The Jacobs Media Blog

A couple of weeks ago, an old friend and former client, Bob Ottaway, sent me an insightful analysis by Terry Teachout that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.  Titled “The New-Media Crisis of 1949,” it told the story of how network radio’s failure to adapt to television serves as an allegory to radio’s current-day struggle […]

Last week, Paul and I had the pleasure of presenting a new research study at the Public Radio Program Directors Conference in Cleveland.  This week, it's the NAB in Philly. I'm expecting a different experience, but I'm hoping for a few similarities.  PRPD, run by Arthur Cohen and a very engaged board, uses its conference […]

There's been a lot of attention in recent weeks about NBC's new 10 p.m. entry, The Jay Leno Show.  Aside from its prime time Monday-through-Friday time slot, the big news about the show is its cost. Specifically, the potential return on investment for the Leno prime time experiment is quite high, given that its production […]

The Denuo Group is an interesting ad agency that manufactures nothing, but devises strategies to help big brands navigate the digital world.  And its CEO, Rishad Tobaccowala is one smart guy who has a way of summarizing what many of us are thinking. "The future doesn't fit in the containers of the past," he told […]

No, it's not an Onion item.  Nor is it the newest entry in Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Here's the true story: The four largest record companies are suing The Ellen DeGeneres Show for using songs without permission.  The "violations" in question are when Ellen does her wildly popular dance segments to pop songs.  The […]

No, it's not an Onion item.  Nor is it the newest entry in Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Here's the true story: The four largest record companies are suing The Ellen DeGeneres Show for using songs without permission.  The "violations" in question are when Ellen does her wildly popular dance segments to pop songs.  The […]

After last week's Apple "There's FM radio in the new nano" announcement, we celebrated the event in this blog.  This step is something of a validation for broadcast radio, long the victim of bad PR and a lot of media piling on. OK, it's true that some of these wounds were self-inflicted, but radio has […]

If you ever spent time as a radio station programmer in the '70s, '80s, or '90s, one of the keys to ensuring a healthy cume was to make sure your frequency was pre-set on one of those five car radio buttons.  It was an obsession.  Because if your station occupied one of those buttons, it […]

Yes, it's that time of year where all of us parents breathe a little sigh of relief that our offspring are headed back to the halls of wisdom for yet another academic year of learning.  Last week, President Obama acknowledged the need for students to take their education seriously this year, work a little harder, […]

Have you noticed that NFL teams are beginning to act like radio stations that need to have a great fall book?  This difficult economic year signals more problems for sports franchises, even in the premier league in all sports – the NFL.  There's the news that as many as 20% of games this fall with […]

In what has to be a surprising announcement out of Cupertino, Steve Jobs himself announced that the new iPod nano will include an FM radio tuner.  In addition, this new nano features a live pause feature as well as iTunes tagging.  Apple is putting its own imprimatur on FM radio – as you might expect.  […]

The story about how the Walt Disney folks paid a whopping $4 billion for Marvel's franchise superheroes – Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the gang – caused many investment analysts to gasp.  Did Disney overpay for Marvel's assets, and because many upcoming movies from these comic icons are already owned by other studios, what was Disney's […]

You've probably seen some or even most of the data in this video at one point or another.  But this video will be the best four minutes you spend all week. Click Here To See The Video Welcome to the rest of 2009.

You've probably seen some or even most of the data in this video at one point or another.  But this video will be the best four minutes you spend all week. Click Here To See The Video Welcome to the rest of 2009.

  JacoBlog will return on Tuesday, September 8. We wish you and your family a safe and enjoyable holiday!!

We've talked a lot in this space about all you out of work radio folks – or as the NAB nicely refers to you as "free agents."  Hopefully, your fortunes will turn in this third half of the year, and you'll be among the employed once again. But today's post is dedicated to the hard-working […]

As we approach 9-9-09, and another celebration of everything Beatles, it's a great time to kick back and think about exactly what an incredible phenomenon the Fab Four have become, 45-odd years after their debut here in the States.   Of course, when the British Invasion began, the Beatles were at the forefront, and Beatlemania swept […]

As musicFIRST releases its "Radio Distortion Handbook," the NPD Group ironically reports that one-fourth of the music sold in the U.S. is now credited to iTunes.  And digital is catching up with CDs.  Overall, more than one-third of music sales are now in digital form, and projections indicate that by the end of 2010, it […]

The story covered by Tom Taylor last week that consultant Walt Sabo and New Jersey 101 are parting ways is indeed an anomaly.  As Tom points out, consultants tend to hope that no one notices if they get dusted by a client, and just hope the story goes away.  But in 2009, the end of long-term […]

While on a family vacation in Colorado a couple of weeks back, the weather was lousy, my 18 and 20 year-olds were getting bored, and we were looking for things to do. It occurred to me that we were only an hour from the famous Red Rocks concert venue, which I've seen on TV and […]