• Kate McGarriggle’s Rockin’ Family Christmas Show
• Paul McGuinness Stoutly Defends His Views
• Earl Hines Helps In Unfortunates In Death
• Disney Loves Randy Newman, And He Loves Them
• A Scholary Appreciation Of Music
• Velvet Underground Morphes Into Library Group
• Winton Marsalis Completes His Blues Symphony Opus
• Sting Goes To Church
• Andy FraserTackles Climate Change
• Songs Inspired By Tiger’s Wife
• Preachy Rock Stars Skate On Thin Ice
• Tom Waits’ Favourite Songs
• Web Audiences Grow For Arts Groups
• Big Cable Has Rights Too
• How Much Would You Pay To Hear Howard Stern?
• Billboard Sold To Private Equity Group
• Tough Times In Newsrooms
• Steve Dahl’s Last Hurrah?
  

ELVIS UNSEEN: Unseen pictures courtesy of The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery

LILY ALLEN has branded the music industry “sexist”, insisting it’s much harder for
young female singers to be taken seriously.

SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY has branded his marriage to HEATHER MILLS one of the worst mistakes of his life.

JUDY GARLAND has been named the top female gay icon of all time in a new poll.

SIR ELTON JOHN is the top male gay icon of all time.The legendary pop star – who
married his long-term (Canadian) lover David Furnis …

ROCK AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE: Next week, I am joining my children Rufus and Martha Wainwright on stage at the Royal Albert Hall for a Christmas concert, to raise money for cancer research. We’ve done two family Christmas shows at New York’s Carnegie Hall but this is our first time in London.

Rufus, Martha and I will sing “In the Bleak Midwinter” together. Rufus will do his standard “O Holy Night”. It’s his big solo. And Martha always does “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”. Then we do a little French song together about angels, although Martha sings the lead and I only sing harmonies.

I love performing with my children because it’s a closeness we don’t often get. A family show gives us a chance to be together. In the nitty-gritty of rehearsals, we

don’t have to ask each other lots of questions like other families do, because we are living it. I do invariably start to see Rufus and Martha as little kids and we tend to regress to behaving the way we used to behave 30 years ago. Kate McGarrigle, The
Independent

ZOWIE BOWIE: Remember Zowie Bowie? He was the kid born to David Bowie and his wife Angela. Now Zowie Bowie is Duncan Jones, film director. On Monday, Jones took home the Best Director prize from the British Independent Film Awards for his “Moon,” starring Sam Rockwell. And “Moon” won Best Feature as well. Not bad for a small film that Sony Pictures Classics released here to little fanfare. Roger Friedman, Showbiz 411

ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN: I can’t point to any single piece of “art” or “serious” music that has stood out over the past decade, but I have noticed two clear trends that I’ve appreciated immensely:The rise of young star conductors … smashing the stereotype of a conductor needing decades of experience to make an impact (and) … the iPod playlist.
… John Terauds, Toronto Star

U2 MANAGER SPEAKS OUT: Paul McGuinness has emerged as a vocal campaigner for internet service providers to pay up for the music consumed over their networks, an idea that has gained support since he raised it in a speech two years ago. Publishers’ drive to be paid for their content, symbolised by Rupert Murdoch’s talk of online subscriptions, has helped, he notes, although he says it is a pity that the News Corp chairman’s “road to Damascus conversion” did not take place sooner.

So why give away valuable content, such as a concert, online? “We don’t quite give it away,” he corrects me. YouTube will pay royalties to Universal Music, U2’s record label and publisher, and share advertising revenues. It is pointless to try to stop fans posting concert clips online, he argues. What is possible, he says, is to expect ISPs to pay rights holders their dues.

McGuinness, who was born in Germany to a military family and lived in Malta, Aden and England before going to Ireland’s Clongowes Wood College, is unsparing in his criticism of how the clashing agendas of Europe’s member states have delayed changes sought by his industry.

