GeorgeJohns.com

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About George Johns

Present - Talent Coach and Radio Consultant.

1985 - 1990 - Radio station owner in Portland, Indianapolis and Milwaukee along with Fairwest, a syndication company of The Class/Classy FM, Music Of Your life and Continuous Country formats.

1981 - 1985 - Owner of The Johns Company, a Radio Consulting Company.

1973 - 1981 - V/P Programming Fairbanks Broadcasting owners of WIBC/WNAP Indianapolis, KVIL Dallas, WVBF Boston, WIBG Philadelphia, WRMF Palm
Beach and WJNO West Palm Beach.


1971 - 1973 - Station Manager CFTR Toronto.

1969 - 1971 - Progran Director CFRA Ottawa.

1969 - 1970 - Program Director CKSO AM/FM Sudbury.

1968 - 1969 - Program Director CKOM Saskatoon.

1967 - 1968 - Board OP. CKY Winnipeg.

1964 - 1967 - Guitar, The Jury, London Recording Artists.

March 14, 2009

And the name droppings just keep on coming!

What I feel Jeff and Jer do better than anyone is the set up to a planned bit. They always have the end pre done so that they can just wander all over the place and sneak up on you after they have dropped in all the localizations plus made you see exactly what they are chatting about then all of a sudden, BAM!  

Rick Moranis said to me at dinner once in New York that the only actor in the hit movie Ghost Busters was Sirgourney Weaver, the rest like him were writers and they wrote there own parts everyday. On the set you were never sure what your fellow writer was going to say to you when the cameras started rolling. The tension created magic he claimed. 

Martin Milner told me there could never be a Route 66 reunion special because his co star got into so much trouble in every one of the little towns they shot the TV series in along the old route 66, that those little towns were still looking for him. 

When Paul Page was at WIBC, Fred Heckman told him him that the rumors about his extra curricular affairs were getting out of hand and he had to cut it out and become a good family man. 

Imagine Paul's surprise when the elevator at a downtown hotel in Indianapolis filled with all the Fairbanks brass from all over America who were in town for our first Fairbanks summit, stopped halfway down and there waiting to get on was Paul with a sweet young thing. 

Vic Rumore said to me, if I could convert his station in Nashville from CHR with big numbers to A/C with big numbers and even better demos, without his owner or tha trades picking up we did it, he would send a jet plane to take me anywhere in the world for dinner with as many people as the plane would hold.

Vic I'm getting kinda hungry but the food at the airport where I'm waiting is terrible. 

Dave Hollywood Manning showed me that you instantly could ruin the look of a two thousand dollar suit with matching shoes. 

Dick Dresner told me if I wanted to get more listeners to sample my stations I should do it the same way they track the big horned sheep.

You just have to figure out where they are going, and be there waiting for them. 

Donny Deutsch recently told me on the phone that the best thing that ever happened to him was when he was working for the family business, his Dad said get out of here and find something to do that your passionate about. 

Reid Reker told me that dogs don't bark at parked cars. 

After a meeting with Herb Alpert at A&M records I asked Charlie Minor how he  thought the meeting went, he said it went well the boss really liked you. 

I said great do you think he will do my project ? Charlie said hell no it's too much work for him, what you don't understand George is these guys are wrong 9 times out of 10 but they are all Billionaires anyway. 

When I explained to Tom Hoyt at Spago in Beverly Hills as we sat there waiting for my date and his blind date that there comes a time when dating young beautiful women just becomes silly and you just end up looking stupid. About then the bar went silent and Tom said God I hope these are our dates. I looked around and said yep do you think we look stupid?

He said, who cares they're with us! 

My Grampa Vince told me that life was really about faster cars, older whisky and younger women. He neglected to tell me they can also ruin your life. 

My Father said, Don't you ever do anything to taint the family name 'cause if you ever do you wont make it through the night. 

My Mother said, Just wait til you Father gets home and she had to say it quite often. 

My Father said congratulations to me on my 21st birthday bought me a drink and said, the family names is now yours son and I no longer care what you do with it  because now it's your problem.

