Our first two deaths of note for 2011:
1) Gerry Rafferty--I owned several 45s of his music in the late 70s; he was easily one of the most underrated male pop vocalists of that era. One reason? Radio played "Baker Street" to death and ignored other songs that were as good or better (Home and Dry, Get It Right Next Time, Right Down The Line, The Royal Mile....). I suspect some thought all these years he was a one-hit wonder. Only 63. Sad.
2) Hanover County loses a fixture as Gospel Chickenhouse founder Ray Pollard passed away at age 89. I remember it opening in Montpelier in the 1970s and going there as a little boy and all the excitement that little idea on a farm generated then, and continues to do so. Ray may be with the angels, but the ministry, I hope, will keep on rolling (if I may use an egg analogy).
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TV, RADIO, INTERNET, et al.......CUT the Christmas commercials. NOW! I'm sick of Lexus and Hyundai specifically. It's January 5th. That "December to Remember"? Only a memory now, guys. Enough is enough.
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Congrats to Jason Paige for becoming the new Production Director over at Main Line Broadcasting (The Wolf, Liberty, Big Oldies). Good find. I would have loved to have been offered the position, but alas. One day my ship WILL come in.
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Note to ESPN---I am available to fill Ron Franklin's position, and will refuse to call any woman there "sugarcakes" or whatever it was he was stupid enough to say. Good Lord, it's 2011, not 1911!
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There MUST be more worry than being let on in public around inner NFL circles about a possible work stoppage in 2011. In any other year, with so many coaches on the grill, would we see this little activity? No. Marvin Lewis? Gone. Gary Kubiak? Probably out. Jack Del Rio? Maybe.
But instead, Minnesota keeps their interim (good move!), Dallas may end up doing the same, Carolina is looking at some OC's and DC's around the league, while Jacksonville, Houston, and, shockingly, Cincinnati are staying put. And the name Bill Cowher is not coming up much at all.
All of this non-action is telling me that things aren't as sure-fire for an eventual deal as this fan would hope.
The NFL has THE BEST thing going in sports today, bar none. No one comes close. For the love of Pete (Rozelle), how could these sides NOT go in and just hammer out an agreement to keep this money machine rolling.
Because if they DO have a work stoppage and even the pre-season is affected, it will affect the NFL. They are playing with so much dynamite it isn't funny. Please, do not add 2011 to 1982 and 1987.
Just ask the NHL what cancelling a season does........
Or baseball canning a World Series in the middle of a hot pennant race......
Enjoy the playoffs, gang. It could be all for awhile.
Showing posts with label Hyundai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hyundai. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Sunday, January 04, 2009
2009: SHOCKER in radio; another "forced" Witham vehicle buy......
I'm (finally) relaxing at big bro's house Saturday evening during NFL action, catching up on news from home, when I get to vartv.com and get the early candidate for "shock of the year".
Hoffman Communications has apparently laid off the entire staff of WGGM and WZEZ. I worked for Hoffman for nine years (1988-97), so this surprised me, but the second sentence floored me.
Apparently also exiting is long-time VP/GM Paul Scott. He was my boss there, and had been a fixture there for over 25 years.
The only conjecture I have as to why this has all happened is that Hoffman has a buyer and is getting out of radio. Back in the 80s and 90s, Hoffman owned WDYL here in town as well as WGGM, plus stations in Baton Rouge and near Atlanta and almost acquired one in Norfolk.
As the 90s progressed, the company shrunk, selling off the Georgia, then the Louisiana station, before selling WDYL in 1999. WZEZ was a new sign-on in 2001, a station won via FCC auction. Its signal has never been good enough to attract a large Richmond audience, and thus, firm placement in ad buys unfortunately.
My prayers are with my friends in Chester. This was not the way I wanted to see 2009 begin.
And we haven't even touched the 900-pound gorilla in the radio room known as Clear Channel. All CC GMs are headed to Texas for a "budget meeting" this week, and I am expecting to start reading about tons and tons of "layoffs due to budget cuts" at about anytime, as the new privately owned CC gets ready to swallow tough, and very high, debt payments.
Don't be surprised when, one day, one person will be the program director for every Clear Channel-owned station in America that shares the same format; say, country, for example. Rather than having a person in-house in each city programming the station to fit the taste, culture and styles unique to that city, one human will cookie-cutter the country format from some "format lab" and they'll magically determine what country listeners want to hear in Birmingham, Boise, Bismarck, Boston, and Baton Rouge, and pipe it nationwide.
