As if we care about online radio commercials?

The case could be made that sales and marketing are becoming separate categories at CBS Radio, at least based on Monday's (Mar. 30) announcement. If this story had come out on Wednesday (4/1) I would have taken it for a dud of an April Fool's joke. As it goes with the current state of radio, I wish it was.

CBS Radio actually made it a story that it will have live reads by station personalities of commercials for its online and mobile streams. I must have missed the statistics about the number of CBS Radio listeners who tune in when commercials are read by the station announcers.

Once upon a time, music stations would promote things like "We play the most music". Now it comes down to promoting "We have the best commercials"????

To me it is hard to believe the quote in the story release from their "President of Digital Media and Integrated Marketing" about how this "will result in deeper online and mobile engagement, and listener satisfaction".

This being announced by CBS really did happen. It is not a joke. I wanted to be sure this post is dated before April 1st.

I can see it now. Their JACK-FM stations will probably have a "Playing the commercials we want!" promo on the air within the week.

Hopefully the rush of consumers logging in to hear CBS stations online and their live reads of commercials won't shut down the internet for very long.

What ever happened to Saturdays on the radio?

Even as radio stations continue to eliminate the high priced talent and scale back local programming like there is no tomorrow (and in some cases there may not be), I was reminded of times years ago when the leading personalities worked a 6 day week on the air with no questions asked. But you wouldn't know that today, even with all of the cutbacks.

What reminded me is some feedback we received from one of our RadioRecordings.com airchecks which has been a good seller. Houston area residents over the age of 35 most certainly remember the morning team of Hudson & Harrigan and their (then) unique blend of humor and how well they blended together on the air.

A compilaton of 2 of the airchecks from the 1970's has been very well received. What makes this more interesting is that one of the segments was from a Saturday morning. Yet, the Hudson & Harrigan are on doing some "bits" and entertaining like any other morning. The only difference is more music and less news and traffic. Most personalities, including morning drive, worked a 6 day week back then.

Now, the morning personalities are the highest paid on most stations and have gone on over the years to be on air the least. Sure, I can understand how bringing in the audience and consequently the ad revenue deserves some reward. But those were different econonmic times.

Yet, these days, stations are paying weekend "fill-in" talent to do the same shifts the high powered drive-time talent used to as part of their deal. Radio executives now use the argument that "the Saturday morning audience isn't as large as the weekday audience". While they have a point, there is also a listener "argument".

"The talent level isn't there on the weekends like it is during the week." If these stations are going to throw us a bone on the weekends, then us listeners have fewer reasons to get excited about our favorite stations. In a time when there are generally fewer reasons for us to get excited about our favorite stations as it is.

At this rate, the great rememberances of Hudson & Harrigan are as much to enjoy what Saturday radio USED TO BE as they are to recall what a great morning team they were.

It's what you do with a radio that counts.........

Typical radio industry attempt at publicity these days. There was a story earlier this week that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs revealed that he doesn't own a radio.

Then a story about how the HD Radio Alliance and Clearance Channel in D.C. "sprung into action". The story is that WIHT Washington had one of their air personalities deliver a new HD Radio and FM adapter to the White House for Gibbs use.

I guess they consider this a publicity stunt. I don't. They would have been better off to let the story get buried. Face it. If the guy is on the White House staff he is probably too busy to know what HD Radio is. He sees the AM and FM stations and networks all the time. HD Radio doesn't offer separate or original news. My hunch is that Gibbs is like a lot of others these days. Maybe he got tired of the clusters of endless commercials, lack of competition in radio newsrooms to actually investigate and break a story, and music playlists limited to a few hundred songs. I'm sure if he really "wanted" a radio, he would have one.

The fact that Gibbs appearantly was getting along without one speaks more volume than the "on/off" button.

Some people just don't get it.

Remembering Paul Harvey

The death of Paul Harvey on Saturday truly marks the end of an era in radio. Like many baby boomers, this sad news took me back to being a child and my parents making it a point to listen to Paul Harvey News & Comment when we were in the car or all together.

Yet, as much as I tried not to like something that my parents wanted to listen to, I couldn't help but develop an early fascination for the style and delivery of this great announcer. It was as though these news stories happened only because Paul Harvey said they did.

A style that never will be matched for capturing and holding the listeners' attention. Anything from political to the offbeat, and all points in between. One could think that the "man bites dog" story he delivered happened because the dog couldn't listen to Paul.

I never admitted it at the time, but there were a few times that I changed my radio dial over to the "old people's station" to hear Paul Harvey on my own.

A lot of people seem to remember Paul Harvey more for his "The Rest of the Story", and that certainly was an interesting show. To me, it was nowhere near what "News and Comment" was. I reasoned that Harvey had as much time as needed to write and produce "The Rest of the Story", especially as good as it was.

But "News and Comment" was 15 minutes every weekday. That meant coming up with fresh and timely stories, and putting them into his unique writing and delivery style on a deadline. Truly incredible.

He could read as fast or faster than anyone. Yet every word was clearly understood. He was able to put significant inflection in his voice. Whether it was sad and serious, funny, or any point in between, Paul Harvey could deliver the goods. Day after day, week after week, and year after year after year.

Paul Harvey WAS the rest of the story.