Friday, September 22, 2017

Trump v Kim

Earlier this week at the UN, Trump said he would "destroy" North Korea.

Kim Jung Un responded by calling the president a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and describing his UN speech as “unprecedented rude nonsense.” (By the way, I had to look it up. A dotard is an old person, especially one who has become weak or senile.) He also said: "A frightened dog barks louder."

Trump responded by calling Kim a “madman” whose regime will be “tested like never before”.

These are the "grownups" who may decide if we live or die. Sleep tight.
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La Crosse to Portland

Former WLS-FM program director Michael La Crosse is on the move again. He was recently PD in LA. He now moves to Portland. From Radio Ink...

Michael La Crosse has been named Program Director for Portland’s KKCW and KLTH. The appointment, announced by Tim Herbster, Senior Vice President of Programming for iHeartMedia’s Pacific Northwest Region, is effective October 9, 2017. La Crosse comes to Portland from Los Angeles, where he was the Program Director at iHeartRadio’s KOST and KHHT. Previously, he was Operations Manager at the iHeart cluster in Spokane.

“Michael’s skillset is a natural match for taking the reins of KKCW and KLTH in Portland. His vast experience in programming for these formats and working with top talent is second to none,” said Herbster. “We can’t wait to welcome him to our community.”
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Jimmy Kimmel Blowback

How bout some blowback about the blowback about the blowback of Jimmy Kimmel's commments. I thought Stephen Colbert summed it up nicely...



I like this one too. It's refers to HHS Secretary Tom Price's $300,000 private jet tab...

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Magic Number is 6

Huge win for Cubs. Beat Brewers in heartstopper. Magic number is 6. (Stan Hack wore #6)




Magic Number is 6! (That's Cubs #6 Carl Edwards with David Stern and Dane Placko)

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Thursday, September 21, 2017

Minutia Men, Episode 66

EP66 – Rick and Dave discuss getting things stuck where they shouldn’t be (NSFW), the laziest band ever, gibberish sign language, Mike Royko at Wrigley Field, and Rick’s brush with Soupy Sales.

Listen to it here.
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One of the Toughest Jobs in America

Mary Berner is the CEO of Cumulus. She isn't responsible for the mess it was when she took over two years ago, but I suspect even she didn't understand just how messy it was. Today's Tom Taylor column offers her assessment after two years on the job...

CEO Mary Berner explains “How we fixed our toxic culture” at Cumulus. That’s the title of Berner’s self-penned column for the “Chief Executive” site. Magazine-industry pro Berner is now two years into her first radio management gig, and from the beginning she mentioned changing the culture as one of her four major concerns. She writes that “It was clear that Cumulus would not be saved by any of the traditional turnaround quick fixes” like slashing costs. There was (and is) too much debt for a “transformational M&A” deal. She needed the staff to understand her priorities and to buy into them, and now she writes that “our culture has made a 180-degree turn,” resulting in (for example) much lower turnover. By the way – she admits that Cumulus is “still a resource-starved, over-leveraged company operating in a difficult market.”

Sounds like a pretty reasonable approach to me, and you know I'm not one to cut a lot of slack to radio company CEOs.
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Aid and Comfort

A campaign manager of an American presidential campaign offered private briefings to Russia about the status of that campaign. That's what the Washington Post is reporting today about Paul Manafort. That's way worse than anything I've seen even speculated about in this Russian collusion case. Help me understand this. Doesn't that make Manafort a flat-out Russian spy? Even if he did it for money, or to pay off a debt, why isn't that treason (giving aid and comfort to the enemy of the US)?

I feel like I've entered into the Twilight Zone. Based on the lack of people freaking out about this, I must be missing something.
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Lawrence O'Donnell Outtakes

MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell had a bad night on August 29, 2017. Mediaite got ahold of the outtakes of his show that night, and he goes after his staff. He doesn't look good, that's for sure. It's not quite as bad as the "We'll go live" O'Reilly freak out, but in some ways it's worse because we knew that O'Reilly was a jerk. Lawrence doesn't come off that way. At the five minute mark, he has a full-fledged temper tantrum.

This is how Lawrence responded when it became public...



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Facebook Vows To Make Changes

If you've ever created a facebook ad, you know there is a feature that allows you to target specific groups. I didn't realize that you could create the groups to be very specific--I usually only targeted by age and location. Apparently, you could even create a group yourself.

Someone created a group called "Jew Haters" and was directing ads at them for White Supremicist rallies.

Needless to say, Facebook is embarrassed by this. Not only didn't they do anything about it. They had no idea it was happening.

Or so says their COO, Sheryl Sandberg. I have a tendency to believe her. After all, she is Jewish herself.
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Jimmy Kimmel Responds to Criticism

President Trump forgot Rule #1 of media fights. Never pick on a guy who has a nightly TV show. He will always get the last word...

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Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Drudging up Russians

This is probably just as responsible as Facebook...

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RIP Jake Lamotta



(NSFW clip below)

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NBC is TV King


NBC is on a roll. They just completed their 4th straight year as 52-week ratings champ in the only demo advertisers care about (18-49).

Deadline Hollywood has the details.
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"Destroy North Korea"

I felt a little queasy all day yesterday. I'm only 54, but I've never heard a US president threaten to kill 22 million people before. And I lived through the Cold War, Vietnam, and 9/11.

He called the leader of North Korea "Rocket Man". And he said it pretty much the same way he would say Crooked Hillary or Lyin Ted or Low Energy Jeb. Except this time, he said he would kill 22 million people if Rocket Man doesn't do what he says.

In response, he got a bunch of shrugs. God help us all. The future of the world is in the hands of two nutjobs.

(I have an Elton John song that might be more appropriate...)



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The Jimmy Kimmel Rule

Jimmy Kimmel addressed the Senator who created the "Jimmy Kimmel Rule" last night on his show, and it wasn't pretty. I tuned in just to see what he would say...


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Art Laboe

Most people in Chicago don't know the name Art Laboe, but he's a legend on the West Coast. How much of a legend? Check out this story from this morning's RAMP Newsletter...

Already a radio legend, Art Laboe will attempt to put an exclamation point on his legacy by breaking the Guinness World Record™ for Longest Career as a Radio Presenter/DJ (male) this Sunday, September 24. The event will mark Art's 74th continuous year on commercial radio. Art's sister Lillian gave him his first radio at age 8; by the age of 14 Art had built his own amateur radio station, and on September 23, 1943, at the age of 18, Art embarked on his professional radio career at KSAN/San Francisco. Art Laboe received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1981 and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2012.
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Promotion for Dan Wolfe

Good to see fellow producers climb the ladder. From Radio Ink...

Daniel Wolfe Upped To APD At 94.7 WLS-FM. Wolfe will also continue his duties as Producer of the popular WLS/Chicago morning show The WLS Wake Up Call, a position he has held since 2003. A native of Coal City, IL, Wolfe graduated from Illinois Center for Broadcasting in 2002.

Brian Thomas, Program Director, 94.7 WLS-FM, and Vice President, Classic Hits Programming, Cumulus Media, said, “This puts Dan one step closer to his goals of becoming a PD at Cumulus, after doing a great job as morning show producer. I am looking forward to working with Dan in this new role.”
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Magic Number is 9

Cubs win in Tampa. Magic number is Randy Hundley.

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Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Made me laugh

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Happy birthday Sean!


I can't believe it, but son #3 is 15 years old today.

Like his brothers, Sean was born on the radio. Ten years ago I pulled out the tape of that phone call, and transcribed it. You can read it here.
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