do
plan
to
return.
What's happening to A.T.E.!?
Maybe you've noticed that the postings have been slim here at All The Excess! since the holidays. Since before the holidays, really. What's the reason, you ask?
As fellow blogger Johnny Van Suedanbitter might say in non-sentence form, "Not sure."
Maybe...just maybe...it's because the longer we go since our last paycheck from a radio company, the less interest we have in the business. Are we alone in that?
Like fellow blogger Johnny Van Suedanbitter might answer his own question using a sentence fragment: "Probably not."
What alarms us is that our interest in making fun of the radio business is also waning. We thought that would last forever.
But nowadays, making fun of the radio business is too easy. Radio is a parody of itself. That makes All The Excess! a parody of a self-parody, which is as confusing to us as Chinese finger cuffs.
Look around. Latest "big" talent hires? Carson Daly. Nick Cannon. Meanwhile, Brandmeier, the DSC, Lex and Terry, and countless other talented radio people are in forced heel-cooling mode. Citadel is in bankruptcy while the same chiefs who led them to Chapter 11 keep sacking the best warriors in the tribe. How 'bout that Glenn Beck? And for two more fingers down your throat, the ever-sensitive Rush Limbaugh. Make it two HANDS challenging your gag reflex: Ryan Seacrest!
"HD Radio" is a punch line that needs no set up. And here's perhaps the ultimate example of self-parody: The Lowry Mays Excellence In Broadcasting Award.
So we're experiencing "quiet time" here at A.T.E.! until we get that all sorted out. Will we be back and snarky as ever someday? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But check back and see.
We can't predict what we don't feel.
Email blake (dot) lawrence (at) alltheexcess (dot) com.
Email blake (dot) lawrence (at) alltheexcess (dot) com.
"What, all you guys do lately is post these goofy TV spots?"
Well, we're not going to apologize for it. We've been busy with another creative project, and it's about damn time, don't you think?
We're with Coco!
1. See the All The Excess! masthead for our official position on the Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien/NBC-TV debacle. (Are you with Coco?)2. We are now big Jimmy Kimmel fans too, after his Thursday appearance on the Jay Leno show.
3. Jay will need every one of his 800 cars, at least a different one each day, to use as escape vehicles to elude the throngs that wish to do him bodily harm over this. (For the record, A.T.E.! does not advocate the use of violence.)
We regret to inform you that we will NOT be presenting a TRSTVSOTW award this week.
It's a disturbing trend that we're noticing. Radio stations have universally slashed marketing budgets to the point that even the cheap TV commercials are not being produced nor aired with the regularity that might inspire an award for thrift in video advertising.
We find ourselves reduced to begging our readers to submit Thrifty Radio Station TV Spot Of The Week™ candidates via email to TRSTVSOTW (at) alltheexcess (dot) com. It's no longer that we can't keep up with all of them, but rather we can no longer find candidates through our normal means.
What we can do, however, is spotlight a commercial from another country which we happen to enjoy very much. Perhaps this regular A.T.E.! feature will evolve into a showcase for others like this. It depends on the feedback from you, our gentle readers.
Our spotlight commercial comes from Belgium, and the now-defunct Radio Donna.
From the All The Excess! mail pouch....
All The Excess! is unable to verify the true identity of this writer, but we're putting it out there anyway.Dear A.T.E.!,
A friend tipped me to your article about Klone Networks trying to contact me. Well, here I am! The radio show idea sounds really keen although I've got a bitchin' real estate business going on and I'm a top seller. But pass my email addy on to them and let's see where it goes! I've been trying to catch Donny Osmond for years, and maybe now's my chance!
Thanks loads,
Tony DeFranco
Who wants to tell him?
Let the fact-checking commence!
Alas, such a slow fake news day that we must report on this atrocity: Alaska's "I don't want the job after all" former Governor and former candidate for the job of John McCain death watch benefactor (whew!) Sarah Palin has signed a multi-year deal with Fox News to provide her alleged wisdom in the form of commentaries.She doesn't have her own show (yet) but she may host occasional fair, balanced series. Apparently the ability to see Russia from her house was value FNC couldn't pass up.
The best comment we've seen was on the Radio-Info.com message board: "The Mayans were a few years off."
Discuss Sarah Palin's new ties to Fox News on the All The Excess! message boards here.
The search for Tony DeFranco is on!
