The holidays are good for many things, including and especially watching a lot of TV and old movies. All the Christmas favorites, “Coming to America,” “Die Hard,” “Die Hard 2,” just to name a few. But there is one movie that I bet you haven’t seen or at least haven’t seen in years, and if you are in radio, I recommend you find it now and stream it on demand. I am referring to the 1992 film “Straight Talk,” starring Dolly Parton and James Woods. And yes, it’s a little hokey, and basic “country girl moves to the big city story,” but it’s also relevant to radio, funny, a cute love story, and more importantly, a fantastic example of how “honking your own horn” is the perfect way to build a long-lasting brand in the radio business.

Thanks for the feedback on social media concerning our note last week on handling the Capitol Hill riots. Some music stations avoided the topic completely. Others were unsure of how much and how often to talk about it. The fact is we are living in a climate of ...

As you prepare for the first week of the new year, here are several cultural trends and talking points to relate to your content. 2020 and 2021Trends Giving was up sharply in 2020. Multitudes of people gave their time and money volunteering. Radio stations and shows ...

As the great Maya Angelou said, “If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going.” To me it’s always important to look back at history to understand the future, which is one of fascinating aspects with the 10 year Music Cycle that I’ve ...

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. It comes into us clean at midnight, and it’s perfect when it arrives. It puts itself in our hands and wonders if we’ve learned anything from yesterday,” said film legend John Wayne. History records “The Duke” ...

In recent conversations with several Pop and Hot AC programmers, the overall frustration that’s been coming up, are the number of core artists dropping singles as often as a week apart. What seems to be happening is that artists who are on lockdown from touring and now ...

Business savant Peter Drucker once quipped, “There are an enormous number of leaders who have retired on the job.” Avoiding a solution to a volatile, menacing and potentially destructive problem is not discernment, its cowardice. As long as a threat from a negative ...

We’re a little over a week away from Thanksgiving and just a few weeks away from the end of the Fall book. Have you started making plans for the holidays? And by that I don’t mean where you are going (or not going) and who you are going to see (or not see). What I ...

When programming music stations back in the day, our internal slogan was "Music Is The Star." It was meant to make a point, that the music was critical to our success. Hits get you ratings. In recent years I have amended that slogan to, "Respect The Music." Playing the ...

Syndicated shows have proven that great shows can succeed with zero local content. Radio is experiencing another burst in syndication this year. Concurrently, we see the appeal of local content rising. Local farmer’s markets have popped up all over North America and ...