PROGRAMMING IS THE PRODUCT Radio news tends to items about the FCC, business deals, conventions, stock value and the ever present sub-channel digital broadcasting scheme. Radio programming articles seem to be given secondary treatment in both trade publications and in newspapers. Programming is the product; it is the connection between the station and the listener, the link to the audience so desperately wanted and needed by stations everywhere, yet programming is last in the minds of executives. Listeners don't know or care how the sound gets to them. They don't know how the broadcast company stock is faring or how luxurious the station lobby is. They only know what they hear. Why think about programming? Medium size markets, for example, have been taken over by single companies operating a 'cluster' and so can and do dictate what citizens hear. Stations formerly operated with full news and programming staffs have been absorbed into the cluster so the need for community involvement or spending time and money on quality programming has been eliminated. The listening audience takes what they're served for competition has been eliminated. Even the list of phone extensions at such station groups reflects what they stress: four extensions for executives, six for sales, one for news and…oh, yes…one for programming. There are notable, praise-worthy exceptions, generally in small single-station markets. Once in a while an exception pops up in a major market, usually because a single person has determined a firm direction. Listeners in those markets have developed a higher standard. Listeners, even if they don't know why, react positively to three on-air factors: good production, a personality with whom they can identify and entertaining comment and content. The technical quality of the sound they hear is also a prime factor, but we're hoping here the current advanced state of audio and transmission equipment allows the part-time contract engineer to create pleasing sound. Radio isn't the only business where growth equals a drop in product quality. It happens frequently when one company buys another, the cuts the cost and quality of the product, the very reason the company was attractive in the first place. The quality of the product is of prime importance. Programming is the product of radio stations. When the quality of the product shrinks, so do the number of listeners, the most important factor in ratings, sales and eventual financial success. Promotion is important, but if the promotion leads a listener to a product that's not worthy of his or her time or interest, the promotion has lost its value and meaning. Radio broadcasts can be made from an ugly shack, the desks can be old doors sitting on boxes, the studio can be a closet, but if good talent results in equally good programming the audience will listen. It should be obvious to everyone, programming is the most vital factor in broadcasting. DK - May, 2008

IMAGINED PRIVATION This train-of-thought began when a medical professional man was complaining to me about losing his expensive, big name wristwatch. He explained he and his wife were in his Mercedes with his son and his wife, and he was the only one who didn't have this particular brand of watch on. "I felt so out of it," he said. "There were three people who all had (brand name) watches on, and I didn't. I felt like I wasn't worth anything." I assured him his medical services to his patients held a value far beyond the imagined value of a certain watch, that his self-esteem need not be based on wearing this watch. Dissolve to a snowy morning when my car started immediately, the heater came on automatically controlled by a computer chip reading the engine heat, the passenger seat was heated and there was automatic traction control. I turned on the heat element to clear the back window of snow. My passenger said, "Some cars have wiper blades for the back window." Another auto comment from years ago came to mind. I was driving a junker, an old clunky sedan that had seen better days. It was the time when down-and-out city dwellers would run up to cars at stoplights with a squeegee to scrape over your windshield, expecting some payment in return for the unwanted service. When a bearded guy with torn clothes ran up to my car at an intersection, I rolled down the window before he got to the car and asked him, "Do you think a guy driving a car like this can afford to pay you?" His answer, while self-serving, carried with it considerable truth. He said, "At least you have a car." Maybe, just maybe, we should spend more time considering the value of what we have rather than the imagined privation of what we do not.

THE REAL AMERICA A friend of mine just finished a trip from New England to Oregon, and sent photos of the towns he saw on the way. Those pictures illustrated, at least to me, where the strength of the United States resides. It's not in New York City or Washington, DC or the giant corporations, but in small towns and small business. The strength of America is in the citizens of these towns who meet each morning at the locally owned restaurant to exchange views on every subject of interest to them, political or economic, social or personal. They are the soul of this great nation. These are the hardy folk with a strong work ethic, individuals who are the glue that binds us together. The old Indian story about one stick being easily broken but a bundle of sticks impossible to break illustrates the power of our heritage, for these people go to work every day, share a common goal in "pursuit of happiness" and cannot be dissuaded. We've seen the surprising fall of massive businesses, the rapidly changing political landscape, the media struggle to find viewers, listeners and readers. But the small town citizens who earn a living for their families in individual endeavors endure to personify America, and to uphold its ideals.

