This weekend, one member of our media network wants to know how to forge a better bond between the radio station, listener and advertiser keeping in mind today’s economy.

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1. Four elements of a dream promotion (one of them is fantasy of the mind). Know all four before coming up with your next effort or you risk failure.

2. How should you adapt promotions to The People Meter?

3. 9 ready-to-go Dream Promotions. Only subscribers will see them so there is still time to beat your competitor to the air with one.

4. Low cost, no cost and advertiser friendly dream promotions.

5. One involves taking over the radio station.

6. Another will make your listeners beg you – I mean that – beg you to play more commercials. (Read and see why I am not kidding).

7. A dating promotion built around matching musical tastes – all the details.

8. Giveaway free jobs (I’ve done this one and it works).

All these and five more start here. 

The NAB isn’t waiting for the elections to take place in a few weeks.

Not waiting to win a consensus of members.

CEO Gordon Smith, a former U.S. Senator and future lobbyist somewhere other than radio, has given the green light to complete a deal that would saddle radio stations with $100 million in new music taxes very soon.

In an arrogant and defiant mood, Smith will use his own NAB board as hostages to provide cover.

How serious is the threat this time and what are you not being told. I’ve prepared a thorough intelligence report for you this morning.

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1. The real odds that this much talked about performance royalty tax will become a reality for radio stations – and when.

2. NAB CEO Gordon Smith’s motive. Why sell out your members -- most of whom oppose this tax. You won’t believe why Smith is doing this.

3. What percentage of an average station’s bottom line will the new NAB Tax on Radio represent? And remember, the performance royalty tax on radio comes right off the bottom line.

4. The chances of the $100 million tax not going up -- with examples from other countries that have already given in to the music industry.

5. Why the radio tax is chump change to the music industry. The real goal of musicFIRST and why bringing radio to its knees is so important to them. What the music industry is really after.

The answers start here.

In the next 12 months or less, a lot of things will change in the radio industry.

Now that radio has largely become a national repeater network of non-local content to save costs and eventually make more money for their investment bank owners, monumental change is ahead.

I’ve got some predictions for you here – and my readers who have been following me for a while now know that I never back away from a prediction.

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1. The number one threat to radio audiences. I name it and no, it is not the Internet. You’ll never guess. If you guess, write to me, I’d be interested to know.

2. I’ve got the line on what will happen with regard to the record industry’s attempt to win a royalty tax from radio. And a timeline.

3. Of Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey, Clear Channel President John Hogan and Citadel CEO for Life Farid Suleman one of them is not secure in their job.

4. I know – and you will, too – where Howard Stern is going after the end of the year.

5. How much longer radio lay offs will be going on. I’ll pinpoint one moment in time and name the group I expect to make the most cuts.

6. Even if radio gets the mobile industry to enable an FM chip, here’s what top radio executives missed – a golden opportunity bigger than FM radio on a cell phone. Can you guess?

7. The outlook for radio managers, salespeople and talent in the mobile Internet. And what that opportunity is.

The answers begin here. 

Every time Apple gets the whole world to focus on their new product announcements, it makes me realize that, unlike the media business, Apple doesn’t reinvent things as we try to do.

They invent new things.

This morning I am going to suggest that maybe this is the right time to move beyond reinvention to actually inventing new things. But different skills will be needed and we will have to fundamentally change the way we think.

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1. Why the obsession with reinvention and why it never works.

2. How record labels could have invented a prosperous future in partnership with their old buddies, the radio industry, if only they could have …

3. How reinventing radio actually made things worse. I’ll cite 3 great examples from Cumulus, Citadel and Clear Channel

4. My three principles of “How to Invent” – what I use when I brainstorm with media groups.

5. How to know what can actually be invented in an existing company.

6. Overcoming the hurdle of rules and budgets.

7. How to assure success.

8. Plus, Apple COO Tim Cook’s magic words expressed this past week that will actually make us wake up and have the courage to attack our own brands in the name of inventing the future.

Inventing starts here. 

I’m often asked to show new options for terrestrial radio stations that could increase audience and improve revenue. I am going to share such a concept with you this morning.