“As the EU expands, it is clearly the case that these small, peripheral nations have no significant cultural heritage to protect in an international context, whereas Germany, France, Britain and Ireland certainly do,” he says bluntly, in an accent more English than Irish. “When the Czech Republic held the EU presidency, for example, simply by not tabling a motion on [copyright] term extension, they were able to defeat it. The Czechs!” Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Financial Times

PURRFECT PRESS RELEASES: Working in the music industry has its perks, privileges, and pains as anyone who works in it knows. No matter what your genre is, one thing remains the same for all artists: You need to bring attention to yourself, your music, and your events. And while there are several ways to do so, few are as effective (in terms of cost or exposure) as a well written press release.

Writing a press release may prove to be a challenge to those whose focus is solely on their musical ability and efforts, but it doesn’t have to be. There’s an art to writing a good press release just like there’s an art to making good music. In fact, a well written press release is simply you on paper. There are many tricks to the trade, and I’m going to share some of several of them with you: The Seven Essentials of Press Release Writing. Michele Wilson-Morris, Music Dish

EARL HINES HELPS IN DEATH: More than twenty-six years after his death, gifts to UC Berkeley from the estate of jazz pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines will help ensure that the music plays on.Hines, who lived in Oakland and once lectured on the Berkeley campus, was an innovative and much-loved musician whose orchestra was a training ground for a generation of jazz stars such as Charlie Parker and Sarah Vaughn. Now, a $258,000 bequest from Hines’ estate will help support a UC Berkeley program that provides free music lessons to gifted low-income children in grades four to 12, campus officials announced this week. Los Angeles Times

TURNING COMPLAINTS INTO ART: Life in Tokyo, as everywhere else in the world, is annoying and unfair. The good men are all married. Co-workers clip their fingernails at their desks. Laundry comes back from the cleaners still dirty. Society is too competitive. It is impossible to get enough sleep.

A complaints choir rehearsed in Tokyo before its performance at the Mori Art Museum last month. The group’s litany of grievances focused on work more than those of choirs in other places.

Recently a group of about 100 Tokyo residents put their complaints into a pile and a composer, Okuchi Shunsuke, turned them into a song. About 80 of the complainers (accompanied by an accordion, a bass cello and a tambourine) then performed the composition at various sites around the city, becoming the latest example of what has become known as a complaints choir.

The idea started in Finland, where there is a word for people who complain simultaneously, valituskuoro, which translates as complaints choir. About six years ago Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen and his wife, Tellervo Kalleinen, both visual artists living in Helsinki, began discussing the possibility of turning this metaphorical concept into something quite literal. People spend so much energy complaining, they reasoned, so why not harness all that energy into something positive?

In 2005, with help from arts-related organizations in England and Finland, the two organized their first complaints choir, in Birmingham, England. Phyllis Korkki, New York Times

RANDY NEWMAN’S A DISNEY MAN: Since working on 1995′s “Toy Story,” composer-songwriter Randy Newman has become something of a Disney veteran. He’s also quick to point out that one doesn’t write for an animated film looking for creative freedom.

“You’re a collaborator, but you’re also an employee,” Newman said. “It’s a director’s medium.”

Yet when it came to “The Princess and the Frog,” Newman’s vast knowledge of the American songbook and ties to his beloved New Orleans were put to use. The film is
filled with the freewheeling sounds of early jazz standards and the language, Newman said, is also authentic — right down to the lyrical references to Louis Armstrong.

For “Friends on the Other Side,” which wafts between funereal brass notes and a shadowy symphony, Newman even sneaked in a not-so-obvious nod to pianist-composer Jelly Roll Morton. It’s in the song’s opening verse, when the evil Dr. Facilier intones, “Don’t you derogate or deride.”

“If you listen to Jelly Roll Morton, his New Orleans English is a beautiful, beautiful thing,” Newman said. “The way he speaks is almost an art form. He’s got some real four-dollar words in there. To use the word ‘derogate’ in a song, it’s something I wondered about, but I decided it was sort of legit for New Orleans.” LA Times

A SCHOLARLY APPRECIATION OF MUSIC: John Storm Roberts, an English-born writer, record producer and independent scholar whose work explored the rich, varied and often surprising ways in which the popular music of Africa and Latin America informed that of the United States, died on Nov. 29 in Kingston, N.Y. He was 73 and lived in Kingston.

