The Federal Communications Commission has rejected the proposal, but we still think it’s an intriguing idea. Let AM radio stations across the United States boost their signal power by a factor of ten. We found this on the Ars Technica blog.

“The time to get the static out of AM radio is past due,” wrote Richard F. Arsenault of New Jersey to the Commission in April. “We have watched the AM service degrade due to the increase in interference for too long. We must return AM radio service to comparable and usable coverage levels of the past.”

So over two decades the number of AM stations has dropped by more than 200, while the number of FM signals has almost doubled.

AM radio is still a viable format. It’s cheap to produce, and low-tech; click on the Flavoradio image above to see our story on these Radio Shack gems, collected by Phil MacArthur.

We need that redundancy in our telecom systems. We can’t have all our emergency systems dependent on the web, even though many AM stations now broadcast over the web. In emergencies and power outages, AM is the perfect alternative. Furthermore, it makes no sense to clog up valuable bandwidth with local radio, which is much more cheaply sent over the air.

Mind you, it’s not so important that THIS idea for AM get pushed through. It’s merely that AM is a useful format, not only in times of emergency, and we need different types of media systems to keep some sort of freedom in our system.

Our local AM radio stations are some of the most potent regional brand names around. While diminished from the 1970s, when they had large news teams, they still command enormous respect and audience, and form a critical part of local communities. The FCC needs to protect that. And radio companies such as CBS and Clear Channel need to continue to make a case to the FCC that the format is valid.

GE purchased NBC’s parent company RCA in 1986; it actually reacquired it, as it was once the same company. GE quickly dismantled the company. RCA’s consumer television business, which had competed with GE, was sold to Thomson. GE sold Hertz to United Airlines, forming the weird brand name Allegis. The RCA Broadcast Equipment Division, a pioneer in cameras and transmitters, also disappeared (note to TV stations; please save some of that old analog equipment for posterity.) RCA made equipment that broadcast from the moon. Thankfully, RCA’s research facilities survived; they are part of the SRI Corporation, called appropriately Sarnoff Corp. Weirdly, NBC invested in things like ShopNBC, which were cheap brand extensions that did nothing to help build audience for the TV network.

NBC’s parent GE sold the NBC radio network to Westwood One for $50 million back in 1987. Looking back on it, at least from GE’s perspective, it might have seemed to be a good move. That was a lot of money back then. NBC Radio was a number of things then, including a network of O&O stations, sports programming and TalkNet. Then, radio advertising was on the upswing, after a long downspin. But WNBC deejay Ted Brown at the time had it right. Brown said, “You wonder who were the minds that put this all together.”

In the Youtube clip above, WNBC host Alan Colmes said at the time, “It is also very sad that this radio empire is being dismantled. This is Radio City.”

But it didn’t work out well; Westwood One has run NBC poorly, and the most exciting thing they provide is First Light. They just didn’t know how to take advantage of the brand, and just sort of repackage television bits for radio, which is a big bore. And frankly, they were at a disadvantage, as NBC disconnected to its television brand makes it less interesting. Note to branding folk (and this applies across industries). It is inauthentic to lease out your core competency to another company.

Comcast, lest I sound too much like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl, would do well to think about re-uniting the two brands, and re-purchasing NBC Radio. After all, while it’s nice to watch NBC while at home, Americans spend HOURS a day in their cars, and I can’t think of anything more useful than a radio network called NBC. Comcast would do well to also consider buying all of Westwood One; it has been struggling, and one of the most useful things that Comcast could provide for the various radio networks is capital and audience.

What would a revived NBC Radio Network look like? I am not sure exactly, but I think it would have the following elements. I talked about some of these last year, in a piece called Solutions to Westwood One’s Ailments. The basic idea is that airtime in a radio network is cheap, and you can do all sorts of things with programming when the airtime costs little to nothing, and production costs are low too.

