic and Liver Cancer. He was recently released from the hospital to head home and begin a program of treatment and recovery. Fortunately, Mike is getting lots of support from his many friends in the industry and in the Triple A community. Post a note here or snail mail to: Mike Lyons, 8711 Gopher Lane, Orlando, FL 32829. We love you, Mike. Get well! - Dave Chaney

5/26/09

IS YOUR STATION A FUTURE "AUDIO MEDIA COMPANY"?
By The Forest guest columnist Mike Sauter, Music Director, WYEP Pittsburgh

In case you don't read Mark Ramsey's excellent blog Hear2.com, he recently did an interview with Bob Garfield, the host of NPR's On the Media and an editor-at-large for Advertising Age. Garfield has a book on the way called The Chaos Scenario, and he talked about the implication of his Scenario for radio. I urge you to listen to the whole thing. Garfield is highly thought-provoking in talking about what he believes will be the winning ingredients for radio in the future. Except Garfield would suggest that you don't call it radio. Perhaps "audio media company" would be a more accurate moniker. He believes that such a service in the future will have to provide to listeners not only a music format, but all formats. And not only all formats but real-time news, weather, sports, and traffic. And to provide all of these service via multiple platforms. That's a pretty wild mental leap to make for most of us--to become, in Garfield's words "the news, entertainment and cultural hubs for [our] communities." A lot of us might like to think of our stations as such a hub, but even the most effective AAA station around only serves a small segment of the community.

Garfield's predictions and suggestions started me thinking about how many AAA stations are effectively utilizing new media as a source of content for their communities. So I decided to do an experiment. I took the Panel list here at TripleARadio.com and did a couple of specialized Google searches of each station site. In case you've never done this kind of search, you can enter into Google, say, "site: wyep.org" and then a search term (or multiple terms) and see a list of pages that mention the target word or words. I first searched RSS to see how many of us mention an RSS feed on our site. I thought an RSS feed would be a useful proxy for a couple of newer forms of content distribution, since nearly all blogs or podcasts have an associated RSS feed. It's not a perfect approach, but I figured it would give a rough approximation for this technology usage.

The result is that only 41% of the panel mentioned "RSS" on their station website. I was a bit surprised that the figure was so low (I guessed it would be closer to 60%). And there was no obvious difference in the RSS-haves and have-nots. Both small community stations and large commercial sites were represented on the RSS-free list. Now, while it is true that blogs can be hosted on a third-party site (like blogspot.com) and podcasts can be handled completely off-site on iTunes, to not offer any RSS feeds to external material is the virtual equivalent of putting a big specialty show on the airwaves and never promoting it. It's a lost opportunity to maximize tune-in of your content.

Okay. RSS feeds are a little obscure to most of us. Surely stations are making good use of social networking platforms to get their word out to potential audience members. After all, platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been all the rage lately among many of our listeners and have been all over the news media. As it turns out, less than 44% of AAA station websites mention Facebook or Twitter (I only counted station or DJ usage of these services, not mention of them as a pop-culture news story). Finally, when I combined the above searches to see if a station site referred to Facebook, Twitter, or an RSS feed, then the number was just about 60%.

I haven't compared these numbers to other radio formats or other "old media" websites, so I can't say whether we're ahead of the pack as a community or behind the times. And I'm not suggesting that stations not using these specific platforms aren't doing other things to prepare for the future. But one would think that we're not gonna make it as a real-time, multi-platform audio media service when we're lagging behind current technology trends.

Here's some final food for thought. I'm a fan of a particular couple of music blogs that often have great music and good commentary about it. But I don't have time to check out everything they feature. So using a few free tools available on the web, I combine the RSS feeds of these multiple sites, filter out everything but a handful of artists I'm interested in, and any time there are matching results I get an alert sent to my phone as a text message. Today, this sort of thing is a bit technical and esoteric. Tomorrow, this type of music and information distribution will be increasingly easy and user-friendly. That's the sort of future that we have to envision being a part of. It's a great challenge, but also a great opportunity.

— Mike Sauter

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 5/3/09

AAA PROVIDES MORE SUPPORT FOR INDIE LABELS

      As our ninth annual NON-COMMvention approaches three weeks from Wednesday, there were a few stories this week that pointed out how valuable the AAA non-commercial world is. Especially the testimonials on how the format benefits small labels.
      First was a Billboard story covered on page one of Radio & Records over the weekend. The story wasn't exactly new but it confirmed the increasing impact of NPR in particular.
      In a nutshell, the article noted the boom of NPR as National Promo Radio in the latest few years. Noted was the buzz at this year's SXSW where NPR enjoyed an unusual amount of acknowledgment for breaking new acts like Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird and Neko Case, among others.
      About time.
      The piece also pointed out the impact of "All Songs Considered." WXPN's musical choices have also caused new acts to be noticed on the NPR site.
      Meanwhile, this week, the Future Of Music Coalition released a report detailing the grim state of indie label airplay on commercial radio stations. The data, drawn from Mediaguide playlists for seven specific music formats, (AC, URBAN AC, ACTIVE ROCK, COUNTRY, CHR POP, TRIPLE A COMMERCIAL and TRIPLE A NON-COMMERCIAL), indicates almost no change in station playlist composition between 2005 and 2008. Major label songs consistently secured 78% to 82% of airplay.
      However, the format data showed some modest increase in airplay for independent labels on some formats (COUNTRY and TRIPLE A NON-COMMERCIAL in particular) but otherwise the data from year to year changed very little.
      The lack of movement is particularly noteworthy because in April 2007, the Federal Communications Commission issued consent decrees against the nation's four largest group owners - Clear Channel, CBS Radio, Citadel and Entercom - as a response to collected evidence and widespread allegations about payola influencing what got played on the radio.
       In addition to paying fines totaling $12.5 million, the station group owners also worked with the American Association of Independent Music (A21M) to draft eight "Rules of Engagement" and an "indie set-aside" where these four group owners voluntarily agreed to collectively air 4,200 hours of local, regional and unsigned artists, and artists affiliated with independent labels.
       Hmmmm.
       I wonder if anyone on Kevin Martin's FCC ever checked that out to confirm they did it.
       This week, President Obama made his latest choice for his FCC when he nominated Mignon Clyburn to replace Johnathan Adelstein on the commission.
       Clyburn has been a Utility commissioner in South Carolina and is the daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn.
       When both Clyburn and new FCC chairman Julius Genachowski finally get to work after they are confirmed, they can check into that "settlement" with the independent labels.
       Then they can look at how ownership groups are actually serving their cities of license after all their staff has been let go.
       But, for you indie labels, AAA has been there for you from your start.

MORE GOOD NEWS FOR THE LABELS: The New York Post's Peter Lauria this week reported that Best Buy is seriously considering installing eight square feet of merchandising space to vinyl after testing the idea in 100 of its stores around the country. That's enough space to accommodate just under 200 albums, which doesn't seem like much until you consider that a typical Best Buy store devotes just 16 to 20 feet to music. After increasing 15% in 2007, vinyl sales jumped 89% last year to 1.9 million albums, and this year is shaping up even better, with 670,000 albums sold by mid-April. While vinyl's growth obviously can't make up for the CD's decline, it does show consumers haven't abandoned the physical format.

LINE OF THE WEEK: This comes from Jerry Del Colliano's Inside Music Media - "Hell, the iTunes store on Tuesday is what radio stations used to be on Tuesday nights - the source of music discovery. Now radio stations can't compete with Apple."

TV: Season wraps up for all the broadcast networks during the next three weeks so finale episodes approach. SNL this weekend is a new show with Justin Timberlake and Ciara...Tony Award nominations on Tuesday, show on June 7.

ONION HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "Rare Species of Frog May Hold Clue To...Ah, Never Mind, It's Extinct."

MOVIES: "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" debuted with $87 million in first place over the weekend. It was a bit under expectations but overall, the weekend out-grossed by .08% the same weekend last year, when "Iron Man" surprised with its huge opening. Opening in second place over this weekend was "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" with $15.3 million. Last weekend's #1, "Obsessed," fell to third with $12.2 million followed by "17 Again" in fourth with $6.3 million and "Monsters Vs. Aliens" in fifth with another $5.8 million. The summer crunch continues next weekend with the opening of "Star Trek" with Zachary Quinto and Winona Ryder and "Next Day Air" with Mos Def.

SCHMUTZ: Cumulus in Dallas blows up classic rock The Bone and kicks off FM 93.3 Quality Rock! Welcome!

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 4/26/09

NOT TALKING ABOUT. DOING IT.

     My good friend Brock Whaley shot me this special take from this week's NAB convention:

NAB/CEO David K. Rehr touted broadcasters "planning for the future and seizing opportunities" in his address at the formal opening session of the NAB Show in Las Vegas Monday morning. "Fire your creative types, run Seacrest in every day-part, and consider a Latin format," he insisted. "Forget this 5,000 station Wi-Max crap. It's a dream." He then named WARM, Scranton as the NAB Station of The Year.
     I might add here that after Rehr's speech, attendees spent the rest of the day wandering hallways and making vague promises about becoming more local in an insincere effort to save their own ass.
     Quick, name the Public Service Director at any Clear Channel station.
     Meanwhile, one terrific value included in the AAA ethic, both commercial and non-commercial, is a true desire to add benefit to its community of license and its listeners.
     WYEP in Pittsburgh has just announced such a cool event.
     The station will conduct its first ever Rock Radio Camp for 6th, 7th and 8th graders. The day camp will be from June 15th to June 17th at the WYEP Community Broadcast Center.
     The Rock Radio Camp will be a direct hands-on experience led by WYEP morning mix host Cindy Howes, DJ Underdog, WYEP staff and some surprise guests.
     The kids will  get a chance to learn about everything. Using a microphone, selecting music for a set, interviewing guests, creating podcasts and everything else available at WYEP's new studios.
      It reminds me of my first visit to a radio studio. I was 13. It was 1966 and I met Mike Reineri (WLW, WIOD) and Tom Kennington (WFUN) while they were on-air one morning at Top 40 WPDQ in Jacksonville, Florida.
      They gave me the bug.
      Fans of AAA are one of the few groups still fascinated with new music and these middle school yutes will love it.
      My point is that mainstream radio owners and programmers nowadays have no plans to actually spend, hire or execute anything like true public service events.
      It's all about the money for them.
      Deservedly, their money is now running out. Can't cure that problem with an empty public relations campaign.

MOVIES: It wasn't available for preview, which is never a good sign, but Beyonce Knowles' "Fatal Attraction" clone, "Obsessed," opened strong over the weekend, debuting at #1 with $28.5 million. "17 Again" took in another $11.7 million in second place followed by the debut of "Fighting" in the top five with $11.4 million. In its first week, "The Soloist," opened with $9.7 million and in fifth place was the debut of Disney's nature documentary, "Earth," with $8.6 million. The money just keeps rolling in for the studios as the weekend took in $123 million, up nicely from the same weekend a year ago. Box-office remains about 15% ahead of last year...Next weekend officially begins the blockbuster summer season with the opening of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" starring Hugh Jackman. It's likely to pass $100 million in its debut. Also new will be "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" with Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner, "Is Anybody There?" with Michael Caine and "The Battle For Terra," animated with the voice of Luke Wilson.

ONION HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: "Seymour Hersh Uncovers New Thing Too Sad To Think About" and "Biden Quietly Singing Pearl Jam's 'Even Flow' During Security Briefing."

TV: "Project Runway" will return for its sixth season, now on Lifetime, on August 20...New Daily Shows With Jon Stewart this week including guests, Christine Lagarde, French Minister of Economy, Finance and Employment, on Monday, Clifford D. May, President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, on Tuesday, Doris Kearns Goodwin on Wednesday and Hugh Jackman on Thursday. On new Colbert Reports this week, guests include The Decemberists on Monday, NBC's Richard Engel and author Daniel Grass on Tuesday, author David Kessler on Wednesday and Ethan Nadelman of the Drug Policy Alliance on Thursday...Musical guests: All American Rejects on Letterman on Monday and Bats For Lashes on Friday...On Leno it's Big Bad Voodoo Daddy on Monday, Starsailor on Thursday and Ziggy Marley on Friday...Ferguson has Antony & the Johnson on Wednesday...Fallon has repeats of Morrissey on Monday, Gomez on Wednesday, Santigold on Thursday and Cold War Kids on Friday...One of the featured acts at the upcoming NON-COMM is Delta Spirit, who will be on repeats of Carson Daly on both Tuesday and Friday this week. Ben Harper & the Relentless 7 repeat on Daly on Wednesday...SNL this weekend will be a rerun with Tracy Morgan and Kelly Clarkson.

FINALLY: Incredibly, the Ninth Annual NON-COMMvention is approaching us in another few weeks. What's happened since it started? More artists. More labels. More General Managers. More successful AAA stations. I'll be interviewing NON-COMM creator and WXPN OM and MD Dan Reed this week to see what's in store for us in Philadelphia this year. Look for it soon here on Triplearadio.com under Programming.

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 4/19/09

NOTICE HOW MY FINGERS NEVER LEAVE MY HANDS.

      I had a quick reminder of how things have changed in the radio business. No revelation, just a "yeah" moment.
      You no longer see stock quotes from radio ownership groups on the CNBC or Fox Business cable channels anymore.
      And we know why. Dramatic loss of revenue and a lack of a coherent business model that investors might actually have faith in.
      Citadel got kicked off the NYSE to the penny-stocks and capitalization figures for the worth of any radio owner are stunningly low. Citadel, which bought ABC radio last year, was capitalized at a measly $23 million when it's 4 cents a share stock price sent them to the penny stocks.
      The only time I heard anything about the radio business in the last two weeks was on Monday, when THL's Scott Sperling showed up on CNBC's "Street Signs" saying that his firm "does not have an expectation that we will have an imminent blow-up of Clear Channel's operations."
      Ok then.
      The next day, Clear Channel announced two new initiatives that are making up the company's new National Programming Plan. First, CC will let its national and regional talent become available to it's program directors nationwide. Something those in the radio industry already knew about. Ryan Seacrest, Steve Harvey, Kidd Kraddick, Lex & Terry, Elvis Duran and John Jay and Rich, among others, were now going to become staples on what my fellow columnist Jerry Del Colliano calls, "Repeater Radio" at Clear Channel.
      "Our programming objective is to increase audience size and engagement across all day parts and all platforms" said Clear Channel CEO John Hogan.
      How is that goal any different from what the company's goal was last week or last decade?
      Oh, and the second initiative was a program of PSA's and partnerships to offer local community focus.
      How is that any different from what Clear Channel has had to do to keep its licenses last week and last decade.
      It's not any different. It's simply a PR move to hopefully justify the cutting of some more local talent to be replaced by nationally syndicated talent already under contract to Clear Channel. Spread that salary amortization across the country while struggling to stay alive.
      Radio's recovery will be even more difficult as investors and customers (listeners) have to keep maintaining a straight face while these companies become even less and less relevant at the same time they become less and less profitable.
      Stunts like what Clear Channel pulled last week are becoming more laughable every time we hear them again.

