Worth bookmarking: “Common Errors in English Usage”

Just-added to the growing list of Links you’ll see on the right when you scroll down: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors.

Would YOU like to swap links with me?
We’ll both Google better!
Simply link http://hollandcooke.com to your web site, then Email me the URL of the page you linked me to, and I’ll add your site to every page on my site.

New research: It’s a digital Christmas.

“Black Friday” didn’t wait for Thanksgiving, according to research from the Consumer Electronics Association. And again this year, Santa will be loading up his sleigh with gadgets.
Hear the holiday shopping forecast, and emerging media trends, in the report I filed for Westwood One’s “America in the Morning.”

Look for my notes from January’s massive, mind-boggling Consumer Electronics Show in my monthly newsletter.

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.

Lessons From Letterman’s Liason(s)

“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 my recent op-ed.
Rush wanna-be’s are 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 hollers at me on-air, and announces 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 (linked above). 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.”

Talkers wall-to-wall @ NYNY…

HC with longtime amigo and long-ago client Ed Schultz, now nationally syndicated radio host and host of MSNBC’s “The Ed Show,” at Talkers magazine’s New Media Seminar in Noo Yawk.
Some FIVE HUNDRED assembled here, on, ironically, the day R&R published its final issue. And it’s a Who’s Who…everyone-over-two-feet-tall in Talk radio and Internet.
Big-deal-of-the-weekend: Rush Limbaugh’s appearance, accepting Talkers’ Freedom of Speech Award. Click on his mouth to watch the video:

Life AFTER Radio: Your Personal Plan B” was my session. Here, chopped-down-to YouTube’s 10-minute limit — thus, mercifully, minus LOTS of DJ quips — are “the Cliff Notes:”

Look for my notes in a meaty July HC newsletter.

This week, 42 million Americans will hear Internet radio.

That’s 17% of the 12+ USA population; up from 13% last year. 61% are 25-54.
From the recent Arbitron/Edison Research conference call introducing the 17th Arbitron/Edison Internet study: “The Infinite Dial 2009: Radio’s Digital Platforms AM/FM, Online, Satellite, HD Radio and Podcasting,” these headlines:
• “Americans’ consumption of [all] media is higher than it’s every been.”
• 85% of Americans have Internet access; 82% of USA homes have broadband.
• 69 million Americans (1-in-4) listened to online radio in the last month. A year ago it was 17%, 42 million.
• Key growth demo is 35-54; 61% are 25-54; they’re “upscale, well-educated, and employed.”
• “Variety” and “control” are top reasons for listening to online radio (“audio you cannot get elsewhere”).
• Most learn about online radio from AM/FM radio (32%); 28% hear about it from friend or family member.
• “Online radio is the soundtrack to e-commerce.” 47% listen while researching products/services; 33% while shopping online.
• 1-in-3 wants online radio in-car.
• 42% own a portable MP3 player (1/3 a year ago), “growth in every demo except 65+.”
• Online radio listeners more likely to have purchased digital audio online.

NAB2009, Las Vegas.

I attended/spoke-at/covered the National Association of Broadcasters convention. Read my notes in the next Talkers magazine, and in my May newsletter. Radio-and-the-Internet: As usual, the best ideas seem to sprout in the smaller markets. Hear a couple, from “The Small Market Idea Swap,” in my interview in NAB’s podcast from the convention floor:

If you’re a first-timer Vegas funster there now, you’re probably just giddy.
But to-the-trained-eye, it’s quiet…at times sadly so.
Last time I was there was for the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
Since then, several major construction projects seem to remain halted.
Cranes over half-built palaces sit idle.

Debt-fueled zeal collides with rececession.
‘Sound familiar?

Now HERE’S a-blast-from-the-past!

From before I “went blonde” (and was I ever really THAT thin?)
Recently-unearthed footage shot in the WTOP/Washington newsroom November 3, 1986. Step-into the time warp…

Beyond the antiques, and some DEAR-departed folks it was my privilege to manage, here’s what’s REALLY wistful about what-you-see: Unlike most-of-radio-today, we were actually able to DO local radio, unfettered by the crippling debt that prevents Clear Channel, Citadel, et al from the kind of meaningful local content creation you see as WTOP business-as-usual in this video.

Today, few industries exemplify what’s-wrong-with-the-economy better than radio. Talk about “toxic” mortgages!

And here’s the happy ending: WTOP’s current owner, Bonneville, might be the least-insane owner in radio. As busy as that 1986 operation looks today, 2009 WTOP is an even bigger, more-bustling operation. SOMETHING in radio is actually improving.

Happy 40th-anniversary-as-an-all-news-station!