• Bluesmen MacLean & McLean unite for 100-date Canadian tour
• New Alliance Formed Between Nielsen and IRI
• Atlantic Film Festival Music and Image Program
• Mark Ramsey: Here Comes Radio’s Fork In the Road
• Broadcast News
  

BLUES TOUR: Doc MacLean and Big Dave McLean are among the handful of Canadian artists who recreate the early roots of the blues, mixing their own material with the songs of the storied figures of the past — Robert Johnson, Son House, Blind Willie McTell and dozens of others.

They come by their music honestly: Doc MacLean traveled the south almost 30 years ago meeting many of his idols (and, with a young Colin Linden, produced and played on an album by the legendary veteran of 1930’s jug band pioneer Sam Chatmon).  Big Dave McLean,

based in Winnipeg, was mentored by the late Muddy Waters, and took early lessons from John Hammond Jr.; he records for Edmonton-based roots music label Stony Plain and has three CDs in their catalogue.

The pair will start their Century Blues Tour on Wednesday Sept. 9 at Hugh’s Room — and between that concert and a final date three months later in Peterborough on December 6, they’ll play more than 100 shows in concert halls, festivals, coffee houses, pubs, clubs, private homes and radio stations.  The tour takes them to nine provinces and two Northern Territories.

To commemorate the tour, MacLean and McLean are releasing a live CD, Big Road Blues. The limited pressing, recorded and  produced by Catherine McLelland for CBC Radio’s Canada Live, will only be available at Century Blues Tour shows.

“We’ve done national tours like this before,” says Doc MacLean, who booked all the dates on the tour himself, from his mobile “office” of laptop, cell phone and guitar case. “We know how to do it, our audience is waiting for this.

“Both of us play National steel-bodied guitars, and we play our music on a grass roots level; we keep the overhead low and the entertainment quality high. This classic Delta blues music always resonates, and we’re looking forward to helping keep the blues alive across the country.” In addition, the duo have partnered with music dealers Long & McQuade to offer free blues guitar workshops and master classes in major cities.

NEW ALLIANCE – Advertising Age: Longtime research rivals Nielsen Co. and Information Resources Inc. are burying the hatchet to use a single national pool of households for their consumer panels, forming a joint venture that creates a sort of public utility for measuring such things as the buying habits of Walmart shoppers.

The alliance between the once-bitter rivals, who spent nearly a decade in anti-trust litigation starting in the 1990s and continuing into this decade, also appears to open the door for deeper collaboration that could have a huge impact on the costliest product in the market-research business: retail scanner data.

ATLANTIC FILM: The full Music & Image Program during the 29th Atlantic Film Festival is now available. The program outlines delegate attendees, registration details, one-on-one meeting requests, seminar and workshops information as well as showcases and performances. Details here

BROADCAST NEWS: Longtime Rogers Radio executive (Eric) Sandy Sanderson took retirement yesterday. He was named CFTR’s program director in 1982 with Bob Saint moved up to become assistant PD. The Toronto native had worked for WABC (New York), WLS (Chicago) and ABC-FM Radio. In 1985, Sanderson was promoted to vice president of programming for Rogers Radio Broadcasting Ltd and in 1990 he was promoted to Exec. VP of the radio division. Future contact: sandysanderson@gmail.com

After 24 years in Edmonton, Bounce radio GM James Stuart bounces on…to CHUM’s Vancouver cluster: The Beat, QM FM, The Team and Talk 1410. Five years after launching the urban Top 40 Bounce, he leaves it in a tie as the No. 1 FM station in the western city.

CFCW Edmonton news reporter Karen Kay (previously on the morning shows of both K97 and, as Jami Hendrix, on The Bear) moves on to Kelowna as news director at 103.9 The Juice.

As it nears official launch, the exact date which is still to be announced, CFSI-FM 107.9 Salt Spring Island has added live streaming to its website.

Paul Bronfman, Chairman and CEO of Comweb Group Inc./William F. White International Inc., is pleased to announce the appointment of Cyril Drabinsky and Jay Switzer to the Company’s Board of Directors.

Drabinsky is President and CEO of Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc., the leading major Hollywood Studios and their worldwide client base in television programming, provider of a broad range of entertainment industry services and technologies to both commercial productions and independent feature films.

Switzer is the former President and CEO of one of Canada’s leading broadcasting companies CHUM Limited which, prior to its sale in 2007, owned and operated 34 radio stations and 35 television stations across the country.

Comweb Corporation is the majority owner of The Comweb Group Inc.  Founded by  Bronfman in 1988, the company has grown to encompass horizontally integrated firms dedicated to providing expert production services, studio facilities and equipment to the Canadian and International film and television industry.  Comweb Corporation is also the second largest voting shareholder of Astral Media Inc. one of Canada’s premier media companies, and is an active partner Toronto’s largest film and television studio complex, Pinewood Toronto Studios.   Comweb Corporation pursues production activities through its wholly owned subsidiary Comweb Productions Inc.

MARK RAMSEY – Hear 2.0:Yesterday I had a conversation with a very good programmer who told me his well-known morning show would probably have to take a bullet because PPM was evidently showing that without one or two more panelists tuned regularly to his morning show, the show no longer mattered to an audience of tens or hundreds of thousands.

This story is playing out elsewhere.  Even Ryan Seacrest and Kevin & Bean kvetch that, in effect, they’re paid nowadays as much to be the custodian for a mic as to actually talk into it.

This is not the fault of PPM per se.  All ratings are estimates, after all, some more accurate than others. It is our fault – ours.  Because of how we respond to those ratings and what pool of money we perceive our future to be swimming in.

For example, which of the following radio environments is likely to generate better results for an advertiser?  The FM shows and hosts and entertainers listeners are most passionate about or the shows filled with music and a minimum of interruptions?  (By “results” I mean the ring of a cash register and by “advertiser” I mean the client who cares about results, not necessarily the agency who may care only about placing a buy at the lowest cost).

Before you answer “the dollars will flow to the show with higher ratings, regardless,” consider the steady march of advertising dollars out of radio altogether.  This is not a march out of radio per se so much as it’s a journey out the world of cost-per-point.

It’s an exit from of the world of reach and into the world of results.