TV: Sweeps continue. This week, on Letterman, he's got Tinted Windows on Tuesday (a new band with Cheap Trick's Bun E. Carlos, Smashing Pumpkins' James Iha, Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger and Taylor Hanson of...you know, Hanson. Power-pop. Not bad), Letterman also has The Dead on Thursday and Lily Allen on Friday...Leno has the Killers on Monday...Craig Ferguson has Erin McCarley on Monday...Jimmy Fallon has Booker T. Jones on Tuesday with Tinted Windows over there on Thursday...Depeche Mode is on Jimmy Kimmel this Thursday...New shows for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart this week. Monday the guest is author Reza Aslan, Tuesday it's Liberian President Elizabeth Johnson Sirleaf, Wednesday it's author Philip Alcabes with no guest confirmed for Thursday as of this writing. On The Colbert Report he has Maersk Alabama crew member Ken Quinn along with Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Monday, Duke basketball coach Mike Kryzewski on Tuesday, NPR's Ira Glass on Wednesday and, on Thursday, Elizabeth Bintliff from Hiefer International...Dwayne Johnson and Ray LaMontagne on a repeat at SNL this Saturday.

ONION HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "Collapse Of Wayne Industries Forces Batman Into Late-Night Infomercials."

MOVIES: Over the weekend, Zac Efron's "17 Again" debuted better than expected, opening at #1 with $24.1 million. Russell Crowe's "State of Play" didn't meet expectations, opening with only $14.1 million in second. "Monsters Vs. Aliens" was third with another $12.9 million. With a total of $162 million so far, it is the highest grossing film of 2009 as summer begins. "Hannah Montana: The Movie" took in $12.7 million in fourth with "Fast and Furious" taking in $12.3 million in fifth. "Crank: High Voltage" opened in sixth place with $6.5 million. Year-to-date grosses for all films is $2.92 billion, 17.3 % ahead of last year. This recession will give studios a record year. Opening this weekend are, "The Soloist" with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. Is there a reason this has been sitting on the shelf for a year? Also new will be "Obsessed" starring Beyonce Knowles, "Fighting" with Terrence Howard and "The Informers" with Billy Bob Thornton.

SCHMUTZ: Pandora premiered the new Dave Mathews Band track, "Funny The Way That Is" from the upcoming new album, "Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King." That's the first time Internet radio has done that. And this week Arbitron and Edison Research told us that in January of this year, Internet radio listening had had a great jump in listeners from last year. It's now an average of 42 million weekly. Love those iPhone apps. Just wait til Wimax penetrates deeper into the marketplace. Just one of the topics at the R.A.I.N. Internet Radio Summit in Vegas through tomorrow...Time for Phil Spector to discover the echo in that prison bathroom in California. I'll especially miss that wacky hair...Finally, NASA last week announced that it was naming a treadmill on the International Space Station after Stephen Colbert. All right!

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 4/12/09

AAA NON-COMM'S CONTINUE TO BEAT THE BUBBLES

     There was some good financial news last week. Durable goods orders grew faster than Wall Street expected. Wells Fargo enjoyed a surprise $3 billion profit last quarter. Citi and Bank of America had announced similar unexpected profits last month. Home sales picked up as Wall Street enjoyed its fifth up week in a row.
     No one was saying that the American economic collapse was over, but there is now a trend consensus that we may have hit bottom in this recession.
     Even if that is true, remember these historic economic facts. Wall Street recovers first, employment recovers last. Business doesn't want to expand until the market trends are confirmed.
     Plus, some businesses recover, but others are fatally wounded
     What impressed me so much this week was how most commercial radio continues to lose money, clients and, listeners. But commercial AAA is flush and non-commercial AAA, despite this lingering recession, has been doing great in fund-raising. Hey, we were all worried about it. Turns out AAA non-comms are, for the most part, doing remarkably well.
     Last week, KUT, the NPR/AAA non-comm in Austin, took in $825,000 in its Spring drive. KUT's good news is shared with other AAA non-comms like Minnesota Public Radio (The Current) and Louisville Public Media (WFPK). All set new records for amounts raised during a Winter or Spring fund drive.
     KUT also set a new high for money raised online, pulling in a record $230,000 online.
     Also last week, WNRN In Charlottesville, Virginia hit their goal out of the park.
     Said WNRN Music Director Ronda Chollock, "We are basking in the glow of our best ever fund drive. In this economy! Can you believe it? Although, as I'm sure many of you know, other non-comms are experiencing similar success with their recent drives. It's very heart-warming to find out that our listeners prioritized their expenses, and we made the cut."
     It's that kind of gratitude that makes these numbers possible. Sincere communication and sharing music and values with listeners who get AAA and like it way beyond other commercial music stations.
     It'll be at least another year and a half before things truly get better (at least!) and more cutbacks will happen (NPR is planning more personnel cuts next month.)
     This fund-drive success just reaffirms AAA's and non-comms unique position in today's radio marketplace.
     Work hard. Play the right music. Actually relate to your listeners.
     The evidence keeps piling up that AAA is a great way to do business. Especially when the rest of the radio industry keeps waiting to hit the bottom.
      With no idea what to do after they hit the brakes.

BIZ: Another station that met its Spring goal, WNCW Asheville-Charlotte will be the subject of my latest programming interview. WNCW Music Director Martin Anderson was kind enough to talk with me last week. Look for the interview in our Programming section here at Triplearadio.com...Last week I talked about not only the loss of CD's but the loss of hard drives in people's music libraries soon in the 21st century. Now, I can tell you about lala.com. lala has a beta mobile app for streaming your entire music library to your smart phone etc. Launching soon!

TV: Well, the "Project Runway" lawsuits between NBCU, Lifetime and the Weinstein Company have finally been settled and the show will run season six on Lifetime early this summer...WHDH Boston has become the first NBC affiliate to pass on running "The Jay Leno Show" every weeknight at 10pm. Owner Ed Ansin say his station will run news starting at 10pm in the Fall. NBC is huffing and puffing over the affiliate agreement but WHDH may just be the first of many stations to pass on Leno...Guests this week will include Letterman with A.C. Newman and Nicole Atkins on Monday, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on Tuesday and Neko Case on Wednesday...Leno has Airborne Toxic Event on Tuesday, Chris Botti with John Mayer on Wednesday then Jonny Lang on Thursday...Brett Dennen on Craig Ferguson Tuesday...Jimmy Fallon has Sara Watkins & John Paul Jones on Monday, Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs Wednesday and the Plain White T's Friday...On Jimmy Kimmel it's Pete Yorn on Thursday and Franz Ferdinand on Friday...Carson Daly has Adele on Tuesday, The Duke Spirit on Wednesday, Lykke Li on Thursday and Ben Harper on Friday...On The Daily Show With Jon Stewart this week there's a repeat with Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday and new shows with former Mets pitcher Ron Darling on Tuesday, Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday and Ben Affleck on Thursday...On The Colbert Report it's a repeat with Jordan's Queen Noor on Monday and new shows with astronaut Sunita Williams and author Susie Orbach on Tuesday, PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer on Wednesday and authors Kanishk Tharoor and Doug Kmiel on Thursday...It's the "Best of Amy Poehler" next weekend on SNL.

ONION HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: "SPORTS CENTER Adds 125 New Monitors To Set," and "Two Dozen More Bodies Found In Lake Wobegon."

MOVIES: Peter Bart has left as the editor of Daily Variety after 20 years. Timothy Gray is the new editor while Bart will remain on Variety's editorial board. The former Paramount VP during the company's release of The Godfather I & II back in the 70's plans to return with his TV show with producer Peter Guber, "Sunday Morning Shoot Out," releasing later this year...Over the weekend, "Hannah Montana The Movie" debuted with $34 million at the top of the weekend box-office followed by "Fast And Furious" with another $28.7 million in second place and "Monsters Vs. Aliens" with $22.6 million in third. Seth Rogen and Anna Faris in "Observe and Report" opened less than expected with $11.1 million. The only other film opening over the weekend was "Dragonball Evolution" in eighth place with $4.6 million. The film business keeps setting records as this week's box-office again beat the same weekend last year...Opening next weekend is "17 Again" with Zac Efron and Matthew Perry starring. Also new will be "Crank: High Voltage" with Jason Stratham, "The Golden Boys" with Rip Torn and the weekend's biggest opener, "State Of Play," starring Russell Crowe.

SCHMUTZ: Well, you know some commercial AAA's are still owned by plant life. There was an example of this last week when Cumulus announced that they were not going to renew PD Dave Benson's contract, which is up next month. Best wishes to Dave, one of the best programmers this format has ever had...And finally, as usual, the Weather Channel predicts smooth jazz sax riffs with a 30% chance of "Jazz Hands" tomorrow.

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 3/29/09

INSTEAD OF OWNING MUSIC, WILL WE JUST RENT IT FROM THE CLOUD?

      SXSW had breakthrough performances from the Decemberists, Department of Eagles, Grizzly Bear, Band of Heathens, St. Vincent and Andrew Bird. Inexplicably, there was even a mob at Third Eye Blind's performance.
      But topical new insights from the convention keep showing up.
      Last week I talked about Jessie Scott's new Americana Web site, MusicFog.com, and a rundown of opinions on how subscriptions to music services may lead to the creation of more new music geeks. More people sharing their passion and discoveries, many of which can only be heard on AAA radio stations.
      This week, Larry Greenfield, one of my tech mentors, passed along the following message from CrunchGear. I thought I'd share it with you.

HOW WILL THE CLOUD CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT MUSIC OWNERSHIP?
      "One of the highlights of last week's SXSW, aside from seeing the Austin Crew again, was when I spent some time talking with a few guys from Rhapsody,
      The conversation touched a number of topics, but the most interesting one for us here at CrunchGear (and, maybe, for the broader TechCrunch audience), was the changing notion of music ownership. That is, now that most of us are at least familiar with streaming and on-demand service from pick-your service (Imeem, Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody, etc.), will people still see music as a "thing" that they'll own, or more like a service that they'll tap into whenever the need arises? Will people still want to (CLING TO) own a finite number of MP3's on their iPod, or will they prefer to have their music on The Cloud, using a device (say, the iPhone), that can call upon any song in The Cloud's database at will? A sort of, "Shoot, I wish I had that U2 song on my iPod right now," versus, "Here, let me stream that U2 song for you." And, if people are becoming more comfortable with this type of music consumption, where does that leave traditional, download-to-own services like iTunes and Amazon MP3? The things we think about!"

      Well, I'll tell you, the first customers for The Cloud/subscription process are the iTunes/Amazon folks who are music geeks anyhow. The points made here include the fact that people are quickly moving their "stuff" off of their computers. Putting it all someplace warm and safe. Meanwhile as subscriptions continue to grow, as they establish themselves on the market, they provide a possible saviour for radio, providing two sources of income to keep them flourishing (ads & subscriptions).
      My friend Larry tells me that this growth in The Cloud is happening faster than a lot of people realize right now.
      Make your product good and who knows where it might lead you in the near future.

MOVIES: The following item resulted in the loudest "What?" of my week. The bulletin from Variety flashed that MGM and the Farrelly Brothers ("There's Something About Mary") were close to finishing casting for their feature, "The Three Stooges." when they got recent Oscar-winner Sean Penn this week to play Larry. Negotiations continue to lock in Jim Carrey for Curly and, another Oscar-winner, Benecio Del Toro, who will play Moe. No nyuck nyuck here. This is gonna happen...Dreamworks' "Monsters Vs. Aliens" debuted at #1 with $58.2 million, the largest opening of the year so far. Business continues to be great, 12% ahead of last year's figures. Lionsgate's "The Haunting in Connecticut" opened well in second with $23 million. #3 was "Knowing" with another $14.7 million. #4 was "I Love You Man" with $12.6 million. #5 was "Duplicity" with another $7.6 million...Opening next weekend are "Fast & Furious" with Vin Diesel, "Adventureland" with Jessie Eisenberg & Kristen Stewart, and "Play the Game" with Andy Griffith.

ONION HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport".

TV: Here's my other "What?" of the week, but I love this. One of CNN's main anchors during the 1980's and 1990's, Bobbie Batista, has taken a step through the looking glass and can now be seen anchoring reports online for ONN, the Onion News Network. Available at TheOnion.com. Absolutely hilarious...Denis Leary's "Rescue Me" finally returns Tuesday April 7 at 10pm on FX..."Reno 911" returns this Wednesday at 10:30pm on Comedy Central..."ER" has a two-hour series finale preceeded by an hour of flashback footage Thursday at 9pm on NBC...On Leno this week he has Gavin DeGraw on Monday, Fall Out Boy on Tuesday, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer as Spinal Tap coming up on Wednesday...On Letterman it's Adele on Monday, Marianne Faithful on Tuesday, Ray LaMontagne on Wednesday and Diana Krall on Friday...Jimmy Fallon has Glasvegas on Monday, Gomez on Tuesday and Stevie Nicks on Wednesday...Jimmy Kimmel welcomes Lily Allen on Friday...On new Daily Shows With Jon Stewart this week, guests include CNN's Jack Cafferty on Monday, Seth Rogen on Tuesday, author Peter Orszag on Wednesday and author Tom Zoellner on Thursday...This week on The Colbert Report it's astronomer Derrick Pitts on Monday, author David Plotz on Tuesday, author Dambisa Moyo on Wednesday and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on Thursday...SNL is new this weekend with Seth Rogen and Phoenix!

FINALLY: Ah, two good late stories this Sunday. Tiger Woods drops in a 16-footer to come from five strokes back to win Arnold Palmer's tournament here in Orlando and, this afternoon President Obama told GM CEO Rick Wagoner to quit. And he did.

—Mike Lyons (Ed. Note: Mike is off next week. The Forest returns Monday morning, April 13.)

