Sheryl Crow was wrong.

The first cut isn

Somehow you just get the feeling that record industry executives who haven't been able to shoot straight for the last ten years are getting ready to reload and fire.

Duck.

They are set to go beyond the obvious cockamamie ideas, like Interscope/Geffen/A&M Chairman Jimmy Iovine

Yesterday, Randall Mays stepped down, fell down or was brought down from the in-over-his-head position as CFO of Clear Channel.

That

It happened again yesterday.

Emmis pulled another fan favorite off the air at KIHT, St. Louis to become more music intensive or, in non-coded language, to pander to Arbitron

I

If you want to know how Citadel CEO Farid "Fagreed" Suleman is going to avoid filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy January 15th when he can't pay $150 million in debt, here's the answer.

It appears the fix is on right now to emerge with a pre-packaged bankruptcy for Citadel.

That is, it happens fast.

Everything is predictable because it has been negotiated in advance and it's kind of like having the honeymoon before the wedding.

Without this maneuver, Citadel throws its fate into the hands of a bankruptcy judge who is likely to appoint caretakers to preside over Citadel while a plan is drawn up to emerge from&hellip

Prius, the part electric, part gas powered automobile, has been a successful model for Toyota in a changing world of high gasoline prices and concerns about the environment.

Other companies have responded to Toyota

The radio industry knows a lot about dealmaking.

Don

If Citadel is so close to bankruptcy, then why is CEO Farid Suleman continuing to fire employees?

Can Farid fire enough people to save the $150 million that is due to lenders in January

We tend to judge radio CEO

So what my Italian mother would have done -- and perhaps yours as well -- is to drag both parties by the ear and make them apologize to each other.

This is getting out of hand now between the record labels and the radio groups.

The labels have SoundExchange to ably lead their fight and radio has the NAB.

It's getting nasty.

This week, the labels had two major victories in their misguided attempt to get a radio station performance tax.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved its version of a performance royalty bill for terrestrial radio and, like the already approved House measure, it will require radio&hellip

Walt Disney Company has been the concept model for snagging the youth market for decades now.

Kids love Snow White. Mickey Mouse and Bambi.

They love to visit Disney World. Then buy Disney-branded products. Go back to a Disney theme park a second or third time. Watch Jungle Book and Wall-E. And watch Hanna Montana on Disney's cable channel. See High School Musical at the theater.

And on and on for generations.

What eventually happens is that the Disney kids grow up, have kids of their own and become big kids themselves -- all while continuing to consume Disney products.

Disney has been textbook about&hellip

To listen to the music industry, you'd think that unrestricted file sharing by consumers is killing them.

If so, I wonder if the major record labels can explain why Rosanne Cash just about gave away every cut in her new album "The List" and it wound up being number one -- in sales.

Time to get real with the worn out and ineffective music industry argument that they "wuz" robbed by file sharers.

Some six weeks ago, Rosanne Cash did what amounted to a 7-minute stint on NPR and sang one of the big tunes from her album "The List" entitled "Sea of Heartbreak", her duet with Bruce Springsteen.

Cash talked about it on&hellip

If you've been watching NBC Universal's 10 pm experiment in which it strips Jay Leno's imitation Tonight Show weeknights, then I'm sure you are seeing the similarities to what's happening in radio.

An excellent piece in The New York Times laid it all out a few days ago.

NBC wants to save money by eliminating the huge production costs of underwriting a new dramatic series (you know, the CSI-type) by going cheap.

An hour of Leno is chump change by TV production standards and yet the network is hopeful that a consistent 1.5&hellip

You've no doubt heard the rumors about Bonneville possibly buying one or more of Citadel's ABC stations to bolster its stable and steal them from a company that can't afford to pay the debt on the stations.

Whether that happens or not is hard to know as Citadel will be the first of the major consolidators to bite the big one come January if it cannot come up with a whopping $150 million debt payment.

Few on Wall Street think they will find the money -- of course, they could always sell some stations, but who could pay cash in this climate?

That brings me to Bonneville -- the best run radio group in the country and&hellip

In less than three months, we'll be ten years into the 21st century and I'm getting the feeling that the media business is at least ten years back into the 20th century.

So I thought I'd give a little pop quiz this morning to test our readiness for the next decade.

Here's the question for media industry execs: what will your biggest competitor be over the next decade?

The Internet?

Well, ten years ago the Internet was around but it wasn't so much of a factor that Viacom or Clear Channel had to worry about it. Remember when Clear Channel demoted its CEO, Randy Michaels and concocted an Internet job for a radio&hellip

While I was back in New Jersey I almost forgot how great it was to pull into a gas station and have an attendant pump the gas.

In fact, while I was at the Jersey shore, I saw t-shirts that said, "Jersey Girls Don't Pump Gas".

It got me to thinking how radio stations are becoming like gas stations in many ways.

The petroleum industry made a big deal out of how much money consumers could save by pumping their own gas and yet in the state of New Jersey, where law prohibits individuals from pumping their own -- prices have been among the lowest in the entire United States (see chart

While I was back in New Jersey I almost forgot how great it was to pull into a gas station and have an attendant pump the gas.