I heard Jimmy Darin once do what he claimed was a live hanging on the air back when I was just a listener. Wow breath taking!

Peter Proskurnik said to me when I was 15 Hey George lets go to teen canteen tonight, I had no idea what that was but when I found out it changed my life.

Bob Christy told me that no good deed goes unpunished. A few years ago we launched Boston's first Country station and Bob was the PD.
Harry Nelson who lived near by at the time was loosing his house to the bank. So Bob who knew him hired him so he at least he could pay his Mortgage.
The next thing we knew Harry had snuck across the street and launched another Country station against us and we were told that he even took our music with him. Nice, Harry!

My brother Reg told me that shortly after I had left home our parents said to him, we took our eye off of George for just a moment and all of a sudden we didn't even know him anymore. We will be watching you every minute.

Barry Smith told me that he used to play some pick up Basketball games that didn't use referees, you just called your own fouls and it all worked out. So maybe unregulated business could work out too. I said to Barry ... Yeah but those guys you were playing with were probably honorable.

Chuck McCoy told me that after my brother had introduced him to his long time radio idol Charlie Tuna last year he heard Charlie mention his name on the air. When he mentioned it to Reg, Reg said Charlie had no choice man, you were just gushing when you met him.

When I first met Reid Reker he was living with a woman he was divorced from. When I asked him how that all works, he said she was pretty wild when the lights went down which he really liked, but he couldn't have any wife of his acting that way.

Garth Brooks told me he was wild in High School but not as wild as he wanted to be, he was too frightened of the consequences. 

Roger Snowdon told me that nobody moves to Florida to work harder.

The sales people complained to me that when WRMF was in it's heyday, that when ever they would ask PD Russ Morley for a sales promotion he would just toss them an Arbitron rating book and say, I got your sales promotion for ya right in here!

My old radio pal Jim Ballard said a long time ago, it's hard to get a good playable test score for a record you don't test. Which was backed up by Gordon Zlot the owner of KZST when I excitedly said to him one year, Gordon your wish just came true ... Bridge Over Troubled Waters which you hate is not # 1 for the first time and in fact all the way off our new tested list.
He said I know, I stopped testing it.

Tom Skinner said you know it's going to be a tough year in radio when even the double digit stations aren't getting as many billing bites as they used to.

Jim Hilliard told me he kinda liked the bad financial years because only the top three radio stations in a market got bought, and most of the money that used to be spread over ten or more stations now was just spread over the top three.

My friend Linda Duffy asked me to to dial in a new station on her car radio when she picked me up at the Sarasota Airport a couple of years ago.
She said they were advertising the start up of this new station a lot on TV, and it sounded like a station she might be interested in listening to.
I found it shortly and Linda was enjoying the music while we drove along. When we went around a corner the station got a little scratchy for a moment and she said, oh they must be from out of town, turned it off and she never tried it again. 

The muses have told me a lot of things over a lot of years but they only told them to me in very dark places where one could get some good Canadian Whiskey.

Jason Williams said years ago that he drove from Houston to Dallas to hear this new thing called KVIL. When he got close enough to pick it up he said KVIL wasn't doing anything he had ever heard before.

Cat Simon said, Hey George I think I've got it, as long as you laugh at them I don't get in trouble for doing bits that are too long right ?

 

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March 14, 2009

The Passion Begins To Heat Up

As I wrote in an earlier piece, I've been reading a new book by Donny Deautsch called THE BIG IDEA

When I talked to Donny on the phone a few days ago I laughingly asked him what book he read that helped him be so successful. He claimed he had read a couple, but he wished he would of had a book like this book to read back then. It would have saved him years of mistakes plus sped up the whole process.

He said though that the main thing learned over the years was that you should always follow your heart and only do what ever you feel very passionate about.

