Donny Osmond Show Partners With TeshMedia

The Donny Osmond Show, a daily radio show customized for AC and Classic Hits radio stations, joins TeshMedia Group for creative input, production, affiliation and distribution. Tesh Media, known for The John Tesh ?Intelligence for Your Life? and ?Intelligence for Your Health? with Connie Sellecca shows, will work in partnership with McVay Syndication in continuing the programs growth. Donny Osmond said ?It?s an honor to team with such an iconic brand in radio.  TeshMedia has proved that they understand what their listeners want and that they know how to deliver it to them in the most entertaining way.?

John Tesh said ?Donny is an entertainment icon who truly connects with his audience. It's a privilege to welcome him to the TeshMedia family.? Commercial distribution in the USA will be from Dial-Global. TeshMedia and McVay Syndication will work together worldwide. The Donny Osmond Show is broadcast in the USA, Canada, Australia and The United Kingdom. McVay Syndications Mike McVay said ?We?ve had a front row seat to watch John Tesh, Executive Producers Scotty Meyers and Betsy Chase, and the TeshMedia Group as they built what is arguably North America?s most successful syndicated network daily music program. We?re excited to have The Donny Osmond Show become a part of their team. Donny is one of the most relevant talents on radio, TV and on-stage today. This is going to be a great relationship for all of us.?

The Donny Osmond Show is designed for AC and Classic Hits radio stations. It is a daily five-hour program (delivered via FTP as a voice-tracked show) that also features a weekend show and two short-form features. Hear the show demo at www.donnydemo.com. Visit www.donny.com/radio to learn more about the show. For more information contact Scott Meyers at 888.548.8637 or scott@meyers.net. Contact Mike McVay at 440.343.0800 or at mike@mcvaymedia.com.

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How Radio SHOULD Take on The Royalty Issue.

by Publisher Eric Rhoads

Radio is at odds with the music industry. The moment the labels started raising the issue of royalties and trying to get radio to pay the artists, we made them the enemy -- at least, on the business side of the building. Of course, making the music industry the enemy is like making jelly the enemy of peanut butter. They are meant to be together. Radio and music are a perfect fit.

Dan Mason's recent memo about CBS returning to a policy of back-selling music and identifying titles and artists more often reminds me of a confidential discussion I had about a year ago. I was convinced that I could help make some progress on the artist licensing issue, so I took it upon myself to make some phone calls. The NAB was not aware I was doing this, nor did I represent in these calls that I was representing the industry as a whole. My goal was to create a dialogue with the music industry, knowing that sometimes things can be resolved by making sure we're listening to the issues.

My calls were embraced by some at the highest levels of the music food chain, and I asked what it would take to get this issue resolved. What I learned is that the music licensing issue was being driven by a deep hatred for radio that had been building up for almost two decades, dating back to when radio decided we no longer needed to back-sell records and began to research everything to death and take few risks on new releases.
Though I was able to get a high-level executive to admit that changing these policies might make the labels feel radio is a partner again, rather than an adversary, it became evident that the vitriol toward radio was so deep, the anger running so hot, that these guys were going to take every action they could to get revenge.

At our Convergence conference I spent a fair amount of time with Tim Sanders, author of Today We Are Rich, the essence of which is that success comes by giving. Tim and I revisited this last night in Austin, and he told me a story about how he was bullied as a kid and his grandmother told him the way to solve the problem was not by bullying back or avoiding the bullies, but by reaching out and giving them what they needed. She explained to him that they were probably bullies because of situations at home, perhaps an abusive father, a divided family, or some tragedy that was causing them to act out. She recommend that Tim approach them, compliment them, look for ways to let them talk, get to know them, and find ways to be giving. He turned adversaries into friends by having a giving attitude.

Mason's memo about doing more back-selling of artists and songs gave me an idea. If we want to resolve the music licensing issue, rather than battling the labels and being at odds, why not give them something they are not expecting? Why not give them the opposite of what they have been frustrated over for 20 years? Maybe if they see that we have become the partner they hope for, they will meet our giving gesture with appreciation -- though anything we do should be because it's the right thing to do, not because we expect something in return.

Our natural instinct is to meet every threat with an equal or larger threat and end up in battle. But at the root of these battles is a need to be met, something that can often be accomplished (within reason). I've been told by music executives that they would love it if radio returned to giving the names and titles for music and breaking a few more new songs. That alone could not be used as leverage to resolve our performance royalty issues. Why not do it anyway? Not to soften up the opposition, but because it will help their industry and won't hurt us to do it. In the end, our listeners will benefit the most. Maybe once the labels see radio cooperation again, they'll rethink their vitriol.

