BEST RADIO VIDEO EVER

It's 2:28AM. I've just finished putting the last touches on the "Twitter for Radio" teleseminar I'm going to conduct in less than 9 hours.

I need some sleep. But...Can I allow this to be the first morning without a posting since I began this blog ?

Rather than have you stare at a blank monitor, I present another viewing of a clip from the best radio video ever made.

That's Randy Michaels, recorded by Art Vuolo ’way back at our second PD Grad School.

YOUR RADIO STATION’S MOST IMPORTANT ASSET

(Excerpted from Randy Michaels' FUNDAMENTALS OF RADIO PROGRAMMING.

There is a hierarchy of importance in any radio station.

What is most important about your radio station?

The Product?

No.

Bottom Line?

No. The most important thing is your signal.

If they can’t hear you, it doesn’t matter.

You can put together the greatest radio station anyone has ever conceived, but if people can’t hear it then it isn’t worth it.

The first thing you do when you program a radio station is look at who you cover, where the signal is strong.

The signal, by the way, isn’t that circle they have on the map in the Sales Department. “Signal” is a very complex thing.

How much signal does it take for the average radio to work? There’s no good answer to that.

In the absence of any other strong signals, .5 millivolts may be killer on FM.

But if you have a very strong transmitter next door, you can have what’s called desense. Cheap radios have their internal amplifiers all turned down by a nearby strong signal. A car radio hears it while a clock radio doesn’t and a Walkman doesn’t.

You have signals that cause intermodulation, which spoils the reception of another signal. As you think about your programming, you should know a lot about your signal.

There are neighborhoods where it’s good and neighborhoods where it’s bad. Radios where it’s good, radios where it’s bad.

When I go to a market for the first time, I drive around with a dozen different radios. I go through office buildings, I listen in different neighborhoods on different kinds of radios and really try to understand the signal.

The signal is first & foremost; that’s your Distribution. Procter & Gamble knows you can’t buy Tide if you can’t find it on the shelf. It’s all about Distribution.

If you don’t have the best signal in the market, doing too well can be a problem. Because if you do really well on a secondary signal, somebody with a great signal can take your position just because they’re easier to find on the dial. There are dozens of examples of this.

Signal is the most important thing. If they can’t hear you, it’s a problem.

When I was building Jacor and later Clear Channel, I started with transmitter power. I didn’t care if the format was Religion or Polka or whatever. Just give me the biggest transmitter. WLW/Cincinnati was the first radio station I was a part of buying, and it was bankrupt. But I wanted the 50,000-watt transmitter.

It all starts with the signal

Here is where you can read the entire FUNDAMENTALS OF RADIO PROGRAMMING, and here's where you can hear it.

2008: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ONE BLOG I ALWAYS READ

For most of the world, 2008 officially began sometime in June, when I published my very first blog post. Radio people argued over whether it's a good idea always to put music under the DJ's voice, and the Internet hasn't been the same since.

I've been sharing The Best Radio Video Ever for years now, and I recycled it as a blog posting.

Hotlining Is For Wimps took dead aim at short, insecure PDs.

A bunch of friends and I reminisced about our First Days On The Air.

I paid tribute to America's (and probably the world's) greatest living radio personality.

Ira Glass did the work for me in this posting — far better than I could.

My video camera revealed the seamy underbelly of Dick Orkin's Famous Radio Ranch.

I fessed up to a hoax I played on San Francisco listeners.

Ever meet a dumb radio station receptionist?

I have no idea who called this fax spammer.

Whoever it was, he called another representative of the same fax spamming company.

Hollywood voiceover coach Nancy Wolfson revealed her true feelings about radio people.

Voiceover Hall-of-Famer Patrick Fraley did his best to disguise his awe of me.

Don LaFontaine left us too early. Unless you saw it here, probably you never saw this video.

Everyone thinks my international travels are so glamorous. They are.

A lot of people never heard the Terry Moss production that caused the FCC to change its rules.

Ross Brittain demonstrates the true glamor of a radio star's life.

My attempt to get everyone excited about one of the coolest songs ever...Well, kind of flopped.

My 3-part series on how to react to a competitor's misleading contest seemed to amuse people.

My favorite rendition of Cream's "White Room."

Finally, one or two people shared my awe at this demonstration of How To Write A Hit Love Ballad.

All in all, I think it's fair to say that this blog has never had a finer year. And I owe it all to my dozens of loyal readers. Next year? More of the same, except for the new stuff.