Hate to say I told you so

Three totally unrelated things today. 

First: all the media news today is wrapped around the announcement by newspaper conglomerate Advance Media that their New Orleans Times-Picayune would soon cease publishing a print edition every day.  They will only throw a paper in Crescent City driveways on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.  Otherwise, subscribers will have to get their news from their online "digital" edition, which will thoretically be updated constantly.

Told you so.  The economics and competitive landscape for traditional newspapers have long since been obsoleted, not just by technology buy how people expect to get their news.  Stay tuned.  This is only the first shot.  My hometown paper, The Birmingham News, also an Advance paper, announced today they and others in the group will do likewise beginning soon.  Prediction:  none of these entities will be publishing traditional newspapers--any day of the week--within two years.

Second item: amateur radio circles have been all atwitter about the introduction this week of a new transceiver from Kenwood, their TS-990S.  Not really "introduction."  They had a non-working prototype for view at the massive Dayton Hamvention last week.  Kenwood is not talking much, for good reasons.  Some features are not yet set.  And they have patents pending on some things they would prefer remaining quiet about.  But that has not stopped rampant (and often ludicrous) speculation.  It's fun, though.  Plus it is a vote by a major manufacturer that the hobby will continue to grow and be vibrant.

I had told you earlier that new technology in the manufacture of ham radio gear would reinvigorate the market, and with it, the hobby.  Here's proof.  The fact that both QST and CQ Magazine, the hobby's two major publications, are now offering digital editions is another example of how ham radio continues to do its best to keep up with how potential hams expect their hobby to evolve.

Finally, what is this with an ugly message at the top of Blogspot's post page that tells me that my browser is no longer supported by "Blogger?"  Internet Explorer is no longer supported?  The most widely used internet browser by miles?  They are kind enough to suggest that I try Chrome if I am having problems.

I am.  Having problems, that is.  Editing this post is almost impossible, and I had to add that huge image of the Kenwood TS-990S just to get a cursor in the edit box.  I still can't go back with the mouse and put the cursor anywhere else in the post, not can I copy the text.  I just hope Google is not throwing its weight around.  I don't mind downloading and using Chrome.

But don't force me.  I don't respond well to intimidation.  Give me some reasons, Google, and I will be glad to consider it.  But don't tell me you are going to make it impossible for me to continue a blog I have been using for years just so you can force me to devote even more of my computer's hard drive to Google.

Don Keith

UPDATE:  Yes, indeed.  When I downloaded and installed Chrome, my blog posting page works beautifully.  Please, Mr. Google, explain to me why you would disenfranchise all users of the latest version of what is still--in many analytic reports--the number one web browser?  Because you can?  It worked.  I downloaded your damn browser.  And I guess I'll see if I want to use it instead of IE9.  But I won't enjoy it.  So there.

The CFPB -- update

Followers of this blog may remember a while back when I ranted and raved about the creation of the new Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau, thanks to those caring and concerned Congressmen Dodd and Frank.  (I won't even launch into my belief that at least one of those guys was instrumental in creating the housing crisis in 2008 with his incessant and ill-conceived meddling.)  I noted in that diatribe my concern that this new government watchdog agency had already added over 800 employees, just since November 2011.  And that it was created despite the fact that many, many federal and state agencies already exist to do exactly what this new one was supposedly chartered to do.

Well, they apparently aren't satisfied with duplicating the existing agencies that are supposed to be enforcing existing laws as they apply to financial institutions.  Now CFPB is grabbing some more responsibility, taking on an even broader role in regulating consumer credit.  They have taken it upon themselves to regulate the workforce diversity of the entities they now oversee.  Hey, I'm all for diversity.  I am practically a radical when it comes to diversity, fair and equal treatment, and a lack of discrimination.

But where in the rather foggy legislation that created this boondoggle does it give them the right to investigate the hiring diversity of banks and credit unions?  And even if it did, are there not plenty of other government agencies whose job it is to do this very thing?

Portions of an article from THE HILL on the subject:

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is casting a gaze at the diversity of the workforce at the firms it monitors, thanks to a new hire.  Stuart Ishimaru was unveiled Monday as the CFPB's first head of its Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, which is charged with monitoring the diversity policies of not only the agency itself, but also the firms the bureau regulates.

