Good evening from Block Island.
LOTS of notes from the Talkers New Media Seminar.
Will get 'em @
www.HollandCooke.com later this week.
A few items in-the-meantime...
GREAT turnout, GREAT agenda.
Rush Limbaugh DID appear, to accept Talkers' "Freedom of Speech Award," and looking suddenly-50-pounds-lighter than that bloated blimp hopping-up-and-down at the CPAC event his MSNBC detractors have replayed again and again. His remarks were a pleasant surprise, and useful to the assembled Rush-wanna-be’s who ape his act, for-better-or-worse. He is NOT about influencing policy, he wanted us to understand. “Attracting and holding audience…and charging ‘confiscatory’ rates for advertising” is what he does. “Moving product…that’s what keeps me on-the-air.”
Much less enjoyable, though no-less-instructive, was Talk Radio Network’s Laura Ingraham, who made a FOOL of herself, launching into a room-clearing tirade about Brian Williams' White House TV special, while she was supposed-to-be introducing Judy Jarvis Award winner and WTKK/Boston PD Grace Blazer. Ingraham’s odd, nasal, weary rant validated the angry/predictable/overstated stereotype that political Talk radio suffers.
Last night, I had dinner with the guy who wrote the line "The station that reaches the beaches," the man Jimmy Gray called "the best program director I ever worked for" in his RI Radio Hall of Fame induction acceptance speech: Al Herskovitz, who was the-WPRO-PD-before-Jay Clark. Although I wasn't good enough yet to work at WPRO when he was there, I sure knew-OF the station.
I cracked Al up last night observing that his late-60s/early-70s DJ line-up validated a theory I've subscribed to for years: the best DJ names have three syllables. Good "onomatopoeia." Back then, the Pro Personalities included names-that-tripped-off-the-tongue, such as "Salty Brine," "Joe Thomas," "Vic Armen," "Jimmy Gray," "Davey Jones," "Bud Williams." OK, "Bud Williams" SHOULD be pronounced as 4 syllables...but sounds like 3. And "Andy Jackson" was 4, but NOT hard to remember.
Al laughed, "yes, three syllables...and lots of consonants."
HC