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 3/22/09

BROADBAND AND Pi FROM SXSW

     ComScore reported this week that daily Web usage on mobile devices had doubled in the last twelve months as 22.4 million American users now ride the broadband on their mobile phones/PDA's/etc. Infonetics Research says that by 2013 there will be more than one billion mobile broadband users worldwide versus the 210.5 million users at the end of 2008. Sales of mobile broadband PC cards and 3G modules topped $4.1 billion in 2008 and, even in this economy, shows no signs of slowing down.
     We're exploding from phone calls to broadband Web-use real fast right now. The U.S. may finally catch Asia in broadband access after all. Nope, just kidding.
     This week Comcast, in cooperation with Clearwire, announced it would make Portland, Oregon its first market to feature WiMax. They're planning on getting it done by mid-year.
     Two weeks ago the FCC approved phone company IDT's application for spectrum along the Gulf Coast and in Colorado. IDT joins the upcoming WiMax wave.
     Again, WiMax will keep your phone, laptop or dashboard USB port logged on to the Web while you're cruising the Interstate.
     Tom Taylor, on his site Taylor On Radio-Info, wrote this week about being here in Orlando for the RAB convention earlier this month and running into a cab driver who had a laptop mounted next to the driver's seat, with a $40-a-month Aircard plugged into it. He watched movies while he was waiting, checked e-mail for potential customers and monitored the weather. This really hit Taylor and he wondered if local radio brands will be strong enough to survive the transition and compete when "radio" moves more and more closer to becoming "IP radio".
     They better be or they're history.
     Most music radio formats other than AAA are having a tough time adapting to the new broadband marketplace.
     The generic, personality-free filler between five-minute spot clusters doesn't have a chance in this new age. While AAA's product and on-air personality makes it much more attractive than most radio music formats today, it can still work on making itself more attractive in the rapidly expanding new Web age.
     Streaming is fine. Covering the ads with cool, appropriate music is fine. But it also necessary to provide features on your station web site that make it uniquely worth searching out and using it.
     Podcasting is the obvious first choice. Have an hour of deeper tracks. Concert recordings. Interviews. Stuff that's cool, found only on your site and constantly updated.
     Today's typical radio Web site is often identical to the one they first put up. Make sure yours is better. The best you can be. You'll need to be to be successful.
     To last in today's terrestrial marketplace and flourish in the building 3G explosion, programmers will have to put the effort into making their products truly stand out against the myriad of other choices out there, on the Web and otherwise.
      Cuz the pipelines just keep growing!

FROM SXSW: So happy to hear that my old friend Jessie Scott, who programmed the delicious Alt-Country channel "Cross Country" (X Country) on XM satellite radio before its purge, has developed a new Web site along with ex-XM compatriots Jim McBean and Ben Krech along with Michael Crider from the SXSW Interactive board of advisers. The site is MusicFog.com and features performances and interviews with Alt-country and Americana artists (Ray Wylie Hubbard, James McMurtry and Jimmy LaFave are on the front page right now) along with links to everything you need for complete music coverage of the Americana revolution...
Here's an interesting take from SXSW - CNET "Digital Noise" blogger Matt Rosoff had a conversation with Tim Quirk, VP of music programming for Rhapsody, who suggested that "streaming music demand will change the mechanics of the music business because artists (and other stakeholders) won't be compensated based on how many people buy a song or record but rather by how many times people actually listen to it." It hasn't happened yet, but Quirk believes in the long run, streaming music will lead to greater music consumption overall. When you have no limits on the amount of music you can sample, you're likely to become a music geek. Quirk had some stats to bolster his point: In traditional CD sales nearly 50 percent of the revenue comes from the top 100 selling records. With Apple's iTunes, it's about 33 percent; lower prices translate to people willing to sample more music. With free peer-to-peer networks, it's less than 30 percent - again it makes sense that users would sample more music when it's free (Rhapsody uses a subscription business model). With Rhapsody, it's even lower - less than 25%." Rosoff suggests that is because Rhapsody self-selects for music geeks - who else would pay a subscription for unlimited music? But Quirk countered that his usage statistics suggest Rhapsody turns people into music geeks. That is, once folks realize that they can consume unlimited music for the same price, they begin exploring related songs and bands, checking out recommendations from friends that they never would have bothered with otherwise.
This is a terrific little thoughtsicle. As more listeners become more curious and start looking for new music, it can only help AAA stations. More opportunity for folks to get turned on to a new song or artist and that benefits both the station and the artists.

TV: Sopranos creator David Chase is returning to HBO to produce the mini-series, "A Ribbon of Dreams," which will dramatize the history of Hollywood starting in 1913. No air dates yet... Both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are in repeats this week on Comedy Central so lets check out this week's musical guests. Letterman has Bloc Party on Monday, Jesse Harris with Norah Jones on Wednesday and repeats with U2 on Thursday and Lyle Lovett & John Hiatt on Friday. Leno has P.J. Harvey! on Tuesday and Prince on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday...Fallon has Morrissey on Monday and N.E.R.D. on Friday...Ferguson welcomes Ra Ra Riot on Wednesday while Carson Daly has Chris Cornell both Tuesday and Wednesday and Ben Harper & The Relentless 7 on Friday...SNL this weekend is a repeat with Alec Baldwin and The Jonas Brothers.

ONION HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "Internet To Reduce E-mail Delivery To 6 Days a Week."

MOVIES: People may not love Nicolas Cage but folks still like him just fine. Cage enjoyed his ninth #1 opening since 1997 as "Knowing" debuted with $24.8 million to top the weekend box-office. "I Love You Man" opened well with $18 million in second place while Julia Roberts and Clive Owen opened in third place as "Duplicity" debuted with $14.4 million. "Race To Witch Mountain" dropped to fourth with another $13 million while "Watchmen" was in fifth place with $6.7 million. Opening next weekend is "Monsters Vs. Aliens" with the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Kiefer Sutherland and Stephen Colbert. Also new will be "The Haunting in Connecticut" with Virginia Madsen, "The Accidental Husband" with Uma Thurman, "12 Rounds" with John Cena and "Janky Promoters" with Ice Cube.

FINALLY: For music and math geeks - Congress officially designated March 14 as National Pi Day this week. It'll now annually be on 3/14 (Get it?). See you next week after the Phil Spector verdict comes in.

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 3/15/09

SCHMUTZ. NOTHIN' BUT SCHMUTZ.

      After pointing out Yale chief investment officer David Swenson's idea last week about the possibilities of turning newspapers into nonprofit, endowed institutions just like colleges or universities, the next day I came upon two articles in Ad Age and last Sunday's Los Angeles Times about the appeal of basing income at newspapers on subscriptions or "micro-payments". It'll be interesting to see what new media business models evolve in our immediate future because these changes may apply to all of us someday. Just following the money.

     Speaking of following the money, it was frightening to watch Citadel's share price collapse to one-cent-a-share last Friday after they were delisted by the NYSE and sent to the OTC. That made the market capitalization of the entire Citadel/ABC radio chain about $2.7 million. Period. For radio's third largest ownership group of 213 radio stations. What did Citadel CEO Farid Suleman make last year? Over $11 million. Insane that he's still there. Let's hope that the rest of radio's large ownership groups don't follow Citadel into giving up making money for Lent. By not changing. Some of these people have to get down on their knees.

     New music faves: Rocco Deluca and the Burden "Open Pages". Uniquely lovely melody.
                                The Silver Seas "Country Life". Sutherland Brothers & Quiver at 45 RPM.

     Did everybody see that the Connecticut (formerly Columbia) School Of Broadcasting abruptly shut down last week? Good riddance. Here in Orlando these guys had been running ads during the last two years professing to set you up to "be on the air, have your own show, meet stars and celebrities" and a host of other attributes basically extinct in today's radio business (other than AAA). Bet they even charge an extra $500 to tell you how to get your third-class FCC license!

      In case you missed it, Radio & Records' March 6 issue contained their last weekly Americana section and chart. It wasn't John's fault, just one more budget cut. But you can still get the Americana chart from the Americana Music Association (AMA) here on Triplearadio.com - just hit Charts. The 10th Annual Americana Music Conference & Festival is September 16-19 in Nashville.

     The Onion headlines are fiction. This is an actual headline last week from NPR's new music partner Pitchfork.com:
IGGY POP PREPS JAZZ ALBUM ABOUT FRENCH LITERATURE. Surrender to that idea?

     For those going into Austin for SXSW starting Wednesday, give our love to Susan Castle, KGSR's music director for ages who was an unfortunate victim of a 60-person nationwide cutback at Emmis. She always had great ears and a kind soul. We'll miss her.

    Links: I've mentioned him before and now I'd like to mention him again because his excellent weekly column is available on another source. Steve Meyer is a consultant who had long tenures as head of rock promotion at Capitol and MCA Records back in the day. He also edits together an excellent weekly media column that links you to a few dozen topical music industry and pop culture stories. Great editing source. His column is posted on AllAccess.com every weekend under "Digital Technology" and you can also find his columns anytime at freewebs.com/stevemeyer. I've also got another friend from my old Miami days. At WZTA, our production director (and truly funny man) was Mitch Philips, who is now a voice-over master (NBC + radio) who's crack delivery talents can be sampled at voiceovers.net

     This is now posted under our Triplearadio.com's Music News but if you hadn't checked yet, Spinal Tap is reuniting to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of the classic, "This Is Spinal Tap". Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer will crank it up to 11 again when they tour as both Tap and The Folksmen (from "A Mighty Wind") starting April 17 in Vancouver and ending May 31 in Milwaukee. The Unwigged And Unplugged Tour will include the guys out-of-character as well as in-character and will contain a Q&A session within each show. Harry says there will be no drummer "because we couldn't afford the insurance". A new Spinal Tap album will be released in May that will consist of "extra studio tracks that no one has ever heard - not even us."

BAND NAME OF THE WEEK: "The Aortic Valves."

TV: Hope you enjoyed Jon Stewart's smackdown of CNBC's Jim Cramer this week. Video available at Comedy Central and YouTube. Stewart pointed out emphatically how journalism and entertainment have become confused on the financial cable channels. CNBC and Fox Biz are shameless stock market cheerleaders at their foundation. All guests and commentators broadcast on these channels in essence all want you to do one thing - Buy! Hell, we've witnessed disastrous results from doing this twice in the last nine years!...Guests on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart this week will include former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers on Monday, actor Ian McShane ("Deadwood," "Wings") on Tuesday, author Nandan Nilekani on Wednesday and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN! on Thursday...On The Colbert Report it's all authors this week. Jonathan Chait and Neil Gaiman on Monday, David Grann on Tuesday, Juan Cole on Wednesday and John McCardell on Thursday...On Letterman this week it's Rachel Maddow on Monday, Julia Roberts on Tuesday (St. Patrick's Day) with Irish Triple A breakout group Bell X1, Modest Mouse on Wednesday and David Sanborn and Sam Moore on Friday...On Leno this week it's The Soundtrack of Our Lives on Tuesday, Kelly Clarkson on Thursday and Chris Cornell on Friday...Jimmy Kimmel has The Young Dubliners on Tuesday, MSTRKRFT on Wednesday and The Duke Spirit on Thursday...Jimmy Fallon has The Ting Tings on Tuesday and Vampire Weekend on Wednesday...Finally, Craig Ferguson has The Upper Crust on Monday, Dropkick Murphys on Tuesday and Conor Oberst on Friday...This week on SNL it's a repeat with Steve Martin and Jason Mraz.

ONION HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: "Special Olympics Investigated For Use Of Performance-Enhancing Hugs" and "Experts Agree Giant Razor-Clawed Bioengineered Crabs Pose No Threat."

MOVIES: Variety reports that Dakota Fanning will play Cherie Currie in in an upcoming biopic about the Runaways...Over the weekend, Disney's "Race To Witch Mountain" exceeded expectations and pulled in $25 million to take first place at the weekend box-office. Last week's #1, "The Watchmen" fell 2/3's to take in another $18.1 million. "The Last House On The Left" debuted with $14.7 million followed by "Taken" with $6.7 million in fourth and "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Jail" took in $5.1 million in fifth. The only other new release to debut in the top ten was Fox Searchlight's, "Miss March" which took in $2.4 million in tenth place. Opening next weekend are "Duplicity" with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, "I Love You Man" with Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, "Knowing" with Nicolas Cage and, "Sunshine Cleaning" with Amy Adams and Emily Blunt.

FINALLY: My lovely partner Susan works for the FAA and forwarded the following item to me this week: "Reuters - Irish carrier Ryan Air, Europe's largest budget airline, might start charging passengers for using the toilet while flying, chief executive Michael O'Leary said last week. "One thing we have looked at in the past and are looking at again is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door so that people might have to spend a pound to spend a penny in future," he told BBC television.
Huh? Uh oh.

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 3/1/09

EXTRA! EXTRA! TWEET ALL ABOUT IT or...
THE REST OF THE STORY.

Let me first take care of my latest ultra-topical checklist:

Twittering (or "tweeting") topped the it-list as many Senators and Congressman were seen fiddling with their mobile devices during President Obama's first address to Congress last Tuesday. So they were either twittering or mastering the hot new edition of the video-game, Radio : The Lost and Damned. Hell, Citadel was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange Friday and they, along with Cumulus and Clear Channel are large radio ownership groups that may go bankrupt by the end of the month.

Speaking of shuffling off that mortal coil, radio legend Paul Harvey died yesterday. Of course, I heard about it on a Bose sound system.

Besides the obvious surge in Twittering, on the other end of the spectrum, there has recently been a surge of people returning to dial-up. Saves over $350 a year for those who just need e-mail.

First General Motors lays a mandatory 70-day wait for payment on ad expenditures just after Anheuser-Busch debuts its new permanent position in the 120 day column. It's gonna get worse before it gets better.

Ask GOP Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. Even Republicans are referring to his Tuesday TV appearance answering Obama's address as "Phoenix-like," and they're talking about Joaquin, not any imperial mythology. Pols especially annoyed by Jindal's resuscitation of "W"'s oddly inappropriate chuckling. WTF?