As a former radio programmer, I believe we have become so sanitized and so overly sensitive about testing music that we miss those magic moments when a song that was added on gut turns out to be a giant hit. Some songs never show strong in initial music testing, but our audiences grow to love them.

Why not take an an unexpected but welcome approach.? Tim Sanders said last night, "If you want to grow your business, love your advertisers to death. Love them by giving of your time and resources without expecting anything in return. Love them by inventing products that they love. Love them by doing the unexpected. You'll see an average of 10 times return when you give rather than take."
I can't help but think that more of that attitude in our industry would make us stronger with our customers, our employees, and even the recording industry.

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The Future of Radio. Don't Be Scared.

by Bill Pasha

Your knuckles turn a chalky white.   Your breathing shallows and your eyes dart back and forth beneath your perspiration-beaded forehead.  Your palms become clammy as your heart and brain engage in an epic battle between  whether to look back over your shoulder in fear, or stomp on the gas pedal and revel in shattering your personal speed limit on the way to the passing lane of success on the Cross-Platform Highway.  Such is the decision stress faced by broadcasters whose core skills and experience beg them to remain in the comfort zone that the ?right lane? of content offers. 

In recent years to devise new business models, Radio?s content designers and product managers ventured hesitantly onto the branches of increasingly more frustrating and dangerous decision trees.  The goals?  To repurpose over-the-air content  that invisibly integrates into digital platforms, and to create content for radio websites, mobile, and HD frequencies that result in entities ready for cross-platform marketing on partnered FCC-licensed frequencies.  In many cases, if not most, early efforts failed miserably.  The drive to achieve a harmonious programming merger between ?new media? digital delivery channels and ?old media? broadcast technologies seemed to sputter in the face of the lack of a roadmap.

At first, broadcasters hired ?experts? from the digital field, ostensibly to uncover shortcuts that had eluded the ?old media? employers.  At the same time, digital content producers longed for the vast experience and huge audiences enjoyed by seasoned radio pros.  Seemingly, no answer could be found.  But history shows that Mr. Marconi spawned remarkably resilient players who know how to collaborate and invent. 

Innovation has changed the operational and creative dynamics of the most intelligent leaders in both digital and programming.  Together, without the bubble-inducing fanfare of the dotcom boom, these discipline specialists have quietly applied equal pressure to their respective gas pedals to join flawlessly in a center lane that travels at speeds that no one thought possible even two years ago.

The key to this new development alliance has been the acceptance of, and capitalization on, the strengths of  Digital and Programming as stand-alone entities.  When merged, the sum of the equation demonstrates that one plus one equals more than two.  That?s the impact of the union.  The smartest voices of this new emerging media platform are whispering among themselves.  In quiet voices, they advise each other to look for new partnerships.  Online content and entertainment platforms, like the UK?s COVERmedia, engage experienced radio programming partners to convert their multi-faceted content assets into a remarkable radio show preparation system that provides instantly promotable access to audio, video, and text.  The consumable products are smarter, faster, and more comprehensive than any of COVERmedia?s competition or that of their radio client-partners.  Then, by partnering with a multi-platform media company, COVERmedia provides cross-platform digital and broadcast products and services in six languages. 

One especially noteworthy innovation of merged technology includes Jacobs Media?s Jacapps.  The premiere rock music programming consultants in the world, Jacobs Media, saw an important need for radio to become available on rapidly expanding digital mobile devices.  Jacapps jumped into the deep end of the software production pool.  It had to be frightening.  But it appears that the headlong leap off the high diving board has paid off for Jacobs Media, radio programmers, radio owners, listeners, and mobile device purveyors, all of whom enjoy the benefits of intelligent, bug-free, mobile applications that really deliver customer gratification.  Epic Win!

In Radio Tomorrowland, we can imagine that high-definition video and film producers will join forces with HD Radio operators to create powerful theater-of-the-mind audio imagery for their visual products.  Radio programmers will reinvent powerful content for immediate distribution on a large scale through listener-customized streaming radio stations.  No adaptation.  No repurposing.  Instead, this programming is designed for consumers who will use one or more delivery device to access entertainment, news, sports, and even data backup and delivery from their home computers, provided to them in mini data blasts at times they pre-designate.  Long form motion pictures, customized to specific demographic and psychographic targets of websites, will be produced digitally for seamless audio storytelling on HD Radio.  In-auto web radio will be the norm, not newfangled. 

Back in the present, Radio is a remarkable medium that has the capacity to play well with others and provide targeted programming to gargantuan weekly national audiences that are envied by its competition.   The industry continues to attract a core of the brightest and most innovative thinkers to its creative process.  But the true secret to this optimistic vision for the matrix of combined Radio and Digital success, is for both to do what they do best:  In the light of cooperation, not competition, go fearlessly into the content void without preconceptions, and endlessly dream of what Digital and Programming can accomplish together.

