Greetings from Greenville, NC [80 miles east of Raliegh]...
After returning from the
Spiedel Group in Columbia, SC (WOIC),
KCOH was the second station that I had a regular weekend show on Sunday afternoons as the
Soulman (I did a lot of fill-in at
KYOK before going to
WLOK, including the night
George "Bugaloo" Frasier was ambushed). I worked for them back in 1970 prior to going over to
KAUM to work in ad sales so I knew the whole gang there very well. It's hard to believe how swiftly time passes and is passing. Yes... "Missing" is an understatement and heard much "too" freqently. To hear of this news here in
Greenville is truly disheartening. I am also sadden in learning so late of Mike's
(Mike Petrizzo) passing. My belated condolences go out to all concerned. One of his biggest accomplisments which I greatly respected was his "persistance" in upgrading KCOH from a 1KW daytimer to a 5KW fulltimer. As the former applicant and General Partner for
Darian Associates, my three year plight to move my petition for a 50KW FM in Brunswick, GA through the application process at the
FCC was excrutiating, expensive and full of anxiety and his effort took a lot longer then mine. We discussed it several times. I had hoped to do business with debuting my new radio format I call
AMERICAN SOUL. After years of development I was preparing to reunite with my old friends....
I have some comments I want to make about those naysayers about the future of Radio including AM....
They first one
(1) is about investors stepping up to save a broadcast institution like KCOH Radio. You can just about forget that... When it comes to the idea of mass-communications among most well-off black investors, most of them have no idea of how to make an investment like that work for them primarily because they have no interests in finding out, much less approaching an investment opportunity creatively to make it work. For the most part they prefer to invest their resources into tangibles, i.e., entertaiment projects, running for a political office, real estate, some manufacturing, professional services, franchises, automobile dealerships, sports teams franchises, mega-churches and nightclubs to mention a few... but when it comes to the thing that makes all of these things "click," Radio and Advertising Communications and which most importantly directs the flow of consumer dollars would validate their investment, they appear to not have the vaguest idea of what's going on.
And the second one
(2), lets take a brief look at information or internet technology...
I-T... To the naysayers, what comes after 'IT...,' "
mental telepathy?" To me as a radio broadcaster, I-T will always be to me a value-added commodity, along side print media communications, TV and of course "Door Hangers." You just have to know how to apply it to your advantage as a broadcaster, something many broadcasters should have given some thought to before the internet exploded underneath their feet. As
Alvin Toffler wrote in his book,
POWERSHIFT years ago, the very size of the crowd itself is [or can be] the "message." To me is still is. Radio can go places where the internet can't.
In the most broadest sense we do use the internet to make life a bit easier we communicate with it, to shop with it, and even defend ourselves with it, but when push comes to shove, guns will always need bullets and bullets will always need guns.... gun will never go out of style and when that changes then say "Hello" to "
Buck Rogers." If anything, the internet is just another blessing for radio, not a curse.
http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=221694.0
Softjamms
Greenville, NC