Please excuse the pun in this post's title, but the news that the Bayliss Roast will be on hiatus for 2009 is yet another sign that it's not business as usual in radio – or anywhere else. The John Bayliss Broadcast Foundation has held these annual fundraisers in New York City for nearly 25 years, and as luck would have it, I attended my first one earlier this year.
Greater Media's Peter Smyth was the "roastee," the jokes were flying, and it really was a very enjoyable evening. The food was great, and the room was an opulent restaurant (the former Bowery Savings building), Cipriani. It's an amazing venue – marble pillars, high ceilings, and great service.
But as I sat there with broadcasting's luminaries, I couldn't help but think about being in the stateroom on the Titanic just before crashing into the iceberg. Everyone was in a good mood, decked out in tuxes and cocktail dresses, despite the impending sense that the radio industry was heading for serious trouble.
Here we are just eight months later, and the Roast has been cancelled for next year. The Foundation has made a wise decision. Given the climate, they would have been tone deaf to go ahead with this lavish affair.
But the Roast's hiatus shouldn't detract from the importance of the cause it supports. In case you don't know, the Bayliss Foundation has awarded more than 330 scholarships to students in radio broadcasting programs across the U.S. It also started a paid internship program in '05 that has placed more than 90 students with some of the biggest broadcasters.
One Bayliss activist on the college level is a professor at Michigan State, Gary Reid. I'm especially close to Gary because back in the '70s, he replaced me at MSU as the instructor of the radio broadcasting courses. More than a quarter of a century later, he has become a rock star at that school, championing the careers of many students who have the desire to pursue radio as a career. Reid has a direct understanding about the need to support students in their efforts to become radio professionals. Through his work with Bayliss, the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, MSU, and Impact Radio, Gary does more to support our business than most of us who work within it every day.
We need institutions like The Bayliss Foundation more than ever as an industry, Roast or not. You can understand why the numbers of young people who want to go into radio as a career are dwindling. At a time when radio is cutting back on its product and its infrastructure, it becomes even more important that college-aged adults are supported in their efforts to succeed in radio.
At this difficult time for everyone, the Foundation needs radio's support. And that's no joke.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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