My first impulse was to puke.
After getting up at 3:20am to work myself through a 65 minute bike spin in my basement, the last thing I needed was to see a note from my wife saying "Are you ready for ten years of The K-Rock Centre?"...gag!!!" At first I thought she was doing that thing she does. You know, keeping me on edge, so I don't let down my guard for the inevitable bad news that could come at any time. (she feels that perhaps I tend to react in a rather sagiune way, and need the occasional SCARE)
But she woke up at 4:30 to tell me that it was indeed true, that K-Rock had been declared the sponsor of the new downtown arena. She and my politically savvy daughter stayed up ridiculously late to watch city council make the declaration live on channel 13. Both of them found the news disturbing, off-putting, even creepy. My daughter's instant concern was that NONE of the groups she'd go to see would ever come to Kingston now. We eventually calmed her down.
When I got to work, it was obviously even worse. Our morning staff were reeling over the news, and the notion that we had to deliver it in some way that a) informed our listeners, yet b) didn't give a competitor any publicity. Second-guessing, speculation and rage dominated our off-air activities. We put our GM Greg Hinton on the air to give the company line, and got our fair share of indignant emails from our audience, slamming city council, the mayor, the arena management group and just about anyone else involved for making such a stupid decision.
As for me (glad you asked), well, it was a challenge. First off, a lot of my friends know that my easy-going, sometimes stoic demeanor is a total fabrication. My temper is so quick that it catches me off guard sometimes. But, I work hard at "not letting things get to me." When I do my "who gives a crap" schtick, it's usually in an attempt to hide my feelings of "who can I strangle?"
So, at work I was the most peaceful, objective, even thoughtful person for most of the morning. I slipped a couple of times on the air, but it was barely noticable. Then I eventually went home, and thought about the whole thing some more.
I watched John Wright on the CKWS 6 o'clock news. He said that this would be "good for the city, and good for everyone" which I guess means: "screw all the other media, I got the rights, too bad for you." Mayor Rosen told us it was time to "move forward" though I'm sure what he wanted to say was "where were the rest of you cheap bastards when your buddy Johnny here came to us with some real hard cash?"
And that's when I started to see things as they truly are.
Is having to deal with the major sports and entertainment venue being branded with our direct competitor's name for ten years going to be challenging? Yes.
Did city council make a bad decision? Yes, but they had guns held to their heads, and would have been just as wrong if they'd turned it down too. These people made the best choice humanly possible under very very diffcult circumstances.
Does anyone care about the impact of other media pulling some of their support for events at the new arena? Probably. But I'm not 100% convinced that is ever going to happen.
Our radio business is not easy to understand from the outside. We're constantly defending our brands, while changing our product to attract more listeners, more clients and more money. We live and die by ratings, which are driven by how successfully we get our name recalled by as many people in the listening area as possible. It doesn't necessarily mean they listen to us, just that they remember us. By which we can prove ourselves an efficient and economical vehicle to get our clients' products and services recalled by these people. Which means we have a steady revenue stream to afford us the resources to do it all over again.
Spending huge piles of money is rare in this biz. It's even rarer in a market this size.
The fact that a national arena management firm, a very thoughtful and skeptical city council and a non-network owner all came together to create a radio sponsorship on a 42 million dollar project, means our business is still for real.
No internet station...no TV network...no satellite "radio" provider has of yet been named as sponsor on a valid entertainment venue.
Thanks to John Wright and whatever means he had to use to get this to happen, everyone in our business feels just a little bit more valid today.
After getting up at 3:20am to work myself through a 65 minute bike spin in my basement, the last thing I needed was to see a note from my wife saying "Are you ready for ten years of The K-Rock Centre?"...gag!!!" At first I thought she was doing that thing she does. You know, keeping me on edge, so I don't let down my guard for the inevitable bad news that could come at any time. (she feels that perhaps I tend to react in a rather sagiune way, and need the occasional SCARE)
But she woke up at 4:30 to tell me that it was indeed true, that K-Rock had been declared the sponsor of the new downtown arena. She and my politically savvy daughter stayed up ridiculously late to watch city council make the declaration live on channel 13. Both of them found the news disturbing, off-putting, even creepy. My daughter's instant concern was that NONE of the groups she'd go to see would ever come to Kingston now. We eventually calmed her down.
When I got to work, it was obviously even worse. Our morning staff were reeling over the news, and the notion that we had to deliver it in some way that a) informed our listeners, yet b) didn't give a competitor any publicity. Second-guessing, speculation and rage dominated our off-air activities. We put our GM Greg Hinton on the air to give the company line, and got our fair share of indignant emails from our audience, slamming city council, the mayor, the arena management group and just about anyone else involved for making such a stupid decision.
As for me (glad you asked), well, it was a challenge. First off, a lot of my friends know that my easy-going, sometimes stoic demeanor is a total fabrication. My temper is so quick that it catches me off guard sometimes. But, I work hard at "not letting things get to me." When I do my "who gives a crap" schtick, it's usually in an attempt to hide my feelings of "who can I strangle?"
So, at work I was the most peaceful, objective, even thoughtful person for most of the morning. I slipped a couple of times on the air, but it was barely noticable. Then I eventually went home, and thought about the whole thing some more.
I watched John Wright on the CKWS 6 o'clock news. He said that this would be "good for the city, and good for everyone" which I guess means: "screw all the other media, I got the rights, too bad for you." Mayor Rosen told us it was time to "move forward" though I'm sure what he wanted to say was "where were the rest of you cheap bastards when your buddy Johnny here came to us with some real hard cash?"
And that's when I started to see things as they truly are.
Is having to deal with the major sports and entertainment venue being branded with our direct competitor's name for ten years going to be challenging? Yes.
Did city council make a bad decision? Yes, but they had guns held to their heads, and would have been just as wrong if they'd turned it down too. These people made the best choice humanly possible under very very diffcult circumstances.
Does anyone care about the impact of other media pulling some of their support for events at the new arena? Probably. But I'm not 100% convinced that is ever going to happen.
Our radio business is not easy to understand from the outside. We're constantly defending our brands, while changing our product to attract more listeners, more clients and more money. We live and die by ratings, which are driven by how successfully we get our name recalled by as many people in the listening area as possible. It doesn't necessarily mean they listen to us, just that they remember us. By which we can prove ourselves an efficient and economical vehicle to get our clients' products and services recalled by these people. Which means we have a steady revenue stream to afford us the resources to do it all over again.
Spending huge piles of money is rare in this biz. It's even rarer in a market this size.
The fact that a national arena management firm, a very thoughtful and skeptical city council and a non-network owner all came together to create a radio sponsorship on a 42 million dollar project, means our business is still for real.
No internet station...no TV network...no satellite "radio" provider has of yet been named as sponsor on a valid entertainment venue.
Thanks to John Wright and whatever means he had to use to get this to happen, everyone in our business feels just a little bit more valid today.
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