Reacting to news that Donny Osmond will soon be hosting a daily syndicated radio show, Klone Networks (Fluffycloud's syndication arm) is putting out an all-points bulletin for former teen idol Tony DeFranco.A daily radio show similar to Osmond's is reportedly the offer on the table. "We won't be Seacrested again," says Klone's VP/Programming Emma Tate, apparently in reference to the ubiquitous Ryan Seacrest, with whom Klone attempted to compete by rolling out the unsuccessful Ruben Studdard show last year.
DeFranco rose to stardom in the early seventies when he and his DeFranco Family charted with "Heartbeat It's A Lovebeat," a teen-friendly song in a style that can most generously be called derivative of groups like the Osmonds and Jackson 5.
DeFranco's Internet blog, which hasn't been updated since the death of Michael Jackson, says that the former heart throb front man is alive and working somewhere in Southern California, but does not give details. The blog, with its linked web store of DeFranco family merchandise and memorabilia, is the only known clue to Tony DeFranco's whereabouts.
"We hope he'll call us at his earliest opportunity," Tate said, adding that DeFranco's joining Klone would fulfill the company's new mantra and advertising slogan, "Serving the nation with the best imitation."
It's been cute, but it has to stop
As a public service, All The Excess! reminds you that federal law now requires that all greetings of "Happy New Year" must end no later than the first Sunday in January (providing that New Year's Day itself does not fall on Sunday, in which case the deadline is the first Saturday in January).
It's been a fresh way for you and your professional contacts to exchange pleasantries this week, but the jig is up on January 10, or you could face up to $500 in fines.
Ten things we learned to do without in 2009
Everybody had to make sacrifices in 2009. It was just that kind of year. Here are ten things we found we could do without during the course of the past year.10. The all-night jock...who's up at that hour anyway?
9. Jay Leno
8. The corporate jet and the money-making Hungarian radio network that keeps the rest of the company afloat
7. The 7-midnight jock...there's Delilah!
6. Sirius XM
5. The chance to make tons of cash doing 50 sold out concerts in London
4. The midday jock...there's Seacrest!
3. Smooth Jazz
2. Those inflated diary ratings
1. Any sort of obligation to our investors - bring on the pre-packaged bankruptcies!
Already time for a new Thrifty Radio Station TV Spot Of The Week™? Sure is...even though it seems like we just bestowed the award, there were holidays in between and tons of slow "news" days. So we're back with the award that celebrates our industry's brutally slashed marketing budgets weekly.
This week: you've got a famous nationally syndicated morning star in half of your TV commercial...just how do you follow a heavyweight act like that? You may still be asking that question after you see this week's charmingly frugal TRSTVSOTW from Joyner Radio's WCZQ (Hot 105.5)/Monticello, Illinois.
Florida stations rally to cover cold snap
Faced with temperatures diving into the high thirties, Florida radio broadcasters are being commended for excellent community service today as they work together to cover the harsh winter weather. Some examples:
All-news WZHS/Fort Lauderdale went into non-stop "Freeze Watch" programming Sunday, offering continuous tips on how to use household objects including electric hair dryers to keep warm. Listeners were warned about the dangers of starting fires in their living rooms, and WZHS reporters monitored local department stores and announced the best prices found for wind breakers and light jackets. Also, the teletype sound effects used on the station were temporarily replaced with a continuous loop of chattering teeth.
"Bitchin' Oldies" WXOT/West Palm Beach vowed to extend its library back to the year corresponding to the high temperature of each day through the cold snap. Today, listeners could hear songs from as far back as 1961 including "Mashed Potato Time" and "Duke of Earl" when the high temperature of the day was declared to be a bone-chilling 61 degrees.
In a humanitarian move, Top 40 WQUF (Z-92)/Miami earmarked a box of giveaway long-sleeved station T-shirts for Dade County homeless people, and gave away electric space heaters to the 92nd caller each time the sound of the "super shiver" (a refrigerator door closing) was played.
Classic Rock WKNT/Boca Raton PD Skip Paycheck owns no long pants and couldn't make it out of his house due to the cold, but was able to control the Prophet System from his home computer, forcing the automated station to celebrate the chill by playing "Cold As Ice" by Foreigner continuously. "I'm sure the phones would be going nuts right now if we hadn't had them disconnected in the latest round of cuts," he told us.
HD Radio receivers see record sales
Inequity Labs president Stu Bobble has reason to smile today - HD Radio receivers sold at a record clip over the holiday season.Bobble claims that six of the units were purchased by American consumers during November and December of 2009. Of the six, four were gifts for others, one was purchased by a consumer for himself, and one is being sent back because the elderly woman who ordered it online thought she was buying an HDTV receiver.
"This is remarkable progress," Bobble exclaimed in a press release announcing the figures. "I never dreamed I'd be quoting numbers like these."
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