Why the merger would help Comcast:

• It would make even more use of the on air news talent of NBC News, CNBC and The Weather Channel. Not only for new magazine-type shows, but longer form interviews that could be played in full.
• Revitalizing network radio would help allay anti-trust concerns, especially if Comcast had a policy to discourage O&O stations.
• Vivendi could realize promotional benefits out of the transaction for its media properties, music publishing and artist development.
• It would use NBC Radio as a vehicle to give airtime to NBC/Universal actors that are still under contract, or to new talent.
• It would revitalize old radio shows, not as vehicles for new radio shows, but more as multimedia entertainment intellectual property platforms, much as Marvel does with its characters.
• It would create thousands of listenable podcasts for posterity.
• It would allow Comcast to get into the growing field of 3G Radio. (As you know, television can’t be used in the car.) AT&T and Verizon own the cellular field; this could help Comcast win a place in the iPhone cellphone application wars.
• It would allow Comcast to do something more interesting for audio programming than Music Choice, which has a cheesy, commodity approach. (Horsham, Penn.-based Music Choice is a partnership of Microsoft Corporation, Motorola, Inc., Sony Corporation of America, EMI Music and cable providers Adelphia Cable Communications, Comcast Cable Communications, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable.)
• It could do all sorts experiments in free-form programming. Monitor was quite beloved, and launched many careers. Is there a new audience for Monitor? Also, the new idea of user radio is developing; attaching a brand like NBC could make it take off.
• It would use NBC Radio as a place to test ideas for programming, writing and shows. Off hours radio is a great place to develop skits, music and the like. If it works on radio, you can see how it can draw in other mediums.
• It would promote the theme parks. Universal, if it keeps the theme parks, could house studios for NBC Radio.
• It could offer the feed free to local radio stations; this would promote Comcast’s offerings on cable.
• It could offer exposure to productions renting out Universal Studios.
• It would be a place for retired network talent to re-invent themselves as free agents. Yesterday, I saw Karen Grassle of Little House on the Prairie doing an ad for Premier Bathrooms. That at the same time that she could be better used promoting the sale of boxed sets of her Little House reruns that are owned by NBC. What other NBC stars could find a home on air with NBC Radio? And then there are many on-air talents around the nation formerly associated with local radio stations, some affiliated with NBC, some not.

NORFOLK - Radio stations are one of the more important regional brands that define a community. In a geographic region, and through the years, a radio station’s call letters become associated with a set of numbers, namely the station’s frequency. (A great discussion of the history of the Federal Communiations Commission and North American call signs is on Wikipedia.)

With radio, brand recognition comes from habit combined with the factors of frequency, band (AM, FM, LW, SW), formatting and call letters. Over and over again, a person turns on a radio, and tunes into a certain band and frequency. That frequency is connected in the listener’s memory to a certain set of entertainment, music, news, memories and ideas. That package is in turn connected to a slogan or format (Radio Free Europe, Today’s Hits, Bob FM, Hot Hits 103). So that’s why it is dangerous for a radio station to change its call letters, particularly if the station is a historic station. You lose the link.

If a radio station has call letters that are new, insipid or meaningless, then changing them to something better doesn’t hurt. And if a company has a big budget to advertise the change on television, companies can do it. But more often than not, a radio stations easily change their format and slogan but do not change the call letters. The reason? Call letters are not used as much in identifying radio stations anyway, and only on the hour, when stations traditionally identify themselves.

More often than not, radio stations make mistakes in picking new call letters. In addition, they make a mistake by the current practice of de-emphasizing them, as the call letters give a station its official status and link to generations of listeners.

One major call letter mistake was WNBC, which had a long tradition at 660 AM in New York. When that station switched to an all-sports format, they wanted the call letters WFAN. I get the idea; but even still, a vital link to the past was lost. In Virginia, owners changed the call letters of WGH AM 1310 before they changed them back. This was a particularly silly error as not only was WGH well known in the community, but three-letter call signs are rare in radio, and coveted.

The recent trend of de-emphasizing call letters in favor of station nicknames is not smart. Why? Because while formats and station nicknames change, the call letters often stay the same. Listeners and advertisers understand that formats change, but call letters do not.

The situation is particularly annoying when the station has a VERY long history, and associations have been made in famous historic photographs that are in the public mind. We noticed it recently when we encountered an old photo referencing WNOR.

In Norfolk, Virginia the radio station WNOR is one of the older sets of call letters. For decades, the station broadcast at 1230 AM, and later added an FM station, also called WNOR. The geographic connection was obvious. But today, the AM station broadcasts a popular standards format at WJOI. The stations are owned by Saga Communications of Grosse Point Farms, Michigan. Thankfully, the company has kept WNOR as the FM station; FM99 is a well-known rock formatted FM there.

