(Weekend Edition)
As far back as the fifties, radio would involve it's audience by acknowleging their music requests, greeting towns, boroughs, cities and neighborhoods on-air, mentioning local events and by getting out for station promotions. Today serving your audience means sharing time with them socially. Nielsen's recently published "What Americans Do Online" points out the importance of public socializing. While Email remains the dominant sector in terms of mobile time, Social Networking is a solid second. Over 50% of mobile phone users are either sending an email or a tweet. Everything else is far behind, including News & Current Events, Search, Portals, Entertainment, Sports, Music, Videos/Movies and Weather - in that order...
Based on average time spent at a category level, email ranks number one with 41.60% but based on total time at an individual site level, email shrinks a bit to 38.5%. Social networking is a solid 10% of total time in both categories and then the rest of the mobile sectors follow. Some surprising results have News & Current Events leading all the remaining sectors including Search, Portals, Entertainment and Sports. Music doesn't show up until eighth in rank and closing out the top 10 are Videos/Movies and finally Weather. What surprised me was News & Current Events finishing so high up at three and Music & Weather showing up so low...
According to this Nielsen study you should be linking email, social networking, news & current events and providing a search bar on your website if you just stick to the top 5 categories of what Americans do online. Anything less and your radio station is not providing the service they're looking for. I know, I know - it's only one study but it's not the only study showing similar results...
1.1953] Wedding Bells: Jacqueline Bouvier and Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy walk down the aisle at Hammersmith Farm in Newport (RI) (9/12)...
2.1953] Mmmmm: Swanson begins selling "TV dinners" giving us these luscious choices: Salisbury steaks, Meatloaf, Fried chicken and Turkey. All come with delicious mashed potatoes and the greenest peas you've ever seen (9/10)...
3.1955] Bert parks: Bert Parks begins a 25-year career of singing "There She Is, Miss America" as host of the famous pageant on NBC-TV (9/10)...
4.1964] Oh Shea can you see: The first football game is played at Shea Stadium with the Jets beating Denver 30-6 (9/12)...
5.1985] The hitman: Pete Rose becomes baseball's all-time hit leader off of San Diego pitcher Eric Show. Hit number 4,192 breaks Ty Cobb's longstanding record by one hit (9/11)...
6.1988] Steffi steals the cup: West Germany's Steffi Graf wins the first women's Grand Slam since Margaret Court in 1970 by taking the U.S. Open final (9/10)...
7.1989] Two-sport hero: Deion Sanders scores a touchdown in his NFL debut with Atlanta 5 days after hitting a home run for the Yankees. Trivia buffs: Sanders becomes the 1st athlete to play in a World Series and Super Bowl (9/10)...
8.1993] Curtains: NBC-TV airs its last episode of "Late Night With David Letterman" as Letterman takes his show to CBS-TV (9/10)...
9.2001] The horror of 911: Nearly 3,000 lives are taken, mainly at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a field near Pittsburgh as terrorists launch the most devastating attack ever on United States soil (9/11)...
10.2008] "Happy Trails": Radio programmer (Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York) Neil McIntyre passes away at 68 from cancer (9/11)...
Music Memories:
- 1966] Gold Standard: "Yellow Submarine" - Beatles (9/12)...1967] "All You Need Is Love" - Beatles (9/11)...1975] "Aerosmith" LP (9/11)...
- 1966] Released on this date: "If I Were A Carpenter" - Bobby Darin (9/10)...1966] "Last Train To Clarksville" - Monkees (9/10)...1970] "Fire And Rain" - James Taylor (9/12)...
Tuesday, September 11, 2001 started off with beautifully sunny skies and cool temperatures. I was on my way to the Viacom Building on Broadway, where WCBS-FM was located. The giant ABC-TV screen across the street had a shot of a gaping hole in one of the World Trade Center towers. Our chief engineer was also looking at the screen when I asked him what happened. Bill Prendergast shared the news from his police radio that a plane had gone into the building. The first thing that struck me was that it couldn't have been weather-related. After the second plane went into the other tower, we were evacuated from the station. Dan Daniel joined the CBS Radio Network before leaving the air and building. I remember walking down 40 flights of stairs and walking home, 3 miles away. Just before I reached the lobby of the Viacom Building, I heard a loud explosion which I would learn was the implosion created by the second tower collapsing some 2 1/2 miles away. I remember how much compassion there was in the streets among fellow New Yorkers. I even remember the red tie I was wearing that I would never wear again. I remember just about everything I did that day, I hate remembering but hope I never forget...
"Happy Birthday...happy birthday": (9/10) Colin Firth (50), Amy Irving (57), Aerosmith's Joe Perry (60), Bill O'Reilly (61), Judy Geeson (62), Jose Feliciano (65) and the legendary Arnold Palmer (81)...(9/11) Jacoby Ellsbury (27), Harry Connick Jr. (43), Maria Bartiromo (43), Moby (45), Virginia Madsen (49), Kristy McNichol (48) and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart (67)...(9/12 ) Jennifer Hudson (29), Yao (Yo) Ming (30), Amy Yasbeck (48), Rachel Ward (53), Gerry (America) Beckley (58), Maria Muldaur (67), Linda Gray (70), George Jones (79) and 'Our Gang's" Dickie Moore (85)...
Timeline Countdown: 8 nights until Yom Kippur, 13 days until autumn, 26 days until the MLB playoffs, 48 days until the World Series & 51 nights until Halloween...
