26) Fake John Hogan

Click Here. What else is there to say but it is time for a change and change she is a coming…

25) Speculation

A new year means a new phase of cost cutting measures in the magical world of radio.  And if there is one thing that Radio People love, it is to speculate.  Webster defines it as the act of “pondering a subject” the problem is most Radio People cannot read, nor are they frequenters to anything as useful as Webster.com when they have their life-long membership to milfhunters.com the decision seems pretty simple to me.

Regardless, for the past three weeks Radio People have been gathering around the Red Bull machine and crushing up Adderall into their coffee in hopes that they may speculate on what will happen to all the other Radio People that work for Clear Channel.  You see, Clear Channel is currently holding meetings in Dallas where they are not only hoping to figure out who killed JR but they are creating new budgets for 2009 that may or may not have some drastic ramifications for the industry as a whole.

Some of those things that being speculated are that Clear Channel will move their corporate headquaters to Jupiter in hopes that the People Meter will make them look better up there in “key demos” and that the Jupiterians will have never heard of Trim-Spa so they can re-inject that stream of revenue back into their portfolio.

App Store for the iPhone

Clear Channel is also planning on converting all of their radio stations into one format called God.  This format will do something that has never been done before, it will be all things to all people or will systematically eliminate those who do not believe.  It will do this using their iHeart Radio app for the iPhone.  The thinking is,  if you downloaded iHeart Radio you agree to actually love radio and anything shy of pure love is punishable by death which one would agree to by entering the app store.

Clear Channel is going to finally eliminate their entire programming staff and replace them will well-schooled squirrels.  These squirrels are graduates of the same Black-Ops program that trained dolphins to find mines in the ocean in World War II.  However these squirrels understand the subtle differences between Lil Wayne and T-Pain songs which is difficult to teach to an animal who really is just “trying to get a nut” as Coolio so eloquently put it.

After years spent researching, bleaching down, and sterilizing the industry Clear Channel has realized that the problem with the industry is not the industry itself, but the listeners.  The now major inconvenience of dealing with “the listener” as a near constant bother between their questions, phone calls, requests, and even just showing up places that Radio People happen to be,  Clear Channel will take drastic measures to work with President Elect Obama to deport the listeners to the Gaza Strip in hopes that the distraction will keep Hamas and Israel busy so Obama can get some work done and Clear Channel can go back to figuring out how many different ways you can spell “Kiss” before it doesn’t actually spell “Kiis” and they will need a new brand.

We are always looking for more speculation so if you work for Clear Channel or just have a Radio Person “hunch” of what may happen you can put them in the comments below.

Happy New Year!

-SRPL

24) Radio TV Spots

23) Vacationing

Most normal people spend their lives figuring out what wonderful utopia they wish to plant their happy asses down in and take a week to forget about their crappy job, shitty boss, or annoying co-workers. But not Radio People, REAL Radio People schedule their vacations, outside of the book clearly, in areas of the country they could get on the air in.

For example if you are lets say the Midday jock on in Springfield, IL and you have a friend who works in Detroit. While most normal people would sooner die than vacation at Disney’s newest attraction, Kwameland…you would pack a bag and head to Detroit in hopes of getting to fill in for an overnight shift for free, to put on your resume that you were on in market number 9.

Or maybe you are really into the iPhone and spent 3 days standing in line waiting for one, if you were a radio person you would parlay that into getting on WGN in Chicago or NPR to talk about your experience so that you could pad the resume: “Technical Advisor to All Things Considered” or “Tech Geek for WGN –CHICAGO.”

I mean I am sure there is even a certain segment of the population of Radio People that would vacation in LA for the chance to be Ryan Seacrest’s fluffer. Not that you could pad a resume with it, but when this all blows up it might be a funny story to tell in the Best Buy break room.

Vacationing is supposed to be that time where you decompress and recharge the batteries to do exciting radio in your home market. Instead it is spent doing radio in another market just so that you can say you did. Often times in markets you would never been good enough to ever work in…but given the state of Radio today, I am not entirely sure where that would be.

22) Pizza

Radio People may be the most cynical lot on the planet but there is still one thing that can stop them in their tracks, the kryptonite to their superman egos, a food stuff that is as close to godliness as any one thing on the planet can be, Pizza.

