I also had "The Missing Link." Remember that one? What about the pyramid-shaped thingamabob? There were others, and I owned every one of 'em.

I never solved these puzzles, mind you. I only bought them because they were fun.

Dominoes were another all time favorite of mine during childhood. My father owned a pool table which he rarely used, so I had plenty of space to set those little buggers up and knock 'em down.

I must have had thousands of dominoes.

It got to the point where I had a domino taped to string which was taped to the ceiling. When knocked down, that domino would fall off the table and swing across the room to trigger another set of dominos.

All of it is 100% A-OK. I checked.

Sure, the medium has more challenges and challengers today than it has ever had before, but the fundamentals of radio are sound. Sure, listeners may be less passionate about radio today, but that's happening because we're giving them less to be passionate about. We can fix that. Any problems facing the content side of radio are easily solved through creativity, passion and hard work, and I don't see any lack of that.

I'll say it again: There is absolutely nothing wrong with the medium that is radio.

What's broken is the business of radio.

Once upon a time not so long ago, your typical radio station was a balancing act: a seesaw of programming and Sales. Programming created entertainment that captured an audience. Sales used that audience to generate revenue. Want more money? Create better programming. Build a bigger audience.

It doesn't work that way anymore because the business of radio is broken. There is no balance of programing and sales when there's a pig on the seesaw.

The downfall of radio can be blamed on:

#1. Freaking Flanking.

Remember the LMA? The Local Marketing Agreement was never about marketing. It was about turning frequencies into pawns, and it was the beginning of the end.

Imagine if car companies started running other car companies as shells to produce cars NOT for consumers but instead to HURT other car companies.

That's what the LMA was all about. Station A more or less owned Station B and used it NOT to entertain, but instead, the primary goal was to take audience away from Station C. If they couldn't beat 'em, they got a flanker to hurt 'em.

In the days of the LMA, I lived in a small market where the local rock station LMA'ed another frequency and flipped it Hot AC to take audience away from the adult-leaning CHR that owned the market. They used the flanker to take out the market leader, but not by better programming. The Hot AC never had to be any good. It just had to hurt the CHR as much as possible on as little budget as possible.

It all sounds like harmless strategy until you consider that it meant a lowering of the standard of quality for radio stations, which was bad for radio as a whole.

When Mix couldn't play certain songs because they'd take audience away from B107, the real loser was the Mix listener who couldn't hear her favorite song on her favorite station.

Sounds trivial, eh? Well, it might have been trivial if it had been the exception to the rule of radio. Instead, it become the norm thanks to deregulation. Deregulation was really the LMA times a thousand. It's hard to win in a market when you first have to fight within your own building. Then again, winning isn't even about listeners anymore, is it? It's about stock.

The downfall of radio can also be blamed on:

#2. The FCC.

When did the FCC become a government version of a take out window? "You want how many stations? That'll be XXX dollars. Please pull up to the next window to receive your order."

Far too many stations were added to the dial, not to mention how many were shuffled from city to city - which, by the way, completely contradicted the reason those licenses were granted in the first place!

And then there's the sheer comedy that is FCC fines.

Opie And Anthony held an on-air contest where people had to fuck in St. Patrick's Cathedral to win a prize. When that stunt didn't cost WNEW its license it became pretty obvious that the FCC was a joke without a punchline. Oh, sure, people were fired, blah blah, but owner didn't lose the license. In fact, they were fined less than half a million dollars, which is what to a company the size of CBS?

...please...

The FCC is a joke.

And speaking of initials we can blame for the downfall of radio...

#3. The NAB.

Broadcasters have no advocate in the legal or regulatory process. If the FCC is a joke, the NAB is a face-painted clown. The NAB is the National Association Of Broadcasters - yes, BROADCASTERS - yet their organization does little but harm broadcasters and harm broadcasting. Instead, their ambition is to benefit owners at the expense of broadcasting.

"Hang on" you say. "Aren't owners also broadcasters?"

No.