JOURNALISM: I'm 56 now, and, while I still feel like a 25 or 30 year old in my head, I realize that my addiction to picking up and reading the paper in the morning is no longer shared with most of those around me. The young have the Web, which is becoming so ubiquitous we all use it to some degree now. But the inevitability of the disappearance of newspapers appears more and more to be an accepted notion these days and for those that fear the potential loss of journalism in everyday American life, this was a bad week. On Friday, E.W.Scripps' Rocky Mountain News in Denver published its last edition after a history of 150 years. In San Francisco, Hearst is close to shutting down the San Francisco Chronicle. if it cannot find a buyer soon. Same goes for the Seattle Post-Intelligenticer which has to be sold by next week or else it'll become simply a Web-only paper or be shut down. The Philadelphia Inquirer and, of course, the entire Tribune company, which owns the Sentinel here in Orlando, have all filed for bankruptcy as ad sales and want ads keep declining drastically. OK. So, what happens when we no longer have newspapers in our major cities? Who watches local government? Who will give us journalism to keep our communities and lives healthy and vital? David Swenson, the chief investment officer at Yale University, had an interesting new idea in his New York Times, Op-Ed column on January 28. Turn newspapers into nonprofit, endowed institutions like colleges or universities. Here's an excerpt from Swenson's column:
     "As newspapers go digital, their business model erodes. A 2008 research report from Sanford Bernstein & Company explained, 'The notion that the enormous cost of real news-gathering might be supported by the ad load of display advertising down the side of the page, or by the revenue share from having a Google search box in the corner of the page, or even by a 15-second teaser from Geico prior to a news clip, is idiotic on its face.'
     By endowing our most valued resources of news we would free them from the strictures of an obsolete business model and offer newspapers a permanent place in society, like that of America's colleges and universities. Endowments would transform newspapers into unshakable fixtures of American life, with greater stability and enhanced independence that would allow them to serve the public good more effectively."
     Sounds like what radio has done right in the last two decades, developing and evolving the non-commercial formats. Hey! KQED is #3 12+ in San Francisco with PPM now!
     After one looks at all the evidence of newspaper's collapsing business model, this "Nonprofit, Endowment" concept has genuine appeal. Maybe we will see them follow what TV and radio did before them. Combine public and private funding to keep truth and beauty alive. Plus, we'll always need an editor! And if this concept is to become real, we'll need leadership too.
     The latest bad economic stories from the newspaper business came just a few weeks after some history was made at President Barack Obama's first press conference in the White House. On February 9, just before he wrapped things up, Obama called on Sam Stein from The Huffington Post, who became the first "Web" writer to be called on at a presidential news conference.
     But I'm still buying a paper.

ONION HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "Fort Knox Receives $85 From Cash4Gold."

TV: U2's new album, No Line On The Horizon, is all over AAA. Often it's the only station in town playing it in today's completely dysfunctional radio scenario, More power to us. This week U2 will be the musical guest on Letterman every night along with a U2 appearance on ABC's Good Morning America on Friday morning...Jimmy Fallon officially takes Conan's place this week with guests Robert DeNiro and Van Morrison on Monday, Tina Fey and Santigold on Tuesday and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on Wednesday. Remember, Fallon's band every night in studio is The Roots!...This week on Leno it's The Fray on Monday, Neko Case on Wednesday and Tom Jones on Thursday...Craig Ferguson has Andrew Bird on Thursday and M.Ward on Friday...Guests on new Daily Shows With Jon Stewart will include Harold Varmus, the author of "The Art and Politics of Science," on Monday, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on Tuesday, CNBC's Rick Santelli on Wednesday and "Watchmen" star Billy Crudup on Thursday...Guests on new Colbert Reports this week will include David Byrne on Monday, cook and author Mark Bittman on Tuesday, author Carl Wilson on Wednesday and author Steven Johnson on Thursday...Christina Ricci joins the cast of "Saving Grace" with Holly Hunter returning to TNT Monday night at 10..."Breaking Bad" with Bryan Cranston returns to AMC this Sunday at 10pm and Dwayne Johnson and Ray LaMontagne are on a new SNL this weekend.

MOVIES: The Academy Awards telecast was up 13.4% in ratings from last year but still was the third-lowest viewed ever. Get-rid-of-those-production-numbers! It's no longer 1962! Films are the one media form enjoying a boom year in this depression, attendance is up over 11% compared to last year, However, the news out of this weekend's box-office results is the surprising lack of performance from Disney's, "The Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience," which debuted almost $18 million below expectations. At #1 again was Tyler Perry's "Madea Goes to Jail" with $16.5 million followed by the Jonas Brothers in second with $12.7 million. Oscar winner "Slumdog Millionaire" enjoyed the largest Oscar bump in the last ten years with another $12.1 million in third place. Liam Neeson's "Taken" continued it's unexpected roll with another $9.9 million in fourth and "He's Just Not That Into You" was in fifth with $5.8 million. The weekend's only other debut in the top ten was "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li" with $4.6 million in eighth place. Next week, it's the long anticipated, "The Watchmen" from Warner Brothers and "300" director Zack Snyder. Early reviews describe a dazzling CGI product that doesn't quite deliver the magic and originality of Alan Moore's graphic novel. Also next weekend, Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow's "Two Lovers" goes wider across the country.

SCHMUTZ: Sad to see my old friend Jeff Cook leave as Director of Promotion at New West Records after almost ten years there. I've known Jeff through his days at Elektra, Capricorn et al and am of the opinion that he truly rose the profile of New West substantially on its way to breaking Old 97's, Ben Lee, the Drive-By Truckers plus making sure that the AAA format was aware of vital new work from veterans like John Hiatt, Steve Earle and Kris Kristofferson. Never a fool and always one of the good ones, we'll miss you Jeff until we see you again!...All the best to master producer/guitarist Buddy Miller, who is recovering from triple-bypass surgery as this is being typed. I met him during his work with Emmylou Harris and his work with his wife Julie, the excellent songwriter. Buddy even got props from Robert Plant on the Grammy telecast after playing lead for Robert and Alison's touring dates last year....Finally, a note about Daylight Savings Time. It starts next Sunday morning (3/8/09) when 2am becomes 3am. Be back in two weeks.

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 2/22/09

     DENIAL: WALL STREET, RADIO, RECORDS

     "What was wrong with Stanley O'Neal's office?"
     My head picked up immediately after I heard CNBC's Maria Bartiromo ask former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain that question on a weekday afternoon last month. Thain had already been shown the door at Bank of America after an extremely short stay post-B of A purchasing Merrill Lynch at fire-sale prices just before Xmas in the current Wall Street economic collapse that has accelerated America's fall into it's worst economy since the depression.
     Thain was finally talking to the press after being let go at B of A after it was revealed:
1. Merrill Lynch had lost $14 billion in the quarter before their purchase by B of A closed.
2. Thain had handed out billions of annual bonuses just...before...the...deal...closed.
3. It had just been revealed that he had spent $1.2 million refurbishing his office after replacing Stanley O'Neal as the CEO of Merrill Lynch. Included in the redesign were a $28,000 curtain, a $35,000 antique commode on legs, a $13,000 chandelier and a $1,400 parchment waste can.
     "Well, his office was very different than...the...the...general decor of...Merrill's offices. It really would have been...very...difficult...for me to use it in the form it was in."
     Maureen Dowd provided the preferred next question in her New York Times column a few days later covering that Bartiromo/Thain interview.
     "Did it have a desk and a phone?"
     The Masters of the Universe are truly in denial nowadays.
     They say they can't not give bonuses or they'll lose talent.
     What talent? The talent that lost $14 billion last quarter and heavily contributed to the collapse of the American economy?
     The talent that caused Merrill Lynch's stock price to fall 80% in a year?
     Sorry, but I don't have any sympathy for these guys.
     Truth is, when Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan start talking about the possibility of nationalizing Bank of America and Citigroup, the shit has hit the fan.
     Half the country, according to a new Associated Press poll, now fears unemployment.
     Even Disney put on another magical display of layoffs this week.
     We can't hope to surf an economic recovery wave started by the EU, Brazil, India or China. We're going to have to start it ourselves. The first step was taken this week when Obama's stimulus package was signed into law Nobody really knows if that's going to work but we have to do something.
     To gain traction and create some hope, the country will have to stop being in denial and accept how deep and hard-to-fix this Depression really is.
     And like Thain and the rest of the Wall Street buggers, we all have to accept that things have changed. The old routines won't yield the results necessary.
     Meanwhile, let's make sure a cop or a teacher is getting what they're worth, instead of insuring that those who got us into this mess to begin with are still making seven figures.

      Radio and records participated in their own form of denial Wednesday when the labels' royalty group, SoundExchange, and the N.A.B reached an agreement on Internet streaming rights.
      Fact is, the N.A.B. got screwed again but radio remains in denial.
      In their continuing attempt to scrape income from anywhere they can, the record industry just laid another hand on broadcasting's wallet. This new agreement actually increases the typical radio station's expenses when the radio industry is suffering its own financial collapse.
      The N.A.B. just took it and rushed out a nicely researched press release. Because the most important thing is not for the deal to be good for radio, the most important thing for the N.A.B. is for it to sound like the deal was good for radio.
      It isn't.
      Radio is making v-e-r-y little from it's web business right now. Come on, enabling the Web to flourish financially as an extension of radio is simply in its baby-step phase. Why don't the labels wait and come back when there are consequential incomes from Internet streaming? That might make sense to some people.
      They're desperate now!
      They're in denial.
      The record industry is still in denial about the necessary and too-long-delayed evolution of their business model. AAA for the boomers and Pandora. Accuradio and the other Web sites for the forsaken younger generation are what can actually break new music and new artists.
      But the Sound Exchange didn't come to an agreement with DIMA, representing Internet radio stations.
      It's insane to prevent these businesses from growing to ensure possible future income.
      It's insane to remain in denial.
      The heavy lifting is just beginning. For everyone.

BAND NAME OF THE WEEK: The Shovel-Ready Octo-Moms

TV: U2 will be the house band for Letterman every day next week to coincide with the release date (Tuesday March 3) of their new CD No Line On The Horizon. Now streaming on their MySpace page (U2.com), the album got a five-star review from David Fricke in the new Rolling Stone. After listening all weekend, I love, "Magnificent,""I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" and "Breathe"...Also next Monday, when Jimmy Fallon officially takes over for Conan O'Brien, his house band will be The Roots with guests Robert DeNiro and Van Morrison...Spectacle: Elvis Costello With has Smokey Robinson with this Wednesday at 9pm on Sundance...This Thursday, The Chris Isaak Hour debuts with Trisha Yearwood at 10pm on the Biography Channel...Letterman, Leno, Conan and Ferguson are all in repeats this week but if you missed it, Joaquin Phoenix' bizarre Letterman appearance from two weeks ago will rerun this Thursday...Jimmy Kimmel is new with Living Things on Wednesday...Jon and Steve are back with new shows this week. Guests on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart include Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Monday, Ricky Gervais on Tuesday, Tom Selleck on Wednesday and NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Thursday...On The Colbert Report it's "Why Him? Why Her?" author Helen Fisher on Monday, author Cliff Sloan on Tuesday, Braddock, Pennsylvania Mayor John Feterman on Wednesday and Kris Kristofferson (gesundheit) on Thursday...On SNL this week it's host Neil Patrick Harris and musical guest Taylor Swift.

ONION HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: "Two Publicists, Stylist, Personal Assistant Injured As Nicole Kidman Turns On Handlers" and "Cash-Strapped Oscars Give Out Emmy's."

MOVIES: Tyler Perry and Lionsgate both enjoyed their largest openings ever as "Madea Goes To Jail" debuted at #1 with $41.1 million over the weekend. "Taken" held up well in second again with another $11.4 million. "Coraline" took in $11 million in third. "He's Just Not That Into You" continued as the top rom-com with another $8.5 million in fourth while Oscar winner "Slumdog Millionaire" finally broke the top five with $8 million. The weekend's only other new wide release, "Fired Up," started with a weak $6 million in ninth place...Opening next week are "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience" and "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li" starring Kristin Kreuk of "Smallville" fame.

SCHMUTZ: As predicted, John Malone's Liberty Media tossed $530 million to Mel Karmazin at Sirius XM satellite radio last week. Liberty now owns 40% of that companies stock. Both Liberty (owner of DirecTV) and Charlie Ergen's Dish TV are at least going to keep fighting over the bandwidth, increasingly more valuable on the marketplace but is the cost too much?...Both Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino will testify this week before the Antitrust Subcommittees of the U.S. House and Senate on their Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger. "Are we crazy to be trying this?" says Irving Azoff in Ethan Swift's article, "Can He Save Rock 'n' Roll?" from Saturday's edition of The Wall Street Journal. Azoff can sure become a monopoly in the music business if the deal goes through. We'll start finding out if that's possible this week.

FINALLY: There are new reports that Ron Wood may be asked to leave the Rolling Stones for drinking way too much. It would be amazing if Wood became the second member, (Mick Taylor was the first), fired from the Rolling Stones by Keith Richard for doing too much drugs. That's the definition of irony...And finally, Get Well cards keep pouring in to Joaquin Phoenix after people get into a conversation with him.

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 2/15/09

WALKING INTO THE PROPELLORS WITH MEL!

     The new Wall Street drinking game this week was inhaling another mojito whenever another media company announced its rendezvous with bankruptcy.
     At least it wasn't another investment bank. Yet.
     It began when Muzak filed for Chapter 11 on Monday owing millions to music companies in license fees for songs Muzak is playing.
     The week ended on Friday as Cumulus joined the recent trend of the radio ownership crowd in laying off 259 people nationwide, 7% of its workforce. And that's just the start. C'mon.
     In between, Sirius XM's share price fell to six cents a share after they hired law firm Simpson, Thatcher & Bartlett as bankruptcy counsel and Alvarez and Marsal to help them reorganize their massive debt.
     At six cents a share, Sirius XM's value has plummeted by more than 96% since July. They owe Echostar $175 million on Tuesday and another $400 million to them due this December. They owe another $200 million in bond payments this May. Overall, Sirius XM's debt load is $3.25 billion.
     Over the weekend, John Malone's Liberty Media offered Sirius XM a bridge loan to pay that $175 million in debt due Tuesday plus, that would give the foundering satellite radio company three months to restructure that debt coming due in May.
     The loan would help Sirius XM avoid filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy or having to endure an unfriendly takeover by Charlie Ergen's Echostar, whose DISH network is a bitter rival of Liberty's DIRECTV.
     So now it's come down to Sirius XM becoming a chip in the war between two American satellite television companies?
     Oh, it wasn't planned to be this way, was it Mel?
     I spent the first four years of The Forest testifying to the appeal, and eventual success, of satellite radio.
     The idea appealed to me because it took advantage of radio's biggest liability. Sirius and XM would provide their own "killer app".
     Commercial-free music channels from talented programmers and personalities.
     But satellite radio blew it.
     It never advertised that "killer app" enough. Initially, the minds in command thought that, since simulcast Clear Channel radio stations (don't forget, they were part-owners originally) played commercials as did the many simulcast television news channels, it would confuse listeners.
     Who gave a damn? Just pump up the availability of commercial-free music channels.
     Neither Sirius nor XM ever did. The commercial-free aspect was always twenty or thirty lines down in ad copy.
     Both Sirius and XM further hung themselves as they went on an irresponsible spending spree, signing services and talent at immense cost.
     But credit was easy to get then and both channels gave in to tremendous hubris. Though their plan targeted small slices of the American radio pie, they spent like a mass-appeal mother.
     Now, the credit is gone, the debt is due and it's much harder to take advantage of the satellite radio companies most advantageous business relationship.
Their getting in bed with the car companies, giving their potential customers an easy way to access the tuning hardware.
     Also, their competition has exploded.
    Sirius and XM have signed up almost twenty million customers, but the Web developed quickly as a competitive, and free, alternative to satellite radio.
    Apple's iPod along with the rest of the emerging mobile devices offered even more competition.
    While satellite radio was still spending way too much.
    The merger of Sirius and XM lead to most of its programming and on-air talent to be laid off.
    The product has suffered.
    Now Howard Stern, the lynch pin of Sirius' business model, is saying he may be retiring when his contract with Sirius XM ends in 2010.
    In this media climate, who wants to lose their biggest star?
    The main mind at Sirius XM, Mel Karmazin, is a veteran of the radio and TV wars from his days running CBS. The Wall Street Journal on Friday said that there were indications Echostar's Ergen and Karmazin had worked out some issues and were getting closer to a deal that would render the Liberty Media deal unnecessary.
    Ergen, on Friday, also announced that Karmazin would retain his position at Sirius XM if Echostar did purchase the company.
    I wonder why Mel would even stick around for just more guaranteed pain.