Radio people will do anything for free pizza. Listen to a General Manager drone on about how they need to take their $20K a year and donate money to whatever charity the GM happens to be sitting on the board of. They will stand in line (another thing they never do) for what seems like hours if there is even the possibility of getting some free pie. Want your Radio People to listen to a speech about a credit union for almost an hour, give them free pizza. Just check out this email to see what I mean:

From: ***********
Date: May 22,
To: “(ALL)”
Subject: congrats to Steven

Steven’s name was drawn as the winner of the Popcorn gift basket from **********. For all those that were inquiring about the maker of the pizza, there are some business cards in the breakroom. There are discounts on the back of the card for pizza!

There is also some info on ****** Bank in the breakroom or I have some in my office if you want to take advantage of their offers.

Thanks!

*********

That Radio Person listened to a presentation just to get the free pizza and since he was probably the only guy who stayed, much like the rigged contests in Radio, he won the free popcorn basket. Banner day for that Radio Person.

Is it the doughy crust? The flavorful toppings? The fact that you can eat it on the go? No, it is the fact that it is free and quite possibly the best of the free food that you will find around a radio station. Chances are that is why it ranks so high amongst the Free Food Pyramid outranking Ice Cream Cake and Chips.

So if you have a Radio Person in your life and they may not be doing what things you need them to do…tempt them with a Free Pizza and watch the productivity start flying.

21) Smoking

There are a ton of weird things that Radio People embrace as if it is a constitutional right and smoking is one of them.  Which is weird since it messes with their voices and their voices are what make them money.  Imagine if a prizefighter spent his off time seeing what happens if he stuck his hands in a meat grinder, sure he would lose out on millions of dollars, but he would have the satisfaction of knowing what happens when a human hand goes in a meat grinder.  Because the years of eating ground beef could not have taught him that.  I believe that would fall under the “school of hard knocks” curriculum but I am not sure.

 

The problem is that while the world has figured out that smoking messes with your voice, gives you cancer, and costs you thousands of dollars a year, then have begun to make it very hard for you to smoke when you show up for your airshift, which is a far cry from the days when you could smoke in the studio. 

Take this email and please disregard the utter lack of any sort of punctuation and or grammar:

 

Subject: Smoking

 

…So, we purchased a cigarette butt container so staff would have a place to put their butts. They failed to empty it and when it filled up it burned down, scaring the outside of the building.

 

We purchased a new and improve receptacle identical to the old one except it was made of metal. That one was used until it was filled up. Instead of emptying it, an open trash can was brought out to sit next to the overfilled receptacle. Now the trash can is filled and catches on fire.

 

If you wish to continue to have smoking privileges take some personal responsibility and clean up after yourself…or next time it catches fire, don’t use water to put it out….use an accelerant.

 

In most cities you need to be 15 feet away from a doorway in order to smoke outside these days.  This wiley group of smoke-a-holics have figured out a way to smoke so much they can light their own building ON FIRE to prove that Radio People LOVE smoking.

 

So even though smoking in radio used to be cool…Wolfman Jack is dead.  And itchy scratchy smoker voice is usually relegated to the arbitrary Simpsons character or over paid phone sex operators.  But if you are looking on your Radio Person’s webcam and they are not around, chances are it is time to cut their career short faster than consolidation can hunt them down and replace them with talking squirrels.  So, smoke on Radio Person, smoke on.

 

 

 

 

20) Adderall

For most of the time Radio has been in existence there has been a steady line of cocaine coming into the station either tucked inside the 45’s in the 1950’s and 60’s, or in the 80’s while you were waiting for Debbie Gibson to play your local mall there were buckets of the stuff just lying around.

 

Then Nancy Regan happened and started her war on drugs, weeks later she has a guest spot on Different Strokes and Radio People were in search of their new drug of choice. Because Coke was just too dirty and once Willis isn’t doing that drug and Crank isn’t available…you need to improvise.  Sure there was a dance with Ecstasy but sex with your General Manager was just too weird.  Then there was the “Month of Meth”; the problem was, unless you work in Country Radio…a Radio Person needs to have all of their teeth to identify with their audience.  There was even a move in the Grunge period where Pot moved from recreational drug to king vice of the Radio Person.  The problem with that was Radio People need NOTHING to improve their laziness.

