Radio NX

Steve Jobs Advice from Beyond the Grave

radionx — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 19:21:52 +0000

Interesting article in Forbes from Peggy Noonan. Draw your own conclusions:

There is an arresting moment in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs in which Jobs speaks at length about his philosophy of business. He’s at the end of his life and is summing things up. His mission, he says, was plain: to “build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products.” Then he turned to the rise and fall of various businesses. He has a theory about “why decline happens” at great companies: “The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesman, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues.” So salesmen are put in charge, and product engineers and designers feel demoted: Their efforts are no longer at the white-hot center of the company’s daily life. They “turn off.” IBM [IBM] and Xerox [XRX], Jobs said, faltered in precisely this way. The salesmen who led the companies were smart and eloquent, but “they didn’t know anything about the product.” In the end this can doom a great company, because what consumers want is good products

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radionx — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 14:43:56 +0000

Radio Blog News

radionx — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 19:20:21 +0000

Final Thoughts on Neil Rogers

radionx — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 17:35:59 +0000

So the King of South Florida radio is gone. Waking up on Christmas Eve 2010 I read the news that Neil Rogers had passed beyond the mortal coil. I worked with Neil at three different South Florida radio stations (WINZ, ZETA and finally WIOD) and even though I worked with the man every day over that time period, Neil was still an enigma to me, and I think to most who worked with him.

On air he was in control, brilliant, and a thousand other adjectives. Off air, he was the epitome of a nebbish. Neil was quiet, walled-off, shy and seemed to have a permanent wall erected around him. I’m no shrink, but he would undoubtedly been a candidate for an asperger’s diagnosis. But Neil’s lack of social graces off-air were no hindrance to his brilliance on-air.

When I was a rock jock at WHSE I would end my evening shift driving home listening to Neil on WKAT or WNWS, always thinking, “Thats’ what radio is supposed to sound like.” This is long before Neil went “nuts” and started doing radio his way. He was doing the typical talk show host thing, mostly political, but his brilliant personality and timing always cut through like a straight razor. Neil created the kind of radio every personality dreams of, where listeners fear turning off their radio in a panic that they might miss something. It wasn’t uncommon to see people sitting in their cars laughing listening to Neil, even though they would face the wrath of their boss for being late to work. Then running into their office, before doing anything else, they’d pounce on the radio power button in hopes they didn’t miss a perl from Neil during their sprint into work. If they were lucky, their boss was doing the same thing.

While I was at ZETA, during Neil’s stint at morning radio in Miami, I must have done hundreds of bits for Rogers. I handled Dave Caprita’s chair when he was out as Neil’s “producer,” sat in for The Bird when he was on vacation and endlessly partook of the perpetual buffet of vittles that came our way. One of my most vibrant memories was one morning, it had to be some kind of holiday or something, where the studio looked like a buffet catered from some of South Florida’s best restaurants, with containers of food literally overflowing into the halls. You never went hungry on the Neil Rogers show! I got endless praise from Rogers for my part of the show, but eventually, like every one else, I too turned to the dark side and became just another douchebag. But if you didn’t get slammed by Neil, hell, you didn’t really matter. It was, as many have pointed out, a badge of honor.

Hell, Neil had his faults, like we all do. Maybe that’s what we love so much about him, he didn’t really cover up his own shortcomings, and didn’t pull any punches with listeners, public figures or anyone else that caught his eye. He had, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst taste in music I’ve ever encountered. But we still loved him for it. It was part of his “Neilness.”

The biggest praise I can hurl at Neil is that to this day he’s still the mark I compare to all other radio personalities. When I hear a host using drops, I always think of how Neil would have done it. How he would have used that impeccable sense of timing to really pull it off. Just remember how Neil would use his “NO” drop. The man could make “NO” more entertaining than anything I can think of I’ve ever heard on the radio. Lot’s of comparison has been made to Neil and Howard Stern. Sure Stern came first, and Neil undoubtedly was inspired by Stern’s breakout style of radio abuse, but Neil could pull it off all by his lonesome. Neil’s cast of characters and bit players were a big part of his show, but he didn’t need The Bird, Caprita or Jorge as backup. Neil was, without a shadow of a doubt, the single greatest solo talk show host to ever grace the airwaves.

The last time I heard Neil was on a visit to South Florida. Neil wasn’t taking calls and was instead reading faxes on the air. To me, it was Neil committing on-air suicide. I got the feeling that he just didn’t care anymore and wanted out. A few months later Neil was gone from the South Florida airwaves. All I can say is, I’ll miss that brilliant son of a bitch.

Where is Music Radio’s Lester Bangs?

radionx — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:53:21 +0000

Yea, about that.

Let’s face it, like it or not, opinion based media is the bomb… as in incendiary. Talk Radio has known for years that strong opinions make for listeners and ratings. Name me one successful/popular radio talk show host that does NOT have a show based primarily on his or her rabid opinions? … I’m waiting….