TV: This week on Leno it's Lily Allen on Monday, Andrew Bird on Tuesday and Chris Isaak on Friday...Jimmy Kimmel has Blues Traveler on Tuesday and Kinky on Friday...Both The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report repeat last week's guests this week then return with new shows next week...Hugh Laurie and Kanye West on SNL this weekend and the 81st Academy Awards with host Hugh Jackman are on ABC next Sunday night at 8:30pm.

ONION HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: "Powerful Rest And Fluids Industry Influencing Doctor's Treatment Of Colds".
"Congress Raises Executive Minimum Wage To $565.15/HR."

MOVIES: WB/New Line's remake of "Friday The 13th" had a record opening for the horror genre and helped set a record President's Day weekend box-office total ($190 million) as it debuted #1 with $42.2 million. "He's Not That Into You" fell to second this weekend with another $19.6 million. "Taken" was third with $19.3 million and "Confessions of a Shopaholic" debuted well in fourth with $15.4 million. Clive Owens and Naomi Watts' "The International" debuted in seventh with $10 million. Overall, movie revenues are way up, 22%, so far this year with total box-office to date at $1.44 billion...Opening next weekend will be "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Jail," "Two Lovers" with Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow and teen comedy "Fired Up!"

SCHMUTZ: So, after Valentine's Day, can you feel the love? Couple of "items" in my notes that I'll pass along. I presume you've all already heard about She & Him's Zooey Deschanel and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard. Did you know Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen and Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss are engaged? And then finally today, Orlando's own Mandy Moore announced her engagement to Ryan Adams. Guess that'll cut him down to only two albums a year!

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 2/9/09

TURN THE CAR AROUND! GRAMMY'S HAVE TO HUSTLE BUT KRAUSS/PLANT SAVES THEIR DAY.

    CD sales and downloads were down 14% from 2007 last year but the major labels' National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) 51st Grammy Awards turned up well on Sunday, again dominated by AAA artists' winning much of the major awards.
     Following in the footsteps of recent winners who were predominantly played exclusively on AAA stations like Norah Jones, Herbie Hancock and Ray Charles, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant took home all five Grammy Awards for which they were nominated including Album Of The Year and Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album for "Raising Sand" plus, Best Country Collaboration With Vocals for "Killing The Blues". They also won Record of the Year for "Please Read the Letter" and Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals for "Rich Woman". Last year, when their first single was released in time to qualify for the 50th Grammy's, "Gone, Gone, Gone" won for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals.
     Coldplay won three out of the five categories they were nominated in: Song of the Year for "Viva La Vida," Best Rock Album for Viva La Vida and Best Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals for "Viva La Vida." Heck, it was Coldplay's night. First they got a favorable profile on 60 Minutes. Gwyneth Paltrow even introduced Radiohead's performance of "15 Steps" with the USC Marching Band.
     Other Grammy winners from the AAA format included Radiohead's In Rainbows winning Best Alternative Album, Bruce Springsteen winning Best Rock Song for "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" and John Mayer picking up two awards for "Gravity" and "Say What You Mean to Say."
      Other AAA winners included Peter Gabriel picking up two awards for his work on the Wall-E soundtrack. Duffy won Best Pop Vocal Album and the Eagles, Kings Of Leon, Pete Seeger, Bela Fleck and the Blind Boys of Alabama also took home awards.
      In the night's biggest upset, Adele beat the Jonas Brothers for Best New Artist.
      Show notes:
      U2 kicked off the night rockin' hard with their new single "Get On Your Boots" live at the show's site, The Staples Center in Los Angeles.
      Next, a loopy Whitney Houston gave Jennifer Hudson the award for Best R&B Album.
      According to today's Los Angeles Times, Chris Brown was arrested for attacking his girlfriend Rihanna outside their car on the way to the gig. NARAS officials threw together some name dropping from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who did drop the first funny line of the night ("And Kid Rock will be here. He's getting community service credit for it.") Johnson then introduced Justin Timberlake, Al Green, Keith Urban and Boys to Men who worked out a fine rendering of Green's "Let's Stay Together" to fill the gap created by the Brown/Rihanna disappearance.
     Continuing the trend of country's open evolution to a classic rock sound, Carrie Underwood rocked harder than Coldplay and had three lead guitarists to their one. For those looking for where future Grammy winners are likely to come from, note that we had two appearances by artists from "American Idol" before the show's first half-hour was up.
     NARAS has no problem with allowing CBS to load up these awards with random series stars such as Simon Baker, Emily Proctor and Gary Sinise who don't have any particular connection with music but star in CBS shows.
    These Grammy's steered away from their latest trend of setting up duets between stars in the last few years. This time there were 22 performances, mainly of nominated songs. Nice change.
    Only person bleeped: T.I. during "Dead and Gone."
    Only person played off the stage with music: Robert Plant when he accepted the last award, Album Of The Year, with thanks to Alison Krauss "For getting me singing in a straight line after all my early twirly stuff."
    Surprise of the night: Blink 182 announced their reunion then gave Best Rock Album to Coldplay. Everybody moved along rather swiftly in front of the mike all night.
    Second best line of the night came from CBS Late Show host Craig Ferguson who, remembering his punk days in Glasgow when he was young declared: "Back then I would say you were CRAP! I'd then vomit on your shoes and stab you!"
     Performance highlights: Chris Martin and Jay-Z doing "Lost," Allen Toussaint, Li'l Wayne, Robin Thicke and Terrance Blanchard's swinging, rockin' New Orleans tribute. It was so good to see Toussaint performing at the Grammy's when we were all concerned with his whereabouts immediately after Katrina. God bless this gris gris legend.
     Best Remembrance of the Alan Greenspan/Andrea Mitchell wedding reception: Katy Perry being lowered onto the stage where she emerged from a giant banana.
     NARAS President Neil Portnow's speech came around 10:35pm. First he pointed out that President Obama had already won two spoken-word Grammy's and implored him to create a new post in his cabinet for a Secretary of the Arts. I have no problem with that. Portnow then pointed out how NARAS this year is expecting Congress to pass pending legislation applying a new Performance Royalty Payment plan for songs that radio plays.
     This cut through all the glitz and glamor of this Winter night because the truth is that a new Performance Royalty Payment scheme could seriously damage the radio industry, which is, not coincidentally, going through a business decline worse than any in its history.
      Last week, Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman said he wouldn't say exactly how much his company would get from such a new radio performance royalty. "Could be negligible to very significant". Estimates put that cost to radio at between $400 million to $7 billion.
      There is consensus in our industries that a performance royalty of some amount is inevitable.
      I pray it will come in at the low end of these estimates or radio, in its current financial condition, will have to stop playing music or possibly go out of business.
      This isn't melodrama. This month several major market stations were sold at a paltry six times cash flow as opposed to the prevailing industry standard of 16 to 20 times cash-flow. That's a big difference.
      You can't get blood from a stone NARAS.
      And you can't kill the AAA and non-commercial stations that play your new music.
      Robert Plant had the right perspective last night.
      "In the old days, we would have called this selling out, but now I think it's a good way to spend a Sunday."
      Award shows don't get as many viewers as they did in the old days Mr. Portnow, remember who and where you are.

TV: It'll be host Alec Baldwin with the Jonas Brothers this weekend on a new SNL...Get real? Dr. Phil's ratings are down 27% this year. Not only that, according to the L.A. Times his show has lost a third of its core demographic, women 18-49...Musical guests this week on Letterman will include Heartless Bastards on Tuesday and Matt Nathanson on Friday...On this week's Leno he has Duffy on Monday, Erin McCarley on Thursday and Annie Lennox on Friday...Craig Ferguson has Adele on Monday and Shirley Manson on Thursday...Conan welcomes Levon Helm on Tuesday and They Might Be Giants on Thursday...Guests on new episodes of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart this week will include Einstein biographer Walter Isaacson on Monday, Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks on Tuesday, author Daniel Sperling on Wednesday and former U.S. Senator from New Hampshire John Sununu on Thursday...Guests on The Colbert Report this week will include TV On The Radio Monday, Robert Ballard on Tuesday, author Steven Pinker on Wednesday and Adam Gopnik from The New Yorker on Thursday.

ONION HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: "AT&T LAYS OFF 30,000 AUTOMATED OPERATORS" and "FOOTBALL COACH RETIRES FROM FAMILY TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH TEAM"

MOVIES: Over the weekend, Jennifer Aniston enjoyed her third straight opening at #1 as "He's Just Not That Into You" debuted on top with $27.5 million. "Taken" fell to second with another $20.3 million. The animated "Coraline" debuted well with $16.3 million in third followed by the debut of Steve Martin's "Pink Panther 2" in fourth with $12 million. "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" was fifth with $11 million and the actioner "Push" debuted in sixth with $10.2 million....Dreamworks is now leaving Universal to hopefully sign with Disney according to Variety. The company is trying to finance six films a year but is currently running solely on Steven Spielberg's money and a recent investment from Mumbai-based Reliance Pictures. Dreamworks wanted Universal to take less that 8% as a distribution fee. Don't know if Disney will want to do a deal in that range, especially for a company that provides a lot of "R" rated pix including "Tropic Thunder," "The Uninvited" and "Sweeney Todd." Ben Stiller's production company left Dreamworks for Fox last Thursday so Dreamworks is working fast...Opening next weekend are "Confessions of a Shop-a-holic" starring Isla Fischer (Vince Vaughn's crazy redhead from "The Wedding Crashers"). Also up will be "Friday The 13th" with Jared Palecki and "The International" with Clive Owen.

FINALLY: How bad is it at Zell newspapers? My Orlando Sentinel on Thursday, February 5 had TV listings for Wednesday the fourth. Second time this month that this has happened...How bad is it at Cox? They blew out Paul Cilliano on Friday, he was PD of 12+ number one WSB-FM in Atlanta and also PD of their (also top five) "The River". Seriously, no one is safe...But, don't be too sad. Harry Shearer told BBC5 this week that Spinal Tap will be reuniting to record new songs by the end of the year! The Center For Pale Young Boys will love it!

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 1/25/09

SMILE FIRST.

     Boy, the collapse of the American economy is continuing unabated this Winter.
     Last week, Google, Apple and IBM reported better than expected earnings. Everything else cratered. Even Microsoft and Disney announced large cuts and this week, about three dozen Standard and Poor companies will report their fourth-quarter earnings and Wall Street continues to anticipate that it'll be even worse than expected.
     Expect a GDP plunge over 5% to be reported Friday.
     I even got laid off from my shipping job last Monday, the day before Clear Channel made their 1,850 job cuts.
     Customers have disappeared. Credit is frozen. Cash flow is dead.
     Fortunately, the AAA format made it through CC's cuts with not too much damage.
     They did lay off KPTL Des Moines PD Deeya McClurkin but KBCO and KTCZ appear to have made it through this initial crunch without drastic damage.
     And I say "initial" because, who are we kidding? More cuts are coming and CC's idea of syndicating a few jock's throughout their national chain is the latest desperate, money-saving move embraced by the struggling radio ownership groups.
     You know my position is that AAA, with its emphasis on new music and bullshit-free delivery, stands out from their music station competition because it's a format that offers true, sincere, relatable jocks' along with its product and, consequently, offers specific value versus the sound of their "Groundhog Day" competition.
     One thing to remember while you're broadcasting to your audience nowadays is to make sure you keep a tone and attitude of support and understanding during these tough times. It's good to be funny too. People need a reason to smile.
     There's an article in this week's Advertising Age pointing out how products such as Coke, Pepsi, Ikea, Macy's, Dunkin' Donuts and OfficeMax have all moved their ad campaigns in the direction of selling happy, empowering or upbeat messages.
     Trying to bring some relief and comfort to a nation suffering through job losses, stock-market plunges and economic uncertainty.
     It's not hard for AAA to remember to use that tone and attitude while serving its active audience.
     It's natural for most of us.
     If you're giving some tickets away, the winners are saving money. They need it right now.
     That promotion you're running now, how does it affect and benefit a winner? Be specific. They'll appreciate that.
     In these difficult times, people want to cover what they "need". They may not be as impressed by being presented with another new product THEY MUST HAVE. That's the tone of much advertising and often, the tone of some announcers, even in our format.
     Being cool isn't important in 2009. Feeding your family is.
     Just pointing out the importance of an attitude right now.
     Make sure you're relating to your listeners by being aware of what they are going through. Microsoft, Disney, GM. Nobody's getting a free ride anywhere, any more.
     So just be aware of how easy it is to make your audience feel better and more comfortable with their time spent with you.
     Couldn't hurt.
     Meanwhile, I'll be on Craigslist.