"Americans from all walks of life use consumer financial products and services. We should strive to reflect that diversity because, in the end, it will only strengthen the work we do,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray in a statement. “Mr. Ishimaru’s extensive experience in promoting diversity makes him the perfect person for the job.”

In addition to making sure financial institutions are selling consumer products that are easily understood and cracking down on abusive products, the new office means the bureau also will be monitoring the diversity policies of those businesses.  The CFPB established the position thanks to a provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law — which also created the bureau — that requires all financial services agencies to establish similar offices. The provision was authored by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the second-ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.


In addition to evaluating the diversity policies of banks, credit card companies and mortgage providers, among others, Ishimaru is also charged with ensuring the diversity of the CFPB's workforce and that of the businesses that participate in agency programs and contracts.

Again, I am all for fairness and diversity.  But do we need another multi-million-dollar tangle of hopeless bureaucracy and waste to get it?  Or do we just make sure existing agencies are doing what we are paying them to do already?

Answer me that.  Please!

Don Keith N4KC
http://www.donkeith.com/
http://www.n4kc.com/

That OTHER button on your radio

I have the pleasure of doing lunch most weeks with a great group of guys, most of whom are amateur radio operators, and some of whom are AM broadcast-band DXers.  That means they try to hear and log reception of distant radio stations on the AM broadcast portion of the radio spectrum.  They face many challenges these days, including a startlingly high level of electrical noise (generated by everything from power lines to high-def plasma TV sets), more and more stations broadcasting in languages other than English, weaker signals due to a lack of maintenance on the stations' transmitting plants, and the fact that many don't even bother to identify their call signs and station locations as required by law, or they illegally identify as the FM sister station they are simulcasting at the time.

The fact is that listenership to AM radio...once the only viable commercial band...is rapidly becoming non-existent.  (I remember putting an FM station on the air in the mid-1970s and giving away FM converters for AM car radios so we'd encourage people to tune in FM.)  Some of the radio-industry "trade" publications are quick to point out that several of the top-money-making stations in the country are AM stations.  True, but that is due to factors--mostly truly compelling programming and continuing to be important to a significant number of listeners--unrelated to their using a different technology to modulate their carriers. And those successful AM stations are absolutely the exception and not the rule.

The fact is, AM is dying.  I see an amazing number of AM broadcasters somehow finagling licenses for translator stations that put their AM station on a low-power FM frequency.  Others are finding their transmitter/tower sites more valuable as real estate than as radio stations and are simply turning in their licenses to the FCC and going "dark."  Or their billing is not enough to cover the power bill.  One of the major group owners has for years been systematically selling off their AMs for a song or, in most cases, giving them away to non-profit groups as tax write-offs.

Never mind that I think broadcast operators allowed this to happen by being total dunderheads.  When FM came along, they all moved their more compelling programming--and especially their music formats--to the better fidelity of that mode.  Like him or hate him, Rush Limbaugh almost single-handedly prolonged the viability of the AM stations by a decade with his unique brand of talk.  Now, though, Rush, news and sports talk, and ethnic programming is just as readily available on FM.  That same ever-present buzzing electrical noise along with the vagaries of night-time propagation and other factors that frustrate my AM-DXing buddies also discourage anyone from ever hitting that "AM" button on car radios.

But all that aside, the reason AM has deteroriated to almost no listenership in most cities is simply that there is nothing there worth listening to.  My oft-quoted consultant buddy, Mark Ramsey, just spoke to the subject HERE. 

It all begs two questions:

1) Is AM merely the first domino to tip over, with FM inevitably toppling, too?  Is traditional, over-the-air broadcasting going away at some point?  There are plenty of other audio choices available to people on a variety of platforms that are becoming more and more ubiquitous, but will broadcasters answer the challenge by investing in programming content that people will still want to pull out of the mire?  Or will they continue to avoid investing money and creativity in the product for which people are searching...and successfully finding elsewhere?

2) How long before the AM broadcast band becomes an extension of the amateur radio 160-meter band?

Don Keith N4KC
http://www.n4kc.com/
http://www.donkeith.com/

Ah, those nostalgic sounds of yesteryear...the 1990s!

...

