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what hath we wrought?

Published

on March 25, 2008

. 2 Comments

so its official….XM and Sirius are merging

uh oh…as if sattelite radio didnt already spell the inevitable end of terrestrial radio we now have the 2 giants of the industry coming together to form the voltron of mega super conglomerate’s to send all us poor radio stations to our deaths….but dont think that we didnt see it coming, in fact in some kind of weird way, i think we created this monster.

waaay back before sirius and xm were even around, a bunch of hooligans from the radio industry got together and started talking about “radio without boundaries” and “global radio” and while some came up with the idea of sattelite radio as we know it (alot of the members of the board of directors and stockholders are industry exec’s in some of the biggest terrestrial radio company’s) others decided to go the “HD Radio” bandwagon…which i really don’t think has panned out too well…but we are early in the technology’s life-cycle so i’ll give it some more time.

what we will start seeing is cheaper costs in the market for sattelite radio’s and subscription costs, and why wouldnt people jump on that bandwagon? You will be able to pay between 10 and 13 dollars a month to hear Howard Stern, Oprah Winfrey, The all Bob Dylan show, NFL Football, MLB, NBA, NHL, NASCAR and more….that’s simply a deal that terrestrial radio can’t offer. Then in a few years, expect to see the big names like Hannity, Limbaugh, Boortz, Levin and others shooting over to the sattelite guru’s. Then you’ll have your big name morning shows head that way (the one’s that aren’t already there anyways) and you’ll have a product that will be unbeatable…its time that we in the terrestrial radio industry step up and put a more compelling product out there, companies like Clear Channel (shameless plug) are waaaaay ahead of the competition in terms of listener benefit, online presence and more and its going to take realizing that in order to beat the giants of sattelite radio we simply can’t rest on our laurels anymore….we’re not radio stations, we’re audio brands. CC has done a great job of realizing that, and im proud to work for a company that does such a good job in keeping themselves current, others however need to step their game up if they want to survive the coming war….and believe me, war is coming!

Lets get Lost shall we?

Published

David

on March 17, 2008

in TV Stuff

. 3 Comments

TV Rocks. TV has actually impressed me the past few seasons. While i am used to the inevitable crap that will eventually enter my picture watching box (sorry Keith….but Sarah Conner Chronicles sucked, and lets not talk about the debacle that was “Caveman.”) i am also overly excited about some of the GREAT shows that will be filling my free time this season…lets talk about one of my favorite’s….Lost Sawyer From Lost

Now some of you have already made it up in your minds that Lost is just another one of those shows that never makes any sense, drags a plot on into oblivion and will eventually leave us all scratching our heads and i’ll be the first to admit that the producers have not done anything to sway my opinion otherwise. But im still hooked!

Lost is one of those shows that reminds me of a train wreck…you just can’t look away even if you want to. While JJ Abrams does a magnificent job in making you connect to his characters, making you hate some and love others, he is not renowned for his ability to weave a coherent plot.

So this brings up some of the questions that i have coming into this season of Lost….mabye you can help me answer some of them or post your own theories. (btw…there might be spoilers if you aren’t caught up on the show yet!)

1. Who are the Oceanic Six? How do they get off the Island?

2. Is Jin REALLY dead?

3. Will Bad boy Sawyer ever get the girl?

4. Who do you believe? Charles Whitmore or Michael? And for that matter…what is Micheal REALLY doing back on the island?

5. Where are the others? Did they just vanish?

Lets get the Introductions out of the way, shall we?

Published

David

on March 15, 2008

in Announcements and Radio stuff

. 1 Comment

Thank you for that glorious introduction Keith. Hello all and thank you for allowing me this opportunity to express my opinions thru the glorious web institution that is Prod Ninja. Allow me to give you a small history of myself as well as what im doing today.

I was born a poor black child. No just playing, but i’ve always wanted to start a monologue like that. After graduating from Calhoun Community College i pursued a career in radio, this landed me in the metropolis of Athens working for Athens Broadcasting, AB was run by Bill “Bill D” Dunnavant and his wife Mary. Bill, as Keith has already said, made his claim to fame by being the first man to give a fledgling broadcaster by the name of Sean Hannity a job…we can all see how well that worked out! Bill stuck me in the newsroom of Huntsville AM powerhouse News Talk 770 AM WVNN. The home of such names as Peter Thiele, Darla Jaye and many other titans of loacl radio that myself and Keith are privledged to know. While Keith focused more on the production side of the business i was a news anchor under the instruction of one of my mentor’s: Marty Broman. It was there that i met some of the people who would shape my belief’s, ideals and views on things for the rest of my life. People that you’ve never heard of but if you had the privledge to meet would surely like. People like Mike Brown, Rich Herl, Sven Anderson, Zack Bennett and others.

My end at WVNN came swiftly and was marred with scandal! More on that later….we don’t know each other well enough for that topic yet!

I landed a job next at Clear Channel Radio in Huntsville. Home of FM Powerhouse and heritage country station WDRM. I was hired on as a board-op for the Toni and Gary show. From there i was promoted to Promotions Director. Taking charge of all events, giveaways, etc that our 4 station cluster had. Our cluster was a very dominant one, we have the number 1,3 and 4 stations in the market in the crucual 25-54 category according to Arbitron. I’ve always had a penchant for Web design, etc so when our Online Content Director left us i took his role upon me. So im a promotions/web geek now. So i spend my days organizing remotes, scheduling giveaways and making sure our websites are up to date. Its a fun job and i love the people i work with. I’ve never once thought about doing anything but radio. And that catches you up to today.

Now i love taking politics as much as the next guy (we used to do it quite frequently at VNN, i mean come on it was a news/talk station) so i’ll be doing that a little, but that is what Keith is here for, im going to be providing you, the viewer, with an inside look at the world of radio from my perspective along with a few other topics. Hope you enjoy!