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Faces of the Fourth
- 07/05/2009
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: DJs, radio, radio programming
No CommentsWe were first attracted to Milltown, NJ as much by what wasn’t here as what was. And what’s still missing remains one of the appeals. There wasn’t/isn’t much crime or chains or traffic or industry or high-rises. To date our borough of about 7000 still doesn’t have a Wal-Mart, a movie theater, a McDonald’s, or
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Speaking Like the Prez
- 01/26/2009
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: DJs, radio
Communications coach Steve Adubato analyzed President Obamas inaugural speech and offered his thoughts/take-aways. I distilled Steve’s column to six bullets many of which are common areas of growth for talent: Be focused; have a clear theme Be brief; dont confuse quantity with quality Disagreeing is OK but being disagreeable isnt Own your content;
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This Year We Gifted a Goat
- 12/20/2008
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: radio
What’s the best gift you’ve ever given? Chances are it was something that the recipient truly valued – perhaps even something that changed their life. Like maybe a goat. My wife and I were recently introduced to Heifer International – an organization that purchases animals for impoverished people with the goals of helping the recipients
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Seeking Elmo
- 04/22/2008
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: branding, radio, radio programming
Changing tastes, lagging brands, increased competition, evolving consumers, and increasing difficulty in attracting your target’s attention: sounds like this could be a list of challenges facing any number of industries including ours. In this case though, we’re talking about the toy industry and Mattel and its Fisher-Price line in particular. Today’s Wall Street Journal noted
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Lost and Found
- 04/09/2008
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: branding, radio, radio programming
Starbucks has been underplaying its expertise says CEO Howard Schultz (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120761010035596407.html?mod=mm_hs_marketing_strategy). Somewhere between opening stores and inventing new Frappuccino flavors, Mr. Schultz says the company’s expertise in coffee selection and roasting – what the company believes to be a strong competitive advantage – was downplayed. Now, with its new “Pike Place Roast” debuting today, the
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Everything I Know About Radio I Learned From Baseball
- 03/31/2008
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: radio, radio programming
By Mike O’Malley OK, that’s completely untrue of course. But baseball does provide endless analogies and, with Opening Day 2008 today, I was thinking about baseball axioms that can also apply to radio. Here are five. If you have a good fastball, throw it The fastball is the ‘mother pitch’ from which nearly all others
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Year-Round Programming
- 02/21/2008
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: radio, radio programming
NBC is trying something different for network television: a year-round schedule of programming instead of what has become a typical lineup of 9 months of regular programming followed by three summer months of reality shows. Media Life reported, “With TV ratings falling and an increasing amount of new media distractions competing for viewers attention, many
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SOME PEOPLE APPARENTLY NEVER GOT THE MEMO
- 02/15/2008
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: radio, radio programming
Living on the road, you wind up eating at a lot of chains. The primary reasons are that they are likely to be some in reasonable proximity to your hotel – wherever THAT may be. They’re often open later which is really helpful after a day of flight delays. And they’re highly predictable in that
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A Thousand to One
- 01/20/2008
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: radio, radio programming, ratings
If you were handicapping a sporting event and put a team’s odds at 1000 to 1, you’d be saying their chances of winning were a real long shot. I came across my own thousand-to-one long shot last week while analyzing a fall book for a client. It was the PPDV (per person diary value) for
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Resolving To Be A Better Programmer
- 01/13/2008
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: radio, radio programming
Eight years ago I wrote “25 New Year’s Resolutions for PDs and OMs.” It generated a lot of positive feedback and many said they referred to it throughout the year. Each December since then, I’ve made it a tradition to add five new resolutions to the original list. Now, as 2008 begins, there are 60