TV: Looks like Variety editor Peter Bart and producer Peter Guber's "Sunday Morning Shootout" may be returning soon on E!... Kyra Sedgwick is back as "The Closer" Monday night at 9pm on TNT...Steve Martin and Jason Mraz are on a new SNL next weekend...Guests of note this week include Andrew Bird with Letterman on Tuesday...Leno has The Bird and the Bee on Monday, Hoobastank on Tuesday, the Neville Brothers on Wednesday, Franz Ferdinand on Thursday and James Morrison on Friday...Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings on Ferguson this Friday...Conan welcomes The Walkmen on Monday, M83 on Tuesday, Cold War Kids on Wednesday, Jon Stewart on Thursday and a repeat with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on Friday...Jimmy Kimmel has Boz Scaggs on Tuesday and Kraak and Smaak on Thursday...New shows for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart this week will include former President Jimmy Carter on Monday, Gwen Ifill from PBS on Tuesday, cosmologist Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Wednesday and author P.W. Singer on Thursday...Also new this week is The Colbert report with authors Chris Mooney and Ed Young on Monday, on Tuesday, Philippe Petit, the guy who walked a wire between New York's twin towers back in 1974, on Wednesday it's cyber-musician Dan Zallagnino and on Thursday it's current Obama transition head and former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta.

ONION HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: "CEO Lays Off 5,000 Workers to Impress Girlfriend" and "United Flight Crew Hits Up Passengers For Gas Money."

MOVIES: The Sundance winner of both the grand jury and audience prize was, "PUSH," directed by Lee Daniels. It stars Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey! and Paula Patton and is based on the 1996 novel by the poet Sapphire and should not be confused with the upcoming sci-fi flick opening in February, "PUSH," starring Dakota Fanning...Two upsets in last week's Oscar nominations were Bruce Springsteen not getting nominated for Best Song after winning the Golden Globe. Peter Gabriel's song from "Wall-E" and two songs from "Slumdog Millionaire" were the only songs nominated. The other upset was "The Dark Night" not getting nominated for Best Picture and Christopher Nolan not getting nominated for Best Director. Come to think of it, Clint Eastwood had to be surprised for not getting nominated for "Gran Torino" after the National Board of Review named him Best Actor. The Academy Awards will be on ABC, Sunday February 22 with host Hugh Jackman wearing something from Mr. Mort of Guernica...Sign of the Apocalypse or just a typical January at the movies? "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" was #1 again at the weekend box-office with $21.5 million. "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" debuted with $20.7 million in second place. "Gran Torino" was third with $16 million. "Hotel For Dogs" was in fourth with $12.4 million and "Slumdog Millionaire" jumped into the top five with $10.6 million in fifth place. In fact, Oscar nominees got a good bump at the box-office this year. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," after garnering 13 nominations, leaped back in the top ten, taking in another $6 million for ninth place...Opening next week are "Taken" with Liam Neeson. I mistakenly listed it as opening this weekend. Also new will be "New In Town" with Renee Zellwegger, "The Uninvited" with Elizabeth Banks and Emily Browning and going wide will be the excellently reviewed and Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, "Waltz With Bashir," an animated feature from director Ari Folman.

SCHMUTZ: So, Pandora now has audio ads? This is good. This is part of the necessary evolution of Internet radio finding a business model for its survival. We're all going to end up doing that eventually. Again. The American public will no longer sit through four five-minute commercial breaks every hour. The younger generations aren't buying it. Radio in all forms will have to find another way...How bad is it out there? MAD magazine, the most successful humor magazine in history, is downsizing staff and going to quarterly instead of monthly editions...Finally, according to futurist Richard Watson's new book, "Future Files: The Five Trends That Will Shape the Next 50 Years," some items that will soon become extinct are paternity suits, keys, Russian democracy and careers. He also says that lettuce is on its way out. Too much water and energy to grow something with no nutritional value. But the best prediction is, finally, the decline of bottled water. Both lettuce and bottled water will join a growing list of "socially unacceptable foods," foods that just seem selfish. But, we'll still have diet water for the truly clueless.
                    Be back on February 8.

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 1/18/09

     AMORTIZE THIS!

     What a month it's been.
     We live two blocks north of where Casey Anthony, a young, dimwit, serial liar/party girl/thief left the bones of her three year-old daughter Caylee after, allegedly, murdering her because...she was too much of a pain to her lifestyle.
     You know the case, Anthony reported her daughter missing a month after she originally disappeared. Nancy Grace has devoted three hysterical hours every weeknight to this story on the Headline News Channel since June of last year.
     So the news copters were overhead since a few weeks before Christmas.
     The trial starts in March.
     BUT NOW WE DON"T HAVE TO YELL TO OUR NEIGHBORS! The Casey Copters are finally gone.
     And, the holidays passed as pleasantly as they can when the stock market continues to collapse, companies go bankrupt and people get fired and nobody in Washington really knows where that first $350 billion went. Just sitting in Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo vaults earning...nothing.
     This dreadful economic scenario will hopefully change in America starting Tuesday when Barack Obama becomes our 44th President.
     We have nowhere to go but UP from here as we prepare to ride a Keynesian economic wave to better days.
     Meanwhile, Clear Channel Broadcasting, also on Tuesday, is reportedly set to cut their work force by 7%, firing at least 1,500 people in Lee and Bain's latest attempt to balance their books by $400 million.
     CC says sales people will make up most of those let go (which is suicidal) but the company also announced a decision to syndicate music radio personalities across the country, especially to mid-size and smaller market stations.
      Just amortize that $40,000 salary across four hundred stations. Hey darling! You'll be doing midday Hot/AC from coast to coast just like Ryan Seacrest!
      That'll give a typical Clear Channel station a midday announcer cost of $100 a year!
      And that's their goal.
      What is so appalling about this continuing post-consolidation trend is not so much the eradication of listenable, interesting local talent, it is that any "local" service will continue to disappear from Clear Channel radio stations.
      It may have already gone at some smaller market stations.
      OK. Clear Channel saves money.
      But they don't serve their community of license.
      We've heard the horror stories of Katrina in New Orleans, Houston, Honolulu and, even, Minot, North Dakota.
      Severe weather moved through these cities. Hurricane, tornado, earthquake.
      There were no human announcers available to broadcast news and survival data to those cities listeners.
      And that's just one example if you need one.
      Kevin Martin resigned as FCC chairman on Thursday to join the Aspen Institute think tank. See ya Kevin.
      Obama's new nomination for FCC Chairman is Julius Genachowski, an Ivy League whiz with passion and intelligence.
      If Clear Channel does make their move to amortize two or three dozen announcer salaries across the entire country as their sole expenses at providing a product for sale, why don't they deserve to have those licenses taken back?
      Someone bigger than me is going to ask that question eventually.

TV: Inauguration coverage runs on most channels all day Tuesday. Obama gets sworn in at noon. Won't be as dreadfully cold (single digits) as originally forecast but the millions of folks in D.C. for the show will endure wind chills in the 20's...Mathew Weiner on Friday cut a new two-year deal to continue writing/producing the Emmy-winning show he created, AMC's "Mad Men"...CBS has signed John Mayer to host and produce a variety series to run later this season. After seeing Rosie O'Donnell's NBC variety show get mercifully yanked after just one awful showing, let's hope Mayer hasn't bit off more than he can chew. The variety medium may not work anymore in short-attention-span days. CBS will run at least one show as a special...In case you wondering, the Superbowl Committee over in Tampa is looking for 2,000 people who want to be on the field when Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band perform at halftime of the game on Sunday, February 1. Gotta show up for all rehearsals and show up at 10am the day of the game. And, no, they don't get tickets to the game. Enjoy those 11 hours in the parking lot..."Fringe" returns with new episodes Tuesday at 9pm on Fox..."Lost" finally returns on ABC Wednesday night from 9 to 11pm, right after a rerun of last season's final episode...This week on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart he has Al Jazeera Washington D.C. bureau chief Abderrahim Foukara on Monday, Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson on Tuesday, author David Sanger on Wednesday and actor Liam Neeson on Thursday...On The Colbert Report it's New York Times columnist Frank Rich on Monday, author Jabari Asim on Tuesday, Inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander on Wednesday and Newsweek editor Jon Meacham on Thursday...Letterman is repeats this week with Broken Social Scene on Monday and Of Montreal on Thursday...O.A.R. is on Leno Tuesday...Seal is on Craig Ferguson Monday...Conan has Los Straitjackets on Tuesday and Fall Out Boy on Wednesday...This week on SNL it's John Malkovich and T.I.

ONION HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "Vice-Presidential Handlers Lure Cheney Into Traveling Crate."

MOVIES: Fox and Warner Brothers settled their rights dispute today so the much anticipated film of superhero graphix novel, "Watchmen," will be released as scheduled on March 6...The first surprise of the young movie year is already here as Kevin James' "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" comes in $10 million above Sony's tracking to take the top spot at the weekend box-office with a stunning $33.8 million debut. "Gran Torino" had another good week, coming in second with $22.2 million. Opening in third was "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" with $21.9 million followed by the Biggie Smalls bio "Notorious" debuting in fourth with $21.5 million. "Hotel For Dogs" opened in fifth with $17.7 million. Golden Globe winner "Slumdog Millionaire" cracked the top ten with $5.9 million in tenth place on only 580 screens. It'll expand to more than twice that amount this week. Opening next weekend are "Inkheart" with Brendan Fraser, "Taken" with Liam Neeson, "Outlander" with Jim Caviezel and "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" with Michael Sheen. Kate Beckinsale passed on this franchise sequel...The Oscar nominations will be announced this Thursday morning. The Academy Awards themselves will be held on February 22.

SCHMUTZ: Public radio and the labels' Sound Exchange group cut a deal this week to cover streaming performance royalties. It'll be $1.85 million to cover the years 2006 through 2010. CPB, NPR and its members, The National Federation of Community Broadcasters along with American Public Media, Public Radio Exchange and Public Radio International are the 450 stations covered by this agreement. That comes to $820 annually per station. More to come? I also agree with George Reed-Dellinger of Washington Analysis, who was quoted in Radio & Records this week claiming that there is a "surprisingly high" chance of Congress passing a Performance Royalty for commercial radio this year. The NAB couldn't even win on a no-brainer issue like this. How are they earning their dues?...Speaking of R&R, we will miss editor Erica Farber who is leaving at the end of the month. She was a straight shooter with me and gave me time when I asked, always a gracious and smart woman.
Things keep changing...Speaking of change, nice to see Jon Hart returning to PD at KTBG, Kansas City. Everybody benefits...If you haven't yet, check out Neil Young's funny, rocking "Fork In The Road" on YouTube. "There's a bailout coming, but not for you."...
Finally, how about that US Airways pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who put that A320 into the Hudson River without death or injury after the plane chopped through a flock of geese outta LaGuardia? That and Tuesday's events in Washington make one happy to be alive!

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 1/11/09

MARK MAYS, SAM ZELL TO STAR IN "THE PLAXICO BURRESS STORY"

     The latest bloodbath at Clear Channel is about to begin. The GM meetings are over and rumors have it that more talented radio folks will be let go soon in the company's continuing misguided attempt to stay financially alive by impairing the quality of its product.
     Making radio more uninteresting and less worth listening to, much less remembering.
     It could get this extreme - let only the top ten markets have "live" radio programs while the rest of CC's stations will broadcast whatever CC's format labs in San Antonio deliver.
     Ryan Seacrest on all their Top 40 stations was only the...first step.
     Here come the rest of Clear Channel's generic radio shows.
     One would hope that there will be exceptions, such as Denver's AAA landmark station KBCO.
     But who would have predicted what we've seen happen to radio in the past year? Who knows?
     Desperate men take desperate actions. Often the wrong actions.
     If radio's largest ownership group basically forsakes any desire to provide "local" radio, it will just accelerate the radio business' ongoing decline in ad use and listenership.
     Today's current radio CEO's are idiots.
     They are living to simply save their own behinds on a daily basis while making no attempts to attract the next generation of listeners or satisfy the current ones.
     It's sad.

     That's true in the print world this week too. Especially at Sam Zell's Tribune company.
     Last Thursday, Chicago Tribune editor Gerould Kern, in a wrapper around the Tribune's front page, basically apologized for all the changes the Tribune has put on its pages in the last several months.
     "Before the launch, we listened carefully to what you said you wanted in your Tribune and the new format was created to meet those needs."
      Kern then proceeded to apologize to readers upset that the paper had become "too loud."
      Incredible.
      First he chides his customers for not appreciating the "changes" he made for them, then apologizes for putting all the changes suggested by the Trib's Lee Abrams.
      Where is this supposed to lead?
      How does this bring in new customers?
      Gimme a shout if you have any idea because I don't.

      In other print news, Time Inc. made Jess Cagle the new managing editor of one of my favorites, Entertainment Weekly. I always found it a great editing source for any entertainment product coming out. Unfortunately, the magazine slump will likely end the publication of ET by the end of the year.

      One last note. The New Times Company out of Phoenix bought the Village Voice a while back. This week it let go award-winning columnist Nat Hentoff, who been in the Voice for 50 years.
      Firing bad writers, bad editors, bad programmers and bad on-air talent is perfectly understandable.
      It's insane when talented, successful people continue to be eliminated as incompetent CEO's hesitate to cut their own income or hire the correct consultants and help that might make their business better.
      This will never work. It'll just lead to more desperation.

TV: NBC's political director, Chuck Todd, is moving to a new position at the network, though it isn't the spot I predicted he would land on. David Gregory got to replace Tim Russert on "Meet The Press" while Todd will become the new NBC News White House correspondent, replacing Gregory. Todd was a revelation this year during the presidential election coverage on both NBC and MSNBC. He was consistently factual without partisanship and was terrific at explaining difficult subjects like state caucus procedures and district allocation of delegates. He was accurate as hell too..."American Idol" returns this Tuesday on Fox, who, thank God, will only spend two weeks on the awful auditions instead of their usual three...There's a new "30 Rock" on NBC this Thursday...Rosario Dawson and Fleet Foxes are on SNL this weekend and next Sunday is jammed with notable shows as "Flight of the Conchords" returns to HBO right after "Big Love" while Showtime debuts the new program produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Oscar winner Diablo Cody ("Juno"), "United States of Tara" stars Toni Collette and John Corbett...Talk show guests this week will include The Airborne Toxic Event Friday on Letterman...On Leno it's Mute Math on Thursday and Band From TV on Friday...Glasvegas is on Craig Ferguson Thursday...Eric Hutchinson on Conan Monday...Delta Spirit on Jimmy Kimmel Friday...The Daily Show With Jon Stewart will have all new shows this week but no guests were available as this was written but over on The Colbert Report it's ACLU executive director Anthony Romero on Monday, author Niall Ferguson on Tuesday, Bethechangeinc.org CEO Alan Khazei on Wednesday and the aforementioned David Gregory on Friday.

ONION HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "People In Commercial Having More Fun With Camera Than Humanly Possible".