The cause was complications of a blood clot, his wife, Anne Needham, said.

Long before the term was bandied about, Mr. Roberts was listening to, seeking out and reporting on what is now called world music. He wrote several seminal books on the subject for a general readership, most notably “Black Music of Two Worlds” (Praeger, 1972) and “The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States” (Oxford University, 1979). Margalit Fox, New YorkTimes

VELVETS LIBRARY REUNION: Rock band Velvet Underground was celebrated for its legendary influence in fusing art and music in New York of the 1960s with a rare public reunion of three of the surviving members at the New York Public Library. The program “The Art and Soul of The Velvet Underground” on Tuesday night brought together Lou Reed, Maureen Tucker and Doug Yule to talk about the band’s enduring legacy and its association with late pop artist Andy Warhol. Reuters

BLUES SYMPHONY COMPLETED: Acclaimed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, arguably the world’s most prominent jazz musician, is set to premiere a major new project — composing a Blues Symphony for orchestra. In keeping with a career that spans jazz, classical music, band leadership and high-profile advocacy for the arts, Marsalis’ symphony is epic in scope — to celebrate American history from Revolution to the present through the blues.

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Morehouse College in Atlanta will perform the symphony in January at Morehouse College in Atlanta as part of annual events for Martin Luther King day. They performed two of its movements in November. Reuters

A MIND BOGGLING PRESS RELEASE:  “The Besnard Lakes, the Montreal collective fronted by husband-and-wife duo Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek, has returned, crafting a majestic, sprawling vision of guitar bombast and captivating pop experiments.

“On March 9th, 2010, Outside Music will release The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night, a twisting chronicle of spies, double agents, novelists and aspiring rock gods turned violent.  Loyalty, dishonor, love, and hatred are all seen through the eyes of
two spies, communicating through short wave in code and fighting a war that may or may not be real.

“The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night was recorded at Lasek’s Breakglass Studios with a vintage 1968 Neve germanium mixing console used to record portions of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night is a dark bliss-out that folds the eerie guitar epics of the band’s breakthrough, The Besnard Lakes Are

the Dark Horse, into a wall of affected drones and atmospherics. The toughened immediacy and grit that gives the form a much-needed shove over the cliffs makes for a haunting, provocative swan dive into the crushing tide.

“On February 9th, a standout song from the new LP, “Albatross,” will be released on a vinyl 12″ with the gentle and ghostly exclusive b-side, “Four Long Lines.” “Albatross” has all the swagger of a Stevie Nicks-led Fleetwood Mac classic or Roy Orbison reimagined as a rollicking, snakeskin-booted Mazzy Star — dousing it all in gas and throwing the match as we hear its tale of Vancouver’s skid row and its inhabitants.”

We can only guess what mind-expanding halucogens the publicist was on in crafting this hyperbole, but a tip of the hat for the references to ghosts of a golden era in music past. To listen to Besnard Lakes one can link here and here.

STING GOES TO CHURCH: All Sting was missing was a top hat. In an antique black morning coat and a foppish tie that could have once hung in Oscar Wilde’s closet, Sting took a night off from being a rock star at Harlem’s Gothic landmark, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

Surrounded by an ensemble of more than 30 classical, jazz and folk musicians, he played everything from ancient Celtic folk tunes to medieval madrigals to 19th-century pop — and even a handful of his own songs. The program celebrated the winter season and the Christmas holiday.

No, there wasn’t a wink at “Roxanne,” and no fog from “Every Breath You Take” on the stained-glass windows in the cavernous church with vaulted ceilings. Dan Aquilante, New York Post

ANDY FRASER TACKLES CLIMATE CHANGE:Andy Fraser (“All Right Now”, “Every Kind of People”) lends his voice to stand with TckTckTck campaign to bring the issue of catastrophic climate change front and center.Filmmaker, Eric Alan Donaldson provides the visuals for “This is the Big One,” a song that cries out for a strong international climate treaty. Tck Tck Tck… Time is clicking by.Find out more link here.

