RADIO, RADIO
Anyone who knows me knows I spent much of my life in Radio.
As a three year old there was a signal event (har har, pun) that was a guidepost for my future; I decided at that early age to work in Radio when I grew up.
I couldn't wait that long.
By age 15 I was on the air on Pacifica's [1] listener-supported WBAI [2] in New York City. I spent the Summer as a volunteer, working in various departments. What a time, what a learning experience, what a great training ground it was. Golden memories, 30+ years later.
While in school in the midwest I worked at local radio stations as well as at my college radio station, where I was the Program Director of the station.
After college (majoring, of course, in Radio/TV) I began working in the Real World Radio Business. A screaming Top 40 disc jocket, a cool album radio preogressive rock jock.
Being mathematically inclined, I loved reading the ratings book. Being one from an entrpreneurial and business oriented family background, I understood the synergy between the creative (the on air programming product) and the analytical (ratings, sales, et al).
I opened a Radio consulting firm and ran it for 20+ years. During that run we worked with almost all the major broadcasting chains, and had clients in markets large, medium, small, and even infinitesimal markets. We did programming, planning, marketing, ratings analysis, focus group research, brokerage analysis, sales work, you name it. We did annual joint ratings analysis projects with Arbitron, having access to Arbitron [3] data and other sources unlike most of our peers. We were the consulting operators of various format-specific or demographic-specific marketing groups.
The company, Landsman Media, Inc., specialized in Black/Urban Radio, Beautiful Music, Talk Radio, and we also worked with Hispanic stations and some industry groups, among them the 35-64 Radio Committee, and The Academy of Country Music, and some other special interest groups.
The pinnacle of my radio career may be when I assembled a group to buy a radio station. We took it to #1 in the market, tripled the billing and got the highest ratings in the history of the market.
It was a joy for many years.
As the phrase goes, be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
There were many wishes on my Radio list: to program a New York radio station; to consult with the majors on their New York stations; to own and operate a radio station; to work in the international broadcast arena; to integrate computer ops into the day-to-day operation of stations, and so forth.
One by one, all of these dreams were met.
The funny thing about it is this: by the ripe old age of 40 or so, I had lived all my radio dreams, and it wasn't such a challenge or as filled with passion as it had been for so many years. Add to this the changes going on about that time in the business (Reagan era funny money had the Yellow Tie crowd jumping into Radio, and deregulation meant BIGCOs could buy up hordes of stations, effectively and eventually forcing out all the smaller operators and passionate, local-area or regional entrepreneur broadcasters.
There were other changes, of major consequence in my personal life around that time.
And suddenly I'd all but gotten out of the Radio business, except for some projects here and there, consultation with some old friends and allies, and a somewhat regular peek into the Radio world via online perusal of trade press and some calls here and there from friends still working in the biz.
As far as Radio goes, I'd become a civilian.
That meant a good many changes. After a while my listening habits began to reflect my non-pro status. The listener-supported Jazz station [4], a local college station [5]with a free form approach, New York City's WNYC AM & FM [6], the Classical station [7], and whichever station carried the Yankees (for the past 20 years that was my old client WABC [8]) became my stations of choice. And the Sports station [9], of which there are now two [10] (of note, anyway; there's a third, but the signal is poor and the programming even poorer).
And now, not quite a decade later (and numerous attempts by my old buddies to pull me back in), there's another RADIO, and I am drawn to it.
No, not satellite radio (XM, Sirius). Nor webio [11], as Doc refers to it, or streamcasting via the net.
The new Radio is Radio 8. It is a major step forward in blogging. Some of it boggles (or is that "bloggles?") my less-than-technically-astute mind, but I seem to be getting there.
[12]
Sooner or later I will figure out how to make a single entity out this blog and the new one [13] generated as a Radio Blog.
For now, though, as I get all comfy with my new Radio obsession, there are two of these blogs for your reading pleasure (at least I hope it is pleasurable!).
And there's another blog of mine, Dean On Baseball [14], which is counting the days, the minutes, until Spring Training camps open. Pitchers and Catchers report starting on February 13. I can almost hear the sound of the ball smacking into the catcher's mitt.
What a wonderful anticipation, and it is right around the corner!
