I LOVE this guy!

He’s a Texan, so this was a must-do interview by my client station KTBB/Tyler, which sent three on-air people for a week of on-air/online Super Bowl coverage in Florida.

A preview of Talk Radio censorship…

“We value your ideas and participation on the site. As we’re here first and foremost to discuss the state of radio, we find your comments particularly prescient. We hope you continue to weigh in on important developments in the industry.”
Managing Board Editor, Radio-Info.com, as he/she censored my comment.

Because their-doing-so violated MY Terms of Service, I told Radio-Info.com that I had no choice but to suspend THEM, for 30 days.

Moments later, the screen read: “you are banned from using this forum!”

GET THIS: Topic of the censored conversation? Censorship!
WILL the deliberately offensive statements from attention-hungry competitors Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck become the-straw-that-breaks-the-camel’s-back, and trigger the imposition of the Community Advisory Boards clamored-for by a public increasingly displeased with the way Big Radio has dumbed-down radio?

Or we might AVOID censorship and increased regulation, if, for instance, Limbaugh could raise-the-bar-higher than repeatedly cheering “THIS ONE’S FOR YOU, MARY JO” the-day-after Scott Brown wins the Massachusetts special election.

SEEMS like a-conversation-worth-having, eh?
Especially in a forum as-opportune-for-shoptalk as Radio-Info.com, which I have characterized as, de facto, the new-age radio convention.

Making-my-point better-than-they-allowed-me-to, censors @ radio-info.com deleted my comments.

Apparently, they’re less-uncomfortable-with “THIS ONE’S FOR YOU, MARY JO” than my questioning the downside of such statements.

If Rush wasn’t such an amoral phony, he’d ask listeners to PRAY FOR Kopechne and her family (to-whom his crack had to be hurtful), rather than profiteering on her sad fate.

WHY Radio-Info.com condones Limbaugh’s garbage-mouth on-air, but not my-calling-it-that online?
Surviving trade press media like Radio-Info.com need ad revenue from big companies like Limbaugh’s more than they need me to continue contributing content gratis.

Hey, business is business. No hard feelings. Honest. I know and respect the people who run Radio-Info.com. And I’m sure there are liability issues OR WHATEVER when you run such a forum, so they have to have rules.

And I’ll go ya one further: I don’t even think Limbaugh and Beck are the issue. I think they’re symptoms, of something we need to be REAL careful about: the creeping loss of civility we’re getting numb to.

And not just because the consequences will be tough on our particular industry. Something worse could happen…but radio righties have already taken-me-to-task for offering THAT warning.

“20 Most Re-Tweetable Words and Phrases”

#1 on the list? Not-surpisingly: “you.”
Smart Talk hosts use Twitter to invite tune-in. “Talk directly to your readers,” advises Dan Zarella, author of “The Social Media Marketing Book” (O’Reilly). Sounding LOTS like your consultant’s relentless nagging…er, “consistent direction,” regarding on-air work, Zarella says “don’t talk about yourself if you want Twitter traffic; talk about your readers.”

As on-air talent, your job is AQH, Time Spent Listening…since, after all, you can only talk to people-who-are-already-listening. Cume has been the boss’s job, since inviting tune-in by people-not-already-listening required off-air promotion expense… until now. Zarella notes that “re-tweeting is the most common way links are shared on Twitter” (almost 70% of re-tweets contain a link). And having-your-link-forwarded would be a cume slam-dunk.

Read his entire list on page 2 of my February newsletter, which also includes my notes from the massive, mind-boggling Consumer Electronics Show.

Radio now gets only half of audio listening.

FYI: Nielsen’s “How U.S. Adults Use Radio and Other Forms of Audio.”

Nerd-that-I-am, I’m poring over every-word-of this.
But charts on the last 4 pages really tell the tale.

This is OPPORTUNE — not threatening — to broadcasters who realize the value of our “incumbency.” AM/FM radio has gazillions of receivers in-use, habitually, by the two generations who control most of the USA’s wealth. So NOBODY has the head start we have when it comes to The New Platform.

Use it or lose it.

Every radio station has a web site…

…how many web sites have a radio station?
Bloggers/podcasters/YouTubers: You have content radio needs.
Fact: Radio still has a massive audience.
Fact: NO — repeat, NO — other medium drives Internet traffic better than radio.
Got something to say? Want to say it on the Internet?
Got a product to sell? A message to market?
Want to do a show anyone can hear, anywhere?
Listen as HC guests on:
The Jim Bohannon Show

Free Talk Live.

Click here to learn more.

“Survival Information,” for the way things are now…

You – and EVERY retailer in your market – know that I’m not over-stating the status quo to use the word “Survival.”
So when The Holland Cooke Summer-of-’09 Consulting Tour kicked-off in Tyler TX, client KTBB packed a restaurant with business people who had been assured “No advertising will be offered or accepted” at this event.

“You are invited, your checkbook is not.”
The invitation offered retailers, agency people, and other would-be advertisers lunch, and the opportunity to “Meet marketing consultant Holland Cooke” and see-and-hear him outline “specific tactics that are driving success in media markets across the USA.”
OK, OK…it also mentioned that one attendee would win an iPhone. But that particular door prize was chosen to make a point.

You don’t need me to tell you that advertisers are spending less. They’re also spending differently. I can tell you how, and how radio can take advantage. My presentation is “Survival Information, For The Way Things Are Now.” It spells-out how media use has changed, how advertisers are spending accordingly, and why NO – repeat, NO – other marketing medium partners with the Internet better than local radio.

Click here to see and hear my presentation. Since then, I’ve given this presentation to a roomfulla ad agency people in North Carolina; and I’m now en route to speak at the Wisconsin Broadcasters’ convention.
Click here to ask KTBB owner Paul Gleiser about the impact this event had.
Click here to inquire about me-firing-up-YOUR-advertisers.

Talk Radio’s “Dog Whistle:” New Violence?

It was a WEEK-LONG conversation about an op-ed I wrote.
Rush wanna-be’s were livid.
I pray that I’m wrong and they’re right.
Apparently snubbed that my remarks referenced Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck…but not him…Neal Boortz hollered at me on-air, and announced he’s NOT renewing his longstanding subscription to my monthly newsletter.
Early-into the clip you can click-to-hear below, note how Neal makes my point about how talk hosts over-state the truth. He says that I “flat-out” wrote something you won’t see when you read what-I-wrote. Admittedly, his “rounding-up” is less-incendiary than, for instance, Rush Limbaugh deliberately dis-informing listeners that President Obama wants to put their private medical records “on Google;” but it’s the same sort of distortion.

Same-station/different-show: Cooler heads prevail on WZTK’s Allan Handelman Show, heard statewide across North Carolina.

Then, The New York Times’ Tom Friedman weighed-in.

Even The Gipper’s own wordsmith frets.
In her Wall Street Journal column, Peggy Noonan writes:
“Violent images excite the unstable. Violent words do, too. This is why, I think, so many people – I include, literally, every person I know, from all walks of life, and all ages – are worried that our elected leaders are not safe, that this overheaded era will end in some violent act or acts.”