I sure agree with Donny now, but back when I was but a young pup I had worked at so many different jobs that I hated and was convinced that I was just destined to be unhappy. Like Donny said, I sure wasn't following my heart.
But during my early years I heard over and over again from my parents, how tough the depression was. So I thought my unhappiness must still be a long way up from there. Hey maybe I should just count my blessings even though at the time they sure didn't feel like blessings.  Hey but what the hell lets rock!
So rock I did, I started up a couple of bands and recorded a few records but even though we wrote them, produced them, and they all charted, no money ever showed up.
Very hard to get me feeling sorry for the record folks today, as they get a taste of what they have been handing out for all these years. Even Bob Gaudio of the legendary group THE FOUR SEASONS told me he is still trying to get back all the songs he wrote.

The only money we ever got as a band was when we played dances and concerts every weekend. We drove about a thousand miles every Friday and Saturday playing in big and little towns all over MANITOBA, NORTH DAKOTA and MINNESOTA. 

But wouldn't you know it, we ended up spending most of the money on late night liquor purchases and partying. I don't know what ever happened to that rumored perk for rock bands ... Free booze and broads. 
My main job with the group besides playing guitar and screaming back ground vocals was to keep the rest of the band from killing each other. That extra duty plus all the traveling was starting to wear on me big time and I wasn't sure how much longer I could last.

About a year earlier though I had gotten a part time job at CKY in WINNIPEG as a board op. I was getting married very soon and my folks thought that playing with the band was not a job, so I got a job that wasn't a job.
Radio turned out to be for me all the great things I thought the band would be. I just loved it !
But being a good husband on what I was being paid at the radio station still meant I had to keep on rockin' in the free world as fellow Winnipeger Neil Young would later sing.
So I still played and traveled with THE JURY, while spending most of time learning about my new love, radio.

 

My radio beginnings began as I said earlier, as a board op. I started on a giant 360,000 Watt FM called CKY FM. 

In those days of course FM wasn't very cool. As I sat there playing Ray Conniff, Percy Faith and The Ray Charles Singers while wearing white gloves so I wouldn't scratch the albums, I thought to myself I've got to get out of this place.
Everyday I could see the place I've got to get to. It was right across the studio window from me and was called CKY AM and they were playing stuff by THE BEACH BOYS, ROY ORBISON, ELVIS and very soon THE BEATLES.

Part of my new part time job was to learn production for both the AM & FM so that I could help out the Production Director, CHUCK DANN (Riley).. I had to figure out how to get more work on the AM because that was where the music was I loved, and it was the place that was igniting my new found passion.
 

Luckily I knew all the Jox because many of them had MC'd for my various bands over the years, and now were kind enough to teach me what I needed to know so I could become one of the AM guys.

Pretty soon I was volunteering for every bit of extra grunt work that came up and was even starting to make a few extra bucks. Hell I was always hanging around the station for about 12 hours a day anyway but now I was starting to get paid for some of it.
What with the band money, the now lots of extra cash from extra radio work and my wife's salary, things were really lookin' up, so we bought a big house and a brand new rag top too.

As everything started to come together a funny thing happened as they always do. I became the father of a brand spankin' new beautiful baby daughter named Candis. Bye bye rock&roll band. 

I never was the best musician in the world so I could not imagine going on tour and leaving my family behind. In fact I was starting to feel real old at that time. 

I was about 25 and thought, how does a 25 year old keep making music for teens. So I quit the band and became a full time broadcaster.
My boss by the way at the radio station was an American DJ by the name of Jimmy Darin who later became an even bigger factor in my life.
 

We hit had hit it off pretty good right from the start and still do these many years later. Jim and I in fact went to the very first James Bond movie and have seen everyone of them together since.

After Jim and all the crazy American Jox he had brought to Canada left to go back to the USA, I thought I better turn up the heat on my own career.
So the next thing I knew there I was in Saskatoon at CKOM as the station's new PD. I really didn't know what I was doing but hey I had already proved I was a quick study and with the help of some great talent like Gary Russell, Keith Elshaw, Woody Cooper. Ron Andrews, Ken Singer, Doc Harris and Dale Heath we did some real damage in Saskatoon, and a lot of people tell me that they still remember our antics to this day.
Now it was off to CKSO Sudbury for four months where I met Roger Klein, then off to a big job working for the CHUM group in Ottawa at CFRA. 