 

In fact, the drug that Radio People need has to make them thinner, faster, smarter, and more productive all while being able to be taken in the middle of a promotions meeting.  Think Alex P. Keyton on speed when he was trying to pass that test on “Family Ties” except, instead of a test, picture Radio People running around trying to schedule Jay-Z next to Miley Cyrus while booking their next meeting at Chili’s and attempted to bed down an Intern.

 

Which brings us to the newest drug of choice for the Radio Person, Adderall.  Introduced in 1996 to eliminate the wearing of flannel, normally Adderall is prescribed as a drug alternative to “calming the fuck down” (read Attention Deficit Disorder) and in some extreme cases it is prescribed for Narcolepsy which the act of falling asleep at convenient times like driving a car, having sex, or high profile sniper missions for the Bush Administration.

 

But now Adderall is found at your neighborhood Sprint Remote, that Bar Gig that pulls about 56 people, the air shift that sounds really good in your head but sounds like the Micromachine’s guy doing talk-ups over HOT AC tunes on the air.  Yup, Adderall is the new Radio Person drug.  It is cheap, easy to get, and people think that you are just having a hard time concentrating and pity you when really you have been up for three days and beat GTA IV, cleaned your apartment, got to know three Interns in the biblical sense, created a windows based version of Selector, and wrapped the station vehicle by hand in less than 10 hours.

 

How does someone get Adderall?  That part is easy.  All you have to do is find some Radio Person at your station who borders on insane but has that entrepreneurial spirit to go through all the tests in order to get the prescription. (you can bypass this step if you have a doctor on the take in your market) Then they start selling the pills of instead of taking them.  Within a month most of the staff is addicted to the “up all night” feeling combined with the vomiting, hallucinations, sweating, feeling of dying, symptoms of tourettes, and unexplained muscle pain (all real symptoms) and the jock selling the stuff is driving around in a brand new Prius and is suddenly Assistant Program Director.  Oh, and when he gets downsized, look for him to flood the market to every Radio Person he can see since his non-compete has expired. 

 

It really should be the campaign phrase of 2008: “A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, and Adderall in everyone’s mouth…it is all about productivity.”

19) Throwing Their “Hat” Into the Ring

If there is one thing that is certainly not in short supply in happy radio land, it is self-inflated ego that gives way to unusually bad career moves in hopes of getting a “gig” in that sweet larger, or top 50, market.

You see a Radio Person will see that a station in, let’s say, Chicago that is floundering and immediately they know that only they have the untapped potential to save the station from themselves. Knowing that change is slow in Radio, the Radio Person will either take a lower status job within that company in hopes of the “hire from within” theory would hold true or they lie in wait like a drunken crocodile waiting to pounce on a Hooter’s waitress in market #564.

Either way, it is a rarity that someone in radio who is actually qualified for the job in the Large Market will actually apply for it. Because all of those guys either got smart and got real jobs or are happy in their current radio homeostasis. Instead, the Radio Person who works in market #564 will be foaming at the mouth to throw his “hat” into the ring for the job. Think that his market isn’t, in fact, Siberia for Radio people but instead the AHL for Radio People looking to make it to the big dance.

Now this hat could be the now infamous Radio Person Derby, a Fedora, a backwards baseball cap, mascot owl head, or even a hockey mask, it doesn’t matter what it is, just how you throw it.

The Radio Person in market #564 is SURE that his unique brand of alliteration is what that station is missing. He will put together his package, complete with a CD with a microphone sticker on it (genius right, cause he is IN radio), and his programming philosophy and then head right to the barrage of phone calls.

The Radio Person will call Chicago (or LA, or NY, or even China), and call, and call but since he is undoubtedly so under qualified for this job that his skill set might be over-shadowed by the 1st place fry cook at Ed Debevic’s nobody will pick up. However, when his calls go unanswered his next step is to call his record rep friends to see if they have an “in” with this large market station.

You can see this calls happening multiple times a day all across this great land.

Radio Person: “Hey man, this is ____________ from market 564, we helped break Saving Jane for ya…”

Record Rep: “Um, Saving Jane isn’t even on our label…and who are you again?”