SONGS INSIPIRED BY TIGER’S WIFE:

• Pistol Packin’ Mama by Al Dexter and his Troopers
• Who’s Sorry Now ? by Connie Francis
• Homeward Bound by Simon & Garfunkel
• It’s Over by Roy Orbison
• Your Cheatin’ Heart by Hank Williams
• Off And Running by Lesley Gore
• That’s It, I Quit, I’m Movin’ On by Sam Cooke
• Movin’ Out by Billy Joel
• It’s All Over Now by the Rolling Stones
• I Am Woman – Helen Reddy
• I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down by Ann Peebles

CAN CLASSICAL MUSIC EVER BE TRULY SEXY? Bernard Shaw once said that the Germans are fine people, but they don’t understand that one can have too much of a good thing. I remembered that the other day, as I leafed through the programme for a festival that took place last weekend in Leipzig called Sex.Macht.Musik (Sex Makes Music).

The idea of a festival of sexy music in this very earnest city of Bach, Schumann and Mendelssohn seemed a good joke. But the programme is serious in the way only a German festival can be. “For three days,” it intones solemnly, “the festival will plumb the depths of the forbidden border areas of sex and eroticism, interrogate the commercialisation of the body and everyday life and explore the variety of current sexual identities.

“Across 20 events and with 50 participating artists, Sex.Macht.Musik peeps into the back room, shines a light on society’s underbelly, and casts a critical look at the mainstream and conventional clichés. It offers daring visions of the possible, from
big-scale concerts of serious and pop music to queer parties, brash and spectacular events including a ‘musical-culinary lunch’ (preceded by a showing of Blow-Out) and a programe of lectures and seminars.” Ivan Hewett, Guardian

PREACHY ROCK STARS: … If celebrities are going to use their fame to champion political causes, then they surely have to be ready to defend their position in the rather more brutal arena of political debate … Bono, gets this all the time. This week, speaking at the launch of yet another charitable initiative (Nike’s Lace Up, Save

Lives campaign), he batted off accusations of hypocrisy by essentially admitting them.

“I’ve been blessed and I’ve been over-rewarded for what I do and I’m trying to give my time and my resources. But, you know, I’m a rich rock star, so shoot me.” Possibly a dangerous invitation, but his essential point was clear, and delivered with winning humour. Neil McCormick, Telegraph

MUPPETS TAKE ON BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY: THE Muppets are to launch a late bid to challenge this year’s X Factor winner for the Christmas number one slot – after becoming a smash hit on YouTube.An online version of the Jim Henson creations performing Queen’s classic hit Bohemian Rhapsody has become a web sensation, with more than nine million people watching it in just over a week.

Sit Back, and Relax with Tom Waits’ Favorite Hand-Picked Songs

Wit & Wisdom – Part 1 featuring George Gershwin, Robert Johnson, Big Mama Thornton, Van Halen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Edith Piaf, and Howlin’

Wit & Wisdom – Part II: Featuring: Elvis Costello, The Who, Roy Orbison, Neil Young, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Sam Cooke, Leadbelly, and Johnny Cash.

MUSIC AS COMMERCE: By and large, thinking of music as commerce, as strictly a means through which money is made, is what got the record industry into this mess in the first place. Long before the Internet and file-sharing became common scapegoats, the record industry’s growth was already based on the notion of a forever expanding market for music that never existed. Because music is such a definitive part of the human experience and passionately embraced the world over, it was supposed that quarter to quarter not only could record labels achieve exponential growth, but that from album to album an artist ought to be able to achieve the same results. But, as we now know, this mindset can only persist for so long, because music as commerce expands rather differently from music as culture. Kylie Bylin, All About Jazz

WEB AUDIENCES GROW FOR ARTS GROUPS: While many adults still like the intimacy of live theater, particularly musical theater, over the past year an estimated 47 million of them chose to watch or listen to music, theater or dance performances online at least once a week. The results of the National Endowment for the Arts survey of arts habits, which are scheduled for release Thursday, show that while many arts disciplines remain popular, the mode of delivery is rapidly changing.