The ratings there were pretty decent and the next thing I knew Ted Rogers came calling and said that I should do what I do in Canada's largest market, Toronto.

So after telling Roger to pack his bags then tracking down and bringing with me Keith Elshaw and Sharon Henwood ... There I surprisingly was at CFTR Toronto only a very few years after being a board op in Winnipeg. 

Now speaking of surprises, here's a real big one they make me the Station Manager. Station Manager are you kidding me. 

When I called my folks to let them know Transcona boy makes good, they asked me what a Station Manager of a radio station did. I told them the truth, I  absolutely had no idea.
But the one thing I did know for sure was I had just gone from the highest paid program director in Canada, to the lowest paid Station Manager in an instant.

The thing I think I liked the best about becoming the Station Manager though was it came with a spiffy new car. The new car had a big stereo radio in it with lots of speakers. Even though I was an AM guy and had worked extra hard at becoming that a few years earlier in Winnipeg, I just had to check out the stereo man.
So as I breathed in that wonderful new leather seat smell, I popped on CKFM FM because every once in a while they worked their courage up and played the odd pop tune, and I thought just maybe I could catch one.
Wham something by CHICAGO came thundering out of my brand new stereo speakers at me and almost blew me into my back seat. I instantly became an FM guy again. Holy S#%T did it ever sound fine.

The future then came to me in an instant. AM should talk, FM should play great music of all kinds. Got it!
But this sure wasn't going to happen in CANADA anytime soon, too many rules from the CRTC, thanks to Pierre, T & J.

Can you say good bye Toronto hello Indianapolis. It seems my old boss and buddy from my early days at CKY, Jimmy Darin who had by this time come off the air, and was using his real name Jim Hilliard was putting together a string of FM stations across America. 

My timing was perfect because he told me didn't have enough time to run them and program them too so I became the National PD for the new mostly FM company..
I had a special new way of doing music on CFTR, Jim had heard it and wanted to use the style of it on a station he was buying in Dallas.  I could hardly wait to hear it on FM Stereo.
How was I to know what was really waiting for me and my career in the U. S.  I also came to realize how far behind FM was in Canada at the time.

I pack up my Family to head for Indiana where my scary new future in radio is about to begin only now it's in double time. Johns I thought, you better put on your learnin' cap because you are about to go to the big time university of radio.
When I arrive in Indianapolis the headquarters of Fairbanks Broadcasting, I arrive right in the middle of March Madness so I quickly learn about the Basketball God, Bobby Knight and his great final four team, IU Hoosiers. 

I also learn that my duties would include being the local PD of the AM cash cow WIBC that the whole company refers to affectionately as Big Mama. 

Little did we know at the time that the recently purchased FM in Dallas was soon to become Big Daddy and change my whole life, but that well deserved name never stuck because Kay Ville turned out to be too much of a very special lady to be ever called Big Daddy but I'm sure you get the drift.

Down the hall from WIBC was the FM WNAP, which they called the Buzzard. Some jock that was there before I got there took the name with him when he went to Cleveland. Anyway I was the National PD of that one and had my first meeting set up to meet the PD Cris Conner the next morning.
Cris also did afternoon drive on The Buzzard, unlike what I was used to in Canada, it seems everyone in the States was already into multi tasking.

I was so busy getting my act together that I hadn't had much time to check out WNAP yet, so I figured a good time to do that would be to listen in this afternoon, so I wouldn't appear too ignorant about what he and the station did when we met the next day.

Imagine my surprise when I fire up my new giant stereo speakers in my office and the first thing I notice right off is he doesn't call himself Cris Conner.   He keeps referring to himself as Moto Groove. Moto Groove what the hell is that and why did he change his name. 

What I did know and understand completely though was he was playing all the long versions of great tunes like ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH, TOMMY, FRANKENSTEIN, ROCK&ROLL HOCHIE COO, COME TOGETHER and STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.

