March 2006 RAP
March 2006 Highlights
2005 RAP Awards: Finalists Chosen
By Craig Jackman
The finalists for the 2005 RAP Awards have been chosen. Check this
month's CD track sheet for a listing of the finalists. RAP Members vote this
month, and next month we'll announce the winners of the 2005 RAP Awards!
Feature: Breathing Creative Life Into Your Promos
By James Stodd
There are many times with this job where it’s really easy to get stuck in
a rut – and end up producing something that is generic and run of the mill.
Sometimes it’s down to necessity – when the boss needs something on air
"now" and you have to pull something out of the bag before a 5pm deadline.
We all do it at some point, and whilst you can fight it, deadlines will
always exist….
Sometimes, however, you get the chance to craft something that sounds out of
the ordinary, that will cut through the day to day clutter, and hopefully
will help give the promotion a special feel on air. These are the projects
that really fire me up, and allow the creative juices to flow.
[Click here to check out the audio James refers to in the article.]
Interview: Doug Harris, Creative Animal International,
Houston, TX
By Jerry Vigil
Since 1983, Harris has been working his special magic at radio stations
across the country, creating powerful, promotions-driven ratings and revenue
plans for satisfied station owners and thriving on the challenge of keeping
radio listeners entertained and advertisers happy.
During his eleven year tenure at heritage AOR station KLOL-FM in Houston,
Harris demonstrated his bigger-than-life approach to station activities and
his special flair for producing uncomplicated events with seemingly global
impact. From a box of autographed photos and albums, Harris created the KLOL
Rock-n-Roll Auction, which enjoyed a ten year run and raised over $500,000
for Houston area charities. A simple shopping mall blood drive became the
Rock-n-Roll Up Your Sleeve Blood Drive, garnering a national award for the
station and a series of record collection years for the blood bank. The
Rock-n-Roll Softball Championship of the World, the KLOL Street Machine
Nationals, and Houston Music Awards — all produced by Harris — became
revenue producing benchmarks on the KLOL promotional calendar.
During his career, he has given away, among other things, an oil well, a
breast enlargement operation, a ton of kitty litter, over thirty cars and
trucks, and roughly $1,000,000 in cash. He once claimed Halley’s Comet as
Texas sovereign territory, named a Texas Ambassador to Australia, and sent
him to Sydney to "bring it back." He has awarded trips to destinations
around the world, including a chance to spend Halloween night in Dracula’s
castle in Transylvania, Romania and over the years has employed a "street"
fleet of novelty vehicles including a three-wheeled spaceship, an ambulance,
a 1957 Rolls Royce, a Bigfoot truck, and even a forty-foot brassiere on
roller skates.
During his last years at KLOL, Harris branched out to provide consulting
services for stations outside of Houston. Most notably, Harris and the
programming team of Ted Edwards and Virgil Thompson engineered the rebirth
of KISS-FM in San Antonio, taking the station from an Arbitron 12+ rating of
.4 to a 5.6 in a single book — all on a marketing budget of $1800. A
dramatic success at River City Broadcasting’s "The Point" in St. Louis
followed, and gave Harris his first experience in the modern rock format.
Additional projects in New Orleans and Dallas broadened his level of
expertise with various formats, which now included Newstalk, Oldies,
Contemporary Hits, New Age Jazz, AOR, and Classic Rock.
His professional accolades include Billboard Magazine’s Promotion Director
of the Year, numerous regional ADDY’s, and three Promax Gold Medallion
Awards for Marketing Excellence. Add WHO’s WHO IN ENTERTAINMENT and
OUTSTANDING YOUNG MEN OF AMERICA listings and you have a more complete
picture of the man one radio station owner described as "more energy,
creativity and infectious enthusiasm in one human being than should be
allowed by law".
We scratch the surface of Doug’s outstanding talent and philosophy in this
month’s RAP Interview. For more info, visit
www.creativeanimal.com.
Test Drive: The Tranzport from Frontier Designs
By Steve Cunningham
Every now and again a device comes along that makes you slap your
forehead and exclaim "Why didn’t they think of this before?" Well, maybe
not... but the little Tranzport wireless remote control for your computer
audio editor certainly qualifies for a "dope slap" reaction.
Production 212: The BIG Question
By Dave Foxx
I remember reading a science-fiction novel when I was young (I wish I
could remember the title, or even the author) about a super-computer that
was running the galaxy. Everything was humming right along until it got a
question from a user that forced it to shut down. The question in the novel
was "Why?" When it was grappling with all the day-to-day stuff, it was fine,
but when somebody asked it to explain the purpose of life, it simply
couldn’t come up with any kind of meaningful answer. Now, I’m not going to
try to answer that question here. I have a hard enough time trying to figure
out how to get my audio on the RAP CD. (More on that later.) However, I got
the BIG question from a fellow producer last week that I’d like to tackle.
[Click here to check out the audio Dave references in this month's column.]
Feature: Sound Thinking - A Good Writer's Values
By Tim Miles
In honor of being a recent guest in the hometown of the Busch family, we
presented a 12-pack of tools at the Missouri Broadcasters’ Convention that
writers could take home to be a gooder writer. Our first three mental beers
were the three values innate in such a person.
Radio Hed: Radio Improv - Worse Off/Better Off
By Jeffrey Hedquist
Here are two improv games that can give us useful formats for
commercials. "Worse Off" is a version of the "When I was your age…" stories
older members of your family would recite. In this game, each character
tries to elicit sympathy or admiration from the others by exaggerating
reminiscences of how much worse they had it.
Feature: Of Migraines, Bifocals, and Adobe Audition 2.0
By Ed Thompson
I got laid up with a migraine headache the other day. I’ve dealt with
them for most of my adult life. For me, migraines don’t come on gradually
like the changing of the seasons. They are a radical, immediate, and painful
invasion of my cranium. Every neuron fires at once while all the blood
vessels that intertwine my brain constrict and restrict the flow of oxygen
through this huge melon they call my head. I cry like a little girl.
...And Make It Real Creative:
By Trent Rentsch
Little things really do mean a lot. The little thing that means the most
to me at the moment seems to have disappeared. It’s a little notebook, black
cat on the cover, the Toulouse-Lautrec poster. I found it in an Import shop.
My wife saw me looking at it and bought it for me. For that reason alone I
don’t want to lose it, but at the moment there’s another reason that has me
turning my studio upside down searching for it. The reason is inside the
notebook, one little word... or maybe 2 or 3, I don’t remember. I knew I
wouldn’t remember, which is why I wrote it (or them) in my precious little
notebook. Because I would NEVER lose that. Right...
The Monday Morning Memo: Before You Begin Writing Those
Ads...
By Roy H. Williams
Which do you think would work better, the brilliant execution of a flawed
strategy, or the flawed execution of a brilliant one? In business, it’s the
flawed execution of a brilliant strategy that usually wins the day.
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