"LOL LOL LOL LOL! He's a better comedian than Jack Benny!"
"You've been a great audience! I'll be here all week! Try the veal!"
All-seriousness-aside: IT REALLY WAS ALL-BUSINESS IN DALLAS!
At least for me.
Proof:
http://members.aol.com/cookeh/NABR06Xhall.jpg
Two observations about the first-ever co-located NAB Radio Show and R&R convention:
1. You call 'em "snakes," I'll call 'em "suits."
Who-they-AREN'T is station-level programmers for-whom this convention was created in 1980.
Then, it was called the "NAB Radio Programming Conference."
NO ONE New Orleans hotel could contain all the hospitality suites.
Fast-forward to present day.
Consolidation, automation, syndication.
It's been hard to FIND programmers at this show in recent years.
TRUE STORY. I'm NOT making this up.
A Clear Channel PD there told me, "They don't know I'm here. I took vacation days."
He's NOT SUPPOSED TO convene. Orders-from-headquarters. How sad is THAT?
The Good News this year?
At-the-R&R-end-of-the-hotel-complex, it was a-more-PD-heavy-crowd.
Encouraging.
2. Biggest booth in the Exhibit Hall: GOOGLE.
Now, watch this segue...
RE Fred's "will ABC Radio - after dropping the ball almost 40 years ago - really do customized, targeted, relevant news this time? My guess: Probably not.''
ABC has no-choice-but-to-get-it-right, for two reasons:
1. Biggest booth in the Exhibit Hall: GOOGLE.
ABC's competitors are no longer just-the-other-radio-vendors.
2. IMMEDIATELY after 9/11, AP signed up a LOT of FMs who had no wire service.
And "The New Normal" is such that no station wants to get caught flat-footed.
Sometimes, the right thing can happen for the wrong reason.
HC