 

Man I had thought CHICAGO sounded SPECIAL on my car radio in Toronto earlier, but this was paradise for an old band rocker like me. ROCK ON MOTO ! 

I was used to hearing all these tunes only on AM in Canada, but his was how they were really supposed to sound.
Thank Goodness Cris was also playing some tunes and groups that I never heard of so at least I would I have some interesting questions for him at our first meeting the next day. Now as I think back I seemed to always have those interesting questions for Cris.

I have my part of the meeting ready, but what I am not ready for is the arrival of Cris. In he walks with a giant Afghan Hound at his side called Kahlua. 

He was barefoot and dressed in what can best be described as a mechanics smock with auto and music group patches all over it. Perched on top of his shoulder length hair was a top hat and he was wearing cut off shorts that had seen better days.
At the time I was in my Pierre Cardin stage of life, and thought ... What the hell is this and is that dog that looks like a horse, friendly ?
We had a great meeting and Cris and I hit it off instantly. To this day are still very good friends and chat all the time about the funny things life has brought to us

When I hit Indy the culture shock was enormous. I soon found out that if you weren't into Basketball, Movies, or Auto Racing you were out of luck, there wasn't much else to do, and the racing part only happened in May. 
But It was the INDY 500 that turned me on to Chris' gifts. I discovered them one warm spring day right in the middle of 30 days in May. 

Moto pops into my office and says hey G you wanna go to the track with me and grab a little lunch out there before my show.
What non Hoosiers dont realize about the 500 is the cars are there the whole month of May and the public is welcome to come out and watch them as they do laps and dial in those magnificent machines to the track as they get up to speed for Qualification Day and hopefully the big show on Memorial Day
They do lap after lap after lap and you get to watch as they try and mold their car to the track in order to pick up more speed. 
Mold the car to the track, hmmm ... I wonder if you molded your station to your city maybe you could pick up a little more speed getting on your way to higher numbers.

Anyway back to Cris' gift. We jump into his truck which was a real early version of an SUV and was in fact a Chevy Blazer. Picture this he had two giant speakers mounted in back that were just blasting the Buzzard at us from every and all directions it seemed.
Earlier in the month we had hooked up two Mics at the track about a 1/4 mile apart and kept them turned on and up the whole month of May. 

As we headed to the track it got us pumped hearing the race cars screaming by from one speaker to the next as NAP rocked. 

Occasionally some real good magic would happen like a race car hitting the post of a tune perfectly at two hundred miles an hour. 

Talk about molding a station to the city.

While we are driving to the track Cris keeps saying, G look over there is that weird or what. At the next stop light he would notice something else very strange. Everytime Cris did see something unusual, he would write it down on an old clip board that he kept by his side in the rockin' truck.
By the time we got to the track he had a bunch of pages of stuff, and we still had the trip back to the station to go yet.

That afternoon listening to him, he had me in stitches as he retold with a little embellishment what he had observed during our short journey that day.
Cris always had some wild and crazy theory about what was really going on with all those strange and wonderful things he had observed.
 

The trip to the track that very fine day in May proved to me once and for all that the definition of ART ... The comments made by the Artist after having observed life is really true.

Things I guess are just too good to last, because slowly over the months I noticed Cris' attitude begin to change. He just didn't seem to be the happy go lucky crazy guy I had first met when I had crossed the border. 

I was was very busy by then and traveling a lot. KVIL was going full blast and we were launching the All New WIBG in Philly plus a brand new FM, WRMF in Palm Beach and we were doing them both, almost at the same time.

All of this was causing me to go long stretches of time between my hearing Cris, but I could really hear the difference each time I got home. I wasn't sure what was wrong, but I knew something sure was..

It all finally came to a head one day when I was just back in town. Jim asked me to attend a meeting he was going to have with Cris the next day in his office. 

Cris by now was doing mornings and  he still was the PD. So soon as Cris got off the air we could meet in Jim's office first thing in the morning we got to 
Cris and Jim were already seated and chit chatting when I walked in. Jim waited until I sat down to begin the special topic of the meeting. 