Most of today's broadcasting owners are no more broadcasters than plantation owners were farmers. Let's talk about the man busting his back in the fields during the early 1800s. He deserves the recognition because he was a farmer, and probably a damn good one. He knew the land. He knew the crop. He tilled the soil. The guy sitting in his mansion drinking wine was just a farm owner.

There is a difference.

Even in the days of 7 AMs and 7 FMs in 7 markets, many of the station owners weren't really broadcasters. Not really. But they were so closely connected to the point where sales and programming met that they understood the symbiotic relationship required for each to prosper. Also, there were so many owners back then that you at least had the opportunity to use your talents to find a better station with better ownership. It's true that there were plenty of bad owners back then, but there were exceptional owners too. Don't like Wilkes? OK, that's fair. How about a gig with Nationwide? Or Secret. Or Susquehanna, or Chancellor... or the noise you can't ignore, if it suited your personality. Grin.

Today's Clear Channel and Cumulus are about as different as Republicans and Democrats. The differences may seem vast on paper, but politics is still politics.

And that brings me to the fourth thing the downfall of radio can be blamed on.

Grade School Math.

Let me see if I've got this right... some genius thought it was a good idea to buy radio stations at ten or twenty times what each frequency was worth while also dropping the price of ads being run on said frequencies so he could undercut the competition... and then a whole bunch of other geniuses - seeing the brilliance of such a strategy - decided to do the same.

They increased cumulative debt while decreasing individual revenue.
"BRILLIANT!!!"

...no. Not so brilliant, as it turns out.

"OK THEN! Let's cut costs."
You mean fire people?
"Yeah. That."

...but those people create the product that IS your radio station. They give your listeners a reason to listen.

"Well they're not doing a good job, are they? Ratings are down!"

...that's because you took away their tools in your last few rounds of cost cutting. Remember the research they used? You slashed that part of the budget already. Oh, and remember the songs you wouldn't let them play because you were trying to protect your other stations? And remember the guests you wouldn't let the morning show book for the same reason? Oh, and remember the air talent you already fired during the last round of cost cutting... when you replaced live shows with voicetracking? Oh yeah... and remember when you...

Which brings me to the fifth thing the downfall of radio can be blamed on.

Your Local Planetarium.

Let's talk about time and space.

First, there were carvings in stone. Eventually there was ink and paper. And then the telegraph. And then AM radio. Then TV. Then FM radio. And Satellite. Etc.

It's worth looking into how the Japanese treat their auto factory workers, and how their actions from decades past are still shaking the U.S. auto industry today.

They paid their workers ten cents a day and forced them into submission, right?

No.

The Japanese empowered their workers and created a business culture that was (and all too often still is) the opposite of ours.

It's a long story, but the short version is this - and it directly applies to radio:

The Japanese wanted a piece of the worldwide auto market, and their initial attempt was typical. They tried to win on cost. They implemented a system of "lean production" where they stripped the cost of production to the bone. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar?

What they got for their effort was a very affordable car that wasn't worth the metal it was made of. Garbage. But, let's be honest... cheap sells. And their cars did sell. And they broke down. As George Bush once said, "Fool me once, shame.... shame on you. Fool me twice, I won't get fooled again." (...Grin)

The Japanese realized the strategy of cheap would lose in the end as competitors built more reliable cars.

This is one area where I believe radio is dead wrong today. Cutting costs to the bone is a short term strategy that will lead to long term failure as competing forms of media become either more entertaining, or equally entertaining with fewer commercials.

Radio can't win by cost cutting. But radio can win by outperforming... and that's exactly what the Japanese auto industry realized they needed to do to compete with the U.S.

TV viewership on the major networks is down, but that doesn't stop American Idol from grabbing an average of 30 million pair of eyeballs before the contest even heats up.

These are tough times for radio, but I wonder what Seacrest's numbers are like on Kiss in LA, or Kraddick's on Kiss in Dallas. Look what happened to K-Rock when Stern left.

Content is king, but since people can get music anywhere, radio needs its content to be about a lot more than just playing the hits.