“It sends a message to us that technology is increasing access to the arts, not only to artmaking, but also arts participation,” said Joan Shigekawa, NEA’s senior deputy chairman. “Now you are no longer geographically bound to see a live performance. Also, there is something about this technology that emboldens people to express themselves.”  Jacqueline Trescott, The Washington Post

WACKY NEWS STORY OF THE DAY: Spanish Civil Guardsmen were dispatched to the Sigüenza Jazz Festival to gather evidence as to whether the Larry Ochs Sax and Drumming Core band were actually performing jazz or “contemporary music.” Their attendance followed a complaint from a festivalgoer whose doctor “had warned it was ‘psychologically inadvisable’ for him to listen to anything that could be mistaken for mere contemporary music.”

His complaint against the organisers, who refused to return his money, was duly registered and will be passed on to a judge.

“The gentleman said this was not jazz and that he wanted his money back,” said the festival director, Ricardo Checa.

“He didn’t get his money. After all, he knew exactly what group he was going to see, as their names were on the festival programme.

He added: “The question of what constitutes jazz and what does not is obviously a subjective one, but not everything is New Orleans funeral music.

“Larry Ochs plays contemporary, creative jazz. He is a fine musician and very well-renowned.” Boing Boing

BROADCASTING/MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY

MS SPONSORS NEW MUSIC PROGRAM: ReverbNation, the leading marketing platform for more than 500,000 artists, labels, managers, and venues, has announced the launch of a ne music discovery program called Playlist 7 sponsored by Microsoft Windows. The program will showcase emerging artists from the rock, pop, alternative, hip-hop, latin, jazz, and electronica/dance genres. During each week of the program, 50 songs from emerging

Artists will be made available for free download here.

Music fans will be able to download 7 free songs of their choice from the pool of fifty. Each download will act as a ‘vote’ for the Artist. The 7 Artists who receive the most downloads during each week will receive an additional cash prize and will have their song featured and promoted the following week inside of ‘Playlist 7’.

BIG CABLE HAS RIGHTS TOO: The head of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association lashed out at net neutrality supporters who say Internet non-discrimination is a First Amendment cause. The real issue, he says, is the First Amendment rights of ISPs. Ars Technica

APPLE TABLET: Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner says his sources suggest that Apple will have a tablet ready to launch early next spring that could offer some serious competition to the Kindle in the e-book reader market.

“Our checks into Apple’s supply chain indicate the manufacturing cogs for the tablet are creaking into action and should begin to hit a mass market stride in February,” Reiner said in a research note to investors. “At this stage Apple appears to be sizing its supply chain to support production of as many as 1M units per month.” Reiner noted that Apple would need several weeks to build up inventory for a launch, meaning we could see an Apple tablet around March or April. This agrees with previous rumors that suggested a launch in the first half of 2010.

Very little about the hardware itself is revealed, except that Reiner expects the device to have a 10.1″ display—previous rumors have suggested anywhere from 9.6–10.7″— and that it will not be OLED. Instead, it will most likely use an LTPS LCD display like the one Apple uses for the iPhone. Chris Foreman, Ars Technica

CONCERTS ON iPHONE: Today’s release of Ustream Broadcaster is unfortunately timed for the music industry. On Tuesday night, the major labels, in a partnership with Google, launched Vevo, a YouTube for music videos. U2 frontman Bono called it “the birth of a new model for our industry.” A new model that apparently hasn’t accounted for live concerts.

But what does Bono care? YouTube already has him covered with streaming — the Rose Bowl event was one of the most-trafficked streams ever. Maybe streaming is something Vevo has planned (you know, after it fixes the problems it already has), but the Ustream app gives them a reason to get moving. LA Times

WHAT WOULD YOU PAY TO LISTEN TO HOWARD? What if Howard Stern was available online ONLY – for a price? Answer this poll.