Fox News knows this. MSNBC knows this. CNN is learning the lesson. NPR hasn’t got a clue. Blogs get it. The Post gets it. But where is music radio? Yea, about that…

Music radio, with very few exceptions (morning shows that are really talk shows in disguise) prides itself on the lack of opinion. This can probably be traced back to the consultant riddled influence beginning in the late ’70s and ’80s. Radio talent, and I use that term loosely, was essentially told to “shut up, read the liner cards, sound pleasant and play the hits.” All of this undoubtedly grew out of the early rock radio revolution on FM in the ’70s. On the progressive FM radio dial the personalities were just that, personalities. However, most of their personality was reflected not only in their banter, but in their freedom to pick and choose their playlists. So, the backlash against “personality” was inevitable and yes, logical. Not only did we need them to stop mumbling, we needed them to stop picking the playlists and play the damn hits.

Unfortunately, we taught and believed that a “milk-toast host” was the way to dominance on the dial. Of course, the exact opposite ended up (for the most part) being the truth. The real dominance of morning-drive (and really every day-part) radio is the personality. We got wacky morning shows, shock-jocks and personality driven hosts commanding the biggest ratings in the most important day-parts. But what about the other 20 hours of the day. It became “that was and this is, blah, blah, liner card, break.” But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

Early in my career as a broadcaster, I came out of that early FM progressive radio movement, into AOR, then Classic Rock and finally Alternative and Active Rock before I finally made the transition into Talk. I’ve worked with some stellar “music” personalities with shows that revolved around their commanding knowledge of popular music facts. They garnered a lot of respect (at least they thought they did) from their listeners and peers. They recite catalogues of bands, who played on which record, years of recordings, chart positions, shoe size of the bassist, add infinitum add nausea. Their encyclopedic knowledge of a genre was mesmerizing, to the point of dizziness. Without exception, every single one of them had one thing in common: They were boring as hell on the air. Why? Because they couldn’t, wouldn’t or weren’t allowed to utilize the one thing all of that knowledge of music really gave them, an educated opinion.

Believe me, when the mic was off, they would chatter on about why this record or band was great or scream about how this new song from band x was a piece of sh*t. Now that was entertaining as hell. But when that mic came on, it was “blah, blah, blah” and if you were ‘lucky,’ some pointless piece of info about the music. Yea, where is the music radio Lester Bangs? Hell, for that matter, where is the music radio with any opinion at all?

Here in Austin we’ve got a myriad of music radio that’s undoubtedly more musically complex than whatever market you happen to be in. A couple of AAAish radio stations, the NPR affiliate is all music, most of it eclectic, outside of the ubiquitous NPR morning and afternoon drive news shows. Hell, it’s the “Live Music Capitol of the World!!!” The jocks here even pick quite a bit of their own damn music, but give an opinion… forget about it.

As a listener what I wouldn’t give to hear a jock come on and tell me what a piece of crap that last song was and tell me why (and if he was really cool, vow to never, ever play it again). Give me a personality of his own convictions that really is excited about some new tune, and tell me why he is so damn passionate about it. How about an interview with a band where the interviewer isn’t creaming all over the musician, just because he or she want’s rock star x to like them or to not offend the listeners. Give me a damn music radio personality with a brain, a sense of humor and some insight, not liners or an encyclopedic knowledge of titles and tracks.

Wouldn’t work you say? Bullsh*t. (Actually, any time I hear someone in radio say “It will never work” I know it will) Maybe you think that people are too passionate about music and won’t put up with some radio guy or gal slamming a band or whatever? OK smartiepants, what’s the one thing that a huge percentage of us are just or more passionate about than music? Still thinking? Sports! Find me a Sports Talk radio station that doesn’t rely on opinion based talk and I’ll show you the lowest rated Sports Talk station in town. Agree or disagree with the Sports Talk host, the sports junkie still listens. It’s about engagement, and that’s the one thing music radio lost with the march of the consultants and tightening of the formats, passion. It’s a passionless, also-ran, flaccid, wreaking pile of dung. And all of that has nothing to do with the music they play!

What’s the big whop-de-do about New Media and this Internet Media thing? Yea, about that. It’s not about tech, or the latest social media fad or reinvention of the old paradigm. It’s about engagement. Something music radio lost a long, long time ago.

*John Ford is a Broadcast programming professional with nearly three decades of experience in local and network major market radio Programming and Consulting. Including stints as a VP of New Media Sabo Media, Network Programming and Imaging at ABC Radio Networks, Greenstone Media. Programming, Imaging and Morning/Talk positions at WIOD/Miami, WLLZ/Detroit, KZPS/Dallas, The Edge/Dallas, Zeta 4/Miami, WSHE/Miami and others. John’s also an uber-geek who holds numerous Apple Technical Certifications and enjoys breaking and fixing code and kit. Reach him at his website.