He began with, George, Cris has recently discovered that his Sales Manager, Don Seeley is making more money than him and he is very upset about it. 

I need your help in explaining to him why that is. I said, Hell Jim I really want to hear that explanation myself !
 

 

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March 11, 2009

 

Thoughts on Life and Radio

If you dig into Arbitron's methodology and then also examine very  closely the type of person who would wear ever wear a PPM device or might even fill out a diary you probably will realize as I have that you've got a 50-50 chance of going up or down in the next book.

Anything you can do to improve those odds I figure would be in your best interest.

 

Most men fantasize about women they know, and most women fantasize about men they do not know.

That's why I have always wanted the air talent to be a little bit of a mystery.

 

Most women are a lot better lookin' on the hit lines than in person.

Every radio station needs a cause, but making more money for the owner ain't it.

 

In Canada they will give you an FM license if you turn off your AM station. What do they know that we don't?

 

I wonder if they deregulated sports like they did Radio and Wall street if the games would turn out any different. Would we even go ?

 

If women spent as much time taking care of their bodies like they do their hair, I think they might need armed guards to escort them every where.

 

We are all gifted in some way but we are not gifted at most things. Only other gifted people know what your not gifted at. But don't you just hate it when they tell you. It's even worse when an ungifted person who thinks they are gifted, tells you what you don't want to hear.

 

I wonder who women would die for ?

 

Have you ever noticed that when you are trying to come up with a solution that will fix a problem, you tend to look up as you ponder it.

Have you ever noticed in the top down management style in radio, they fire from the bottom up.

Walt Disney managed from the bottom up but what the hell did he know. Radio management pays them selves more than he was paid so they must know better.

 

The only way you make any money in our biz is to make management afraid that your going to leave.

 

One of the many great things about being famous is it unveils who you always were all along.

Women love to share everything but their money.

For some reason we tell our sons our son the truth about what's out here waiting for them at any moment, but we lie to our daughters about it.

We all know what everyone else should do, but it's what we should do that's the real unsolvable mystery.

Have you ever noticed that when your in a tormented relationship the only advice you ever get is you should leave them. Hell if you could do that you would have done it a long long time ago.


Being in love or even married doesn't in any way change what 20 year old women look like.

Has anybody noticed that while the media is distracted talking about Rush Limbaugh and also about how the Republicans are fighting about just who the boss of the party is, that Obama is getting a ton of legislation passed through Congress almost with out notice. Maybe that's why he keeps mentioning Rush's name.

 

If the air talent added punctuation to their on air presentation I think they would sound a hundred times better.

If the clients cant hear you they wont buy you no matter what the ratings say.

 

I was listening to a station today that was all excited about promoting the hell out of the give away of tickets they called The Mega Ticket.

This mega ticket supposedly got you into three different shows with 3 different sets of  Superstars.

The whole time I was thinking wow I wonder where that event is. They never said.

They just forgot one thing ... It's the event not the ticket stupid.

 

As I was driving my 13 year old daughter Cami to school yesterday she handed me a pair of skimpy shorts and asked me to drop them off at her mother's.

She then said tell Mom to bring these with her when she picks me up for gymnastics.

I said why don't you just tuck these in your bag so you will already have them. She looked at me like I was crazy and said because this is a book bag Dad, you don't put gym shorts in a book bag.

I said where is a list of all these rules are they written down somewhere? She said they don't need to be written down, you just need to use common sense.

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March 8, 2009

"Passion"

I was talking to Donny Deutsch of CNBC on the phone the other day. Donny has just written a book called "The Big Idea".
While we were discussing what Donny's book was all about, something he said took me back a couple of years to a meeting I was speaking at in Toronto.

The Rogers Radio group had invited me speak to their group about how to do great morning shows.
In attendance at this early morning session was all of their GM's and PD's from across Canada.
At the Q&A part of my little talk, Gary Miles who ran the group asked me if I thought there was any one thing that all great morning show people had in common. I thought about his question for a moment and said, I think most of them all started out just wanting to be somebody and possibly maybe even becoming very famous someday.

