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Just to mess with the car salesman’s head, I threw out an obvious buying signal. “Does it come in silver?” “Would you like one in silver?” “Yes, I believe I would, but only if I can get it equipped exactly how I’d like.” “I’m sure that won’t be problem. Follow me inside, and we’ll write it up.” This is where it gets interesting. Once inside, he whipped out his Montblanc and slid a bid sheet out of his desk. Pen poised above it, he looked at me over the rims of his glasses. “Now, what would you like on it?” “Oh, it’s what I don’t want on it that matters. I’d like it without a Radio of any kind.” Chin up. Pen down. With an invisible question mark glowing above his head, he asked, “No Radio?” “I’ll buy it only if I can get it without a Radio.” “I’ll be right back.” I could see laughter and a puzzled expression through the glass as the manager furtively glanced my way. Another salesperson overheard the conversation and said, “What is he, some kind of nut?” (Salespeople often talk louder than they know.) A few minutes later, my man returned. “How about if we don’t charge you for the Radio?” He laid a duplicate window sticker in front of me and dramatically penned a thin blue line through the Radio’s [...]

I look back within a haze of memory on my summers as a boy: days of warm sunlight, relaxed freedom, and magical experiences with friends I thought would never end — the stuff of life. Each new summer carried the anticipation of the coming school year — and quality time rolling in the grass, blowing poofy dandelions and hearing the sound of lawnmowers, staying up all night and sleeping in the next morning. My gang all had to be inside by the time the streetlights came on, which in summer was around 9 p.m. Each day, we’d ride our bikes beyond the boundaries our parents had set and play basketball till the neighbors complained about the noise. We mowed lawns to make a few coins to buy Beatle records and Beatle wigs, but we didn’t buy Beatle boots. Only hoodlums wore those. Everyone knew that. Richard Saul Wurman said something to me the other day, and it has been ringing like a telephone in my head ever since. I’d called him for his advice on a problem that required some perspective: I was financially involved in a project, but my heart wasn’t in it. “Eric, how old are you?” “I’ll turn 50 this summer.” “I’m 68. I figure I’ve got about 12 summers left. You have maybe 30. How you spend them is up to you. My advice [...]

Radio thinks that satellite Radio is the enemy. Current thinking is that we [Radio] should not run their ads and should do everything within our power to keep them from succeeding. News Alert: Even Radio’s enormous power cannot stop or slow the adoption of satellite Radio. Why fight it? I hear Radio people talking from both sides of their mouths. “Don’t help them succeed; don’t run their spots,” they say from one side while the other side says, “They won’t succeed anyway; why would people pay for Radio when they can get it for free?” News Alert: People will pay to NOT hear commercials if we exceed their commercial tolerance levels. Naysayers also point out the small number of satellite subscribers as an indication that this is a service only for the elite and is doomed. The first commercial Radio station, KDKA, went on the air in 1920. With its launch was an ad in the Pittsburg paper for Kaufman’s department store, selling the first kits for consumers to build their own Radio receivers. The kit was $20, which would be equivalent to today’s thousands charged for a plasma TV. Radio began as a service for the elite. In the first five years, almost no sets were sold, but by 1930, everyone in America had a Radio. Mark my words: Every car in America will have satellite Radio [...]

03/08/04 Have You Discovered Your Purpose On Earth? I recently attended the funeral of Charlie Willer, one of my dearest lifelong friends. As I prepared my thoughts to speak at his memorial service, I realized the impact this one man had on my life: Without his efforts, everything in my life would be different. Charlie introduced me to radio as a career; without that introduction, I could still be welding cement-truck bodies in an Indiana factory (and there would be no Radio Ink). He also introduced me to my wife and many of my closest friends. His life — his very purpose — was about putting people together and helping them see their God-given talents. This issue of Radio Ink is focused on the 35 Most Influential African-Americans in Radio and on the Bayliss Foundation Roast. Neither of these features would have occurred if it were not for people who were fulfilling their purpose. John Bayliss was a legend in this industry. Bayliss was such an influencer, such an innovator, and such a quality broadcaster that, upon his death, the entire industry stood up to honor him with a scholarship foundation in his name. Scores of deserving college students have received educations and entered broadcasting as a result of John’s influence. This great man is still making a difference. Years ago, I received a call from a college [...]

One well-kept secret of this industry is that Radio Ink is not the only magazine I write for. Though I write for other magazines I own, I also write for one magazine I do not own. I write marketing columns for Dealer magazine, which goes to most of the car dealers in America. I began my relationship with this publication when I encountered Jim Ziglar while waiting for my luggage in the lobby of our Roy Williams show in Atlantic City. Ziglar is the top sales consultant for the car-dealer industry, and he is Dealer magazine’s top writer. As we chatted, I told him that automotive advertising is radio’s biggest local advertising category and that, though dealers and dealer groups spend a lot of money, most are doing it wrong. I explained that they could be getting more sales and more customers with the money they spend — and that got his attention. Next thing I knew, I was a columnist for that publication. Car buyers fall into one of two categories: relational (those who relate to or look for something that satisfies a need or dream) or transactional (those who look for best price and check out multiple dealers). Though there are more transactional buyers, relational buyers pay higher prices. Therefore, dealers who focus on relational business make higher profits and get the lion’s share of business. [...]