It's truly odd how sounds we once took for granted can now send us into spasms of teary-eyed nostalgia...the noise a 5.25-inch floppy disk made when you loaded it into the A: drive of a computer, the various Windows boot-up sound signatures, even the wonderful noise we once heard while turning the dial (yes, dial!) across the AM radio broadcast band. (That "noise" is what inspired many of us to enter the hobby of amateur radio and/or pursue careers in broadcasting.)

Beautiful!

Well, here is a nice article that actually provides examples of twenty different iconic technological sounds that a lot of us grew up with but that our kids will probably not have ever heard or remember.

Listen and those of my generation will get all misty-eyed while enjoying that lovely music we once heard while accessing the Internet via phone line dial-up or the beeps and bops of a spirited game of Pong.

Enjoy...

Don Keith N4KC
http://www.donkeith.com/
http://www.n4kc.com/

I'm from the government and I am here to protect YOU!



Those of you who follow this blog--all three of you--know that I sometimes can't resist the temptation to go off topic and get all political on you guys.  Sorry.  But I justify that by noting that technological change is not the only kind that can radically affect our daily lives.  So can the actions of "we, the people," sometimes known as the "government."

I have blogged before about my concerns over the current tact of our national government--executive, judicial, and legislative, all equally to blame--toward increasing its size and power as well as its influence over we poor, helpless citizens.  OK, I know some of us need the help.  And I agree that it is a legitimate function of government to come to the aid of those who most need it.  But I don't agree that such assistance and protection should be used to the extent that it interferes with the rights and freedoms the rest of us hold so precious.  Or be so cumbersome and overbearing that it prevents the greatest economic system in the world's history from being all it can be.

I also have noted that in my current business, we have seen near-oppressive government regulation, all in the name of protecting citizens from alleged abuse from others in our space.  A solution in search of a problem?  Yes!  I know there are those--including some few in our business--who would bilk people and take advantage of the gullible.  But I also know there are plenty of rules in the books already to punish those scoundrels.  Enforce them!  Don't punish the good guys to get at the few.  And don't at the same time penalize the very people they say they are trying to help.



The latest boondoggle to raise my ire is an interesting article about Richard Cordray, the director of the newly-minted Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Were you even aware of this fine governmental agency that is charged with protecting you from the big, bad banks and credit card companies and others who earn their living by loaning money to people?  Did you know that since its humble beginnings late last year it has already hired 800 people.  At least CFPB is doing its part to solve the country's recent unemployment problems by providing nice careers in government for all those folks. 

The article states: The agency is making rules and conducting reviews of financial institutions such as banks, mortgage brokers and issuers of credit cards.“We’re just getting under way, but I believe we have strong authority … to address these problems,” Cordray said, noting that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the first government agency that can regulate a wide variety of financial institutions.

Well.  "The first government agency to address these problems."

What happened to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency, or the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council?  Or the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Office of Thrift Supervision, or the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in the U.S. Department of the Treasury?  Or the banking and financial regulatory and enforcement agencies that exist in every single state in the Union?

Apparently none of them are doing squat to protect consumers so we need another agency to do it.  One that is just getting started with a mere 800 employees.

No, in its extreme concern that we, the poor, ignorant consumers are being fleeced and flummoxed, the Obama administration and enough members of Congress as necessary have created yet another agency to do what all those others have already been created to do but apparently are not.  The reason for creating the CFPB? 

According to the article:  The middle class is getting hammered,” he (Cordray) said, noting that household debt has risen to about $12.5 trillion. More than half that debt is in the form of credit card debt.  “The backbone of this country, the middle class, is under pressure,” Cordray added.

So, because idiots go out and run up monstrous debt on their credit cards, buying things they don't need, we have to anoint yet another Federal agency (with 800 employees and a ton of serious governmental clout) to rain down some serious hell on the scurrilous bastards who are willing to loan those idiots all that money.  The free market side of me says, "So what if banks and other institutions are willing to take that chance?"  Could it be because, with the Fed keeping interest rates at historical lows, this is about the only way left for banks to make money?

Government--MY government and yours, too--should get out of the way.  Allow the market to flush out the idiots.  Enforce sensible regulations, equally and fairly and certainly.  Assure nobody is lying or misleading would-be borrowers.  Hit--and hit hard--anyone using deceptive lending practices.  Require existing agencies to do their jobs. 

But please don't start drafting arbitrary, kneejerk regulation to solve perceived problems and create ad hoc agencies that will exist forever and ever, amen.  Neither the mountain of rules nor the alphabet soup of agencies and the ever-mounting list of "czars" will ever go quietly into the night.

