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Fred Jacobs: It's Time To Put Up Or Shut Up
May 1, 2014 at 5:47 AM (PT)
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On his company's most recent blog, JACOBS MEDIA Pres. FRED JACOBS writes, "If you’re still working in radio in 2014 and you’ve been in the business for a decade or more, give yourself a round of applause. You’ve survived, you’re still slugging it out, and you obviously believe in the efficacy of the medium and how it serves its various constituencies. But it’s never easy. Because in the same way that proud professional and college athletes have to put up with Sports radio know-it-alls who spend every waking moment over-analyzing and criticizing their play on the field (often by people who never held a bat or took a sack), too many people in and around radio are doing the same thing."
JACOBS continues, "Everything and everyone’s under the microscope, innovative efforts are dismissed early and often, and a condescending tone reminds readers just how dense and unqualified they really are when it comes to competing in the new media space," and adds, "To those who focus more on gloom and doom rather than optimism and opportunity, I say that if you’re working in radio, you can affect change from the bottom up. Spawn those ideas, sell them up, and if that fails, either try a different company or do it yourself. I have always been amazed by the people who don’t work inside radio stations, who provide goods, services and intellectual capital to the industry from the outside. There is no shortage of ways to make money, even on the fringes of radio, if you’re inventive and tenacious enough."
Summing up, JACOBS blogs, "The rumors of radio’s demise have been greatly exaggerated by people outside of radio, including your brother-in-law STAN when he tells you he has become an exclusive SIRIUS listener, your wife’s best friend LAURA who is now a PANDORA P1, and all the media analysts who are always quick to write off the business," and wraps up, "So here’s an idea: Why don’t we stop it and get back to the basics of working together to figure this thing out? We need every bright mind in the business to offer solutions and collaboration. Among all those Oscars and Eeyores, there have to be some truly constructive and clever ideas that could be put into practice – a new format, a new platform, a new streaming concept, a new sales concept. And if you really believe that radio’s CEOs are too conservative, scared, or dumb to figure it out, then do it yourself. It’s time to put up or shut up."

