I’ve been subjecting myself to some unusual social, physical and psychological experiments over the last year or so.  Nothing sexual.  Done some cleanses…  Did a fast.  Went without a car for a while.  Was homeless.

This latest apple thing is part of a bigger, more long term protocol.  Apples were just one part of the adventure.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.  It could be very interesting and I’ve been documenting the whole thing.  Pictures and all!

Get ready.

It’s official.  I am homeless.  It’s true.  Have you ever been homeless?

I’m certainly not homeless in the “bumfights” or Pursuit of Happiness sense of the word.  We’re not looking for space in homeless shelters each night for food and warmth, thank God.  But I am homeless none the less.

We’re also not victims of foreclosure or bankruptcy like many Americans today.  We are actually homeless by choice.

Can you imagine?  Would you ever CHOOSE to be homeless?

I am betting not.  We didn’t choose to be homeless as much as we chose to “pay the price” for our end goal.  Our end goal was to get more home for our money.  Our end goal was to live in a community that isn’t in severe danger of becoming uninhabitable for young families.  Our goal was to move away from drug deals in broad daylight on our block and a school district plagued with a political tug of war.

Now the irony is, our neighborhood and neighbors were excellent.  The problem was, scattered among the wonderful people were drug dealers.  The tragedy was with all the wonderful people in our neighborhood and all the potential for greatness in our community, the majority of the people in our town were content to look the other way while the village and community were self destructing.  People either didn’t see it happening before their eyes, or they saw it and did nothing.

Our end goal was to find a home with reasonable taxes and excellent schools….schools that didn’t cost us an additional $600 a month in private tuition.

So after 3 years on the market, we finally sold our house without having another home to buy.

It became clear to us after house hunting for nearly 3 years that we would have to sell BEFORE we could get serious about buying.  We would have to take less for our house and bank on getting more value when we BOUGHT our next house.  We would have to suck it up and make it work.

So now, we’re homeless.  But the good news is, our gamble paid off.  We found the house with all the things we want and need.

We’ll be homeless for another month, but 2 months of being homeless was a small price to pay for our end goal.

I believe you can get anything you want in life if you are willing to pay the price, whether it’s a house or something else….and it’s a great feeling when you get what you’re after.  You often surprise yourself.

I’d love to read about something you paid the price for.  Please feel free to add your story to the comments.

When I was the PD of Nine FM we had a morning show issue.  We had to get rid of a morning show that didn’t fit the direction we were taking the station in but my GM wouldn’t allow me to cut bait until we had a solution.

Serving Chicagoland from the suburbs, we had the hurdle of being suburban stations which were held to Chicago standards.

I pitched an idea I thought would work brilliantly, especially since our variety format was geared toward gold pop-rock hits from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s.

I told Harvey Wells (the GM) I wanted to reach out to Jonathon Brandmeier’s “people”.  He laughed.  He didn’t laugh because Johnny was a bad idea, but because he and I both knew we didn’t have $2million a year to pay Johnny B.

At the time, Brandmeier was on the air in LA and just doing ok.  In fact as I continued to pester Harvey (I don’t give up easily) things changed and Brandmeier was off in LA and rumors were swirling about his return to Chicago to be near family.  I argued Brandmeier would be back.  If LA didn’t work, Chicago was going to work AND I’ve long felt that the rise of Eric & Kathy in mornings was directly related to Johnny B’s absence in morning drive in Chicago during E&K’s rise.

None of that mattered.  I didn’t want Brandmeier to do a live morning show.  I wanted his “best of” shows.  I wanted to play his best of shows in between the Cars songs and other pop-rock 70s & 80s songs we focused on.  These were the songs that were popular when Johnny was at his height.  I wanted to hire a team of interns and producers to cut up these “Bits of Brandmeier” so we could fit them in between songs in morning drive and eventually afternoon drive.

The Portable People Meters were on their way and I believed (and I still do) that stations with star talent should build their stations around those stars.  Music stations have nothing unique.  Anyone can play Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Greenday, and EVERYONE did.  Top 40, Hot AC, Modern Rock, Rock, AAA, Alternative, AC and Variety WERE ALL PLAYING THE SONG.  The only formats that weren’t were Urban or Country!

So my plan was to convince Brandmeier’s “people” to license his “best of” shows to 9 FM so we could boast BRANDMEIER MORNINGS.  Then when the PPMs came I would also run BRANDMEIER in Afternoons.  Needless to say, Harvey didn’t buy into it.  While a smart radio station in Chicago did bring Brandmeier back….they failed to build a station around him and the audience he brings.

The result was, The Loop didn’t fit Brandmeier, and Brandmeier didn’t fit The Loop.  You would think the folks at Emmis would have know this since they watched this same movie play out with Mancow.  Your morning star has to be the star of the station, not just the star of mornings.

This all centers around my theory that if TV Land played re-runs of Johnny Carson’s tonight show opposite Leno and Letterman, TV Land would show huge numbers.  Upon further reflection though I’ve changed my tune and I believe Carson would have to air earlier on TV Land.

So if there was one PD willing to run the “best of” a top tier morning show that once was….is there one more?  Perhaps not.

