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 …Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band!

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Or capturing the vibe.  Or breaking your station out of that "every day's the same day" mold. Pepsi did it with this spot – "My Generation" – which resonates with Classic Rockers, and with people of every generation.  The Pepsi logo looks awfully reminiscent of Obama's, too.  But the bottom line is that during a […]

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Today's guest blog is from our own Ralph Cipolla regarding the importance of utilizing social networking sites. So, I go on market visits, do the WTDA-importance-of-all-things-tech rant, and often quote Leo Laporte, who said this at Jacobs Media Summit XIII in Austin, TX: "Go back and tell your personalities – if they are not on Facebook, […]

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When I read those Dan Brown novels – especially Angels and Demons – I couldn't help but be taken aback by the mystique and history of the Vatican and, of course, the Pope.  But the 21st century reality of his holy highness is that the guy "gets" interconnectedness" and multi-platform communication.  While you may think […]

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The Clear Channel "restructuring" last week continued an industry-wide workforce diet that has been taking place for more than a year.  A week doesn't go by where we don't hear from colleagues who have lost their jobs.  And many of them have been top performers.  It's the economy, stupid. No need to get into a […]

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New data from Nielsen Online clearly shows that the key hours for viewing web video is while workers are at their desks, Monday through Friday.  The traditional 9-to-5 segment is "prime time" for online video, as the workforce uses their time (and their companies' high-speed connections) to watch everything from YouTube to Hulu to NBC […]

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While the specifics of precisely who got axed during this week's Clear Channel "restructuring" are still woefully incomplete, a perusal of the cobbled together lists reveals that sales departments may have taken the biggest hits.  Tom Taylor's "Radio-Info" reports that Bain Capital has a preference toward sales people who have been around a long time.  […]

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Jacobs Media's Bill Jacobs provides insight regarding the popularity of iPhones among the middle class. As a not-so-cheap device, there’s a sense that the main people buying iPhones are those who are well-off.  Odds are that’s somewhat true when it comes to smartphones from other manufacturers such as Blackberry, but there’s plenty of evidence that purchases of iPhones […]

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While the body count numbers continue to roll in, and AllAccess does the tallying (amazing their server hasn't melted down), the much-rumored Clear Channel cutbacks, layoffs, and axings have finally been announced.  Mark Mays reports it will amount to a 9% reduction in the company's workforce. The fact they chose to hide behind Inauguration Day is […]

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While Classic Rock stations argue about whether they should expose a Springsteen track from the much-awaited new album, Working On A Dream, or Triple A's debate whether they should play the single two or three times a day, and Active Rockers ignore it all together, NPR has figured it out.  And in the process, they've […]

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Jacobs Media's Keith Cunningham weighs in on the immediacy – and impact – of Social Networking on the news & current events: Think back to last week when US Airways flight 1549 splashed into the Hudson River.  While the heroism of the pilot and rescue workers has dominated the headlines – and deservedly so – […]

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We've all been on one side of the desk or the other.  (Some of us have been on both sides.)  The sales manager walks into the PD's office, and the conversation begins.  Could the morning show do a live endorsement?  Or could the afternoon guy make an appearance for a key advertiser?  Or how bad would […]

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In the Dow Jones Industrial Average's worst year since the (gasp) Great Depression, two stocks stand out as lone exceptions – Wal-Mart and McDonald's.  Both companies' stock prices actually went up last year.  What can we learn from this finding, and how does it apply to our own businesses? In tough times, consumers run to […]

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In an interesting confluence of events, a couple of often beaten up broadcast entities had a good week.  Both Arbitron and their PPM ratings, and iBiquity and their HD Radio product, each came away with a few points in the win column. For Arbitron, it started with the Attorneys General of both New York and […]

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Actually, in Subaru's case, their sales actually increased by 1% in '08 (through November), in the midst of the worst slump in memory for automakers.  Living here in Detroit and witnessing the people-impact of the Detroit 3's strategy and actions generates even more respect for Subaru's accomplishment.   So what has this mid-market car brand actually […]

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What does it say about the state of creativity when the Christian Science Monitor reports that network TV has become too safe?  Citing the lack of breakout, cutting edge programming, writer Gloria Goodale calls out television's powers-that-be for not taking chances on bold new shows.  Even during a time when viewers are staying home and […]

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What does it say about the state of creativity when the Christian Science Monitor reports that network TV has become too safe?  Citing the lack of breakout, cutting edge programming, writer Gloria Goodale calls out television's powers-that-be for not taking chances on bold new shows.  Even during a time when viewers are staying home and […]

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Our good friend, Greater Media's Buzz Knight, is spending this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.  This puts him in a very small elite group of radio guys, as he discovers what the rest of the world is doing.  While news reports from CES describe a more muted environment because of the economy, […]

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Today's guest blog comes from our Internet Strategies Director, Tim Davis, who advises us that the Boomer generation has very strong purchasing power, and should not be overlooked. Most people who work and focus on the digital space spend their days (and nights) thinking about the younger generations – Tweens, Gen Y, and even Gen […]

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News item: New York FM ranks 34th – In Atlanta Because of heavy use of weighting in PPM, four panelists gave WBLS, New York an average weekly cume of 23,300 listeners in Atlanta when they went to the Big Apple for Thanksgiving.  The following week New York's "Power" WWPR-FM had a similar fate.  PPM critics […]

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