Think I'm exaggerating?  Ask your hometown banker how things are going out there.  Check with just about any small-businessman.  Look at the tremendous amount of cash most companies are stowing away because they are so skittish about governmental meddling in their industries that they are reluctant to invest and expand and hire.  Try to start a new business, borrow capital, or bring a new product to market.  Heck, just try to do your own income taxes if you want to witness government regulation that is out of control.

Quick example of how silly this all is, and why hastily-drafted and ill-conceived regulation creates far more problems than it ever solves: in my business, our customers (students) are able to borrow money from the Federal government to pay for their education.  (Thank goodness for this program or I never could have afforded a college education, nor could many, many others.  If it is properly administered, the taxpayer not only gets well-educated and skilled workers to enhance the tax roles but even makes a few dollars on them in the form of interest when they repay their loans.)  However, in their infinite wisdom, the people who oversee the Title IV loan system have included a serious flaw that encourages abuse.  Based on their "needs," students can borrow far more money than just the cost of tuition and books.  They are able to borrow for what is termed "living expenses."  As an authorized, accredited Title IV school, we are not allowed--by Federal regulation--to limit the amount of money our students borrow.  Many of them see this as cheap money with much lower interest rates than the payday loan operations charge, so they borrow every drop they can, despite our vigorous counseling.  This has created a whole culture we call "check chasers," people who enroll, borrow all they can, then drop out of school.  Then they come back next quarter and do it all over again.  Our schools don't stand for this.  We don't continue to admit students who obviously don't intend to attend class beyond "check day."  Not only is it not right for them to do so, but it also would affect our retention/graduation rate, which is set very, very high by our accreditor.  But thanks to YOUR government's rules, we cannot prevent anyone from borrowing to the hilt. 

Yet the Department of Education and agencies like the new CFPB want to blame us for the mess in which some of these folks find themselves.  And for the staggering rate of student loan debt.

As I've noted often, when the government shows us they can run simple things like railroads (AMTRAK) and mail delivery efficiently, then I'll be more positive about them running other things.  Again, we need regulation.  And we need somebody to enforce those rules.  But how many arbitrary regulations and huge agencies (with acronym names and overlapping responsibilities) can they force down our throats before the entire economy strangles?

I'm afraid we are about to find out.

Don Keith

(Note: comments in this blog are solely the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer or anyone else.)

Change, change, change...change of fools...part deaux

Sorry to get into a rut here, but I just learned about yet another long-time, loyal, and fabulously successful broadcaster who was shown the door by one of today's brilliant broadcast operators.  His only sin was staying with the same company for four decades, making it millions of dollars, and, maybe, earning more money than they wanted to pay him.

That fine, fair, forward-thinking operator: the publicly traded Cumulus Broadcasting.  There is a reason that many in the industry dub them "The Cloud People," and it has nothing to do with their company name.  Here's what I mean.

On the same day that the loyal, proven broadcast manager was jettisoned, the company's Q4 financial results were reported in the industry trades.  God's gift to radio lost another $13 million during the quarter while cutting their way to success.  But its CEO, Lew Dickey, assured stockholders that, what with their recent acquisition of another dim-bulb of a radio company, better things were on the horizon:  "The integration of CITADEL into CUMULUS is ahead of schedule as we have achieved 100% of our stated run-rate synergies in the first 100 days. With this large and transformative acquisition, we have built a true platform company with multiple organic growth drivers, including compelling new content, that will enable us to generate significant free cash to rapidly de-lever our balance sheet." 

Lord, that's poetic!  Lew wins—hands down!—the “Most Buzz Words Crammed into a Single Statement Award” for the year. For those unfamiliar with the terms, here’s a translation:


“Run rate synergies”—If it draws a salary fire it. If it does not directly keep the transmitter on the air, cancel it. If it has any chance of earning a sales bonus, shoot it.

“Transformative acquisitions”—Purchasing legendary and highly successful radio stations and promptly emasculating their management so they’ll leave without severance, cutting anything that requires writing a check, whether it’s a good thing or not, and quickly transforming some of the only broadcast properties in the business that were doing it correctly and breaking them all the way down to the Cumulus standard, thus assuring and hastening the demise of a truly magical entertainment and advertising medium. That, my friend, is “transformation!”

