The Jacobs Media Blog

So no one listens to the radio at night?  This couldn’t happen anywhere but local radio.  Enjoy this free promo for 93X on KSTP-TV the other night.  Sure hope the RAB hears about this one.

Here’s another fun example of integrating fans into the action.  It’s costing the Mets nothing, it showcases their next big star, and it’s something that thousands of baseball fans will likely take a shot at.  If your station is still running away from Consumer Generated Marketing, think about the many ways that big league consumer […]

Here’s another fun example of integrating fans into the action.  It’s costing the Mets nothing, it showcases their next big star, and it’s something that thousands of baseball fans will likely take a shot at.  If your station is still running away from Consumer Generated Marketing, think about the many ways that big league consumer […]

As the tech-savvy world continues to dominate conversation, it’s easy to dismiss some of the time-honored promotional stunts that helped make radio a topic of conversation.  Case in point?  The stupid bet that DJs in competing markets would make around a World Series, Final 4, or the Stanley Cup.  Why don’t these little promotional stunts […]

For our next round of results from this year’s Tech Survey III, we took a deeper look at iPods and mp3 players.  Our Tech Survey III study consisted of over 25,000 interviews among Rock listeners from nearly 70 radio stations across the U.S.  It’s the most extensive study of its kind.  (We recently released Satellite […]

Today we’ve got a guest shot from Jacobs Media’s Bill Jacobs: As if the news in the record industry wasn’t already bleak enough (so far this year CD sales are off a whopping 17%), one of Classic Rock’s true icons, Paul McCartney just signed a new deal that ended his relationship with Capitol Records after […]

While the Presidential primaries are still about a year away, it’s clear that the Internet will play an even greater role in the election process.  Witness the run to create and build "friends" on MySpace by candidates on both sides of the political spectrum.  Clearly, party hopefuls view the web in general, and social networking […]

From Dave Beasing…

Imagine being a service rep for the New Jersey Nets.  Simply stated, they’re a mediocre basketball team that’s going nowhere in a metro that traditionally favors the New York Knicks.  Their coach is on the bubble, and the odds of them making the playoffs this year continue to worsen.  So then, how does the Nets […]

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has shaken up the presidential primary sweepstakes by scheduling his state’s primary and caucuses to February 5th.  This forces White House wannabees to shift gears away from Iowa and New Hampshire, and head to the West Coast for some serious campaigning. Of course, it’s not cheap to leverage a media onslaught […]

We’ve got a guest posting today from Jacobs Media’s Dave Beasing: What is a hit?  Radio programmers have debated this question, song by song, since shortly after Marconi.  Most agree that this usually fits the definition: Top debut album sales – unusual these days for Rock Big sold-out concerts – unusual these days for anybody […]

A couple of weeks ago, I took my 15-year-old son to San Francisco for a few days over his Winter Break.  We had a great time, and among other sites, visited the Fillmore where we spent lots of time perusing their walls of vintage concert posters. As luck would have it, his favorite artist – […]

What do you do when you share lots of your listeners with the local public radio station?  You don’t wring your hands – you put together a great association with them. That’s how San Diego’s FM94/9 and KPBS are working with one another.  FM94/9 offered a discount to its email club members for a KPBS […]

Jacobs Media clients know that Tech Poll III is back from the cyberspace field, and is in the process of being sliced and diced.  It’s a great study, consisting of over 25,000 interviews among Rockers across the U.S.  For the third consecutive year, we’ve measured how Rock Radio listeners use other media, and how they […]

The emotion Seth talks about in this blog (or see below) epitomizes the passion that listeners have for Classic Rock.  And if you’ve heard any of this "new" Neil Young release, you can relate to this blog entry.  Classic Rock stations have an obligation to literally find these "current" gems and showcase them.  It’s not […]

An interesting story from the financial pages recently involves one of the companies we talk about a lot in this blog – Starbucks.  It seems that CEO Howard Schultz is experiencing some feelings of remorse about the rampant growth of his massively successful corporation.  On the one hand, Starbucks is now sitting at 13,000 stores, […]

The controversy rolls on about Internet radio royalty fees, accentuated by NPR’s strong statement of protest. Today, they will issue a formal petition with the CRB panel that instituted the new exorbitant rate structure.  This is the first step in the appeal process. As NPR spokesperson, Andi Sporkin noted, "This decision penalizes public radio stations […]

The controversy rolls on about Internet radio royalty fees, accentuated by NPR’s strong statement of protest. Today, they will issue a formal petition with the CRB panel that instituted the new exorbitant rate structure.  This is the first step in the appeal process. As NPR spokesperson, Andi Sporkin noted, "This decision penalizes public radio stations […]

The big political buzz on the Republican side is coming from Mitt Romney.  He recently spoke at the Detroit Economic Club and wowed the room because he used a PowerPoint presentation rather than just standing there and orating. Imagine that. None of the other candidates uses this revolutionary Microsoft tool, thus giving Romney a distinct […]

The big political buzz on the Republican side is coming from Mitt Romney.  He recently spoke at the Detroit Economic Club and wowed the room because he used a PowerPoint presentation rather than just standing there and orating. Imagine that. None of the other candidates uses this revolutionary Microsoft tool, thus giving Romney a distinct […]