Now you may pay $13 per month for Sirius – and many do so mostly for Stern or for pro sports.

So what if Howard were available online – not through Sirius XM or via terrestrial radio – but through the same Internet connection you’re accessing right now?  For a price.

What would this be worth to you?

And assume that with Howard’s new stuff comes a wealth of audio, video and text content from the Howard-verse – on mobile, too. Link here and take the poll on how much you’d  be willing to pay … Mark Ramsey, Hear 2.0

NIELSEN MAGS SOLD: e5 Global Media, a new company formed jointly by private equity partner Pluribus Capital Management and financial services firm Guggenheim Partners, is acquiring Billboard and seven of its sister publications from the Nielsen Co.

Besides Billboard, the brands being acquired are The Hollywood Reporter, AdweekMedia (which includes Adweek, Mediaweek and Brandweek), Backstage, the Clio Awards and Film Journal International. E5 Global Media will also acquire the Film Expo business, which includes ShoWest, ShowEast, Cinema Expo International and CineAsia trade shows. The parties declined to identify a purchase price, which other media reports have put at $70 million. Billboard

NEWS SIFTER RAISES FUNDS: Media Convergence Group (MCG), the company behind multi-platform news property Newsy.com, has raised $450,000 worth of a $2 million first institutional round of funding, per an SEC filing. Jim Spencer, MCG’s founder and president, said the money came from a group of Missouri-based private investors; he expects the round to close “within the next few months.” Newsy.com’s production studiois based in Columbia, Mo.

Founded in 2008, MCG beta-launched Newsy.com in April of this year; the site, whichanalyzes issues raised in TV newscasts, print articles and blogs, attracts about 30,000 uniques per month, per Compete. Newsy.com’s original video clips dig into the sources behind the stories, encouraging readers to visit sites like CNN.com, ABC News and even Focus on the Family to get more info. Spencer said the model has made it easier for MCG to broker content-licensing deals with bigger media companies, though he kept mum on specifics. Paid Content

TOUGH TIMES IN NEWSROOMS: The year 2008 was a horrible one for TV journalists as unprecedented staff cuts made the jobs of those still lucky enough to be employed that much more stressful.

Michael Froelich, a news producer at WPLG-TV, Post-Newsweek Stations’ ABC affiliate in Pembroke Park, FL, previews news graphics from his desktop working with a Miranda Technologies graphics system and Avid iNEWS.

Michael Froelich, a news producer at WPLG-TV, Post-Newsweek Stations’ ABC affiliate in Pembroke Park, FL, previews news graphics from his desktop working with a Miranda Technologies graphics system and Avid iNEWS.

The numbers clearly tell the story. In 2008, about 1200 jobs in television news, including all job titles, were lost in the industry, says Bob Papper, a professor of journalism at Hofstra University in Long Island, NY, and the man responsible for the annual Radio-Television News Director Association survey of broadcast news staffing.

“Last year was the worst year I’ve seen in the 15 years I’ve been tracking this, and 2009 is not going to be a good year either,” he says.

These cuts are a direct response to the dreadful advertising market that has sent station revenue plunging. For the first half of 2009, advertising dropped by more than 15 percent in the United States across all media, a pullback of $10.3 billion compared with the same period last year, the Nielsen Company reported in September. While some TV categories fared better than print media, overall television took a severe hit, with spot TV in the top 100 DMAs declining 32 percent for the first two quarters of 2009 compared with Q1 and Q2 2008 and network TV advertising falling 7 percent for the period.

Ironically, while there was a sharp decline in the revenue stations rely upon to pay for newsgathering, there appears to be no significant decline in the public’s appetite for television news. Phil Kurz, Broadcast Engineering

STEVE DAHL’S LAST HURRAH? Last Saturday marked my one-year anniversary of being off the radio airwaves in Chicago. I haven’t been off the air that long since I was 15 years old. (I’m 55.)

Apparently radio can go on without me, and I guess I’m getting along without radio. I miss it, but my daily one-hour podcasts keep me off the streets. My podcast hasn’t penetrated the general population to the extent that people have stopped asking me,

“When are you going to be back on the air?” but I’m working on it.