RADIO'S TALENT PINCH Edison Media Research came up with a prediction not surprising to veteran radio people. They said the most serious obstacle radio faces in the next decade is not satellite or internet or iPods but lack of talent. When that prediction was published some personal experiences came to mind. Not long ago I was a guest on a British radio program hosted by a most talented 'presenter' and in the course of our pre-broadcast planning she mentioned her program was voice-tracked. She was surprised when I told her we still did the program on a 'real-time' basis. Therein lies one of the problems in development of new talent; nothing to do with the already talented British broadcaster, but certainly at the heart of the predicted lack of radio's future talent. There's no way to learn radio without identifying with your listeners, and that's best accomplished when a program is 'live.' Of course it's more efficient to have an announcer voice-track using a set group of recordings, the so-called 'play-list,' but there's no connection between the talent and the music or the audience. It's much quicker and certainly a more sure way of appealing to a certain demographic to 'rip-in' a proven list of vetted hits, but there's no personal involvement between music and host. The music is selected by a program director or some music service on the basis of what has already succeeded on the air, not a program of tunes the announcer likes and can talk about with feeling and enthusiasm. This pre-selected list inputted to the computer doesn't lend itself to true personality radio or personality development. The second experience germane to the talent problem (and related to the above) was the discovery that a key station in a major market selected their music content by playing excerpts of recordings on the phone to a random list of listeners. The listeners, as might be expected, picked the tunes they already heard leading to repetition and a downward spiral into a morass of mediocrity. Again, no connection between the announcer and the content. Technology has allowed radio stations to operate virtually without a staff, particularly on the weekends and overnight, the very times many budding announcers in the past honed their talent. They were able to experiment before a 'live' listening audience as they tried different approaches. There is, as one sage expressed it, "No place to be bad anymore." It is your personality that attracts you to others, a personality developed in contact with others over a period of time. By the same token a personality attractive to radio listeners must have a chance to develop with listener interaction over a period of time. There's little opportunity to do that in today's automated, click-snap-pop computerized radio.

CREDIT AGENCIES A great deal of what credit agencies do is highly invasive in the mode of Big Brother. We worry about the government's ever increasing control over personal liberties, but no one seems to be disturbed about credit agencies and their absolute, complete control of what we do not only financially but often privately. Assume that a neighbor of yours, someone you know, meets you on the street and asks you what you earn each year. You'd be offended, of course, and unless he was a very good friend, you wouldn't tell him. Let's further assume this neighbor wants to know which credit cards you carry, what you've purchased in the past months and the amount of the mortgage on your house. Then he asks you if you want to see what information he's collected, and not only that, tells you he's assigned you a number. "What is the number, and how is it calculated?" you ask. "Sorry," he says. "I can't tell you that, but I'll be glad to let you know what your number is if you'll just slip me a couple of bucks. Oh, and if you want to see the report we have on you, that'll cost even more." This scenario is bad enough if it occurred with someone you know, but it's absolutely ridiculous when your personal information is collected by a stranger who has no….repeat….no allegiance to you, nor does he care. He is simply a collector of your very personal information for his company's profit. If the information happens to be incorrect, so be it. It's YOUR responsibility to correct it; the only responsibility THEY have is to collect and sell it, whatever it says. Years ago one of the credit agencies phoned my house while I was at work and quizzed by wife, asking her the amount of my salary, how many cars we had, what the house payment was. My naïve wife answered all his questions. Our neighbors told us later he phoned them to ask if we cut the lawn and maintained the house properly. Spying on people is certainly unethical. Your mother probably also told you it also wasn't nice. She was right. It's no only unethical, it might just be illegal, particularly in the case of my innocent wife and the inquisition by the smooth-voiced agent for the enemy. Must we become hermits or operate on a total cash basis to maintain some modicum of privacy? Is no one worried about your own personal information being sold back to you; even assigned a number? Most of all, if anyone worried about those who jump through the hoops to maintain that number as though it was the score in a ball game? It's another example of the rampant impersonalization of America.

APPOINTMENTS It seems appointments don't mean anything anymore. Am I deluding myself or was there a time when if someone said, "I'll meet you at one o'clock," they actually showed up at one o'clock? A young friend of mine brought this to mind again when he told me we could get together for a business meeting at a certain day and time and then said, "I'll phone you to confirm the day before." Phone to confirm? An appointment is an appointment. Its simplicity and ease is inherent in the solidity of the agreement. When an appointment is made with the absolute intention of keeping it, there's no need to think about it again; simply be there. This business of "I'll call you to confirm," simply adds an additional function to the process after a time and date is already fixed. The confirmation call always carries with it the suspicion the person with whom you made the appointment is leaving the time open in case something more interesting comes along. Or it may be the cell phone has encouraged this kind of loose arrangement, or lack of arrangement. Yes, that may be it. My wife recently got a cell phone to help her with her business involving group appointments that sometimes are delayed or cancelled, and it's changed her way of thinking Now she suggests she be called on the cell phone "if there's any change" whereas before she simply showed up on time. Conversely she suggests I take the cell phone with me "in case plans change." The most direct, simple and efficient way to handle appointments is to keep them. Make them firm, keep them assiduously and all indecisiveness is eliminated.