In the case of WNOR AM, the station’s legacy even goes to associations with John F. Kennedy; there is a famous photograph of him speaking in Norfolk during the presidential campaign of 1960. So it makes little sense to me that a popular standards station, no matter how well run, is better served with the call letters WJOI than WNOR. A station catering to oldsters ought to have an oldster name. WJOI would do well to take the approach of WABC AM 770 in New York, which has kept its call letters through changes in format, and runs an oldies music show on Saturday nights that shows off the old format of the station. (Weekends are a dead time for radio, so the effort helps brand the station while not cutting into any revenue. Read our post The Genius of WABC.)

Of course, in light of the tanking of the radio industry (Saga’s stock is way down), pointing out little marketing problems like call letter switches seems miniscule compared with larger industry problems. But to me, they are but a symptom of the whole industry’s problem, which is that they are  no longer connected to their geography and local markets. In the case of Saga, they seem to run a better radio station than most. But still, it was not the right decision, and thankfully, the FCC lets stations reverse if needed.

In the Norfolk market, I have one other bone to pick. Sinclair Communications’ WTAR, another legacy station, is no longer at 790 AM; it is at 850 AM. For most of history, 850 AM was the soul radio station WRAP. It is now WTAR. The rationale for this was explained to me once by a station manager, but I never really got it. These two stations provide good news talk programming; it would be so much more sensible if they got the call letters straight.

So Circuit City is gone, and it’s Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and Radio Shack (NYSE: RSH). How opportune for Radio Shack, whose stock seems to be in miracle zone, namely above $10 a share.

In August 2007, we wrote on BrandlandUSA some of our ideas for improving Radio Shack. They included bringing back some of its store brands like Archer, concentrating on the male electronics enthusiast and offering education for everyone in how to use new electronics, much as Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) offer Saturday “How to install tile” classes led by sales associates. The idea was to find out the sorts of things that spurred small sales and neighborhood store traffic, and differentiate Radio Shack from the big boxes.

There was one other aspect of the brand that was also being ignored that we mentioned. Namely, Radio Shack’s status as a place where the electronics enthusiast could not only buy parts and pieces, but average folk could go in with their questions about AC/DC adapters, and not only get an answer, but plunk down $5 for a part that might cost them $1. The stores would go from being over-merchandised and designed, to a solution-oriented place with lots of plastic-baggie parts and batteries hanging on pegboards, essentially how the store was merchandised (or un-merchandised) in the the era when the company was Tandy.

We got a new comment today on another Radio Shack article from a fellow named Will. I thought it showed perfectly not only the opportunity for Radio Shack, but that they still have a ways to go:

Will: There was a time not so long ago when I spent over $1,200 in a year at Radio Shack and most components were under $2. I do not go there at all now.

This business model was confirmed by no less than Martha Stewart of (NYSE: MSO), though not mentioning Radio Shack by name. I wish I could remember where I read the story, but it bears repeating and is a good example nonetheless. Apparently after hearing Sony (NYSE: SNE) CEO Howard Stringer speak, Martha Stewart raised her hand, with a big tangle of power cords and converters for all of her personal electronics, and said “What can you do about THIS?!” Well, “This” is still around, and Radio Shack can help consumers sort the proverbial cords out. Interestingly, one of the busiest retail stores I have seen lately was a Florida franchisee of Batteries Plus, based in Hartland, Wisconsin.

A look at Radio Shack’s website www.radioshack.com mentions all of these points, including that they sell 200,000 items and are the perfect place to buy HDTV adapters. Radio Shack has also moved in the direction of the enthusiast with an Invention Lab where customers win a prize for the most interesting gadget made from all the funky parts found at Radio Shack. And they now offer an online Learning Center where consumers can register for online classes and learn how to set up home wireless networks. This is good, but I don’t see evidence of it at stores, which have many square feet of floor space, floor space that could be occasionally occupied by folding chairs for PDA classes and an increased number of racks full of new SKUs.

Radio Shack can still differentiate through product innovation. In the 1970s, its candy colored Flavoradio was almost certainly the inspiration for the original multicolor versions of the iMac. One of my personal favorite products (and one that was in every household with a boat) was the Deskube Weatheradio, a little wood-grained box with piano-key on/off and an antenna on top; it received National Weather Service forecasts. These items were designed by Radio Shack, and were essentially low-tech items. But they were useful, and consumers loved them.

We all know what Best Buy and Wal-Mart are going to do with the closing of Circuit City; sell lots more electronics. But with HD radio and television conversion on the immediate horizon, and radio stations struggling, Radio Shack could have a golden moment. Actual radio station groups including Clear Channel (NYSE: CCO) and CBS (NYSE: CBS), themselves slightly struggling, could partner with Radio Shack to push HD radio. In a time when consumers are cutting back, spending a few bucks for a converter for radios and TVs can free consumers from cable bills.

Radio Shack has one other advantage that it can exploit, even if times get REALLY tough. It can sell stores to managers; many Radio Shack stores are already franchises, some located within other stores.

So there is the opportunity. Radio Shack will just have to seize it in order to get Will, and his $1,200, back.

CLYDEBANK – O.K., so there’s Fox, Coke, Ford, Ritz, Pledge, Simply Orange, Herbal Essence and the Kodak Theater. But what other brand was on the first outing of this season’s American Idol?

It is Radio Clyde 261.

Randy Jackson was wearing a Radio Clyde 261 T-shirt through the first Phoenix auditions. Not sure where he got the shirt, but it’s destined to sell at shops, even though the Glasgow, Scotland station is gone. The station is now Radio Clyde 1, but the 261 image lingers in the public mind, both in Scotland and among rock and radio station junkies.

Click here for an old set of jingles.

The lesson?

This is advice for ANYONE with a legacy radio station that is over 20 years old. Does your radio station have a long succession of logos? Sift through them, and put them in order. Put them on T-shirts. Put them in advertising. Have retro weekends. Bring back favorite disk jockeys for weekend shows. Claim your heritage, play old airchecks for fun, and give out lots of T-shirts. You never know who will want to wear your logo on American Idol.

A bit of history on the station from Aircheck UK:

An old timer in the commercial radio system, and one of the first, having commenced it’s broadcasts to Glasgow & surrounding areas of West Central Scotland on 95.1FM & 1152AM, 31st December 1973 at 10:30am.  It was founded by Lord Gordon of Strathblane and started with capital of just £150,000 from backers such as Jackie Stewart & Sean Connery.

Who would have thought that Westwood One (NYSE: WON) would be in penny stock range, and near de-listing? It’s a shame, as it was once a terribly innovative company; in 2005 its stock was at around $25. It still commands star power. Above, a Paris Hilton interview with Westwood One at the MTV Video Music Awards, which Westwood airs on radio. Note the blue Westwood One brand information on the microphone. Good logo, eh?

Westwood One was formed in 1976 by Norm Pattiz, who created a syndicated Motown radio show. The show took off, and he began syndicating other shows, including Dr. Demento. The network grew, and eventually took over operations for CBS Radio, NBC Radio as well as created dozens of syndicated radio programs. Best known? Its Westwood One rock concerts, which for years were a staple on AOR radio stations. It now syndicates Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller, among others.

At BrandlandUSA, we present some advice for Rod Sherwood, the network’s fourth president, who has recently taken over. Sherwood arrives at a hard time for Westwood, as a number of folks have tried to revive Westwood, and failed. For instance, Peter Kosann tried to revive the company in 2006 with big talent (Adam Corolla, Jim Cramer) and staff cuts. Nice try, but companies in duress should not be adding high-priced talent and cutting bench strength. Instead, they need to think like entrepreneurs and find new and sustainable low-cost programming sources. (Think Scholastic and Harry Potter.)

Westwood needs some hits. But a hit doesn’t come when you are trying for a hit. A hit comes when the stars align, and the only way to align stars is to survey the ENTIRE sky, night after night.

The good news is that when companies fall to pieces, opportunities open up. Staff and management are willing to try new things. It is time again for network radio to be reinvented, and Westwood is in a unique position to make these innovations happen. There is a lot of share value to be unlocked, if the problems can be solved.

What to do?

1. Carve a different identity for each of its radio networks. Each network should have a different identity. NBC Radio should have a consistent group of programs, as should CBS Radio, CNN Radio and Mutual Radio, which needs to be brought back. For instance, CBS might concentrate on radio news and the CBS legacy in international reporting. NBC might concentrate on comedy programs. Mutual (see item number four) might build on talk. With all of the programming from Westwood that is available, begin to organize programs according to network. Right now, the network radio idea is largely dead, and shows all exist as “networks” all their own.
2. Network associations could help smaller stations. There are large numbers of stations without a major affiliation, or stations that are affiliated with lots of different radio networks. With a main association with one top radio brands like CBS, NBC or Mutual, local radio stations could again reinvent themselves as affiliates. This could get confusing, because “CBS Radio” is actually CBS’ powerful collection of owned and operated stations. But if somehow these brands could also be tied to affiliates, the history and legacy of icons like NBC, CBS and Mutual could bring revenue to Westwood and local stations.
3. Concentrate on weekends first. In the search to find new sources of programming, look to weekends. Local radio stations have little time for experimentation, except in the evening. AM stations are often cluttered with infomercials on the weekend and evenings, which does listeners a disservice, and only provides marginal revenue. In addition, these infomercials kill the “brand” and credibility of the stations on which they air. If you could come up with a program schedule for each of the networks over the weekend, you would do much to build up each of the networks’ identity. Not only could you carve out an audience at an off time, the smaller audiences on the weekend would be a great place to try out new talent.
4. Restart Mutual Radio. Mutual Radio was not only a network, but it was a philosophy and idea of radio programming. While we think the brand still has value, as it still shows up in thousands of historical photographs, what is still viable about Mutual is the way it operated. That is what needs to be revived. Mutual was a network that grew out of its affiliates. The idea was that the affiliates got together, and shared programming. If one station was airing a program that might have a national market, Mutual would pick it up, and try it out. Today, this idea has even MORE viability with podcasting and the Internet. There is a lot of good content out there, and if a new network could sort through it and give it visibility, there might be some surprises.
5. Be inspired by Lou Dorfsman. The graphic designer Lou Dorfsman just died at age 90. He was the man who truly raised the bar with CBS’ graphic identity. Go back and look at some of his work that related to the CBS Radio Network, and get some inspiration. For instance, CBS was a master at promoting special events on radio, which is a specialty of Westwood One. It’s all about class, and high standards. Learn from Lou.
6. Stop regurgitating television. Much of what Westwood One distributes is reconverted television programming. It’s fine and well to circulate items from The Tonight Show and MTV, but if you are just doing that, you aren’t taking advantage of the medium, which demands its own approach.
7. Don’t overuse the call in format. Much of networked radio relies upon call in radio. The format saved AM, and it will be around forever. But it gets used too often, and a contrarian approach for Westwood might be to come up with new radio programs that are not call ins.
8. Have a consistent schedule. All the stations in the network need to take programming at the same time, leaving spots for local programming at regular spots. America is a mobile nation, and if shows are on at the same time across the country, live, they stand a better chance of being remembered as people travel.
9. Build on the Classics: The jewel of CBS radio is the World News Roundup , circa 1938, as well as other CBS news programming. These shows have continuity, and they date from the era of Edward R. Murrow and William Shirer. This history needs to be promoted to advertisers; World News Roundup could even be something that is used in schools, like Weekly Reader. These smart, concise shows could have the authority and oomph of NPR’s programming, and create buzz and excitement if people actually knew they were around and where to find them. But listeners need to be reminded of their history. NBC, while it no longer has long-running radio programs, does have a legacy. Monitor, the weekend radio program, is well remembered, and Jim Bohannon has kept the NBC Radio banner alive.
10. Search L.A. and NYC talent agents for one-hour music concepts. National Public Radio and Public Radio International, of course, enjoy a special tax advantaged place. Nevertheless, they have been innovators in radio programming, with programs like Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. There are many musicians like Marian McPartland who might be able to create their own shows. Take a slightly out of fashion musician, offer them a radio special, and sell it to a sponsor. Music and conversation seem to do best on radio. And music shows have an infinite life AFTER broadcast.
11. Cut out the nasty stuff. Loveline has run its course, and so has MTV. Clean up the act, and audiences will follow. Of course, you can put stuff like that on the radio, and people will listen, but it is not a recipe to build a company. Advertisers want to be associated with clean content.
12. Try some advertiser sponsored programming. What if you could go back to the future and produce advertising-sponsored shows around consumer products? That’s one way for advertisers to cut through the ad clutter. Plus, any program that is aired on radio, and then put into iPod, is a permanent and eternal ad for that product. Think King Biscuit Flower Hour, but sell the sponsorship to real consumer products companies. Radio is cheap to produce, and with the iPod, has a great market. Movie companies, electronic companies and record labels would be ideal sponsors.
13. Don’t do too much demographic overkill. The successful radio franchises like Rush have listeners across all demographics. While each show has its core audiences, look for programming that can attract different kinds of audiences.
14. Think how to, home improvment and self-help. The how to, advice and personal growth industry is massive. There could be many possibilities with shows relating to electronics, religion, business management, etc.
15. Don’t push too hard on iPods. Now, we aren’t saying that Westwood should ignore the Internet, and we just recommended the use of iPods.  But Westwood should remember that their stations are in the business of selling network broadcast radio time. Any podcasting of a radio show too soon after broadcast makes it less likely that someone will tune into the live program. Westwood needs to really get behind HD radio. All radio stations need to get behind it, actually.

Below, a Katie Couric visit with Harley Carnes to CBS News Radio in 2006. It’s a great window into the CBS Radio News of today. In the video, they talk about being in Cronkite’s studio, and the history of World News Roundup. It is a minor miracle that this great American institution, CBS Radio News, is still around, thanks to CBS management.

Not only does it provide exposure for old brands, it helps give the aging “legacy” brand a new chance at relevance. Sometimes, the old uses for brands disappear. Witness McCall’s, which disappeared as a magazine when it was renamed Rosie. But McCall’s dress patterns are still around.

We have some ideas of our own for brand extensions. We hope readers will add their ideas to the end of this story. While we’ve had some fun with this, there is a serious point. Your company’s intellectual property might be more valuable than  you thought.

Extreme Makeover From Sears. Even though we are very annoyed at the extravagance of the houses that are given to poor folk on Extreme Makeover, the show is fascinating. Because Sears is a partner with the show, why not take it in the other direction? How about Sears selling Extreme Home Makeovers for the regular house. It could license some of these sorting and organizing folks, yard maintenance companies, appliance repair and 1-800 junk into a one time package where they come for $1,000 bucks and clean up the yard, deep clean the house, reorganize the furniture and clean out the closets to give to the Salvation Army. What a great cause. Each “package” could also include a new set of Sears towels for the bathrooms, and a few new things elsewhere. There would be two audiences for this. First would be the foreclosure house industry, which has the obvious need for quick fix its. And second would be the anniversary. How about giving a Sears Extreme Makeover for your wife for an anniversary present? And then when the place is cleaned up, it will leave a spot for new appliances, curtains, sheets, towels and the like from Sears.

Sprite Tree: I have a tree in our yard in Sarasota that grows lemons and limes. It is called a fruit medley tree, and it is WAY cool. I think everyone in Florida, Texas and California should have one. Not only are they fun, but they make great cocktail hour conversation. However, fruit medley is a stinky name. How about a Sprite lymon tree? We thought that was an invention of Coca-Cola advertising, but it could be real.

Oldsmobile Switcheroo Kit: I am eternally frustrated that I cannot buy an Oldsmobile that is new. This is especially frustrating because the Saturn line from General Motors has an Oldsmobile feel. Indeed GM is trying to reposition Saturn to the Oldsmobile crowd. So, why doesn’t GM sell a quickie Olds conversion kit that can be done in the dealership. The front badge and side letter of the Saturn Aura could instantly change into an Oldsmobile Delta 88 or Oldsmobile Cutlass. GM would say that this is meaningless, that customers would not be fooled. I would argue the opposite. For years, General Motors did this sort of thing in the factory, and everyone across the nation knew of the similarities between GM’s divisions. It’s called badge engineering, and it is the second oldest trick in the automotive book, just after the assembly line.

Zenith Repair Service. This is the guy that you call after the Verizon or Comcast guy comes, and after you have bought a new Blu-Ray system. He will rewire the house, to make sure plugs are in the right place. He will properly hang and connect Hi Def televisions. He will show you how it all works in person. He will come around in a nifty truck, and make it all better. Best Buy and Circuit City have started up their own services, but this Zenith Repair Service would be a franchise for independent fix it guys.

Columbia Music Player. Sony has had a hard time with the MP3, and FINALLY they are getting around to using the Walkman name as much as before. We saw a great display at the Sony Style store at Mall of Milllenia in Orlando. But the Sony company also has equity in the Columbia brand, which is not only a brand related to records and CDs and music, but to music in general, including musical equipment and technology. The Walking Eye is one of the greatest trademarks of all time. It is gold, and Sony needs to use it. The use of Columbia by Sony does not diminish Sony; instead Columbia should appear as a sub-brand.

EIB Radio News: We listen to el Rushbo. And while Rush Limbaugh is young still, he cannot be replaced. We believe he will be remembered like Will Rogers. But that is not enough. His legacy needs to survive. How to do this? The EIB Radio News Network. Rush already has show producers who collect sound bytes, gather facts and help Rush with his show. Rush needs to take the next step, and set up a niche news operation. Your first thought is that why do this? There is already Fox News. Agreed, but it would be VERY powerful to have a set of EIB correspondents in Congress, the White House, UN and Wall Street. It should not be a big operation, but it can carve out a niche that will survive long after Rush is gone. What would be more fun than to have EIB folks asking the questions at press conferences?

