Air checking - October 9th....

C'mon radio people. Please stop shooting yourselves in the foot. I understand that there are some concerns about the new PPM ratings system. But airing the dirty laundry is going to result in permanent damage if we don't take a different course.

Certain stations in markets such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, have shown significant drops in listenership based on the early PPM numbers just released. I can understand they are upset, but they need to take a step back.

These stations have sold, and more significantly, continue to sell a high inventory based on the "old" numbers. Obviously, year after year, a station such as WGCI in Chicago has done well for its advertisers or they wouldn't be as financially successful as they have been - at any ratings.

Now here are stations such as KRTH in Los Angeles and WDRV in Chicago "suddenly" showing tremendous numbers that help to call attention to the surge in music formats not shown in a number of years. So what happens? Other radio station executive have screamed so much that politicians have been called upon to look into this matter.

That should be warning enough. If the politicians "looking into this" do the same as they have done for the nation's current economic system, people will be giving away radios by the end of the year.

The publicity surrounding the PPM's should be about how many formats were UNDER reported all these years.

Radio executives continue to forget that radio is not one choice out of a couple of options like it used to be. And giving potential advertisers reason to doubt the system at such a critical time is absolutely the worst possible strategy.