But as I was talking with Donny I realized that he had said it so much better.
He claimed in order to be successful your life's work must be something that makes your Sunday nights feel like your Friday nights used to.
When your Sunday nights feel like your Friday nights Donny said, all the work you do Monday morning will be done with passion. Without passion you can not be very good at anything.
Donny told me that the best thing that had ever happened to him years ago was when his father kicked him out of the family business and said, go find some work that you can be passionate about.
Donny said because of that, all of his Sunday nights are now very special and exciting.

Wow I think Donny nailed it. When I was a kid I was always starting bands and just dreaming about fame and fortune and of course I didn't do too well at school. Thank goodness I made a couple of bucks playing with my band, but my father said I had to get a job because in this family we work for a living we don't play as in play with a band, we work.
So work I did and most of the places I worked I got the job because the boss knew my father who was a very popular guy. I often wished the guy they knew was the guy who came home every night but that's another story for some other time.
My father got me not so great jobs like making Popsicles, I still cant eat them, another was installing furnaces in homes that were just being built as winter was coming on. I was the helper and all the guys I was helping drank Whisky in the morning just to keep themselves warm. I also pumped gas, I cleaned the floors of businesses in strip malls, and believe it or not I was even the Assistant Mgr. of a Bowling Alley.

The reason I got all these jobs was because as I said earlier my father got them for me. All I ever heard from my new bosses was, hey if you work half as hard as your father Sandy Johns has worked his whole life you will be golden around here. I of course was terrible at all of it and just kept trying another job somewhere else.
Friday was my favorite day of the week and Sunday night was the worst. I dreaded Sundays as Monday morning was on it's way. I even tried to stay up as long as I could just to stave it off, but it just kept on coming.

One day I saw an add for a Manager of a brand new Bowling Alley and Pool Room they were building and I thought what the hell I used to be an Assistant Manager of a Bowling Alley which really meant I rented shoes and closed up late at night, but I didn't know diddly about bowling.
I applied for the job anyway because I thought they might buy that I was experienced and I thought it was worth the shot because maybe I would like being the boss, so far I knew I sure didn't like being the employee.

For some reason they seemed very interested in me, must have been my smart assed humor or something. But they informed me that in order for them to proceed with my application I would have to take a course that would make me an expert on bowling and I would be able to teach people to bowl.
Seeing as I really didn't bowl, I thought the course might be interesting. But even better news was they didn't know my father so they wouldn't be reporting in to him about how I was doing.
I never cared about getting fired ever, it was telling my folks about it that scared the hell out of me.

Anyway I took the course and for the first time in my life aced it. In fact I still have the certificate that proclaims that I am a certified bowling instructor proudly framed and hanging on my wall along side the colorful patch that declares the same.
The patch of course is supposed to go on the sleeve of my bowling shirt. But for some reason I just couldn't get myself up for getting the shirt.
People who know me just break up when they see those things hanging on the wall. They just think it's some kind of a joke I got from a fair or something, because it sure doesn't fit the George Johns they know.
But then if you know me real well it of course makes a lot of sense.

Meanwhile I was engaged to be married in about six months and I thought I should try and do something productive while I was waiting for the Bowling Alley/ Pool Room to be built.
I thought I had a real good shot at the Bowling Alley job so things seemed to be coming together nicely.
Now if I could just find some part time work to keep my Father off my back, life would go so much smoother for me.

I was fortunate enough to get some part time work at CKY the big top forty station in town.
They paid me a dollar an hour for three hours work each each day but I didn't care about the money. I got to hang out with all the jocks who I knew because most of them had MC'd a lot of the gigs around town my band The Jury had done over the years so most of them knew me.
Besides that it seemed like a fun way to kill time while I was waiting to start my new job.

My duties at the station were to fill in for the board op at lunch time in the beautiful music FM the station also owned and also to learn how to do production at the big AM for the other two hours.
Man I had no idea how great this was I loved it.
I thought the band scene that I had been doing since I was about 15 was great but it wasn't near as much fun as this.
Wow! The time each day seemed to go by at the speed of light. Well OK maybe sound.