The suits controlling radio have been allowing the quality of its content to plummet thanks to cost-cutting, piss-poor sales strategy, corporate dictated programming and lazy gimmickry. All of that garbage needs to stop, but I doubt it will since the business of radio has been so wrecked that it can hardly afford to create the content needed for its own survival.

It's time to enter into a new age of superstar air talent, where program directors are creative geniuses rather than fixtures in board room meetings. It's time for radio to become fun again, before it's too late.

Personally, I think satellite radio is doomed. And I think HD radio as a compelling medium is doomed.

Terrestrial radio, on the other hand, has a relatively easy fix for it's problems. No, really.

Put the keys back in the hands of the person driving the car. Then demand, and reward, results.

I'll use Movin' in Dallas as an example. The gimmick landed with a thud in the fall, and the rest of the market kicked it in the winter. This makes sense, being that the format is radio's version of a poor man's get rich quick scheme. I'm sure glad they didn't wipe out a heritage station to put that thing on the air!

It needed: Must. Have. Content.

Ah, but that's precisely what satellite radio didn't have.

Using cable TV as an example: in the old days, fuzzy TV via UHF/VHF was good enough. Sure, it was annoying to adjust the rabbit ears to catch an episode of Three's Company, but whatever. It worked.

Then, one day, MTV came along, and the only place to get it was on cable. Hello subscribers!

Remember the first commercials for MTV? They were advertising something brand new - a channel of non-stop music videos. I bet you still remember the ad's slogan over a quarter century later ("I want my MTV!", as if I even had to remind you).

For far too long, satellite radio was like cable before the birth of MTV. There wasn't a compelling reason to pay for it.

Do you even remember any of the early commercials for satellite radio? The commercials were about as compelling as the product itself. The only commercial I remember talked about a guy driving coast to coast without ever losing the signal. Great, so satellite radio is cool to have once every few years. True, satellite radio is mostly commercial free, but a lack of commercials does not equate to compelling content. It just means less interruption of the same old content people were already getting for free.

Does it still happen? Yes.
Do people still get jobs that way? Yes.
Is it the best way? Absolutely not. In fact, I'd consider it a last resort.

If you'd like to put yourself at the back of the line when it comes to finding a gig and hope that your demo is so out of the ballpark awesome that the station hires you instead of someone who they were already aware of, your results will speak for themselves, but let's be honest here... even if your demo is that awesome, wouldn't you rather be the person the PD got a tip about? "Hey, you need to check out this guy's stuff."

We all gripe and moan about the need for radio to change - myself included. It's easy to point out the changes corporate needs to make. But what about the changes *we* need to make?

Change has also got to start with us. You, and me.

There are expenses that come with any career, and radio is no different. How many of us have given a friend $100 when he got blown out of a gig so he could afford to buy a spindle of CDs, a ream of good paper and mailing supplies. Or hell, how many of us have been on the receiving end of such a gift? I remember getting blown out due to management changes and the production director offered to order me a box of clamshells for mailing CDs. We all KNOW the expenses that come with finding a gig.

What about the expenses that come with HAVING a gig? You need headphones, right? You need CDs to save your airchecks, right? (please tell me you do this).

Listeners don't give a rats ass about HD, but they sure do love to talk about Britney's big bald head. Why? That's easy. People love people, and people love to hate people too.

I could write a book about the ways radio isn't doing its part in terms of investment in the future - but that won't do you any good, so instead, I'll talk about you.

YOUR career is your obligation and no one else's. Invest in yourself. Do whatever it takes to excel, even if it means spending your own money on equipment or cutting voicework for free for a small market station so you can build a portfolio.

I've seen jocks buy their own mics and portable recorders so they could interview people on the streets for bits for their shows. I've also seen other jocks say "WTF? Why should *I* have to pay for that shit?" You shouldn't. But if you don't have access to the tools you need and your station won't provide them, you can either send mp3 demos with a note saying "this is what I'd do if I had access to what I need" or you can invest in yourself and send demos that show why you are a future superstar.

Commercials are what commercials are, eh?

Clear Channel has a trading network set up where the staffers swap voices, scripts, workparts, and ideas.

That equals better sounding spots.