The Non-Commercial Commercial Radio Station as I envision it is one piece of a blueprint that includes seven strategic points.

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1. The challenges and opportunities of eliminating or reducing commercials as a way to increase revenue

2. How many spots you can get away with. I’ll name the number.

3. What compelling programming you’ll need to emphasize in order to get the best results. Elements that listeners crave.

4. How to lure listeners into paying for memberships to certain content that you can create.

5. The killer app – how to monetize a radio station with more money than you could bring in playing just commercials as your main source of revenue. I name some sample categories.

6. The Zen of a new age radio station – what must it possess or else reducing commercial loads is a waste of time.

7. The right way to do mobile content. Tie-in to on-air personalities or create new personalities for mobile? The real advantage to being a radio station in the digital age (and playing commercials or voice tracking is not what I have in mind).

The game plan begins here.

Randy Michaels is out as CEO of Tribune Company according to The New York Times.

It is ironic that Michaels was brought down by another newspaper since he has a history of bad relations with independent publications he can’t control. The Times blistered Michaels and the frat house manner in which he ran Tribune in a recent article that put pressure on the Tribune board.

Michaels got away with it when Sam Zell was principal owner. But Zell is out and now so is Michaels. The Tribune board has had enough of the under performing CEO and his loyal band of radio people.

Randy always called his body of work “the noise you can’t ignore”. He used that catch phrase at several companies he ran. Unfortunately, the noise caught up with him.

Will Farid Suleman, John Hogan or Lew Dickey be next?

It took The New York Times to get Tribune Company to rein in the objectionable behavior that has poisoned the atmosphere at the troubled newspaper, television and radio company.

Last week Lee Abrams, the chief innovation officer at Tribune, recruited by CEO Randy Michaels, got snagged for sending out inappropriate videos not suitable for the workplace including one that was degrading to women.

He quit or had to quit – you can split the difference.

Degrading to women is a theme that has happened over and over again in Michaels’ career.

But this time, it was the affable Abrams who took the fall. Randy had no other choice. It was either Lee or me – and Michaels chose me.

How about this for chutzpah (shameless audacity; impudence):

Michaels, the same Randy Michaels who enables this type of sexually graphic culture, called his pal Abrams’ email: “in extremely bad taste”.

Whoa!

And what has gotten into Randy Michaels? Randy even said it was "the kind of serious mistake that can't be tolerated” according to a story in none other than The Chicago Tribune.

But then again, you can’t believe what you read in the papers these days or can you?

So Abrams took the fall for Michaels.

Randy Michaels acts like he has never had a poker playing, cigar smoking, lewd bash with these very employees on the hallowed ground of the Tribune Building and like that, everything goes away.

Not so fast.

I’ve got the video for you that got Abrams fired.

You can decide whether you believe Lee was sincere in his apology when he said he sent it "in hopes of inspiring them (employees) to reconsider print and broadcast convention”.

Here is the rest of the story with the most important 4 things Michaels, Abrams and his frat house crowd missed that you don’t want to miss.

Why?

Because this kind of mismanagement is going on in other media companies. And you don’t want to be unwittingly contributing to your own downfall. 

It’s one thing for Citadel employees to complain about CEO Farid “Fagreed” Suleman signing a $43 million new contact right after the company emerges from bankruptcy.

It’s quite another thing when a hedge fund – that’s right, hedge fund – gets itself all hot and bothered over a mere pittance of $110 million in stock.

That hedge fund, R2 Investments, has petitioned a U.S. Bankruptcy Court to stop the awards that are planned for 2011 and 2012. R2 is outraged. Says Citadel committed a “shocking display of corporate greed and dishonesty” and “one of the most egregious frauds by a company emerging from bankruptcy under chapter 11.”

Greed?

It sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.

R2 is mad because while radio people can’t understand how Suleman took Citadel into bankruptcy and then out again without missing a beat or a dollar, you can’t do that to a hedge fund. They want theirs.

What’s theirs?