Reader ideas?

One of the better known sellers is the Old Time Radio Catalog. BrandlandUSA caught up with Jon Folk, owner of Old Time Radio Catalog, who has made a business of old broadcasts of radio shows from radio’s golden age, from the 1920s to 1959.

The Lanexa, Kansas-based catalog has dozens of radio programs, as well as collections of radio speeches, including some from President Clinton. Most fascinating to BrandlandUSA are the brand names that are still represented in the collections:

• Tales of Fatima, with Basil Rathbone, sponsored by Fatima cigarettes
• Texaco Star Theater
• Ford Theater
• General Motors on Safari
• Lux Radio
• Redbook Dramas
• Skippy Hollywood Theater (apparently it made Skippy popular nationally)
• Carling Beer Shows and Challenge Into Space
• Old Gold Comedy
• Quaker Party, which started on WCAE and was sponsored by Quaker Oats
• Alka Seltzer Time
• Bell Telephone Hour
• Philco Summer Hour
• Philip Morris Playhouse
• Raleigh Kool Program

OTRCAT has posted thousands of radio episodes online. Visitors to OTRCAT.com can stream or download full episodes in Mp3 format as well as read detailed descriptions of the performers and series, which date from the 1920s to 1959.  In the ‘daily downloads’, there are the broadcasts of the day throughout history. Quick questions:

How did it start? I started the website as a trading website, and it has grown. Collectors wanted copies, and I then began converting them to mp3 files.

When did you start? I started the business a little more than 10 years ago. At the time, old time radio collecting was an expensive hobby and many of the shows were being stored on audio cassettes, reel-to-reels, and other audio devices that made collecting and sharing difficult.

What are best sellers? Right now, the best selling radio shows are all the horror shows.  I think that they are the most timeless and translate well to our time. Radio was the ideal medium for the horror genre because it uses the theater of the mind to create thrills and chills.

For more info, see www.otrcat.com

Imagine your city without a daily paper. Newspaper publishers, editors, managers and owners are worrying, not only about having to lay off staff, but who will cover the community in a meaningful way.

In Economics 101, it’s the classic “free rider” problem. Who will attend planning meetings and the statehouse? Who will investigate police and crime? Will news only get covered when there is an outburst, and it somehow gets posted by some unwashed blogger? Let’s call it the era of “Don’t Taze Me Bro” journalism.

But it does not have to be that way. There is a role for your the local paper, because in some cases, these local franchises have been the leading local brands in their markets.

That being said, there is a problem for newspapers. The incredible 30 percent margins, unbelievable power and unassailable position of your regional paper in past years have all made it hard for you to know what to do, and unable to act like the underdog. So far, your paper has redesigned pages, shortened articles, cut staff, eliminated bureaus, reduced paper size and redesigned your website now about, oh, 10 times. What the industry has done is put the newspaper in a severely reduced competitive position at a time when you need your scale and power more than ever.

Newspapers are the point where radio was after the advent of television. For years after television arrived, radio networks ran Hoover-era schedules of soap operas, dramas and westerns, even as television encroached on its audience. Radio’s audience declined. But one day, clever station managers realized that if radio was to survive, new leadership would have to remake it completely. Somewhere in the 1950s, the proper mix of news, d.j.s, traffic, weather, music and talk radio was invented, and the great radio stations survived. Rock music arrived. FM took off. And radio’s KDKA, WABC, KYW and the like thrived again.

The Greatest Regional Brands

Like the great radio stations, newspapers are important regional brands that need not go the way of the regional department store. The regional newspaper brand names mean something to the community. They evoke a region like no other. Use that legacy.

The Hartford-Courant. The Virginian-Pilot. The Richmond Times-Dispatch. The Los Angeles Times. Louisville Courier-Journal. Newark Star-Ledger. The Baltimore Sun. The Miami Herald. The New York Post.

These franchises have legs, and the public trusts them, even though they curse the editorials. Use that legacy and history. People like the idea of reading a newspaper. Do not let your brand go the way of the regional department store. Unless you act, The New York Times will do to regional daily papers what Macy’s did to Burdine’s, Marshall Field and the rest.