MOVIES: Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino" went wide over the weekend and took in $29 million to take the top spot at the weekend box-office. "Bride Wars" debuted in second with $21.5 million followed closely by "Unborn" in third with $21 million. "Marley & Me" was fourth with another $11.4 million and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was fifth with $9.5 million. The only other debut in the top ten was "Not Easily Broken" with $5.6 million in ninth place. Next weekend, two more awards contenders go wide, "Revolutionary Road" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and "The Wrestler" with Mickey Rourke. Bruce Springsteen just won a Golden Globe tonight for his title song. It'll be the last track on "Working On A Dream" when it hits the street. Also opening next weekend is another one of the inexplicable wave of WW2 films hitting us lately, "Defiance," with Daniel Craig. Also new is "Hotel For Dogs" with Julia's niece Emma Roberts, "My Bloody Valentine 3D" with Jaime King and "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" with Kevin James.

SCHMUTZ: OK. The labels appear to have traded Steve Jobs DRM-free songs for variable pricing at iTunes. Don't think the labels will be saved by the increase to $1.29 for "special" songs, They gotta develop their own models, but the disappearance of DRM was coming anyway...XM/Sirius finally rolled out a tuner that will receive both Sirius and XM channels. Dubbed MiRGE, it'll hit stores this Spring for $249.99 and the new merged company will offer an XM/Sirius everything package for $19.99 a month...AT&T announced a new competitor for satellite radio this week too. Called CruiseCast, it'll offer both TV and music channels but the cost may be prohibitive to its success. $28 a month and $1,299 for the system. Who needs television in the car that bad?...Finally,one of my predictions is getting closer and closer. Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, Blaupunkt and an Australian company, MiRoamer introduced an in-dash Internet radio tuner that will hit the market soon. Delphi and Autonet also now have plans for in-dash Internet radio sets. Prepare for the future!

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Archive: 1/4/09

CBS RADIO - "It's Bad, You Know."

     "I have little respect for these managerial despots who think they know what is good for a proud and very successful industry. It took over 75 years to build today's radio business and less than ten for a handful of overpaid and under qualified CEO's to ruin it."
      I couldn't have said it any better so I quote above from Jerry Del Colliano's excellent daily media blog, Inside Music Media, because he put it so succinctly.
      Del Colliano is a former USC professor who also was the creator of Inside Radio, which he sold to Clear Channel for mucho bucks back when he knew it was right. He also was a terrific Top 40 Program Director for many years too. I remember first following his music adds at WIBG in Philadelphia back when Kal Rudman was a must-read in the early 70's.
      His sheet is remarkable to me since it seems like he is seeing the same things I'm seeing.
      Jerry was inspired for his screed after noting local radio ad revenue was off 21% in November and national radio advertising was down 24%! In an election year no less!
      Yet radio still responds to it's declining audience and business by simply cutting costs again and again and again. Never actually improving its product or reacting to the new marketing opportunities created for it in this new digital age.
      I was particularly intrigued over the holidays by the news that CBS Radio, in an attempt to cough up some amount of cash per Sumner Redstone's instructions to Les Moonves, had sold three full-powered FM stations in Denver to Wilks Broadcasting for just $19.5 million.
      $19.5 million?
      In market #21?
      It's bad you know.
      I don't know exactly what CBS paid for these stations but I'm sure it was at least five times that sale amount.
      Unbelievable.
      Of course, these stations all probably sound like the audio equivalent of a 60 cycle tone interspersed with time checks in morning drive. The way all current music formats are programmed, it's wallpaper to today's listeners. Nothing of distinction or uniqueness. Nothing new. Nothing fun! Nothing you need!
      Or want...to listen to.
      It's bad you know.
      2008 just finished with the Dow down 35% and the S&P down 39%. Retailers report that the just ended holiday season was the worst since 1970.
      160,000 stores closed in 2008 and 200,000 more could shutter this year according to Strategic Resource Group in an Associated Press story I read on Monday.
      2,000 to 3,000 malls are expected to close by May.
      I don't mean to be too negative but I'm sure we are going to see more economic distress soon. Firings and cuts are just starting to really hit here in Orlando, a former boom town.
      And more is coming.
      In this economic hard time, your product better be worth time and money. Or the customers aren't gonna show up.
      This is why I think AAA is in such a great spot as the rest of radio continues to wait before improving its product, either with new music or new people or just something that people can actually relate to!
      AAA has already had that from the beginning. New music. It'll be the only format pounding the new Bruce Springsteen album in a few weeks. It'll be the format pounding the new U2 in March.
      Christ, the format is filled with worthy new music, serving a niche that will help keep the format alive in this difficult time, presented by people who don't lie and don't waste a listener's time.
      The rest of radio thought AAA wouldn't serve enough people when it rose in the early 90's. The old rock signals would continue to dominate with their mass appeal numbers.
      Wrong.
      Radio's current music stations are sooooooo terrified of adding new music that they've killed themselves. Jocks sound bored as they read cards.
      While AAA may end up on new stations that can soon be bought for 20 cents on the dollar!

(To get Jerry Del Colliano's free column, go to Inside Music Media.com)

TV: Things start to pick up again now that the holidays are over. "Scrubs" returns but it's now on ABC starting this Tuesday night at 9. "Nip/Tuck" also returns Tuesday on FX at 10pm. "Damages" with Glenn Close and new guest star William Hurt returns this Wednesday on FX at 10pm. "24" returns to Fox with two hours each, from 8-10pm. this Sunday and Monday. Golden Globes on NBC this Sunday too. Remember back when Steven Spielberg hired Oscar winner Diablo Cody ("Juno") to write a show he was producing? It's "The United States of Tara" coming to Showtime on Sunday January 18 at 10pm. starring Toni Collette...Both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are back with new shows on Comedy Central this week. Guests confirmed at this writing for The Daily Show include new "Meet The Press" host David Gregory on Monday, "Vanity Fair"'s Michael Wolff on Tuesday and Kate Hudson on Wednesday. Only guest confirmed for the return of The Colbert Report is CNN political reporter John King for Monday. Musical guests this week include Letterman with Glasvegas on Monday, Erin McCarley on Tuesday and Okkervil River on Wednesday. Leno has Iron & Wine on Monday, Lady Gaga on Thursday and Eagles of Death Metal on Friday....Conan has Doyle & Debby on Monday and Bang Camaro on Tuesday...One of the shows I recommended back when it began a few years ago has taken a break. "Sunday Morning Shootout," with Variety editor Peter Bart and producer Peter Guber talking about the movie business, has left its home at AMC and will be reappearing soon on another channel according to Bart. I'll keep you posted.

TV LINES OF THE WEEK: "For the love of God. Will someone please punch me in the face so I can see some stars?" - Cloris Leachman from Comedy Central's Roast Of Bob Saget: Uncensored, out on DVD Tuesday. "I had a fallout with the Postmaster General. It was over the creation of a Jerry Garcia stamp. I said, 'If I wanted to lick a hippie, I'd return Joan Baez's phone calls.'" - Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) on "30 Rock."

MOVIES: OK, movies kept doing well last year despite the economy, finishing 2008 with a $9.63 billion gross, just under 2007's record take of $9.68 billion. 4.3% less tickets were sold last year but ticket prices were up. Over the weekend, labs continued to rule as "Marley & Me" repeated in the top spot with $24.1 million passing $100 million since its opening. Adam Sandler's "Bedtime Stories" stayed in second with another $20.3 million followed by "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" in third place with $18.4 million, "Valkyrie" in fourth with $14 million and "Yes Man" in fifth with $13.9 million. New films opening next weekend include "Bride Wars" with Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson, a typical January horror flick, "The Unborn," starring Gary Oldman and "Not Easily Broken" with Morris Chestnut. A few films with awards buzz go wider next weekend too including "Gran Torino" starring and directed by Clint Eastwood and "Last Chance Harvey" with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. The Golden Globe Awards return this Sunday after being bumped by last year's writer's strike. Remember they serve booze at this one broadcast from the Beverly Hilton next Sunday at 8 on NBC.

ONION HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: "Cubs, Absence From World Series Agree To 4-Year Extension," "Stuart Scott's Left Eye Moves To Fox."

SCHMUTZ: Sorry to see Dave Morey resign at KFOG after all these years. We wish him the best. But we'll still have the Ten at Ten...Nice to see the RIAA drop it's lawsuits. Except they're still pursing the ones in progress. Come on! What's the point? It never kept a kid from finding Limewire...Watch for Obama's FCC to embrace Net Neutrality and help escalate the move to better available broadband in this country...Book to read: "Financial Shock" by Mark Zandi, a founder of the research firm Moody's Economy.com. You'll see why he's always quoted...Finally, why is Sirius likely to stay at 12 cents a share? The collapse of the auto industry and Howard Stern's announcement that he'll retire when his contract is up in two years.

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Special Archive: 6/8/08

NON-COMM WRAPUP

      Last week, I began my coverage of the Eighth Annual NON-COMMvention in Philadelphia by pointing out how well AAA and non-commercial radio continue to perform in the current world of radio. While commercial radio as a whole, continues to lose both local and national advertising business at an increasingly alarming level, AAA keeps chugging along raising more money in shorter time spans as their audiences keep growing.
      Jackie Nixon of NPR Research pointed out how the AAA audience, both commercial and non-commercial, continues to be wealthier, more loyal (longer TSL), more tech savvy and therefore attractive.
      My impression from the first two convention panels led me to believe that, while the format has been doing better than competing formats by a mile, there is still opportunity to increase audience and income by simply presenting ourselves with more confidence and pride to our non-comm boards, audiences, underwriters and advertisers.
      Simply. AAA can still sell itself better.

      The third NON-COMM panel I attended was "Triple A in a PPM World," in which Dave Sullivan of the Radio Research Consortium broke down the initial findings of how Arbitron's switch from diaries to the new personal people meter (PPM) for radio audience measurement would affect AAA.
      Right now, only two markets, Philadelphia and Houston, are using PPM's. Arbitron wants to employ them in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, San Jose, Nassau/Long Island and Riverside/San Bernadino in September.
      But there are still issues to be resolved, including both accreditation by media buyers and the continuing complaints of some of Arbitron's radio customers. That CEO Bob Neil at Cox Broadcasting signed a contract with Arbitron but is still criticizing them at the same time is one indication of how dysfunctional the current radio industry is.
      After Arbitron settles these issue, it plans to have PPM's in the top 50 markets by 2010.
      First thing about PPM - the machines are much more accurate than the diary method, Actual frequencies are always picked up on the machine. They don't have to be remembered like a person keeping a diary, in which well-known brand names would often be written down while actual second and third listening choices would be either forgotten or left off the diary.
      As first seen when Nielsen switched to Local People Meters (LPM)'s a few years ago. Average quarter hours go down and cumes go up. Especially for the stations often lost in the mix. Like a non-comm AAA, commercial AAA's and typical AOR or alternative stations.
      What pisses off the big ownership groups (like Cox) is that longtime market leaders with big brand call letters often see their shares drop drastically. Because the audience measurement is now more accurate. All those frequencies set on buttons in the car (what? 18 of them, if you're punching through searching for a song that's decent) will now show up. If only fleeting. Cume goes up for stations that didn't get their fair remembrances in the past. Longtime market leaders suffer as the reality of their audiences falls to a more reasonable (accurate) level.
      Consequently, as time spent listening is more accurate, it often leads to declining average quarter hour measurements. Those old 7:59am to 8:16am time check tricks in morning drive don't work like they once did. The station gets one quarter-hour instead of three, if the listener had fallen for that trick and written down a 17-minute listening span that was actually only 12 minutes from 8:02am to 8:14am. That's just an example but you get my point.
      Since human recollection is no longer as important, the incessant repetition of call letters and frequencies is no longer as important with Arbitrons PPM's as it once was. But branding is still important, you still want word of mouth and the listeners still have to know who you are. Just doesn't have to be as annoying as the CBS alternative here in Orlando that used to say its frequencies six to eight times each break.
      With PPM's, Arbitron is using a smaller sample. In Philadelphia 1,500 PPM's replace approximately 4,000 diaries. Also, time-spent-listening (TSL) is now referred to as actual-time-exposed (ATE).
       Bottom line, PPM's are so much better at finding actual AAA listeners. Audience sharing figures are much more specific and better.
      P-1's make up 26% of WXPN's cume in Philadelphia now versus 70% when the city used diaries.
       Phantom cume is no longer phantom. It's real.
       By the way, WXPN's Internet stream is encoded for the PPM. Online numbers can start showing up on Arbitron reports. Both over-the-air and online reports will be available from Arbitron and they can obviously be combined. Stations should encode their webstreams.
      Interesting thing I noticed when WXPN broke down their PPM statistics was when Bruce Warren showed the lowest ratings dip on the screen and pointed out that it was during their fund drive. Now, it's understandable why folks may leave during a drive but what I noticed was how the XPN numbers immediately returned to their average daily numbers on the day the drive ended. The audience was loyal, engaged and, hell, smart enough to return exactly when the station returned to its normal programming routine. Can other music formats claim that kind of response from their audience? Incredible.
     One last thing on the PPM's. Arbitron is finally using cell phones to establish their samples for the PPM and will continue as they roll out through the rest of the top 50 markets. It's about time.

     On Friday morning the founder of the Radio and Internet Newsletter (R.A.I.N.), Kurt Hanson, gave his presentation that opened with him stressing how streaming offers the most growth opportunities in the new digital age.
     Internet radio is becoming ubiquitous said Hanson. The Internet is everywhere as the explosion of new mobile devices continues. Just wait until Wimax and LTE get here.
     Hanson pointed out how that anyone with a GPS connection essentially will be able to get Internet radio in their car. He also embraced Chris Anderson's "Long Tail" theory pointing out that there is only so much room on the over-the-air spectrum and that as the generic quality of current commercial music radio continues, it will just keep driving listeners away to finding a channel that suits their needs. Either over-the-air or over the Internet.
     "Radio is live and local. Internet is data-base driven and global," said Hanson, adding that evolving value choices in the new digital age will include more loyalty to the GUI. Or the graphical-user-interface brand. In other words, people love their iPods or their iPhones or their Blackberries or their Centros or whatever piece of hardware they choose.
      Two main items from Hanson: quality of your streaming will become more important. The value of podcasting will continue to grow too. Posting a jock's 1 to 2pm hour may be the future. With a song list and features, of course. She heard it on a tuner but may want to download it at home.
      As far as royalties, Hanson had an opinion that many of the programmers and even the independent promoters on hand agreed on. The labels and the RIAA have waited too long in their attempt at getting a performance royalty rate passed before further negotiations on a definitive Internet radio royalty act.
      But as the labels continue to wait and wait after getting off to such a late start, the chances of the RIAA and the labels getting the royalty rates they desire from both radio and the Internet decreases. Especially in regards to Internet radio, the horse will have already left the barn way before they get their act, and therefore their political support, together.

