For the millions (including me, actually) who never heard Jack Benny’s radio program when it was broadcast live….
September 1995 (continued): Here was my travel schedule for September/October/November:
September 6-9: New Orleans, Louisiana
Sept. 15: Tampa, Florida
Sept. 16: Wausau, Wisconsin
Sept. 21 – 22: Warsaw, Poland
Sept. 23: Hamburg, Germany
Sept. 24: Nuremberg, Germany
Sept. 25: Berlin, Germany
Sept. 26: Kiel, Germany
October 5: Hamilton, New Zealand
Oct. 6 – 7: Wellington, New Zealand
Oct. 8: Auckland, New Zealand
Oct. 14: Atlanta
Oct. 17: Philadelphia
Oct. 20: Louisville, Kentucky
November 5-6: Barcelona, Spain
You see the schedule for September 21 through September 26? There’s a word for that kind of travel/speaking schedule:
“Stupid.”
A week after the NAB Radio Show, I flew to Tampa to present How To Create Maximum Impact Radio Advertising for Paxson Communications’ annual sales meeting. (Drew Rashbaum had seen me do a version of this seminar at the RAB conference, and he arranged for me to speak at this meeting.)
This was a lot of fun; I love conducting this seminar for salespeople.
The first speaker of the day began at 7:30AM; I was scheduled to speak at 10:00. A 15-minute break was scheduled at 9:45, so I made sure I was in the meeting room by 9:30 to confer with the hotel’s audio/visual person.
All of the A/V equipment was to the far side of the speaker’s platform. In the back of the very large meeting room, I whispered to the A/V person, “We’ll need to move the DAT player and mixer next to the lectern.” (Remember, this was 1995…)
“Oh, we can’t do that,” she replied.
“Why can’t we do that?”
“It’s permanent,” she said.
“The A/V equipment is permanently placed there?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re telling me,” I said, “that first they built a permanent A/V area and then they built the hotel around it??”
“If you had a certain way you wanted things arranged,” she said, “you should have been here at 7 o’clock this morning to check with me. That’s what I would have done if I were going to be speaking to this group.”
“Well,” I replied, “perhaps they should have booked you as a guest speaker instead of me. But right now I don’t really care about the ways in which you would do my job better. What I care about it is arranging the A/V equipment in a manner that will maximize the experience for the attendees. And that means moving the equipment….Just like it says on that sheet of paper you’re holding with all of the detailed instructions they provided you with.”
What’s really ridiculous about this encounter is she argued about it for five minutes. Actually moving the equipment took one minute.
A morning show host and Loyal Reader who is working without a contract and unsure of his future with the radio station asks:
“If they are interested in replacing me, what signs can I look out for?”
1. Other staff members avert their eyes from you in the hallway.
2. Staff meetings are held without you.
3. The PD or consultant observes one of your shows from the back of the studio, alongside a stranger who isn’t introduced.
4. Everyone’s new business cards arrived. Except yours.
5. The GM stops you in the hallway and says, “I just want you know I really appreciate the effort you’ve given around here,” then walks away.
6. Tell your PD or GM that you’re about to buy a house, but you don’t want to go through with the purchase if there’s any chance your job is not completely secure. If they tell you, “No problem whatsoever; go ahead and buy that house” — immediately start photocopying your resume.
Registration is now open for 2010’s 3-day Radio Copywriting Masters class.
Twelve ambitious radio copywriters and me, locked for three days in a fancy boardroom in a Los Angeles airport hotel.
Actually, it’s more fun than it sounds.
Here’s a spot written by one of 2009’s attendees, Terri Beers, during one of my 5-minute QuickStart Copywriting Lessons. She was new to radio copywriting….
Nicely voiced by Blaine Parker.
Everyone else has given up on radio.
NAB Europe cancelled rather than be embarrassed by a low turnout.
The Radio Show is merging with something else to become something else.
PD Grad School took an attendance hit in 2009, too. Some radio companies have forbidden employees to travel, while many others have severely limited their programmers’ access to the kind of cutting edge information that might actually HELP them.
I came so close to saying, “Forget it. It’s not worth the effort to produce PD Grad School for 2010.”
Then I decided to go in the opposite direction: In addition to radio experts, I am bringing in guest speakers you’d NEVER see at a radio convention.
February 19 – 20, Los Angeles
Like the woman FastCompany.com calls “the Pied Piper of the Online World” — the world’s #1 expert on social media.
Like the Chief Marketing officer of Eastman Kodak Company. (I saw him give a presentation on “How The Smartest Businesses Are Using Social Media.” It was phenomenal, and I talked him into coming to L.A. from Kodak’s headquarters in Rochester, New York.)
Like Larry Rosin to alert you to the next huge change that’s just around the corner — and how your station needs to lead the way or simply give up.
Like Tripp Eldredge with some very cutting edge (and controversial) information on “What We’ve Learned From PPM.” (Hint: You should be focusing on only half of your audience. The trick: Which half?)
Like me, on “How Your Radio Station Should Be Using Twitter To Increase Ratings and Revenue.”
And me again: “30 Minutes of Great Morning Show Ideas.”
And like Mike McVay: “How To Accomplish Everything When You Barely Have Time To Do Anything.”
I’ll let you know when the brochure is ready and registration is open.
But this is my Call To Action: Either give up or show up.
If you’re so beaten down by the state of the industry that you’re ready to throw in the towel (or already have)…I guess I won’t see you at PD Grad School.
But if you’re not content to watch radio sink to the bottom of the ocean….If you’re still in the game….If you still feel the fire and the passion —
This is your moment of truth.
PD Grad School 2010 will have more cutting edge, real world, actionable info than any radio event you’ve ever attended.
If you’re still in the game, you need to be there.