With the release of Jonathon Brandmeier last month from his WLUP-FM 97.9 contract, the only man standing from the WLUP heyday of the late ’70s and mid-’80s is Garry Meier.

Garry is now on WGN-AM 720, which, like this newspaper, is owned by Tribune Co. Ironically, the banality of WGN was one of our targets when Garry and I were a team.

Back in the Loop days, we used to refer to radio as high school with money. These days radio has more of a GED feel to it. A prison GED feel.

A lot of radio personalities have been negatively affected by Arbitron’s new Portable People Meter (PPM) system. The PPM results seem to favor music, sports and news over wacky personalities. I’m still getting paid, thanks to some good negotiating on my part. The rest are doing whatever they can to keep busy. Steve Dahl, Chicago Tribune

CONTENT MASH-UPS: Good radio takes pride in being a great curator of content. If you run a station that isn’t too limited in what you can play, and are looking for new and popular music to play, sites such as Next Big Sound keep you current with up-to-the- minute information about what’s hot online. Of course, business reality sometimes limits the musical content that can be officially delivered over the airwaves. There is nothing to stop you from using that obstacle as an opportunity. If you are limited to certain music, let it loose a bit by having a couple of your deejays put together and share links to playlists using social media services such as last.fm, cross-promote other station highlights on the links page, and charge to advertise in that space. This allows you to build new revenue streams without cannibalizing your existing streams.

The best practice at work here is one you’ve likely already learned running a station: the value of cross promotion. So, just as you use certain shows to promote other shows that may attract more ad revenue, you use certain social media channels to drive engagement to wherever you get the best return. Greg Nesbit, Byrnes Media

RADIO RELEVANCE: Radio must find and develop new personalities. Personalities that are relevant to your demos. Look for people with character and personality plus. You may find some on the many social media sites. Radio is over produced. I’d look to get more listeners on air to briefly talk about things. These would have far more appealing than the station voice saying “THE BEST HITS EVER’. First of all, nobody says things like that about music. My friends say ‘Have you heard the new Pink song, she’s so hot?”’

Stations could benefit from having their listeners promote their station in a much more natural way. Take that concept to your brainstorming session and try it. It’s all about balance. Try cutting out your contrived station imaging by one half. Add natural listener liners and see how that feels. What’s the big story of the day? The Leafs lose 7 in a row. Get on the street or get on the phone and get listener comments. Use thismto reflect that your station is on the same wavelength as your audience. It also mirrors how Twitter and Facebook relates. The advantage of social media is the natural engagement. Radio has lost that. Dave Charles, Byrnes Media

DVD RENTALS FOR 6 CENTS AN HOUR: If Redbox is set to destroy the Hollywood with $1-per -night DVD rentals, what’ll happen if Big Box DVD kiosks start appearing around the country, charging just 6 cents an hour? We could find out if Big Box parent Mosquito Productions is able to expand its kiosk DVD rental business.

A recent study posited that low-cost DVD rentals from Redbox and others cost the entertainment industry upwards of $1 billion per year, but John Buchmann, owner of Mosquito Productions, wrote in an email that his company is “not big enough for Hollywood to care about at this point.”

Even so, he argues that the opportunity for businesses like Big Box DVD and Redbox are a result of Hollywood not keeping tabs on retailers.

“Wal-Mart started selling DVDs at a loss to get their feet in the door well before Redbox had any sort of foothold. Since there was only a $7-$10 difference between renting and buying, it was inevitable that the rental prices would go down,” Buchmann wrote. “Hollywood simply hasn’t protected their product on the retail end for years now, and cheap rental services are an inevitable result of that.”

Unlike Redbox, which charges users $1 per day for DVD rentals from its kiosks, the Big Box DVD kiosks rent new releases for 6 cents an hour, catalog films for 4 cents an hour, and Blu-ray discs for 9 cents an hour. With prices so low, users could (theoretically) watch and return a movie for less than a quarter. Ryan Lawler, Salon