Scary, isn't it? Radio's BIGGEST advantage is being sacrificed at the altar of high debt payments. LOCALISM. Why pay the money to have locals when one guy or lady can decide what songs to air on your favorite station from the CC corporate offices in San Antonio, and thus, cause 75 program directors across the nation to lose their jobs? That'll save some money!
At the costly expense of radio continuing to lose touch with its listeners.
BEFORE television, the "network" model (CBS, NBC, et al) was the way of radio. You listened to your favorite network shows on your favorite station, and they offered local programming when the network wasn't on (sound familiar??).
In the case of the behemoth companies like Clear Channel, this is where they're going (Ryan Seacrest, come on down!), and it's not just them.
Radio's best hope? That the big companies, in order to survive, have to sell lots of stations and a new generation of owners that understand RADIO will be able to independently own, or build companies that will re-introduce localism to radio.
We'll see what happens, but I'm not looking forward to reading the radio web publications for the next few weeks.
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I'll save the vehicle story for another post. Suffice it to say, the Withams never get the chance to sit down, decide when they'd like to buy a "new to them" car (we don't buy new cars anymore), then start shopping, dickering, etc.
We always have a car self-destruct, forcing upon us a car buying experience within 24 hours or so. Such was the case in North Carolina during our New Years getaway.
We left for Carolina in a Ford, and returned in a Hyundai.
Even though I hate the car payment, the preceding sentence does promote the fact that we've upgraded. :)
Hoffman Communications has apparently laid off the entire staff of WGGM and WZEZ. I worked for Hoffman for nine years (1988-97), so this surprised me, but the second sentence floored me.
Apparently also exiting is long-time VP/GM Paul Scott. He was my boss there, and had been a fixture there for over 25 years.
The only conjecture I have as to why this has all happened is that Hoffman has a buyer and is getting out of radio. Back in the 80s and 90s, Hoffman owned WDYL here in town as well as WGGM, plus stations in Baton Rouge and near Atlanta and almost acquired one in Norfolk.
As the 90s progressed, the company shrunk, selling off the Georgia, then the Louisiana station, before selling WDYL in 1999. WZEZ was a new sign-on in 2001, a station won via FCC auction. Its signal has never been good enough to attract a large Richmond audience, and thus, firm placement in ad buys unfortunately.
My prayers are with my friends in Chester. This was not the way I wanted to see 2009 begin.
And we haven't even touched the 900-pound gorilla in the radio room known as Clear Channel. All CC GMs are headed to Texas for a "budget meeting" this week, and I am expecting to start reading about tons and tons of "layoffs due to budget cuts" at about anytime, as the new privately owned CC gets ready to swallow tough, and very high, debt payments.
Don't be surprised when, one day, one person will be the program director for every Clear Channel-owned station in America that shares the same format; say, country, for example. Rather than having a person in-house in each city programming the station to fit the taste, culture and styles unique to that city, one human will cookie-cutter the country format from some "format lab" and they'll magically determine what country listeners want to hear in Birmingham, Boise, Bismarck, Boston, and Baton Rouge, and pipe it nationwide.
Scary, isn't it? Radio's BIGGEST advantage is being sacrificed at the altar of high debt payments. LOCALISM. Why pay the money to have locals when one guy or lady can decide what songs to air on your favorite station from the CC corporate offices in San Antonio, and thus, cause 75 program directors across the nation to lose their jobs? That'll save some money!
At the costly expense of radio continuing to lose touch with its listeners.
BEFORE television, the "network" model (CBS, NBC, et al) was the way of radio. You listened to your favorite network shows on your favorite station, and they offered local programming when the network wasn't on (sound familiar??).
In the case of the behemoth companies like Clear Channel, this is where they're going (Ryan Seacrest, come on down!), and it's not just them.
Radio's best hope? That the big companies, in order to survive, have to sell lots of stations and a new generation of owners that understand RADIO will be able to independently own, or build companies that will re-introduce localism to radio.
We'll see what happens, but I'm not looking forward to reading the radio web publications for the next few weeks.
---------------
I'll save the vehicle story for another post. Suffice it to say, the Withams never get the chance to sit down, decide when they'd like to buy a "new to them" car (we don't buy new cars anymore), then start shopping, dickering, etc.
We always have a car self-destruct, forcing upon us a car buying experience within 24 hours or so. Such was the case in North Carolina during our New Years getaway.
We left for Carolina in a Ford, and returned in a Hyundai.
Even though I hate the car payment, the preceding sentence does promote the fact that we've upgraded. :)
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