TRADITION In thought, at least, this started out as an observation on education, but zoomed out to become a general overview of the tradition curse. Nostalgia is one thing, recalling memorable times of the past, but tradition in many instances has deterred progress. Education is an example. We are trapped in a college and university system with costs beyond the average family's means and an old-boy advantage for those who attend. A re-working of the higher education system, if indeed it IS a system, is well overdue. Because the prevailing colleges and universities are certainly not going to take such an initiative it's obvious private enterprise will have to step in. That initiative has already started in a small way with private profit-making institutions teaching specific courses. Costs at these private institutions are kept within bounds, no time is frittered away by either teachers of students, and extra-curricular activities don't get in the way. The federal tax "system" is another subject leading to this overview. The citizenry has blindly accepted this hodge-podge of taxation laws piled one on top of the other, thinking this is the way it should be. More logical tax systems have been put forth, but our lawmaking bodies don't seem to care. These simpler tax plans are all simpler, would at the very least expand the economy and relieve citizens from having to become bookkeepers. Tradition, or maybe lethargy, has kept these tax systems from being adopted. We must separate tradition from nostalgia if we are to move forward not only in the subjects noted above, but other disciplines mired in "it's the way we've always done it" syndrome. It's so easy to keep doing the same things; so difficult to accept change. Change for the sake of change isn't always good, but we've all experienced the results of positive personal change. After a few weeks we wonder why we didn't adopt the new system years ago. The same is true of positive change on a larger scale. Only blind tradition keeps us from moving forward on many fronts.

LICENSING AGENCIES HAVE DONE IT AGAIN A couple of years ago BIG BAND JUMP had a technically reliable service offering both BIG BAND JUMP and the DON KENNEDY SHOW supplied on-demand on the internet directly from our own web site. Without going into detail, it was killed because the expense of paying the music licensing services and the RIAA (the recording industry group) simply could not be met. (Please see old commentary about that by clicking here, if you like.) STAY TUNED AMERICA, which operates 24 hours a day, asked if they could take over the "on-demand" service as well as use both programs in their regular programming schedules, and while that meant extra clicks and internet negotiation for our listeners, it filled the gap. Now the licensing agencies, probably in reaction to podcasting, have decided to separately charge for on-demand service, even if the same program is supplied as on the 24 hour streaming service. Negotiations are underway to, if not eliminate such ludicrous and short-sighted demands, at least reduce them. If and when that negotiation should be successful, the on-demand service will be resumed.

FICTION & FACT From watching advertising on television, or reading ads in the newspapers, we can draw a couple of conclusions….conclusions based on experience. Never pay any attention to an advertisement that has the words "Good news" somewhere in the copy. It may be "good news" for the advertiser, but not for you. For example, an offer came in the mail the other day from one of those credit card companies. It said "Good News"….your rate is 2.99 percent for transferred balances. The small print said the percentage stayed that way for only a few months, and then zoomed upward. "Good news" for the company, indeed, sucking out interest payments. Also, you might be wary of companies that offer "Plans", whatever that means. Phone companies do that a lot. You can, for example, ask them what their cost is per minute on long distance, and they'll answer with a "Plan." The so-called "plans" may give you a low per-minute LD cost, but they also include costs for additional services you may not want. Would that ANY company would simply tell you what the basic cost is, rather than offer a "PLAN." It's another word to be wary of. If a company advertises with the tired old line, "It's our birthday but you get the gifts" avoid them. Or if they say, "You've tried the rest, now try the best," stay away. If it's a restaurant advertising a sandwich that's described as "A meal in itself" you might want to reconsider. It's not that the products of these companies are necessarily bad, it's simply that any company with such lack of imagination that they have to use those tired old ad lines probably should be avoided on the assumption their products ALSO lack imagination….or even quality.

