John McDermott @mcdradio

Good article here with some thoughts about how AM/FM is eventually going to have to get off the crack that is 20 minute spot loads.

Part of the problem is that there is no budget in today’s radio for ancillary products. And most of what broadcasters do online – simulcast or otherwise – is an ancillary product. Why would you hire an airstaff for a side channel?

via Wise Buddah.

I never believed in HD Radio because of the staffing issue.  If you are a PD and you work on an HD channel you open yourself up to criticism that you are not focused the next time the GM wants to get on your case.  So let the junior staffer or the intern do it.  And how are you going to promote it?  Hey stop listening to this thing that pays the bills and go listen to 98.5 HD-2!  I don’t think so.

Anyway, I don’t want to steal the article’s thunder.  It’s a definite must read.  I don’t expect anyone to take the advice in the next ten years but there are some good discussion-starters there.

Rolling Stone made a list of the top 141 folks on Saturday Night live ever which we can all slice and dice and argue about, but the list named Jim Breuer as 139th best.  So for sake of argument, let’s assume that’s true.

One thing I would explain to folks is that not everyone is good on the radio.  Some people are good guests.  Some people can even carry a week.  The folks that can carry 5 days a week for years at a time are known in the trade as Talent for a reason.

Jim Breuer is radio talent.

Back in the early days of Sirius I got a call from Jim.  He wanted to do a show.  Sure, come in and meet.

As I told the story between that day and earlier today it would go something like, “Now, if you told me to hire someone from SNL I would have started at the top of the list with the Will Ferrells of the world, Jim is what probably the (here I’d make up a number like) 83rd best ever?”

Then my story would discuss the meeting.  Jim came in.  Was he high?  Doing an act?  The pitch was something about him, his friends, some dude named Pete (Correale) and he was gonna tell stories.

Jim left and I knew two things.  First, I didn’t get it.  But more importantly I had been absolutely entertained by this guy for the past hour and had been laughing for most of it.

I called Jim and told his as much and suggested he come in and do a demo.

Jim did that demo, with his friends, and Pete Correale, and it was bar none the best demo I have ever heard in my career.  Gold.

How good?

I made a copy of the CD and left it on my boss’s desk with no note.  No endorsement, no “from John” just a mysterious CD to be played.

Jeremy Coleman listened and heard what I heard.

We moved some budget around and figured out a way to fund the show until the end of the year (maybe seven weeks or so, once a week).  Jim took the leap of faith.

The show immediately clicked.  We found more budget.

Then one day we decided to go 5 days a week on the comedy channel.  What would happen?  Would people be mad that we weren’t playing standup?  Would people call in?

We went live and….BOOM the phone lines exploded.  Breuer Unleashed was a hit.

That hit lasted about five years until Jim wanted to get back into heavy touring, so we dialed back down to a week, and eventually the show had run its course and ended.  But man, for a few years there, this show was as good as anything in the similar space.

Sidebar story:  right before we went to five days the big boss Jay Clark ran into me in the coffee room and said “I got the money for the guy you wanted.  You sure you wanna do this?”

I knew Jay well enough not to be wishy washy.  “Yep!”

Jay retorts, “Remember you said that.”

Well that was scary.  But I was right.  We did a survey somewhere along the line (re-Howard) and Jim was the most popular show on Sirius.

The lesson?  Somebody might be 139th best on some list, but you should still take the pitch meeting.  The next big thing might be trying to have a meeting with you.

Jim, if this comes your way I hope things are well after an awful year for your family.  And you know that for even being 139th on some random list there are 13,000 guys who wish they were on this list at all Goat Boy.  Catch ya down the road.

Oh man I am so excited I found this in my files.

Back when there was talk of a fourth Indiana Jones movie I proposed we approach Lucasfilm to see if we could do a stunting “pop-up” radio station to tease the new film.

The challenge was we knew almost nothing about the film other than “Russians” (and weren’t sure of the correct version of the film’s title). We also weren’t going to have access to Harrison Ford.

I love such challenges, so we positioned it as an old-time radio serial being aired on the “British World Service” – and used static bursts and dropouts (presumably you were listening on shortwave in the Theater Of The Mind) to work around the challenges.

A fully realized version of this would have run 24/7 and over time “leaked” some teaser plot details. I also would have timed it out to make the news actually run at the top of the hour because I’m particular like that.

The project never went forward, but this was one of my favorite side-dreams form back in the day.

Audio production by Greg Schweizer, voices by Ghosty, script by me.

You can find some of my other work in my portfolio. If you’ve made it this far you probably would also be interested in Star Wars Celebration Radio, also one of my favorites with some great imaging pieces featuring the cast from The Clone Wars.