Person to Person Radio? For a price.........

An unemployed software engineer took an unconventional tactic in hopes of landing a new job during these challenging times. For that, he is to be congratulated. A Hopkinton MA area man got so frustrated in his job search that he personally spent $1,500 on a local radio campaign to convince an employer to hire him. I don't know yet whether or not this effort was successful.

Since I comment about radio and marketing (and for that matter have done my share of the unconventional over the years), I find the need to think this through from all sides.

From a radio standpoint, I understand why a station would accept this. They need the money and all this guy needs is for one employer to hire him, and they have a true success story from an advertiser. Yet, accepting a "one person" commercial could make the station sound "small time" when aired along with spots for local and multi-million dollar businesses. Granted, WCRB-FM (the classical music station airing the spots) serves a small marketplace.

Yet, from a marketing standpoint, the radio station could have done better than this. Sorry, but airing a "one person" ad makes them seem desparate to sell air time. If I were the sales rep there or Sales Manager, here is what I would have done instead.

I would have checked my list of current and past advertisers in search of an employment agency or temp service. If I found one, I would contact them and tell them I have a candidate in need of work to the point of wanting to buy time on the station. I would tell that employment agency contact that it would make a great testimonial for us (the station) and the agency if the agency could find him a position without this guy having to buy the time on the station. And then the agency buy that air time to promote specifically how WCRB helps find local jobs.

The result would be the station creates a market exclusive advertising campaign, retains or recaptures another advertiser (which could go long term, not a few days), and the station and employment agency generate favorable publicity. While that guy becomes the station's most loyal listener for life and tells everyone he can what they did for him. The employment agency gets a commission for placing the guy (which I'm guessing covers their radio campaign cost!!), and they all live happily ever after.

What employment agency or temp firm is going to advertise on that station after hearing an individual advertising because he can't find a job?

Meanwhile, I realize the guy buying the spots also did it for the publicity of calling attention to his need for a job (which is how I found out about this), so in some respects he got more than $1,500 in publicity for his money. On the other hand, I'm 1,000 miles away so I can't help him, and that is probably the case with a lot of the publicity he generated.

While I admire his creativity, I would think it could have been put to better use. For $1,500 he could have used some other approaches. He could have invited several identified employers to a lunch presentation, started a web site to feature the software he has designed and worked on in the past, created and printed brochures for distribution, and the list goes on.

And if he doesn't get a job from his $1,500 local radio campaign, he has nothing to show for his efforts.

And hopefully that radio station, and others, will be able to do better than this for creativity.

All that jazz about nothing

If it really is big news that 3 more FM stations across the country have dumped a jazz music format then over-the-air radio is in more trouble than even I thought.

Radio trades and internet boards are making a big deal because the jazz format has also been recently dropped from Dayton, Fresno, and Albuquerque. Rather, I'd be more interested in finding out how even one market of that size (in terms of total stations available) went to and stuck with a jazz music format for however long.

Even as jazz formats have faded from top 10 markets such as Chicago, at least a large population base would allow for perhaps a few thousand loyal listeners to keep the format around and be supported by smaller and very local advertisers which couldn't afford the larger audience stations.

I have nothing against jazz music, although I am among the majority which doesn't enjoy it very much. (And, yes, I have given it quite the chance, having hosted a jazz show on a Chicago radio station for more than 3 years many moon ago.) My point is that jazz has never been among the best sellers of albums and later CD's, which to me spells little consumer interest.

The lack of general popularity of jazz would seem to make the radio format unappealing for advertisers looking for a growing audience. And that is why I can't see why this is such a big deal. Especially now, radio stations are hurting for advertising dollars, and have zero reason to keep a station with a limited reach format on the air.

Now that more stations seem to have wised up, why is treated as big news?

It keeps getting worse??

More radio "thinking" this week across the board. Don't think of selling the station(s) and getting out if finances aren't up to par. Keep making cuts from the programming that needs MORE listeners to survive, yet has less local appeal than ever. Ya, right.

As you probably know by now, Clearance Channel was at it again earlier this week with cutbacks on still more local personalities across the country. There are hundreds of examples.

Houston sports radio felt the pain as Brad Davies and Craig Roberts are now gone from morning drive on KBME 790. Typical of the Clearance Channel hodge-podge left in its wake is the revised KBME weekday schedule. They now carry Dan Patrick's syndicated show live (which at least is better than those stations which delay it for several hours and air it after previewed games on the show have been played) from 8 to 11 AM. Surviving hosts Ted DeLuca and John Lopez now regularly work a split shift all week, airing from 6 to 8 AM and then coming back from 11 AM to 3 PM. KTRK-TV Channel 13 laid off Sports Executive Producer Robert Leake.

CINCINNATI - More from Clearance Channel. Sports blogger C. Trent Rosecrans and 3 producers are gone. On the air, WCKY morning host Alan Cutler is gone. At least Cutler still has a position to keep him busy, as he continues in his Sports Director role for nearby WLEX-TV in Lexington.The adding of still more syndicated programming on WCKY means that only Lance McAlister will be the only local host, handling 3 to 6 PM some weekdays. Of course, with Clearance Channel involved, Lance will share duties among 2 stations, instead hosting the 6 to 9 PM sports talk show on WLW on nights when the Reds do not play. When that happens, Mo Egger will handle the afternoon spot on WCKY. More sports adjustments will be made, as Cutler is also reportedly out as Bengals Radio Network host after 8 seasons. Scott Sloan remains on WLW, but will now handle the "Extra Innings" Reds post-game call-in show.

At this rate, I suppose if a Reds game gets rained out after the scheduled start time, Clearance Channel will probably air a voice tracked sports talk show from another market talking about an American League team for 3 hours.