THE IMPERSONALIZATION OF AMERICA You can't talk to many people in person anymore; your contact is with numbers and electronic machines rather than humans. The phone menus tell you which number to press, building a wall between you and a real human being, e-mail keeps you from carrying on a "real-time" conversation, a number instead of personal contact determines your worthiness at the bank, a numerical calculation tells your doctor if you're prone to have a heart attack and numbers determine which TV or radio programs you'll be able to watch. As a result of all this lack of contact, human warmth, sincerity and creativity is harder to find these days. At the fast food emporium the clerk says, "May I have your order please?" with all the enthusiasm and personal involvement of a robot. After you give your order, the same question arises: "Here or to go?" If you'd like to have fun with this robotic reaction, simply say, "Here," before you place the order. Almost without exception, after you place your order, the clerk will say, "Here or to go?" For some reason, it's against the rules to be friendly with a customer. We suspect computers, with their unbending rules and strict procedures have a great deal to do with conditioning resulting in this glassy-eyed compliance to thoughtless, impersonal, repetitive behavior. In the same category as "Here or to go?" as a mindless phrase is the accursed "No problem" that's for the most part taken the place of "You're welcome." That somewhat condescending substitute for courtesy has become so burned into the user's cerebellum it can't even be taken out with peripheral levity. In a restaurant a waiter (Ooops! Meant to say "server") responded with a "No problem" when I thanked him for something. I told him, "I'm not trying to create a problem for you, simply show my appreciation for your service." His response? Yet another "No problem." At that point an electronic style "beep" seemed appropriate, but I've done that before and it was either ignored or the recipient of the beep thought I was simply weak in the head, probably with some justification. Compliance leads to a mindless lack of individuality resulting in impersonalization. The world of fresh ideas comes from those who refuse to accept the status-quo, seeing directions and results not evident to those of us who allow ourselves to be directed by impersonal, unseen forces. The impersonalization thus engendered tends to destroy individuality, quashing new ideas. We must strive to regain our own personal direction, to become our own person, despite our conditioning.

REAL DIGITAL RADIO Close to a quarter-century ago the owner of a small town AM station and I were talking about the promise of digital radio, then a mere possibility. He commented, "What a boon that'll be to AM stations; listeners will be able to hear them clearly 24 hours a day." "Yes," I said. "The FCC will most logically assign a new band for digital with current owners and radio pioneers alike able to serve listeners with unique programming, much the same as the separate FM band did. It'll take a while to be commercially feasible, but FM took three decades to catch on, and look at it now." There could, of course, be hundreds of pure digital signals in every community in the nation, using a digital transmission system similar to satellite systems except with enough power to make terrestrial reception possible. Perhaps the system used in Europe might be logical; certainly technical development and digitization is at a point where innovative engineers could design a new practical pure digital radio transmission system. Surely everyone understands the reason for the IBOC idea. Current owners want to preserve their frequency franchise, but still be able to offer the PR magic of the word digital, while still preserving their analog audience. That certainly makes commercial sense. Let the giant owners fool around with whatever they wish while dedicated radio folk develop a fresh, pure digital approach, risking (as with FM in years past) a relatively minor amount of money as they expand program choices for the listener. Free enterprise is a wonderful incentive for the pioneer spirit, but innovation has been essentially quashed by de-regulation, just the opposite of its intent. Grocery stores can benefit in free enterprise, for there can be one on every corner, limited only by the service they provide their customers. The quality of the product determines their success, culling out the pack. Similarly, dedicated radio people could engage in such free enterprise if, indeed, the number of radio stations were not limited on a dedicated digital band. Oh, yes, and the customers would also be the beneficiaries; radio should be operated for the benefit of a community of listeners. There are still some radio pioneers creating programming with excitement and dedication, most in small towns and, alas, fewer in larger markets where station programming is dictated by bottom-line needs rather than by listener needs. This is understandable, for the cost of frequencies demands monolithic attention not to new ideas, but to formulized sound so the massive investment can be amortized. A separate pure digital band with virtually unlimited station potential would solve that problem, while the big guys continue to dominate the established FM and AM frequencies. It may not be too late. There are still radio people out there who long to offer the innovation and creativity that was, and is, the basis of radio. The FCC has to take the lead to create a pure digital band. They cannot continue to fiddle around with stop-gap measures such as LPFM and expensive, highly directional daytime AM signals. Surely the FCC must realize that listeners should be served, not with cookie-cutter programming, but with variety and information services. Would that someone at the FCC will take the lead before radio continues to disintegrate, spiraling downward into a ratings-driven morass of mediocrity.

CURMUDGEON COMMENTARY This is about the royalty payment the record companies are assessing those who use their records on internet programming. To understand what we're about to say, it's necessary to go back to the late 1920s and early 1930s when radio was relatively new. Record companies back then would not sell their recordings to radio stations, and in fact noted on the label that recordings were "not licensed for radio broadcast" or "for use only on phonographs in homes", the assumption being that if folks could hear the music on the radio, they wouldn't buy it on record. We know now, these years later, that just the opposite was true. So true, in fact, that in the '50s there was a scandal about record companies PAYING to have their records played on the radio in order to increase sales of those recordings. Now, nearly a half century later, the executives who run the record companies are afraid the use of their recordings on the internet where people can hear them free of charge will cut into sales of those recordings. They've negotiated with their power and their legions of attorneys to have webcasters pay according to a complicated formula involving so much per record multiplied by the number of listeners to that record, a bookkeeping nightmare without the added cost of running a website. The immediate result is that thousands of internet stations are dropping their service, for most operate on a thin margin, if they operate for profit at all. Many of the internet stations were not conceived as a business, but by pioneers who have a passion to supply a certain kind of programming to the public, programming that expands the public's access to a broader selection of music, generally not available elsewhere. The record companies apparently don't know that this expanded listening audience encourages expanded public taste and in turn expanded record buying. The record companies need to improve and diversify their product, not attempt to additionally limit the audience. It seems to us that the record companies should be paying the internet stations if money is to change hands at all, rather than the other way around. That's not possible, of course, for then radio stations and cable music television networks would also logically ask to be paid to promote record company's products. Not only are the record companies shooting themselves in both feet, but the public is also being injured, for their music choice is being limited. The record company executives have been enjoying untold millions of dollars worth of free internet advertising, advertising that's being eliminated. The record companies will receive little or no money from internet programs, because they've been forced out of business; they'll also lose the advertising advantage the thousands of internet stations gave their product, and the audience won't be able to hear the specific music they want to hear. Everyone loses. The record companies just don't get it. DK

We finally figured it out. Women ARE different from men. One of the ways they're different, we've cleverly deduced, is their attention to excruciating detail, plus their search for reasons. Please let me give an example of the detail part. I once asked my wife where her purse was, and she answered by saying, "I went to the shopping center today....." It was the beginning of a long, long, long story which ended with her answer; the purse was on the dining room table. The story had a broad beginning and a narrow ending, but was full of DETAIL in between. The ending was the answer to my question, finally. And this anecdote about the feminine need to attach reasons to every action. A couple of days ago I asked a woman I work with if she had finished a certain project. The answer could have been a clear, simple, direct "yes" or "no". Her answer, however, was an extended explanation concerning the acquisition of certain materials, the processing needed, the weather on the day the project was delayed, her chipped fingernail polish and the location of the finished product....a list of REASONS why the project wound up finished. The answer, of course, was simply "yes". No question about it. Mean and women just aren't the same. The frightening part is I'm just discovering that fact. Men, you see, are often mentally slower than women, too. dk

There's a church on the main street a couple of miles from where I live that serves lunch to homeless folks every day....not just on holidays or weekends but every day. The parishioners take turns collecting and preparing the food and then serving it personally to each of the homeless people. There are those men and a few women who take advantage of this generosity, but by and large these are people who really need help, and the church IS helping them; opening its doors. There is no government involvement in this effort, just a dedication arising from church leadership extending to the congregation, thence to the needy. The money comes from the parishioners, used for this purpose instead of perhaps a new steeple or a gym for the children of the members. Four miles away from this church is a hospice operated by another denomination, dedicated to making the last weeks or months of a terminally ill person's life as comfortable as possible. There are people there from all walks of life, some religious, some not, some fairly well-to-do, some in poor financial shape, but all cared for equally, with never a mention of the cost, for it's part of this particular part of the denomination's reason for being, and funded by all its congregations in the city. The federal government isn't involved. Maybe, just maybe, caring for the less fortunate is a function of religious organizations, separate from any governmental authority. What do you think? (These commentaries are heard once in a while on the DON KENNEDY SHOW.)

The courage and patriotism of the generation of the '40s is being seen again as Americans pull together against a common enemy. More volunteers than are needed have stepped forward to help in the World Trade Center cleanup; blood donors across the nation are lining up; relief fund drives raise remarkable totals and flags are displayed in offices, on cars and in front yards everywhere. Reservists stand at the ready. Terrorism by its very nature is cowardly and it will take time and the limitless resolve of our leaders to ferret out the miserable religious fanatics whose dedication to destroying the American way of life consumes their very lives, and for past years these fanatics have succeeded in embassy bombings, airline bombings and street attacks without fear of reprisal. This bully on the world playground has been allowed to hit others and strut home with a sense of unlimited power because no one has stepped forward to stop him. The bully has made a grave error this time, for all the other world playground residents have banded together against this bully and his wild-eyed friends in a united front. As a nation, we have the means to destroy this menace, but it will take the support of not only our nation's citizens but others as well. We must have the resolve to continue to offer this support....for we're in for a long siege....and we will win.