For the staffers, this trading network also equals exposure. Sure, one could argue it's only exposure within the company, but we all know that a new gig often means working for another company.

The lowering of quality and standards is reversible. But reversing that trend takes a lot of hard work, and that hard work begins with bringing hard working people together.

I'm not saying CC is some kind of hero. They led the charge toward so much of what caused the woes radio faces today. Lower standards, fewer staffers, slashed budgets. I'm not arguing that. But change happens, and change doesn't always have to be for the worse. The question is - are you treating the CC of today is if it's the CC of years' past?

As an example of why you'd be a fool to do that, take a look at CBS Radio.

Well, that's just crap. Research and vision are two entirely different things, though each, combined with talent, is essential to long term success.

Research is nothing more than finding out what people like/want/need/hate/etc.

Research doesn't provide answers. It only guides, based on the reader's understanding of the answers given to questions asked.

In other words, research tells you "what," but wisdom tells you the "why."

Research can be your worst nightmare if the person analyzing it doesn't understand the reasons the research came back the way it did.

Radio cannot clone success. It must be built.

One radio station at a time.
One daypart at a time.
One entertainer at a time.
One record at a time.

Passion needs to earned, one listener at a time.

To accomplish this:
Know your core.
Enthrall them.

That's what radio people have always wanted to do from day one. It wasn't the guy behind the mic who said "let's save money by firing people." The guy behind the mic said "I'm gonna effing OWN this town. Then let the sales people raise rates."

In the old days, the market's 500 pound gorilla wasn't just a ratings monster, it was a sales monster too. I remember a PD who used to bitch about his fax-machine sales staff. He'd built an arbitron juggernaut through hard work, sweat, creativity and love for the medium. Meanwhile, too many of his salespeople weren't even going out to make sales. They'd sit at their desks and wait for the orders to get faxed in. Today, that radio station is still a market monster - but you can bet your ass their budget is a fraction of what it was 15 years ago.

No. They haven't exited.

This had all the markings of a damn fine day. I won't bother giving a date because, though this is my story, it's the sort of thing that's probably happened to you too - probably a few times.

...I arrived at work with a smile on my face, partaking in casual chit-chat and greetings while walking along the gauntlet of desks and offices that led towards the kitchen. Yes, this was looking like a fantastic day indeed. But then, in an instant, everything changed.

A multi-million dollar broadcast property ground to a halt due to the lack of an item that costs a dollar fifty nine.

"What do you mean we're out of sugar?" The squeaky voice of my G.M. was booming through the building with a tremble of honest-to-god panic. "How did this HAPPEN?" ...OK, the 'how it happened' part is pretty obvious... but still...

"Drink it BLACK?" Bad suggestion...

And with that, sales meetings became irrelevant. Marketing took a back seat. The conference call was forgotten. All that mattered was finding an intern - or a promotions person - even somebody from sales would do... anybody! "Jesus Christ! Who're we gonna send to the store?" he pleaded. "Our midday numbers suck! Send HIM. It's not like anybody's listening."

Ouch. Low blow.

I learned a lesson that day. Keep a secret stash of essentials for your coffee? Sugar, creamer, filters?

No. (but our crafty commercial production director did precisely that)

Here's some relatively simple do-it-yourself advice for recording your own shows - or rolling tape on someone else's.

The Low-Tech Trusty Timer Skimmer:

Buy a good VCR and connect it to your receiver. Buy 30 blank tapes. You can get everything but the tapes at a thrift shop if need be (don't forget the head cleaner!)

The beauty of doing it this way is that you can program the VCR to turn on when you're on the air. Just remember to leave your receiver on (volume won't matter since the VCR gets signal from line-out jacks)

Here's the trick: Set the timer to turn on at exactly the top of the hour, that way, it's easy to shuttle through the tape to find exact breaks. Great bit going into spots at 7:35? Shuttle one hour and thirty five minutes into the tape. Get the break - dub it - save it for later.

The Hi-Tech Home-Studio Skimmer:

This is your career we're talking about here. Invest in yourself. You're worth it.

Buy a radio with a line-out jack.