In the new media world, a new generation of thinkers has brought us to the on-ramp.  It is up to us whether we enter Cross-Platform Highway like a Smart Car, or thunder onto it like a Ferrari.  Choose the correct way, and it just might be a wild ride.

Bill Pasha is founder and president of MultiBrand Media International, LLC, a concierge consulting company that produces content, represents innovative digital and broadcast products and services, and develops strategies in diverse managerial, operational, and marketing disciplines for media professionals in countries worldwide. Until recently Bill was VP of Programming for Entercom where he was responsible for over half of Entercom's 11 stations. Contact Bill at bpasha@multibrandmedia.com.

(5/31/2011 6:47:44 AM)
"In Radio Tomorrowland, we can imagine that high-definition video and film producers will join forces with HD Radio operators to create powerful theater-of-the-mind audio imagery for their visual products."

That's all you've got? LOL! Better be scared of the likes of Pandora and Slacker!

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WNYE-FM New York City Goes Alternative.

Starting Wednesday WNYE-FM, a noncommercial owned by New York City, will begin broadcasting the indie music service ?The Alternate Side? from 6 a.m. to noon. The program, started in 2008 by Fordham University?s public station WFUV-FM with support from the New York State Music Fund, has showcased artists like the Strokes and TV on the Radio as well as newer local groups like Freelance Whales.
WFUV program director, Chuck Singleton, in the New York Times says "the show was created to fill a void by bringing together a music community but that had been primarily an online and HD radio service, with just a 10 p.m.-to-midnight broadcast on WFUV (90.7 FM). On WNYE, the local broadcast will replace two music shows produced by KEXP-FM in Seattle. Todd Asher, the first deputy commissioner in the mayor?s Office of Media and Entertainment, told the New York Times the reasons for airing ?The Alternate Side? would be to support a local entity and to help train Fordham students for media-related careers here.

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Zimmer Employees Still Homeless. There's No Place to Go.

We spoke to Zimmer Radio Group Chad Elliot last night whow gave us an update on how the Zimmer family is doing. President Obma visited Joplin Sunday to give the residents in that tiny community some hope that the feds will be around to help for years. The sign you are looking at in this picture is actually Joplin High School, which was totally destroyed by the twister. The kids carved the "H" and "E" into the sign. The school parking lot actually hosted a Memorial Day service yesterday. Elliot tells us he is living with his wife's grandmother. "We're thankful to have a place to live." Elliot also says 7 other Zimmer families are still looking for a place to stay. Part of the problem is that available properties are limited.

The Associated Press is reporting that FEMA is considering bringing in trailers much like New Orleans after Hurricance Katrina if enough homes are not available. FEMA's first option for housing the thousands of displaced is to find them existing rental housing within a 55-mile radius of Joplin, because isn't much housing left in in the city of nearly 50,000 residents that was left badly damaged by the May 22 tornado, spokeswoman Susie Stonner told The Associated Press. Nearly a third of the city was damaged by the violent storm.

Stonner told the AP that despite the distance, putting people in permanent housing is preferable to trailers ? especially in an area prone to tornadoes and severe weather. "Wouldn't you prefer to be in a stable building over a mobile home?" she asked. Stonner also noted that getting things like water, sewer lines and developing pads for trailers would take substantial time. Temporary housing will be made available for up to 18 months. Some people along the Gulf Coast still live in FEMA trailers nearly six years after Hurricane Katrina.

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New England Public Radio Reporter Bob Paquette Dead at 55.

At age 55, New England Public Radio reporter Bob Paquette has died. Published reports say the local host of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" on WFCR-FM in Amherst dies of a heart attack. Paquette began working at the station in 1991. A 1977 graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Paquette got his start in radio at the campus radio station, WMUA-FM, when he arrived at school in 1973. He would later work for the former WTTT-AM in Amherst in a number of capacities. He joined WFCR in 1991 and took on several assignments at the station over the years.

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Little Rock DJ Tommy Smith Charged With DWI

Popular Little Rock DJ Tommy Smith has been arrested for DWI, leaving the scene of an accident, possession of a controlled substance and failure to stop. According to Arkansas Online, the 56-year old co-host of "The Show with No Name" on 103.7 The Buzz, an Arkansas State Police officer caught up with Smith after a hit and run on Interstate 430 was called in. The driver had crossed the median. That driver turned out to be Smith
who appeared drunk and admitted to drinking two pints of liquor and taking a Xanax. He refused a breathalzyer. Bond was set at $500.

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