Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A Not-So-Stern Schedule...

Excerpted from Taylor On Radio:
Howard Stern's new cover-of-Rolling Stone interview has him saying this – “Right now my schedule is pretty much the same as it’s always been”, which is the live morning-drive shift on Monday through Thursday. Then Friday off. But he wants more – more time off. Stern tells interviewer Neil Strauss “…as time rolls on, I’ll probably do about three shows a week.” Will it matter to Stern’s fans, or affect Sirius XM subscriptions? Probably not much.  Does the shrinking number of workdays mean Stern’s getting less money under his new five-year contract? Maybe not. Maybe Mel Karmazin gave a little in the negotiations in terms of airtime, while keeping Stern’s pay about the same.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

A Look at Clear Channel by the Numbers

Excerpted from Taylor On Radio:


• 892 stations, $2.9 billion in radio revenue last year. Clear Channel now holds 260 AM and 632 FM stations in the U.S. (all the pieces of this statistical portrait refer to the U.S. only, and not CC’s 50% stake in Austereo, operating in Australia and New Zealand). 149 of the stations are in the top 25 markets.


• Radio overlaps outdoor in many markets. In New York, market #1, Clear Channel has five radio stations and 2,607 displays owned by CC Outdoor. In L.A, it’s eight stations and 9,984 displays. In Chicago, 7 stations and 11,709. In San Francisco, seven stations and 10,104. And in Dallas, six stations and 17,571 displays – the most in any single market. Even in markets 51 through 100, Clear Channel has 236 stations and nearly 14,000 displays. In markets 101-150, it’s got 95 stations and nearly 3,900 displays.
• Clear Channel-owned Katz Media reps 3,900 stations – 80% of them owned by other groups. Katz is also active in TV, though Clear Channel sold off its TV station division several years ago. Katz reps about 600 TV and digital multicast stations.
• Clear Channel Radio has 15,036 employees in the U.S. – about 400 of them in unions. A higher proportion of staffers outside the U.S. are in unions – 342 of them out of 5,247 international staffers.
• Premiere supplies programs and services to more than 5,800 stations. Its list of more than 90 offerings includes Rush Limbaugh, Jim Rome, Steve Harvey, Ryan Seacrest and Delilah.
• Clear Channel owns 13 state networks. Those are a combination of sports, news and ag networks in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia.


Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Prepare for Many Interviews...

Excerpt from Mediabistro.com:


Job openings are up, but hiring’s taking forever, reports the Wall Street Journal. Why is that?
Maybe because hiring managers keep thinking there’s something else out there.
Managers invited an average of five to six candidates per position for second-round interviews, which is twice as many as in 2007, according to a survey of 1,500 recruiters at large companies by research organization the Corporate Executive Board.
“Nowadays, if managers speak to a really great candidate, instead of hiring him, they take it as an indication that there must be 10 even better people out there,” Todd Safferstone, director of CLC Recruiting, a unit of the Corporate Executive Board, told the WSJ.
The logic is: if the unemployment rate’s so high, maybe the “perfect candidate” is out there somewhere, and hiring managers are now preferring to try to find the perfect candidate than settle on the perfectly great one right in front of them.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Your Commercial Could Smell Like This!

Think the Old Spice commercials are created exclusively from special effects done in post? You'll be surprised how much is done in real-time, and in one take! Watch this behind-the-scenes look at the latest...


Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Information Please!

From Cynopsis Advantage:

An Information Interview is where a job seeker asks for career and industry advice from a known person within a particular field.  The interview is used for several reasons:  to learn about the industry, learn about a company, learn about a job, seek advice on how to better prepare yourself for the short and long term for the job and to network.

Informational interviews can be difficult to arrange because the job seeker is the one who asks for the interview.   Some think that most executives have no interest in spending their time with someone they don't know, answering a slew of questions.  But if asked with proper etiquette and respect, you'd be surprised at how many are actually willing to help, either by phone or by meeting for coffee or a drink.

Before contacting anyone about an informational interview, you have to do some homework.  Research the individual, the company, and the industry. 

Always remember the executive is doing you a favor so try to arrange a time and place that is convenient for them and set an amount of time such as 20-30 minutes.  

Dress as if you were on an interview, prepare your questions but don't get anxious if you are running out of time.  

If you are meeting for coffee or a drink, always pay the tab and offer to end the meeting at the agreed time, if they want to continue, great, but by you mentioning the time, you give the executive a graceful way to exit, something that everyone is always grateful for.

After the meeting is over, ask if you can keep in touch in case you need further advice and give them your business card with all contact info on it.

Make sure you write them a thank you note, and since speed is not a factor, a handwritten note might be more appreciated.

It's okay to take notes, but never, ever ask for a job or job leads.  You will put the executive in an awkward position plus they will feel ambushed.

Start the interview with thanking them for their time.

Be a good listener and ask good questions.

If you ask someone for an informational interview and they say no, don't ask again.

The informational interview can be a tremendous tool in gained knowledge and networking, as long as you keep your personal need for a job out of the conversation.  If you do ambush them, the executive will most likely shut it down and you will lose, what could have been, an exceptionally useful experience.