I tried to bluff my dad, and I got busted. Forty years later, Radio tried to bluff the American people, and we got busted. Rain pounded against the glass as I gazed at the fierce thunderstorm, wishing I could be outside. My bicycle was lying on the sidewalk in a pool of water. No problem until I saw my dad’s car coming. I scampered into the rain, opened the garage door, grabbed my bike and shoved it into the dry garage. I didn’t think my father saw me; he was still pretty far down the road. “Did you leave your bike in the rain, son?” With fingers crossed, I said, “No, sir.” “You know the rule: If you leave your bike in the rain, I take it away.” I insisted I brought it in before the deluge, but a quick trip to the garage proved otherwise, and I lost my bicycling privileges. I had been given a responsibility — and now I was busted. Radio left its bike in the rain and tried to pull it in before Dad got home. Though we knew right from wrong, we pushed until the edge of the envelope became invisible. We were outside it and tried to pretend we weren’t. One station tried to out-smut the other because smut sells, and this is a business driven by revenues. We began reining [...]

It was 1 a.m. Startled, I stared blearily at the ringing phone that had blasted me from a cozy dream. My mind staggered through disastrous scenarios: dead relatives, crippling auto accidents, a deejay to be bailed out of jail. “Hello,” I croaked fearfully. The chief engineer on the line needed someone to accompany him to the transmitter site. His usual assistants were not answering their phones, so he called me, the station owner. Wanting to be a team player, I agreed. While I slept, a major snowstorm had hit the area. Winds were gusting to 50 mph, the power was off, the generator had failed, and we were off the air. In my warmest clothes, I drove through blinding snow, meeting the CE at the base of the mountain. It was one of those nights you did not want to be out in a car, but we took his four-wheel-drive up the mountain as far as the snow would permit us. Then we hopped on a snowmobile. Snow blinded us as it accumulated on our facemasks. Heavy snow also meant driving the snowmobile as fast as we could go until, every few minutes, we had to hop off and wade through waist-high snow to unjam the snowmobile and start again. Cliffs with 100-foot drops invited disaster at every corner. Two-and-a-half hours later — the last 20 minutes on [...]

Legend has it that traffic along Highway 101 in San Francisco was creeping at a snail’s pace, and the only cars moving right along were those in the commuter lane. Suddenly, a red Rolls Royce convertible zipped by in the commuter lane. A motorcycle cop pulled the Rolls over to give the driver a ticket for driving without passengers in the commuter lane. The driver turned out to be Larry Ellison, chairman of Oracle. According also to legend, this is almost a daily occurrence for Ellison, who would rather pay a couple hundred bucks in fines each time he gets caught than waste his time in traffic. After all, this billionaire’s time is probably worth tens of thousands of dollars per hour. The $200 fine may be a big deal to an average citizen, but it’s not much money to someone with a huge bank account. In Sweden, the police could not control the problem of speeding because wealthy violators would pay the fines and continue to speed. When legislators examined the problem, they realized that fines would not stop people unless the fine was proportionate to the income bracket of the person violating the law. Therefore, the government began basing fines on the income of the person speeding. The police have a database of income levels that are entered into a formula that involves a combination of [...]

One of my personal passions has been finding ways to recognize and elevate the efforts of effective professional women in the radio industry. I’m not a feminist, but I recognize talent, and it frustrates me when strong talent is not recognized within its own industry or organization. I’m not suggesting promotion of women because they are women; I want opportunity for the many women who struggle for well-deserved promotions. For the progressive industry we pretend to be, we’re not progressive enough. Why are most leadership positions within radio still male-dominated? Why are most programming positions still male-dominated? Though our industry has a much higher percentage of women in sales and sales management, their promotion to GM or market manager is embarrassingly rare. We are not alone. Hollywood has hailed the successes of female directors such as Nancy Meyers (who has two radio people in her family), Jodie Foster, Penny Marshall and others, but Hollywood isn’t much more progressive than radio. According to a study by Martha M. Lauzen, a San Diego State professor who studies the role of women in film and TV, women directed 7 percent of the top-grossing 100 films released in 2000. (In a sample of the top 250 films, the percentage was a little higher, at 11 percent.) The U.S. Senate is more progressive than Hollywood: 14 of 100 senators are women (see In [...]

A year ago this month, we held our Roy Williams conference in Atlantic City. During the conference, a guy came up to me and said, “Mr. Rhoads, I’ve been wanting to meet you. I got your e-mails about this conference, and I paid my own way to be here. I just got into radio.” I learned that he had been a paramedic but felt he could not realize his life’s dreams, so he got a job selling radio. “It was a disaster,” he told me. “I worked my butt off in that job for six months and got nowhere, so I quit radio and decided to do something else.” Somehow, he eventually hooked up with Bill Hazen, who suggested that, with some training, he could succeed at the Cumulus stations in Macon. “My first day on the job, he handed me the Roy Williams tapes and said, ‘This is all you need to know.’ I watched them all in three days.” That same week, he said, he saw one of my e-mails for our Roy Williams conferences. “I ran into Bill’s office and asked if I could have the time off if I paid my own way to attend.” Two weeks later, Jeff Norman was in Atlantic City, listening to Roy. “I’ve got to tell you,” he said, “the tapes and the books are good, but seeing this [...]