Last fall, three Eastern Long Island, N.Y., stations briefly tried swapping out spots in favor of sponsorships. That idea had too much appeal not to come back and last week, heritage Modern Rocker WFNX Boston announced that it was trading spots for a 40-day sponsorship by Snapple. How does it sound?
Sean Ross talks to the Washington Times about rock-star DJs....
Handicapping each year's "song of the summer" has become a national pastime, not unlike the U.K.'s annual Christmas No. 1 derby. This year, Edison Media Research's Sean Ross weighs in early on possible summer song candidates, and the relatively healthy supply of uptempo feel-good product in most formats.
There has been a lot written lately about how hip-hop is losing its mass-appeal and pop is reasserting itself. But, not unlike Country radio a few years ago, Hip-Hop may be suffering most from fragmentation. Because no matter how hot a format is, there is rarely room for four of anything in a given market.
Any quick look at the surfeit of blogs commenting on radio reveals endless carping about HD Radio -- with no end of critics who are saying it will never work for any number of reasons. Radio needs positive ideas for creating content that will compel consumers to want to put an HD Radio in their car, home, or office. And of course, it has to create such content at little or no cost. Here is one strategy to marry HD Radio with the most powerful consumer brands to create a new vision for what HD can become.