In fact, while I was at the Jersey shore, I saw t-shirts that said, "Jersey Girls Don't Pump Gas".

It got me to thinking how radio stations are becoming like gas stations in many ways.

The petroleum industry made a big deal out of how much money consumers could save by pumping their own gas and yet in the state of New Jersey, where law prohibits individuals from pumping their own -- prices have been among the lowest in the entire United States (see chart

Radio broadcasters are caught in a changing world that is increasingly turning to on-demand media.

Few among us do not rely on cell phones, smart phones, laptops and online communication to get us through the day.

What started out as an evolution from traditional media to new mobile content driven by the next generation has become a revolution that broadcasters must come to understand.

To put it bluntly, consumers find themselves needing less broadcasting -- that is, distributing content from one tower to many consumers 24 hours a day seven days a week.

When radio was invented, the technology dictated that the&hellip

Radio broadcasters are caught in a changing world that is increasingly turning to on-demand media.

Few among us do not rely on cell phones, smart phones, laptops and online communication to get us through the day.

What started out as an evolution from traditional media to new mobile content driven by the next generation has become a revolution that broadcasters must come to understand.

To put it bluntly, consumers find themselves needing less broadcasting -- that is, distributing content from one tower to many consumers 24 hours a day seven days a week.

When radio was invented, the technology dictated that the&hellip

I have been fascinated to watch the dust up over comments made by Edison Research's Larry Rosin at the NAB Radio Show in which folks -- especially the trade press -- seem to think he's calling for new blood at the expense of old blood.

Rosin told Tom Taylor,

I have been fascinated to watch the dust up over comments made by Edison Research's Larry Rosin at the NAB Radio Show in which folks -- especially the trade press -- seem to think he's calling for new blood at the expense of old blood.

Rosin told Tom Taylor,

Another local radio legend has died -- Jim Nettleton, who acquired the name "Diamond" Jim during his days in Philadelphia, succumbed to lung cancer three weeks after being diagnosed.

Nettleton was a gentleman -- a great guy -- who I came to know when I was in college. By luck, I wound up at WFIL in Philadelphia before consultant Mike Joseph came in and introduced what he called "The Pop Explosion".

Joseph was an interesting guy -- secretive, thorough and he had an ear for hiring future young talent. The stable of nobodies who became somebodies included Chuck Browning, Jay Cook, Nettleton, George Michael, Dave Parks and&hellip

Another local radio legend has died -- Jim Nettleton, who acquired the name "Diamond" Jim during his days in Philadelphia, succumbed to lung cancer three weeks after being diagnosed.

Nettleton was a gentleman -- a great guy -- who I came to know when I was in college. By luck, I wound up at WFIL in Philadelphia before consultant Mike Joseph came in and introduced what he called "The Pop Explosion".

Joseph was an interesting guy -- secretive, thorough and he had an ear for hiring future young talent. The stable of nobodies who became somebodies included Chuck Browning, Jay Cook, Nettleton, George Michael, Dave Parks and&hellip

Don't look now but the big media grab is underway.

Wall Street banks are getting ready to trade debt for equity as several of the big consolidators find themselves unable to make their loan payments.

The Wall Street Journal says lenders are running into federal media-ownership rules as they find themselves the unexpected owners of bankrupt media companies.

In radio, Citadel is proposing to senior lenders whom they owe $2 billion that J.P. Morgan Chase, GE Capital and ING take ownership instead of the debt payment Citadel cannot make.

I hear the talks are ongoing but I don't see too many other options available&hellip

Don't look now but the big media grab is underway.

Wall Street banks are getting ready to trade debt for equity as several of the big consolidators find themselves unable to make their loan payments.

The Wall Street Journal says lenders are running into federal media-ownership rules as they find themselves the unexpected owners of bankrupt media companies.

In radio, Citadel is proposing to senior lenders whom they owe $2 billion that J.P. Morgan Chase, GE Capital and ING take ownership instead of the debt payment Citadel cannot make.

I hear the talks are ongoing but I don't see too many other options available&hellip

What would you think of a radio CEO who called a meeting of his or her employees to float this idea?

What if everyone took a pay cut to keep everyone else working?

No layoffs (the consolidation term for firing).

Stay with me here -- I know this sounds like sheer fantasy but I have a surprise for you.

The CEO acknowledges the importance of the traffic directors, secretaries, program directors, managers, sales executives and sales people -- stating that the company would just not operate right without everyone working at their jobs.

Bet you think this couldn't happen in radio, an industry troubled by a&hellip

What would you think of a radio CEO who called a meeting of his or her employees to float this idea?

What if everyone took a pay cut to keep everyone else working?

No layoffs (the consolidation term for firing).

Stay with me here -- I know this sounds like sheer fantasy but I have a surprise for you.

The CEO acknowledges the importance of the traffic directors, secretaries, program directors, managers, sales executives and sales people -- stating that the company would just not operate right without everyone working at their jobs.

Bet you think this couldn't happen in radio, an industry troubled by a&hellip