If everyone knows that the future is digital, then why doesn

Every time I go to an Apple store, I spend money.

Don

A recent article in The New York Times was a fascinating study of what happened when a group of scientists took off for the Grand Canyon without their mobile devices for an analog vacation.

Cell phones did not work. There was no Internet access. This trip was an unscientific beginning to what I believe is going to be required research in the future on how heavy use of digital devices and other technology affects our brains.

There were five scientists in the group

Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan is a great guy. Good to his people and very smart. And a USC Trojan

Every year I return to the New Jersey beaches where I vacationed since childhood to contemplate the year ahead, set priorities and observe how consumers use media in a changing world.

After my years of being a professor at the University of Southern California I have changed a lot of my views and beliefs about the music and media business. As you know I write about it in this space, but thought that you might like to see my thoughts on challenges and opportunities ahead.

Here are a few observations:

1. Only ten years ago you couldn

Late last week my old buddy Jim Carnegie broke the story that Citadel CEO For Life Farid

It

Sooner rather than later, terrestrial radio stations will be paying what I call the NAB Tax

It strikes me as somewhat ironic that the radio industry fought Arbitron

The recent dust up over the NAB

By now you

One of my former USC music industry students, Meredith Jung, sent me a quick note the other night to tell me that a Nashville start-up music label has come out squarely on the side of the radio industry in its fight against paying a music tax.

I thought you would appreciate the logic and clear thinking of this entrepreneur and hope that it will get everyone including the over anxious NAB to stand back and take a much needed time out.

The NAB for years has been selling soft soap about how the radio industry has nothing to worry about in the music industry's attempt to tax the very radio stations that give them free airplay&hellip

So I was on a plane the day after JetBlue flight attendant Steve Slater pulled his Howard Beale (Network) imitation

Billboard calls it the

Maybe Cox, Saga and other competitors have finally gotten to CEO Lew Dickey as they continue to attract current and former Cumulus sales reps.

Or maybe Dickey is just tired of being seen as a mean manager

Remember NAB CEO David Rehr

Bonneville is considered one of the best operators in terrestrial radio.

My readers, in a multi-month poll last year, far and away voted Bonneville the best, probably in part to the excellent way they treat employees.

I know Bonneville along with a few other radio groups is big into the digital future. The only disappointment is that they are not budgeting the kind of money it deserves. Their instincts, however, are awfully good.

Take, for example, KTAR-FM in Phoenix.

During the recent immigration law dust up here, KTAR-FM

A new USC Annenberg Center for Digital Future study found that 49% of respondents in their most recent survey used Twitter, but no one

Talks are on again between the record labels and Spotify, the European streaming music service looking to expand to America.

Billboard is reporting that after previously failing to persuade the labels to license music for the Spotify service using the

The iPad is the new Walkman.

No, it

What