"Make the most of your website, because you are going to need it (1/16/09 RBR #10)."
Good line in Friday’s RBR to cover up the state of radio’s union with it’s miniscule audience speaking within our own circle of dwindling friends, mostly the silent minority of folks who know just what the hell to do to restore radio to the top of the list- providing the missing service oriented ingredients, not seen nor heard since the wholesaling of this industry stolen by hedge funds and re-sellers (futures markets of mass communications) in 1984. You former owners still checking in on this mess, hope you’ve invested your money in something worthwhile. Some of you guys re-enter this industry from time to time under different names. And you know the difference and how to make the circus a breadwinner.
We had 25 years living off broken promises, mismanaged by groups of fear-mongering cookie cutters aligned with a digital power base selling proprietary licensed junk, programmer copycats unable to restore talent for fear of failure, tech rooms full of junked equipment, vacant or bulldozed regional and local studios where memories and bonds were made with the local advertisers and their customers, replaced with steel buildings and corporate logos so listeners can gather in the lobby, take the tour of the empty rooms and interconnect facilities, walking by the parking lot where 5-plus radio station vans and buses touting logos of all known cultures await the next gathering of the competitors on location then back to the main desk, returning their building passes where they sign for their gift ticket and out the door past the Have A Corporate Day sign into the world with that "how can Wendy work at Mickey D’s?" look on their faces.
Yep, you better take a look at what’s on your web site all the way from porn, get out of debt once more and the new treatments for mental illness dealing with the vast wasteland of blogging and the eventual overload and the search for peace and safety in numbers. So dump your remaining real estate with the tower buyers and turn your fixed assets into network and systems facilities. Better yet, do us all a favor and find another job with the new D.C. admin, or career sell time shares possible re-education scholarships. Radio is still viable as small markets have proven during this 25 year hiatus. When talent and local sourcing return broadcasting will loath the day we had to presell the morning show 18 hours a day for lack of something better or more local.
–Jerry Smith, Communications Consultant
