In the 80′s I watched consultants and the effect they had on killing vibrant local radio. A friend who worked at WUMB said every year consultants would come in and say “This folk format is the only one in America. It can’t possibly be working. Change formats ASAP.” Thank god management didn’t listen. A rose in concrete is still a rose. Maybe a true American beauty that should be spread, Johnny Appleseed style, and nurtured. And when satellite radio started, why didn’t they commission studio Bs all across America to produce programming for them? Instead they built gaudy temples and burned through precious resources. And they failed to support a vibrant ecology of radio. They were old-school selfish and it led to the demise of one of them.

Audio is powerful. I listened recently to the Ed Murrow series on the 1960′s. Powerful punchy writing. Great use of sound. Great use of thought and juxtaposition. The impact makes modern news media product seem very formulaic and lame.

I think we can revive local radio and use of local audio (including via cell phone) if we stop looking at traditional uses of the medium and the platforms and start looking for new ways to use audio to build community and get big things done that don’t start with money but could end up generating money. Gobs and gobs. Because when you start with the heart, the wallet opens wide when the outcome is powerful. Audio moves people wonderfully. Next time your kid challenges you, tell him to watch any movie with the audio off — then with his eyes closed and the audio ON. One is far more satisfying and intact. The other is highly sensory but virtually meaningless.

I’m launching a Boston-based network of good people. We’re going to make it easy for good people and good organizations to be aware of each other and to help each other in a variety of fast and easy and high impact ways when they’re so moved. I founded and ran Smash Advertising on Newbury Street for 22 years. Top media clients. Launched the Compact Disc with PolyGram. Launched Digital Cable with Comcast Corporate HQ Marketing. Relaunched TV stations during the affiliation switch craze and turned Detroit 62 into a big winner for awhile. Launched NBC Asia in 12 weeks with a positioning that, unknown to us at the time, would foreshadow the Singapore campaign that was being developed in secret called “New Asia”.

Now, in a time with no money, it’s time to launch ways to make it fast and easy for people and organizations to do powerful good. Just like after 9-11. But every day. I completed a site survey for Bloomberg Television on a Friday. We were planning a station domination campaign where you buy every ad space in a commuter rail hub and get hyper-creative with a medley of messages. My wife and I had lived in NYC but I’d never been in the WTC before. So after shooting mundane reference video of the commuter platforms and the escalator message boards and people shopping throughout the underground WTC concourse, my wife and I went to the top to take in the view and pizza and beer. That was Friday. 9-11 was the following Tuesday. I returned to NYC a couple of weeks later. Took the subway to Brooklyn and walked over the most beautiful bridge back to Manhattan and the huge scar. Halfway across the wall of smell hit me. It was burned everything. On the island, the mood was unreal. Friendly. Small town nice. Midwestern helpful. Genuine caring. Status evaporated. People pitched in heart and soul to help folks they’d never met and would never meet again. My buddy was the first government guy to arrive and pull response together. He said it was surreal. He and I are political opposites and golf buddies. He, like me, was a kid from the streets who fell in love with college radio and music and all the possibilities the songs of the sixties and seventies championed.

Maybe we can get back to little experiments, audio experiments, where people act neighborly without seeing each other. If you have an idea, count me in. Audio moves people like nothing else. Could be the big stimulus the nation needs.

Mark
http://www.linkedin.com/in/onegoodegg

A new website is being built. It’s dedicated people and organizations (all sectors) that want to network but cannot meet. It’s going to make it fast and easy for people acting like real champs and working like an olympic team to pull together and work as one. One nation. For awhile, until America has its mojo back. If you’d like to join, please do! You’ll be pleasantly surprised by who you find there already.

This seems counter-intuitive. Music is parity. Listeners can hear Green Day or U2 (among countless others) on almost every station in the market. It is the personalities and contests and promotions that make these stations unique.

With all of the different ways to consume media, common sense has me convinced that people aren’t necessarily coming to radio for the music. For the life of me I can’t figure out why the PPM disagrees.

Any thoughts?