“Platform company”—a model company that will be studied by business schools and Wall Street analysts for decades to come, all in order to learn how to strangle the life out of a group of living, breathing broadcast properties yet still find a way to pay staggering bonuses to the people who committed the crime.



“Multiple organic growth drivers”—I believe my grandpa called this “fertilizer.” And most of our fertilizer came from the area of the barn where the mules resided.

“Compelling new content”—Adding a couple more out-of-work disk jockeys to voice track more stations, while changing the rotation on the same 300 songs once a moon-phase to reflect whatever the corporate VP of programming ordains.

“Free cash”—Not, as generally believed, the prize in a radio station contest. They don’t do those anymore. People will listen to whatever they put on the air because it is there and free, and broadcasters don’t have to promote themselves. What else are they going to listen to? Satellite? Their iPods? The Internet? Give me a break! “Free cash” in this context is what the company believes it will generate when it has fired all its creative talent, de-incentivized (and chased away) its management and sales staff, canceled all the tools its former programmers and sales management might have been able to use to actually generate business without ratings, and brought to a halt any expenditure not totally necessary to keep the doors open and the lights on. And if all this actually does generate some “free cash,” they can go out and buy some other group or two and show them how it is done in the 21st century.

“De-lever our balance sheet”—Wall Street-speak for as long as you hold the majority of the stock and nobody else has enough of those worthless certificates to challenge you, and you continue to promise stockholders and analysts that things will get better soon, what with all that spectacular “political” and “auto” and “retail” spending out there just beyond the horizon, then nobody can do a damn thing about it.


Don Keith
http://www.donkeith.com/
http://www.n4kc.com/

Change, change, change...change of fools...



Back to media, and especially broadcast radio, a subject still near and dear to my heart.  For recent followers, I spent over twenty years in radio and still believe it has the potential to be one of the most influential and powerful media for a number of reasons I won't linger on here.  But it could be.  Could be if the keys to today's radio stations were not in the possession of people who apparently have no clue as to the potential of this sound-based medium and what it could still offer.

I was talking today with a friend who has a friend who is a general manager of a group of stations.  That fellow has decades of success and several of his stations were once legendary in the industry.  But, of course, they were purchased by one of the big, publicly-traded corporations that has snatched up hundreds of stations across America.  A company that is especially conscious of the bottom line as it affects their stock price.  So, this GM is now under a dictate that he cannot approve an expenditure over $100 without approval from the home office.

That means the "home office" has a proven manager overseeing properties worth many millions of dollars who cannot even take a couple of local clients to dinner at a nice restaurant without getting permission from HQ...and, I understand, most of those decisions are made by the CEO himself. 

Incidentally, all this "cut our way to success" on the part of these particular "enlightened" broadcasters has resulted in a single-digit stock price, dramatic drop in ratings, and more signs that their method of running radio stations may not be best.

Second bit of news: one of the last successful family-owned radio stations has just been sold.  WABB-FM in Mobile, Alabama, was a rarity, a stand-alone AM/FM in a sizeable market, surrounded by other clusters of stations that are owned by giant conglomerates.  It is another legendary property, managed and programmed creatively so it was able to compete...and compete well...against those other guys.  Its owner, Bernie Dittman, died several years ago, and I don't blame the family for cashing out.  Considering the state of the medium, they are doing the best thing.

It's sad, though, that the outfit that is buying them is a "non-profit" that owns hundreds of stations, programming most of them from a central location.  See, I know Mobile.  I used to own WZEW-FM there.  It is not like any other city in America.  WABB and WZEW sounded like Mobile, not like some other homogenized set of stations.  How could some deejay sitting in Nebraska know how people in Mobile feel during Mardi Gras, or talk about having lunch at Wintzell's Oyster House, describe the full moon on the bay from a pier in Fairhope, or give us the heads-up about the fog this morning on the Causeway?  Or play just the perfect set of songs to match the mood on a rainy morning in the Port City?

Can't and won't.

My friend Ben McWhorter summed up nicely the giant companies who swooped in and bought up every available signal in all sizeable towns and built their "portfolios" of "broadcast clusters."

There is only one word that goes well with "cluster."

Don Keith N4KC
http://www.n4kc.com/
http://www.donkeith.com/