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In 16 days, DASH comes to Detroit.  Our eclectic lineup of speakers, presenters, and keynoters is a mashup of automotive (OEMs & Tier 1’s), advertising (agencies & car dealers), pure-plays, and of course, radio (CEOs to DJs).  Many are people you never see at radio conferences. Collaboration, partnership, and learning are fostered by a diverse make-up […]

The big radio controversy this week stems from a Clear Channel corporate PD, Darryl Parks, who went off on the FCC’s efforts to address the AM radio problem.  While the blog in question has been taken down, it appears here, and has stirred up a lot of anger, especially among those who are toiling away, trying to […]

If I showed you the average age of the audiences for three historic radio brands, what would be your prognosis? Station A    57.8 Station B    53.3 Station C    50.8 You would probably tell me that all three are over the “demographic cliff,” that they’ve already aged themselves out of most major media buys, and that […]

You may have seen or read about an article that ran earlier this week in Advertising Age with a very provocative, glaring headline about the state of radio. And guess what?  It wasn’t negative – it was wildly positive: Why Marketers Need to Reevaluate Radio, the World’s Most Popular Medium And amazingly, Mary Beth Garber didn’t write […]

Welcome to a new month and the government shutdown.  In protest, I’m shutting down my contribution to JacoBLOG for a day and turning things over to Mike Stern.  He’s a guy who watches a lot of TV, and today, he’s got some observations about one of the most hyped shows in television history and what […]

Take a good look at the three people pictured below.  Chances are, you’ve never seen or heard of them. And that’s the point – all three are featured speakers, presenters, and keynoters at the DASH conference next month in Detroit. From left to right, Julius Marchwicki is global product manager for the SYNC AppLink platform […]

You know the feeling – you may live in a lovely home or condo, but there’s that moment when you walk in the place and it just looks a little tired.  The familiarity is comforting, but the look and feel has become just a bit dated. And so it is with our tech and entertainment lives.  I […]

Whether you were running around the cavernous halls of the Rosen Shingle Resort hotel last week in Orlando or you simply read about the 2013 Radio Show in the trades or in yesterday’s post from Lori Lewis, I’m betting that if I asked you about the main takeaways of the conference, two things would come to […]

Sometimes, reading coverage about Apple is like watching MSNBC or Fox News – you have to wonder whether you’re really getting the news, or simply watching stories through a very skewed lens. And so it often is when you read news and analysis about Apple.  The brand continues to have its fans, but the detractors are […]

Edison Research president, Larry Rosin, has been an avid reader and a contributor to our blog.  As Larry explains in today’s guest post, his ’97 landmark at-work study had a profound influence on our company and our clients  His new study is must-reading for everyone in radio.  He’ll be presenting it at The Radio Show today.  […]

I know that many of you are reading this while at The Radio Show this week in Orlando.  I arrived yesterday, the hotel is packed, and spirits seem very high.  And all of us at Jacobs Media and jacAPPS are looking forward to seeing you there. Our “Radio & The Connected Car” session is set this morning. […]

Seriously, it was actually 30 years ago at the NAB Radio Show in 1983 in San Francisco. I did what would now be called a “soft launch.”  In the ‘80s, that meant rushing to print out business cards, grabbing a plane, and sleeping on the floor of Tom Bender’s room at the St. Francis Hotel at […]

The radio business continues to grapple with the challenges ahead.   And as time marches on, the bedfellows are getting stranger as new alliances form. Yesterday’s announcement about the Cumulus/Rdio deal is another case in point.  Somehow, the once-evil Internet is now becoming part of the broadcast weaponry.  This is yet another step that brings broadcasters and […]

It’s pronounced like bacon but is spelled “bacn,” and it’s defined as email that is just to the positive side of spam – all that electronic mail we somehow ended up signing up for but don’t pay much (if any) attention to. This frequently happens when you make a purchase from a retailer.  You end up checking off a box […]

If you’re of the Jewish faith, you get to say “Happy New Year” twice a year.  Of course, the universal moment occurs when we all stop to watch the ball drop in Times Square as (now) Ryan Seacrest provides the countdown and the “drama.” But the other occurs every fall on a different day each year when […]

How are recommendations changing the way consumers embrace products and brands?  Today, Mike Stern takes a wizened look at the power of crowd-sourcing and what it means to radio. – FJ The simple fact is we live in a crowd-sourced world.  Whether it’s which tablet to buy, movie to see or restaurant to patronize, we […]