U2 or not U2 for radio? That is the question....

A program director was quoted on one of the radio boards earlier this week complaining about how his station supposedly spent thousands of dollars to promote the new CD by U2 only to have (group leader) Bono make public statements about he (Bono) feels that radio stations should pay royalties to the performers of the music they play.

My first reaction was to wonder who "forced" this P.D. to air the special about the CD and upcoming tour and play their new tracks.

My next reaction was to write this note to the administrator of that internet board:

"Dear Anonymous Program Director:

No one required you to air anything relative to U2's new CD. You could have done nothing but recycle the same U2 songs from the 80's, like many of your colleagues do, and treat them like an oldies act. Since you ran all of this U2 related programming you wrote about, I'm going to guess that sponsors paid for commercial time to be a part of those shows. Had it been just another hour of a few of the same 500 songs in between clusters of commercials, your station might not have had as big of an audience.

This, while there is a chance that your market has a "Jack-FM" or "Fresh" or at least one station with no live hosts some, most, or all of the day. The "free" music you seem to expect is saving you thousands of dollars of programming costs since these stations can play all music and not pay personalities.

It so happens that one of the major artists suggests that the source of your programming and your income receive some form of compensation. And YOU are offended?

Fine. Drop all of your music. Hire more air personalities to take phone calls all day and night. Hire a news staff to keep your audience informed and to give your hosts a few minutes to rest each hour.

Then check those profit sheets at the end of the month.

There - you would sure show Bono!!"

That comment actually provoked more emotion from me than the stories about how some radio stations might be cutting back on or stopping some or all of their HD channels. Probably started from the same program director who made the comments above.

Let me get this straight. Some radio stations and owners fought against the XM and Sirius merger fearing additional listener and advertising dollar competition for their stations by having an even larger subscriber base for satellite radio with millions of subscribers combined into one total.

Most stations put content on their HD channels that, obviously, is or was not strong enough to attract the audiences to purchase and use an HD radio.

So now they might pull the plug on it? I'm now even more glad I didn't spend money on an HD Radio. It could become obsolete before I had gotten used to it.

Well, maybe they couldn't think of enough quality programming to put on HD. They are too busy complaining about what they are putting on their AM and FM airwaves and what it costs to pay attention to HD.

And they still wonder why sales of MP3 players continue to skyrocket.

Legends on the move

This Monday and Tuesday (April 13 + 14) mark a coming and a going for Los Angeles area radio listeners involving nationally known names. Rick Dees does his final show on 93.9 FM on Tuesday due to that station going over to Spanish language programming. Dees currently does not have another L.A. radio gig lined up after the better part of the last 20+ years on KIIS-FM and others in the Southland. Of course, Rick has enough to keep him busy on the national level.

Meanwhile, Hollywood Hamilton begins a dual presence on Monday, hosting daily shows in both New York and Los Angeles each weekday. He will continue to handle afternoon drive on WKTU-FM in New York, but starting this Monday will also be heard from 3 - 7 PM on MyFM 104.3 in Los Angeles each afternoon.

However, the L.A. show will be mostly recorded earlier in the day. Hamilton will be voice tracking the show from the NYC studios prior to going on the air in New York. Word is that the L.A. station will forward the request lines to Hamilton in NY for some of the show. Due to the 3 hour time difference, Hamilton would have the ability to record phone calls and add anything timely for the current afternoon's show.

While I understand that Hamilton is popular in both markets and is an important cog with both stations, I'm not liking this move. Los Angeles deserves a live afternoon drive personality over and above one who is literally thousands of miles away and not live.

Meanwhile, for those who wish to remember the dance music days of WKTU in the early 80's, our RadioRecordings.com airchecks series can help you remember them. See the list at RadioRecordings.com.

The passing of Howard Clark

Sorry to learn of the passing of Howard Clark earlier this week at the age of 70. Clark was most remembered for his Bay Area stints with KFRC and KYA, along with WWDJ New York (New Jersey if you must).

Clark was also one of the pioneers of southern radio during his nearly 50 years on the air. His resume also included WKY Oklahoma City and WTIX New Orleans along with several others in and near Shreveport LA over the last 25+ years of his career.

So far, we have not found any airchecks of him, but we do have some more KYA and KFRC to go through, so hopefully something will turn up soon. Clark will be missed.

Remembering Beaker Street show

Isn't amazing how you can go for years without remembering something, and then once you hear a name, it all comes back to you?

This seems to be happening with our Radio Recordings Series when people find out that we have added a few airchecks of " Beaker Street " from KAAY Little Rock from nearly 40 years ago. During the 60's and early 70's, KAAY was a powerhouse station covering a wide area of the country at night.

Their late night program, called " Beaker Street " (and I still don't know where that name came from) and its host Clyde Clifford helped to pioneer the 'underground radio' sound of the day. Actually, some FM stations were doing this at night, taking advantage of the stereo sound that FM had to offer. But KAAY was perhaps the first station of any significance to air this on the AM dial.

Complete with background sounds and a playlist which was extremely varied, Clyde would feature album tracks not generally played on any radio station, let alone a Top 40 style one. He would play some tracks which were more than 7 minutes in length all the way through. Heck, there are stations today that still won't do that. One of the airchecks we feature has Clyde playing a 14 minute track all the way through.

Yet, all these years later, fans of the radio stations and the music of the late 60's and early 70's, including many who listened to KAAY, had completely forgotten about this landmark radio show. Until they hear the name " Beaker Street " and then Clyde Clifford.

This has quickly become among the more popular airchecks available through MajorLeaguePrograms.com.

But the point is how it is forgotten one minute, and an "oh yeah! I remember that!" within a matter of seconds - every time.