Radio Person: “__________________ you took me to Applebee’s once, I got the Bloomin Onion.:

Record Rep: “ Yeah, sure. So, what can I do for you?”

Radio Person: “ I was thinking of throwing my hat in the ring for the Chicago gig and wondered if you had an in?”

Record Rep: “You are kidding, right? You are in Market # 564 and add 8 songs a week to your playlist”

Radio Person: “No man, I only added 6 songs last week and besides I did this promotion last month where we tried to kill a konvict for a korvette and I think that sort of out of the box thinking is what Chicago is missing.”

Record Rep: “(Jesus) Yeah sure man I will make a call.”

Obviously the Record Rep will not make that call but it is easier than attempting to employ either logic or reason with a Radio Person. Cause that is a lot like trying to teach a homeless guy to brush his teeth with something other than whiskey. But it is the Radio Person who keeps reaching for the Stars that brought us both Ed McMahon’s Star Search and the high quality watered-down consolidate radio landscape we all enjoy today.

18) 12+

Nothing sets the Radio world on fire than the time of year when “books” are coming out.  These are the times of year when a company called Arbitron spins that wheel from The Price is Right and the wheel from Wheel of Fortune while burning the wings of butterflies to come up with your “rating” or how you are doing in your given market.  Sure, it lacks any sort of statistical background and probably borders on alchemy, but if Radio People are anything, they are sedentary and changing the system involves work…so we pray for no whammies instead.

 

So, when that “Book” comes out the number that everyone in America sees, the number your boss holds you accountable for, the number that his boss is looking at, the number that baby Jesus wants to see next to your name when you go to Radio Heaven, the number is 12+.

 

Yup, 12+…a demographic that covers a person who has a subscription to Tiger Beat and one who gums at applesauce and poops their pants.  A demographic that covers a Great Grandfather and their Great Granddaughter that, my friend, is what people measure your successes on.

 

Honestly, outside of oxygen and perhaps solid foods, name three things that a 12 year old and a 99 year old would have in common, cause you should not be able to.  But Radio People LOVE 12+ precisely because it is what they are measured on and if you get that elusive # 1 12+ but miss your actual demo of 18-34 or maybe 25-54 (another jacked demo) it maters not because you are a fucking Jedi who was able to get a 12 year old and a 99 year old to join hands and prance through a field listening to your station and taking steps towards world peace, way to go.

 

So the next time you are listening to the radio I want you to think back to when you were 12 and you were at your grandparents house, imagine what you were doing and if you were gathered around the talk box waiting for “the fireside chats” you are too old.

 

Because chances are you were being pampered and fed too much cotton candy and then running around driving them crazy but at no point were you both sitting around talking about how dreamy the Jonas Brothers are or the musical contributions that Fergie has made to the modern world, you just weren’t.  But someone, somewhere, thinks that all things to all people is a) possible and b) possible using Arbitron and one of them is very wrong, the other is just sorta wrong.  I will let you figure out which is which.

17) Perez Hilton

I mean he is gay, he spends most of the day drawing penises, semen, or naughty words on celebrities (which is something Radio People also enjoy…Photoshop, HELLO), and on May 5th he gets his own radio show that airs twice daily and is 3 minutes long, oh and did I mention he is gay? Radio People love that! 

Plus, Who wouldn’t want to do their job twice a day for three minutes at a time? It is like masturbating, but you get paid for it. Would you get a fluffer though? (although disjointed and out of place, the following sentance was only placed into the blog so I could use this photo…)

And while Perez is technically a “blogger” by trade he really only writes less than 100 words a day, which equals management material in the Radio World. Why waste time with needless words when a picture that says “sloot” would do just fine. The guy is in the iconosphere as far as Radio People are concerned.

 
They love that and the fact that since all he does is show prep all day they can steal his stuff and use it as their own, who would know?  The guy only gets 2.8 million visitors a month but NONE of those people EVER listen to the radio.  And the best part, and maybe the part that Radio People may have the hardest time understanding but are undoubtedly attracted to…he breaks new music on his site. I know, I know, a guy who likes music is actually getting a job in Radio. Granted his love of Fergie leaves a bit to be desired but at this point the medium will take what it can get. One can only hope that “What Would Tyler Durden Do?” would be next in line for a show.