How about $55 million in stock grants – mostly to Suleman but also to his puppet board of directors who reportedly received $1 million each to make Farid’s giant compensation go down a little better for them.

On the surface, R2’s lawyers say the usual stuff – Farid’s actions diluted its holdings in the company and alleges that the awards are equal to each shareholder writing a check of 7.5% of their stock’s value and giving it to CEO for Life Suleman and the board.

A hearing is scheduled for November 3, but I already know how it will work out for Citadel, R2 and Citadel employees.

Here are the three options. Let’s see which one you like.

It’s only a little more than two months before Christmas and you know what that means?

Scrooge-like radio consolidators are getting ready to give themselves the gift that keeps on giving – a lower payroll through next year and beyond.

We’re already seeing ominous signs by these bellwether radio groups that indicate they are already starting to relieve themselves of additional talent.

This couldn’t come at a worse time.

Radio execs are distracting the press, the public and advertisers touting yesterday’s announcement from Microsoft that the new Window’s Phone 7 Operating system will include the FM radio capability they have been screaming about. But that means before the holidays, radio will be firing a lot more people on and off-the-air while a host of phone manufacturers are making FM available on Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and a number of other new phones.

Think of it.

More ways to hear FM radio with fewer people to do FM radio.

How insane is that?

Let’s look at the radio groups most likely to go on a firing spree this holiday season and I’ll end with 5 specific ways how you (personally or as a station) could hurt them really badly if you’re competing against these shortsighted bean counters. 

Cumulus Media is apparently looking ahead a few months to when debt payments are once again due.

Cutting executive pay, perks or stock is apparently off the table.

Firing numerous people in a systematic way in a manner so dramatic that it leaves a five-station cluster with only 3-4 people on site locally to run it.

Now comes word about the new Cumulus “Firing Squad” from inside accounts that in some cases have reportedly left up to 14 people out of work in a single day.

How it is reportedly being done under the radar and how Cumulus reaps great savings by having a small handful of roving managers oversee their local radio licenses.

But there are also unintended consequences.

Here’s a report from a Cumulus employee:

I guess it’s impossible to quit Farid Suleman, the Citadel CEO for Life.

Legendary and well respected KGO/KSFO, San Francisco President/GM Mickey Luckoff had it up to here with Suleman’s meddling on Monday when he in essence said you can’t fire me, I quit.

The next day, Sillyman and his circus clowns pulled off one of the most embarrassing stunts even in the pitiful age of post-consolidation. When you hear the details it will make you realize why radio is in the mess it is in right now.

I’m going to bring it all back alive right here with the inside story of class vs. crass that led to one of American radio's best managers being locked out of the station he ran for 35 years.

Yesterday, KGO/KSFO President & General Manager Mickey Luckoff finally got the monkey off his back that has been hounding him for the past three years.

Luckoff fired his boss -- Farid "Fagreed" Suleman, CEO of Citadel.

I’ve got the inside story for you on what happened and why – and why now?

After all, the newly non-bankrupted Citadel Broadcasting needs KGO and KSFO in San Francisco to continue to print money – the better to fund Suleman’s new deal.

You won’t believe the details on their relationship and what it was like for Luckoff to go from ABC management to Mickey Mouse management. You’d think previous owner Disney would have been the Mickey Mouse operator but it turned out it may have been Citadel.

Luckoff spent 35 years as the driving force behind KGO’s news/talk format working for ABC, Capital Cities, Disney and Citadel. He has won tons of awards. Raised millions for lots of good causes. Attracted and kept some of the greatest radio talent on-the-air.

When I spoke with Mickey yesterday I told him he should get an anti-nausea award for not getting sick to his stomach watching Fagreed mismanage the company.

The 74-year old Luckoff is upbeat. He’s getting married at the end of the year. Will write a book about his experiences. It’s all good now that he has ended his long national nightmare.

In a moment you’ll know the proverbial rest of the story. And when Luckoff wrote his resignation letter (you won’t believe it). Plus, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I’ve compiled a list of eight reasons why Luckoff left his employ after three and a half decades.

So here is the inside story you won’t be reading in the happy talk press this morning: