Best Thing I’ve Read Today
Veteran radio programmer Darryl Parks thinks this year's presidential election will mark the end of right-wing talk radio: Conservative talk radio and the Republican party are connected, once again trying to energize their common “base.” Each are equally disconnected...
A Missed Radio Opportunity
I punched around to various radio stations yesterday to hear which were doing tributes to George Martin by playing Beatles songs and telling stories about him. The answer: very, very few. For rock stations (or classic rock, classic hits, oldies, etc.), this would have...
The Day I Almost Died For Cereal
It's Super Bowl Week, and I'm thinking back to the first time I attended the big game, and an event afterward that had me worried I was going to die. At the end of January 1988, I'd been the morning man at WCXR/Washington for just over a year. It had been an amazing...
I Told Stu A Lot Of Stories
I was supposed to do two hours with Stu Shostak on his live podcast yesterday, but ended up talking with him for nearly three hours about a wide assortment of topics. In addition to some highlights (and lowlights) of my radio career, we discussed Donald Trump, Stephen...
Traffic Clutter
Radio consultant extraordinaire Fred Jacobs muses about the necessity of traffic reports on the radio at a time when you can get better real-time information on demand from Google Maps, Waze, and other apps: Traffic is not only becoming endangered content, it is also...
Best Thing I’ve Read Today
Susan Barton has a profile of Terry Gross in today's NY Times Magazine: Over the years, Gross has done some 13,000 interviews, and the sheer range of people she has spoken to, coupled with her intelligence and empathy, has given her the status of national...
My Commercial Days
Early in my career, I voiced and produced a lot of commercials. Not for ad agencies, but inside the radio station. I did spots for night clubs, department stores, restaurants, car dealers, and anything else that came down the pike. Radio stations didn't charge the...
Get To The Point, Podcasters
Perry Simon has an invaluable piece of advice for podcasters: get to the point. You'll hear hosts introduce themselves, then just... well, they talk about their week, what they had for dinner, something that happened the other day, anything but what will be the...