Pronounced Dead Many Times

The newspaper has been pronounced dead many times, as have other media. A timeline:

• 1910: Recorded music will kill the orchestra.
• 1930: Radio will kill the newspaper, and the music industry.
• 1950: Television will kill the newspaper, and movies.
• 1982: Cable will kill the newspaper and the network news.
• 1995: The Internet will kill the newspaper and the music industry.
• 2002: The Internet will save the newspaper and kill the movie industry.
• 2009: Kindle kills the newspaper, and bloggers instead scoop the greatest story of all time, the Second Coming!

Let’s get serious. Newspapers can reinvent their century old brands.

What to do?

First, believe that there are solutions. The important point is not to give the pessimism an inch. Instead, realize that there is a changed environment, and you need to establish a process for coming up with, and implementing, ideas. New ideas. And you have to completely commit to killing sacred cows. Your staff might be smaller, and have to work differently. Radio killed off Dark Shadows. CBS took the risk of moving Edward R. Murrow from radio to television.

BrandlandUSA.com put together a FREE 10-page PDF report called 20 Ways to Re-Invent the Local Paper. A link is below and here 20 Ways to Save Your Newspaper. The sheet includes the following ideas, each with descriptions.

To start, we suggest that newspapers:

1. Change the percent of R.O.P. advertising vs. insert advertising
2. Greatly upgrade the status of carriers
3. Selectively use bureaus for promotional purposes
4. Make the newspaper unique, even at higher cost
5. Drop online partners that don’t help you
6. Force the web staff and print staff to compete
7. Cut back on zoned editions
8. Stress the local brand, not wire copy
9. Ditch ombudsmen
10. Move sports reporters to city desk
11. Go on old-style crusades
12. Emphasize news side balance
13. Re-hire retired staffers part-time
14. Make the design stodgy
15. Decrease photo size
16. Reorganize classifieds
17. Make weddings and obits free
18. Change minority recruiting practices
19. Don’t rest on old ad rates
20. Bring humor back into the paper

Want to find out more? Download a free PDF copy of the document here at BrandlandUSA’s 20 Ways to Save Your Newspaper.

Confused? WNEW FM was the landmark rock station of New York, and launched on October 31, 1967 as one of the first great stations of the radio format that became Album Oriented Rock, or AOR. (This BrandlandUSA writer grew up with K-94, the Skynyrd-playing Moyock, N.C. AOR station.) Over the last decade, WNEW FM has had an enormous amount of bad fortune and format switches, but the station was still beloved. The new site, which apparently connect with the Pandora-like website last.fm, is an attempt to bring all the good history of the station into one place on the internet. A great history of the demise of the station is in this CNN article.

This “unparalleled” archive of interviews and performances will be the base of the new station, which will still broadcast. It will broadcast at 102.7 HD2 in New York and online at wnew.com. (Apparently, CBS transferred the call letters WNEW to a radio station in Florida. This raises an interesting idea; that call letters of stations have enormous equity. Perhaps transferring the station letters was a smart move, as now the equity can be preserved.)

The new HD radio format promises a new era for radio, and gives hope to defunct radio stations that have great legacies. (See the BrandlandUSA post on WABC 77 Musicradio.) No longer will fans of a declining radio station have to suffer if their format changes. Instead, they will just have to buy an HD radio and listen to it online or on the HD. This also might be an option for WNEW’s AM legacy, which was built around popular standards (Rich Conaty — Thank goodness he, and The Big Broadast, still lives on WFUV.) It also might be an option for WOR, which had a number of great lives as an AM station in New York.

A bit from the press release:

The WNEW revival project is led by Norm Winer, CBS RADIO Vice President of Adult Rock Programming, and former program director of the landmark WXRT in Chicago. He said in a press release, “As a music fan and radio geek who grew up in Brooklyn listening to the original WNEW, I’m excited to help recapture the spirit and philosophy of progressive radio, using tools we never dreamed of back in the early days. With the foundation of a timeless and totally one-of-a-kind archive, we will provide rock devotees of all generations the chance to hear incredible moments from our collective past and enable them to connect the dots to rock’s most compelling artists of the present and future.”

Programming includes:

• Interview With an Icon: showcases classic extended on-air interviews with rock legends from WNEW-FM
• Live From the Archives: vintage performances from rock’s most prominent artists. In addition to the vaults of WNEW-FM, the station will have access to the recorded treasures of many of CBS RADIO’s prominent radio stations such as WBCN in Boston, and WXRT in Chicago
• Emerging and Amazing: the station will regularly debut music from rising artists and those whose names are not yet known to the listening audience.

Interested in New York radio history? Check out Pirate Jim’s history of New York radio.