Comments on: O’DAY’S TRAVEL WOES #36: When Chocolate Chip Cookies Lose Their Luster

By: Mike Bell

Mike Bell — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:18:22 +0000

P.S.

I remember my PD in Seattle arguing with our Office Manager about which hotel to book for an upcoming convention...

OFFICE MANAGER: But the Hilton is across the street from the convention center and is $25 a night cheaper. The Doubletree is all the way out by the airport!

PD: But the Doubletree has cookies.

By: Mike Bell

Mike Bell — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:07:41 +0000

I noticed this trend a few years back, in of all places, Disneyland.

It had been a little over 15 years since I'd been to Disneyland. My last visit was in the the mid eighties around the time Star Tours opened. The Disney cast members still did a pretty good job of selling the experience.

Fast forward to around 2002...

The kid running the the canoe ride in Frontierland is ignoring the people in line while he talks (loudly) with another cast member about the chick he hooked up with at a club in Hollywood the night before. Talk about taking you out of the experience It was like that all over the park. And I still see it to this day.

The "Disney" experience used to be total immersion in the illusion you were "somewhere else." Once you walked under that train trestle, the real world was a million miles away and stay away until you left. That's one reason Disney built a berm around the Magic Kingdom. To keep the real world out of your sight line.

In our business, we see (hear?) the erosion of care in the way PDs/prod people/jocks interact with systems such as Prophet, Audio Vault, and Scott Studios. Loose cues, gaps, uneven levels, over-modulation. There just seems to be a lack of care. No desire to create an exciting sounding radio station. No desire to immerse the listener in the world of station K-XXX.

No desire to give the listener a warm cookie.

By: McCoy

McCoy — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:46:55 +0000

The sad thing is, this has happened to radio too. Sometimes we focus so much on things that are done behind the scenes, our "on-air" sound is what has suffered. You can hear it any time you tune in to nearly any station (except for mine, of course) that is supposed to be a market leader, and you get a "that was____, this is______ on Station X. Or, even worse, "This is Station X, The Best Music All Day, and Slappy Loud Jock in the morning!" No artists, no song titles, nothing. You know someone is working, but it's probably on something other than their show at the time of their show…Wow, this was way longer than I intended.

By: Janice Cochran

Janice Cochran — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:54:58 +0000

We have a local coffee shop which sells gelato and they still let you taste it on the spoon. I support them all the way.

By: Efrain Gonzalez

Efrain Gonzalez — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:40:30 +0000

This story makes me think of the "Woofie Factor" – ever hear of that?