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Last month as we were wrapping up the year, I was in communication with an old friend from the radio/music industry with whom I did business many years ago. As we were catching up, I mentioned that my son is trying to break into the film industry in L.A. As a Southern Californian himself, he […]

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OK, so it’s a long story. But after years of Buzz Knight cajoling us about the innovative spirit that is part of the Consumer Electronics Show DNA, we made our first trek to Las Vegas  in ’09. And we keep going back every year. I would love to tell you that it’s all fun and […]

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Not to start the new year on a down note, but a new report in NetNewsCheck (whose positioning statement is “The Business of Local Digital Media”) features their “10 Local Digital Media Trends For 2015.”  Now end-of-year lists are a dime a dozen – especially those that attempt to predict what will happen. (After all, who could […]

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Thankfully, our “Best of JacoBLOG” stall tactic is nearly over. This blog will be back with fresh content Monday (and a good post!), but in the meantime, we’re dredging up our most popular entries of 2014. And this one made the list. It’s a great story of broadcast radio taking the offensive against that little pure-play […]

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It’s the most over-hyped night of the year, which is why many of us will probably spend it watching TV or hanging out with friends and family.  If you’re looking for something to read, let me suggest one of our most-devoured posts of 2014.  In “Live & Local?” this past February, we took a humorous but hard […]

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As the holiday season continues, so does our Best of JacoBLOG end-of-year playback. This was one of my favorite posts of the year, because it’s a call to action to broadcast radio that “‘Good enough’ is no longer good enough.” – FJ This morning, a reminder that radio no longer operates in a vacuum.  And important […]

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As we finish up 2014, we’re looking back at some of our most-read posts.  One of the big stories in personality radio in this past year was the surprise (to some) announcement that Seattle’s Bob Rivers was hanging up the headphones, and moving on to other opportunities.  Bob is a morning icon, and someone I’ve been […]

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The Best of JacoBLOG continues on the day after Christmas with some of our best efforts from 2014.  This  past August, we took the opportunity to review the NPR One app, a revolutionary content and delivery mechanism for both national and local public radio.  In the process, there’s a lot to think about here in terms of […]

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The holiday season is the time of year to reflect back.  And that’s what we’ve done the past several years on this blog.  Analytics tell us the most-read posts of the past year, and in most cases, those numbers are very telling.  They almost always reveal some of the best, most thought-provoking entries. This post […]

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This is our last new post of 2014.  Starting tomorrow, we’re continuing a tradition that we started a few years back – replaying the most popular blog posts of the past year.  Thanks to all of you who read our blog, make it a part of your conversations, comment on our posts, and provide me with […]

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For those of you outside of Detroit radio circles, this morning’s post won’t have the impact that it will for the Motown media community. It’s been a tough month for TV and radio icons here in The D. Earlier in the month, the most famous anchorman in Detroit history, Bill Bonds, passed away. And then over […]

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Remember the first time you played with an iPod and you saw that fabulous album artwork on the screen? It was one of the early signs that digital technology could rock our worlds, and change the way that we listen to and enjoy music. Old school vinyl records have made a comeback in recent years, boosting a […]

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The end of the year signals those incessant lists – best movies, best books, best songs, etc.  Some are frivolous, others are fascinating, and somehow we tend to read them all. While lots of this list-making is purely opinion, there are some rank orders that are truly quantitative, containing no subjectivity, bias, or guesswork. Thus, we already […]

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We hear a lot these days that consumers love a great story.  Maybe this goes back to our adolescent days when parents and grandparents sent us off to sweet dreams with a make-believe tale or fable. In fact, there is some amazing storytelling happening on the radio. One of my favorites is The Moth Radio Hour, […]

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As time marches on in the radio industry, it has become more apparent to broadcasters big and small, commercial and public, that personality is, in fact, the “secret sauce” that will keep the industry healthy and compelling.  As we have learned since the invention of the iPod to the emergence of pure-plays like Pandora and […]

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As you can gather from the not-so-subtle, cheesy title of this post, holiday music is in the air, it is already impacting PPM ratings, and it’s just a matter of weeks before the industry trades and Nielsen glowingly report on the stunning story that this end-of-year stunt was wildly successful once again. But what does […]

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In her social media training with clients, Lori Lewis talks a lot about how so-called secondary social media platforms are becoming more important to radio brands. The question is, once you get beyond Facebook and Twitter, how do you really know which of these social media sites attracts a critical mass of your listening audience? The […]

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It seems like everyone’s obsession these days is to determine how the consumer’s media usage share is being divvied up, thanks to the proliferation of gadgets and content options. Problem is, everyone’s research studies look a little different, from Edison’s “Share of Ear” study to Nielsen’s new “Let’s Total It Up” report. So when I across […]

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