The bigger question is:  Steve Dahl, Mancow Muller, Kevin Matthews, Danny Bonduce, Wendy & Bill, Eddie & Jobo, Drex, Eric & Kathy;  Where is your 24/7 stream of your “best of” shows?  Where is your flashback podcast?  I’d listen to commercials on a podcast to hear Steve & Garry from the 80s.

Heck, I’d even pay $5.95 a month.  I bet others would too.

P.S.  We ended up hiring Steve Fisher and pairing him up with Joey Fortman for mornings and they worked very well together.

Randy Michaels (Tribune CEO) put out a list to his company chronicling 100 words that “shall not be named”.  It’s my understanding this list was intended for Tribune writers, WGN TV presenters, and WGN radio hosts.

“The real goal here is to avoid using words that make you sound like you’re reading, instead of talking — that shatter the image you’re speaking knowledgeably to one person. By not using ‘newsspeak,’ you enhance your reputation as a communicator.”

Robert Feder wrote a scathing review of this memo and Randy’s practices at WGN.  Once you get on Mr. Feder’s bad side you’re doomed.  That’s not to say Rob (not Bob) isn’t objective.  But the bigger issue (as Feder’s pointed out in his column) with this regime and others (Ahern’s CBS 2) is the fundamental culture schism.

The new bosses at Tribune came in and pissed all over everything THEN tried to establish themselves as credible and respect worthy management.  Now, they’re looked at as the bulls in a China shop when all they really want is to fix a company mired in “we’ve always done it this way” which is killing newspaper across the US.

I had lunch with a friend and fellow radio programmer yesterday and we laughed because the “list” of words not to mention is not too far off base.  Million dollar TV and Radio hosts have gotten lazy.  Their management has been reluctant to shape and mold them, or perhaps incapable because the managers didn’t have the chops or command the respect to do so.  Either way, it’s time to catapult Tribune into the 21st Century for sure.  There’s no doubt about that.

Anyone who says YOU ALL or YOU GUYS is NOT relating to an audience of ONE, which is what your audience ALWAYS is.  But tell that to Oprah.  Sometimes, she even calls the audience……AUDIENCE!

I think Mr. Feder recognizes these things even though he admittedly has not programmed a radio or TV station.  He get’s it.  He also gets how the Tribune Company will rot from the inside out if this stuff continues the way it’s being done.

Mr. Michaels is indeed attacking the messenger.  That’s what his staff is doing as well, because of the way he executed this initiative.  Memos like this are meant for telling all staff the parking lot is going to be painted on Monday and please park in lot B.  Phone calls, one on one development meetings and good old conversations are the way to motivate and inspire real change on the scale they need at the Trib.

Randy, you need to get those people walking with you NOT 20 steps behind you in fear.  I recall the signs all over the inside of WGN Radio which boldly stated:  “YOU own this place now” referring to employee ownership.  If the employees own the place, why aren’t they being treated with as much or MORE respect than you’d offer to Sam Zell?  The employees actually have SKIN IN THE GAME.

Also noted by Feder is how Michaels bagged on bloggers.  Funny.  Bloggers are good enough to anchor ChicagoNow.com AND take up precious airtime on WGN CHICAGO!  So what does Robert Feder know?  I think he’s seen enough over his 30 years covering Chicago media to know when something’s off.  He’s also smart enough to know the web is the future for all writers and darn near everything…..but then again, What the hell does Matt DuBiel know….?

(In full disclosure, I reached out to ChicagoNow about blogging for them a while back.  I began “blogging” in 1997, and then started podcasting in 2004.  Admittedly, it wasn’t a weekly effort on my part.  Either way, I pitched ChicagoNow on a blog concept coming from the perspective of a 30 something dad in the suburbs.  I got a response.  I was told to lay out some examples, which I did, and I then never heard back.  The more I thought about it afterward, the more I questioned why anyone would blog for ChicagoNow or anywhere else UNLESS they are getting paid.  Blogs are cheap and easy to set up and when you control your blog you control your message, your brand and your relationships.  Anyone blogging for ChicagoNow for free should blog on their own website and let ChicagoNow refeed it.  Don’t just blog for ChicagoNow or any other site for free.)

Advertising works.  Just ask Toyota.  Advertising giveth to Toyota….and then advertising taketh away.

Just because they didn’t pay for it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t advertising.  But given the chance, wouldn’t you rather control the message as much as possible?  The truth is while advertising is your only shot of controlling the message.  You still have to be great.  And even if you are great, and the message you pay for is right, the people can change the message.  You’re never in complete control.

I think the answer is to be great at what you do, tell the world and engage with your customers.  If you miss any one of those 3 elements though, the others won’t work.  Try advertising a crappy service and you’re going to get a lot of interest from people you’re going to let down….and you wont want to engage with THEM.

Toyota’s having a rough patch and they’re advertising now on the radio more than I’ve heard in a while.  Here’s another interesting thing to note though, they didn’t just run screaming car ads for the last 10 years.  They built their business on customer satisfaction.  I understand they’re having recall issues now and it’s easy to speculate all of a sudden that Toyota was never so good all along, but the FACT of the matter is Toyota’s have rocked for years.  They’ve won more than they’ve lost.  They got sloppy and now they’re fixing it and telling their story to the masses via the radio.

(As a matter of full disclosure I’ve always wanted a Toyota truck, raised with big tires like the one Marty McFly dreamed of in Back 2 The Future but that doesn’t color my opinion.)