In the latest issue of Esquire, musician John Mayer talks about Jack-FM: Imagine a place on the dial that interviews you and your friends, asks what songs you like, and then plays them one after another. Almost no DJs, few commercials and lots of songs you forgot you loved. It’s radio turned inside out. I …
Bandwagon
This weekend, Chicago’s oldies station switched formats. WJMK-FM is now running a format called “Jack,” with the slogan “Playing what we want.” The sound you just heard was a target demographic yawning. I read an interview with the program director of one of the Chicago stations which is already running one of the “whatever we …
Just A Couple Hundred Miles Off
The Mix (101.9 FM, in case you are in Chicago and unaware of where the station’s at) is running a promotion where you can win a trip to London to see Coldplay perform live. The only snag is that the commercial for the contest starts with the opening bars of La Marseillaise, which is the …
I Scooped Feder
Check out today’s column by Robert Feder in the Sun-Times. Yeah, beat him by two days.
No, Not That Door!
One of my favorite museums in Chicago closed last year in order to build their new home. The Museum of Broadcast Communications moved out of the Chicago Cultural Center (across from The Bean) and are preparing to move into their new space near Marina City. Having grown up as a sort of real-life version of …
Yeah, That’ll Happen
I keep seeing that commercial for an SUV where the dad walks into the room and sees his family sitting around staring at the TV. He takes the remote, turns the TV off, and tells his family to come with him. The commercial ends with everyone staring in wonderment, with mouths agape, at the night …
Payola or Product Placement?
In a news story first published in the Washington Post, it was reported that several TV shows’ “gadget gurus” have taken payments from the companies whose products they gush about. Corey Greenberg, tech editor for NBC’s Today show, told The Wall Steet Journal that he has taken $15,000 each from Apple, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Seiko Epson, …
Next Tribune Op-Ed Piece: Puppies are Cute
Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune ran a piece on its Op-Ed page called “The ubiquity of the iPod.” Yes, it was another fluff piece about how all the white headphones we see daily are proof that the iPod is a cultural phenomenon which is changing the world, and will eventually change the way we do everything, …
A Good Concept
One of Chicago’s “Alternative Rock” stations, Q101, has tweaked its format; their slogan is now “Everything Alternative, Now on Shuffle.” This is interesting on a number of fronts. First and most importantly, it’s about time someone in the radio industry acknowledged that since 1994 or so, “alternative music” was actually not alternative at all. Bands …
Friday XRT Wrapup
Here’s the playlist from WXRT’s all-request day on Friday. Dig it.