      The last panel  was "The Differences Between Us" moderated by WXPN's Dan Reed on Saturday morning which was the annual dialog about the relationship between radio and the record labels. Russ Boris from WFUV in New York City and Mike Vasilikos from WTMD Baltimore were joined by Jesse Barnett of Right Arm Resource and Red's Chrissy Zagami.
     As is usually the case, label reps want more communication and listening while radio begs for understanding as the amount of music to be listened to grows.
      Borris pointed out he now gets 150 digital tracks every Monday while Vasilikos gets at least 100 to go along with mailed discs. Jesse Barnett pointed out that SBR, at the Boulder Summit two years ago, said that stations received 30,000 annual releases in 2004 that grew to 60,000 annual releases in 2006. Radio all pointed out that there were still only 24 hours in a day.
      Borris complained specifically about too many IM's in the new age. Barnett asked that PD/MD's at least respond to e-mail inquiries especially when they are out during their call times. Jeff Appleton, from the floor, asked for a little more attention to details, as he said that less then 10 programmers had even responded to a free Big Head Todd CD giveaway offer.
      WXPN's Bruce Warren pointed out the best idea to me when he said that radio should always be serviced on new songs before, or at least at the same time the songs are posted on MySpace, iTunes etc. Labels today keep sending out mixed signals. So communication on both sides still needs to get better.
      Overall, the Eighth Annual NON-COMMvention produced great music and civil, honest communication about our changing business.
      I was impressed with the attention to detail and the amount of energy I saw from the AAA community in Philadelphia. I realize that next year will be even more important as new hardware hits our listeners and new royalty issues hit the market.

Special Archive: 6/3/08

WE AREN'T THE PIPELINE. WE'RE THE OIL.
- KTBG (The Bridge) Kansas City PD Jon Hart

     The Eighth Annual AAA NON-COMMvention in Philadelphia was a terrific one this year. Great weather. The Phillies are winning. Chris Matthews is set to go after Arlen Specter's Senate seat in 2010 and host station WXPN sounded like the format leader they are as their entire staff, led by General Manager Roger LaMay, VP/PD Bruce Warren and OM/MD/NON-COMM creator Dan Reed pooled their estimable talents to again produce a gathering for the non-commercial AAA stations in the country that was both beneficial and buzz-worthy cool!
     Big picture: Attendance was about 400. A total similar to last year's. More folks came in from the northeast because of Philly's proximity but some of our friends out West didn't make it due to, I'm thinking, a combination of the higher cost of flying and the decline of the record labels promotional budgets that once helped some smaller market programmers make the trip.
     There was a nice turnout of commercial AAA's once again too. The always lovely Barbara Dacey from WMVY/MVY Radio in Martha's Vineyard, the Reverend Coes from Nashville's WRLT, Fish from KMTN (The Mountain) in Jackson Hole, Zeb Norris from WNCS (The Point) in Vermont and quite a few others enjoyed the meetings held at the World Cafe Live and WXPN studios and at the Inn at Penn over on the University of Pennsylvania campus.
     Triplearadio.com Founder and Editor Dave Chaney didn't make it to this one as his 80-year old mum had a, let's say, "coronary incident" the day before the convention so Dave stayed back in California as a little love, a little scary news, and a lot of tests were undertaken as he went through one of those "WTF?" situations that boomers like us are becoming all too familiar with these days as our parents age. As of this writing she was ok by the way, so I tried to cover as much as I could for the site as a single source. My impressions follow:

BEST PERFORMANCE BUZZ: CARNEY. Young Cal kids who sounded like, "A mix of Jeff Buckley and Led Zeppelin" according to Dan Reed.
The "who the heck is this?" moment of the convention. Always a good sign.

BEST RECORD BUZZ: "Thank You Too" from My Morning Jacket. Tossed in as a 'guess who this is' afterthought by Sean Coakley at the end of the Music Meeting. Best received song of that afternoon along with the Music Meeting winner, "Two Silver Trees" by Calexico which really impressed the WXPN listeners in attendance.

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE SURPRISE: Even in a recession, non-comms seemed to have no trouble raising money from their fund drives. I got excited a few years back when New York's WFUV pulled in $800,000 in a spring session. WFPK in Louisville matched that total this past spring. WNTI in Hackettstown, New Jersey doubled what they got last spring. Across the board, the majority of stations exceeded their goals and most did it in a shorter campaign. This just proves how loyal the AAA non-comm audience is and shows how valuable AAA non-comm listeners consider their local stations. Also shows how much money the AAA demo has. Which leads us to the first session at the convention.

PANEL - WHAT IS AAA AND WHO LISTENS? Jackie Nixon of NPR Research gave us a fascinating breakdown on the entire AAA format both commercial and non-commercial. The audience for AAA is one of the most highly educated of any format. And also wealthy. Something highly attractive to underwriters. Not anything unknown to us but she reinforced these attributes as she also noted that the AAA format is not as well defined in the world today as it needs to be. 230 stations in the NPR fold are now playing at least some AAA. It is a key growing format in public radio. With AAA listeners there is a large crossover to news/talk. Commercial AAA's play tons more 80's music than non-comm AAA's. During the radio industry's recent difficulties, AAA has been very steady in audience trends on public radio. Not going through the ratings bumps like commercial radio. Nixon said AAA's AQH (average quarter hour) share is likely to be increasing going forward. The non-comm AAA audience is extremely tech savvy, owns MP3's, reads blogs but the non-comm AAA's are better at holding their audience in our time-shifting digital age than commercial stations. Nixon pointed out that this is a very impressive attribute in the marketplace right now. They love the product of their station. Nixon reminded us that as the age of podcasting and streaming it is more important than ever to make sure that a station is programmed and executed well. In this day of increasing choices and competition, you have to program good all the time! You just can't let jocks wing it. They have to focus.

PANEL - MAKING THE CASE FOR AAA XPN GM Roger LaMay, PD's Jon Hart of KTBG (The Bridge) in Kansas City, Chris Wienk of WEXT (The Exit) in Albany and Stacy Owen of WFPK in Louisville were on the panel. One item that came up again was the fact that sometimes even board members of existing AAA non-comms have difficulty sometimes grasping exactly what AAA is. It's a semantic problem but also a problem of understanding. Breaking it down to "adult rock" or describing the station as the "only station in town that plays Dylan, Radiohead and Neil Young" is one way I suggested. Otherwise the news was rather good. WFPK raised more than their NPR sister station even though that station had a larger audience! I remembered that. Another indication of AAA's appeal. Stacy also pointed out how AAA has grown 85% on public radio from 1997 to 2007. Both Jon and Stacy emphasized that their station's connection to community is a key to their success and formatic presentation. Chris pointed out that he presented AAA in a tone similar to classical and his board approved of the format "in 5 minutes". There's a reason these people are PD's. Jon Hart had the best line of the convention too, when he pointed out, "We Aren't The Pipeline. We're The Oil!". This was just after he mentioned that KTBG had raised 60% more than the previous fund-drive this spring.

Those were just the first two panels. In next weekend's The Forest, I'll wrap up my coverage of the NON-COMM in Philly by covering the PPM session which was extremely revealing, I'll also give you my note's on Kurt Hanson's speech and coverage of the Radio vs. Records final panel hosted by Dan Reed on Saturday. Pardon me now but I've got to get two teeth pulled. My head swelled to twice its size as soon as I returned from Philly. I apologize. But getting teeth pulled - it's like getting the rest of commercial music radio to sound as good and get as enthusiastic an audience response as AAA demonstrated at the Eighth Annual NON-COMM.

—Mike Lyons

Discuss! Visit the AAA live forum: TalkTalk

Special Archive: 5/26/08

AAA 2008 - STATE OF THE FORMAT.

     It's no secret to regular readers of The Forest that I've spent the last eight or nine years simply chronicling and encouraging the growth of the AAA format. Of course this format is my bliss, as Joseph Campbell would put it. The artists, the songs, the presentation and values are almost identical to the ethos I had as a teenager who had the wonderful fortune to be a successful album-rock-station music director when I was but 19. The instincts that I shared with the staff of WORJ-FM in Orlando led to a 7+ share 12+ back in the early 70's. That was rare at the time. Today, those same instincts are sadly absent from the, now unregulated, business of radio, except at the AAA format.
     As the 8th Annual Non-Commvention approaches next weekend in Philadelphia, I'm pleased to once again point out how well this format of great music, sincere, bullshit-free presentation and easy-to-understand value has done in the year since our last NON-COMM.
     This year, the hole's filled in.
     Last year (2006-2007) I told you about a record-setting annual amount of 16 new AAA stations that had signed on to the format. Incidentally, the numbers I used include the two stations the format had lost to other formats (crab-ass tight AC). I prefer to get my math correct. New AAA's came to Washington D.C., Cleveland, Milwaukee and Rochester, among others.
     This year, the amount of new AAA's was smaller, eight new stations. But the markets that got them were huge.
     First, there was Emmis' WRXP in New York City. A commercial station to go with the increasingly successful non-comm at Fordham University, WFUV.  Also in New York City, WNYE (Radio Liberation) signed on in March as a new public station featuring selected programming from KEXP in Seattle along with WXPN's "World Cafe" and their own on-air talent. This year, in the country's largest market, AAA is drinking radio's milkshake.
     In the nation's second largest market, Los Angeles, KCRW's legendary sound will now be complimented by Bonneville's new KSWD, which has sounded remarkable deep and well-programmed from the start. The addition of new air talent to both WRXP and KSWD has just begun so the jury is still out on the issue of on-air presentation, but the recent addition of MTV vet Matt Pinfield to the morning show at New York's WRXP shows great potential.
     In market #17, San Diego, the CBS Hot/AC KSCF moved towards a AAA position, especially in their re-currents and back catalog. In Denver, KTNI joined market and format pioneer KBCO and non-comm KCUV.
     In a surprise move, Entercom, while going through drastic cutbacks that indicated how difficult this year has been for commercial radio other than AAA, blew up KYYS in Kansas City and launched AAA KBLV, the Boulevard. Out in California, KPIG's network expanded to KZAP in Chico. Also joining the AAA fold were non-comm WEXT in Albany, New York and commercial stations WXRY in Columbia, South Carolina and WCTG in Salisbury/Ocean City, Maryland.
     The AAA format lost two stations last year. KSQY in Rapid City, South Dakota and WDOD in Chattanooga.
     Again, it has long been my position that the AAA format is the sole format in the current range of terrestrial music radio stations that can break through the public's obvious disconnect with radio in 2008, due to the lack of being special, topical or even relating to an audience. The vast majority of 2008 music radio formats has been ground down to a safe, mass-appeal background music service with an aim for a mass audience. In a day when shooting for the masses is no longer possible. AAA has aimed for a more achievable goal from the beginning. A niche of boomers with an appeal to Gen's X,Y and the millennials featuring cool songwriting craft and performance combined with an intelligent presentation of value. Topical, informative, cool. The kind of radio that actually communicates with its audience and talks to you like your friends naturally do. Something the rest of radio no longer provides. Because it costs too much. Provides too much risk. Takes too much effort.
     The radio industry continues to decline on the whole. Business is down both locally and nationally according the RAB. Time spent listening to radio has been declining since 1989 according to Arbitron.
     The result has been that the AAA format is the only format in radio showing growth. Attracting and holding it's target audience. Billing better. Raising money better. All because they're working harder and have embraced the challenge of risk involved with creating a new and better product every day over the air.
      This is why people respond. They relate. They're loyal to their AAA station. And they're grateful when they're asked to support their non-comm in a fund drive or simply remember an advertiser on a commercial station.
       Interestingly, while the country has fallen into a recession, most non-comm AAA's have still met or exceeded their fundraising goals in the past year. This is because they have developed and continued a healthy relationship with their niche audience. Who are loyal.
       Now, in 2008's tough economic times, that successful relationship with their niche has kept the AAA non-comms in better stead financially than their commercial brothers and sisters across the street.
     Who still don't even back announce what they've just played.
     Because they're sick of what they just played.
     You can hear it in their tone of voice. Tired, bored, uninspired. Totally no fun.
     AAA, as a format, has worked to stay away from that cheap, lazy posture from its beginning.
     While commercial music radio wallows in their hole. Digging deeper and deeper. AAA is standing on the ground listening to the wonderful new sounds.

—Mike Lyons

FORMAT NEWS

THE FOREST By Mike Lyons

TRIPLEARADIO
AIR MONITOR

Sirius/XM The Spectrum
6/18/09, 1:08pm-2:08pm, Host: Christine Stone

Regina Spektor - Laughing With
Rolling Stones - Monkey Man
Dave Matthews Band - Funny the Way It Is
David Gray - Caroline
U2 - All I Want Is You
K'Naan - Wavin' Flag
The Beatles - Oh Darling
Ben Harper And Relentless7 - Fly One Time
Coldplay - Trouble
Counting Crows - Come Around
The Wallflowers - 6th Ave. Heartache
Gomez - Airstream Driver
Jeff Buckey - Last Goodbye
Ingrid Michaelson - The Way I Am
Squeeze - Tempted

2009 CALENDAR

July 7-11
The Latin Alternative Music Conference (LAMC)
New York, Roosevelt Hotel

July 8-10
Public Radio Development & Marketing Conference
San Diego

July 15-19
Conclave Learning Conference
Minneapolis South, Sheraton Bloomington Hotel

August 5-7
FMQB Triple A Conference
Boulder, St. Julien Hotel & Spa

August 7-9
Lollapalooza
Chicago, Grant Park

August 28-30
Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival
San Francisco, Golden Gate Park

September 15-18
Public Radio Programming Conference
Cleveland, Renaissance Cleveland Hotel

September 16-19
Americana Music Festival & Conference
Nashville

October 2-4
Austin City Limits Music Festival
Austin, Zilker Park

October 6
Billboard's Mobile Entertainment Live!
San Diego, Convention Center

October 20-24
CMJ Music Marathon & Film Fest
New York City

October 29-30
The Hollywood Reporter/
Billboard Film TV & Music Conference
Los Angeles, The Beverly Hilton

February 18-20, 2010
Michele Clarke's Sunset Sessions
San Diego, Rancho Bernardo Inn

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