Then one day the phone rang and it was the owner of the new Bowling Avenue/Pool Room telling me that their brand new beautiful new establishment was ready to go.
But the real big news was they had chosen me to be their guy to run the whole place. Then he went on to tell me how much the position paid, and I excitedly repeated his number out loud so my Mother could hear it too.
For those times and my tender young age, it was a pretty big number.
But then my mother also heard me thank him for the opportunity and tell him how sorry I was that I couldn't accept the position, because I had started a whole new very exciting career.

When I hung up the phone my Mother was crying and said how can you do this son what are you thinking. You are getting married in less than six months and you make fifteen dollars a week. Have you gone crazy?
Then she had to use those dreaded words that I have feared for most of my life ... Just wait til your Father gets home and hears this.

Mom, I pleaded, would you listen to me just this once. For the first time in my life I love Sunday Nights.
I used to hate Sundays because I had to go back to school the next morning.
Sundays even got worse for me when I started working, because now I had to go to some job I hated.
But now for the first time, I love Sunday nights because I get to go to work as soon as I wake up Monday morning.
I even go to bed earlier just to bring it on faster.

When I get to work now I see all the people I like and I start learning a whole bunch of very exciting stuff that I'm picking up on very very quickly.
Mom even my Boss is called Jim, not sir or Mr. and he doesn't seem at all shell shocked from the war like all Dad's buddies.
He also doesn't even seem that much older than me.
I get to work with a bunch of stars like Jimmy Darin, Jack Wells, Daryl B., Deno Corrie, Mark Parr, Chuck Dann, Gary Todd, Dean Scott, J Robert Wood and Chuck McCoy.
These guys are very cool, they talk about all the things I like to talk about.
Some of them seem a little crazy, but crazy in a good sense because they are also very funny. We just seem to laugh all day while we work.

Mom as little as they pay me I still can't believe that they pay me anything.
I like it there so much that I just end up hanging out there for hours after my shift.
All the guys are great to me. they show me how to do all the stuff I'm supossed to be working on and teach me the short cuts it would take years to learn on my own.
I now even kinda hate Fridays which used to be my favorite day of the week. I dislike Fridays now because I don't get to go to work the next day.
Mom,you've got to help me out with Dad!
I'll get it all to work out somehow, I promise. She just shook her head and stormed off.

A few hours later I heard my Father come home and I thought, Oh Oh here we go, I'm in for it now.
I listened as my Mom repeated to my Father what she heard me say on the phone earlier. Then the worst thing happened that possibly could happen, I heard her start to cry in front of my my Father.

Oh no I made my mother cry again, but this time my Father saw it and that was not good.
I thought for sure he would come running down the hall and try to beat the hell out of me or something.
But miracles of all miracles I heard him say to my Mom ... Betty, George has been miserable for a couple of years now and he just hates all the different work he has tried.
I have no idea what he is going to become but so far the future doesn't look to bright for him.
This is the happiest I have ever seen him and it's also the first time I have ever heard him even use the career word.
He seems very very passionate about his new work and I like that. Hey he's young, I have a feeling he'll try real hard to make it all work out. If it doesn't, he can try something else again.
Lets just back off a while and see what he does with it.
Thanks Dad!
 

---

March 5, 2009

More Name Droppings

Robin Garrett told me when she was assisting her PD with the picking of tunes for a love song show.
She said she had picked out one that didn't meet with his instant approval so she tried to convince him it was perfect. He said, Hey you don't speak for all women and she responded with, that may be true but you don't speak for any.


When ever I got tired of looking every where for Jed Duvall at WIBC, I finally would just go into my office and close the door. He would be banging on it in less than a minute.


Russ Morley told me if sex ever came up at dinner there was none afterwards.


Tom Skinner told me when he was approaching his 40th birthday his wife asked him if he wanted anything special from her . Tom said as a matter of fact there is. One of my fantasies has always been when we go for our long Sunday run that you would pull me into a secluded spot and make passionate love to me.

Tom went on to tell me that she didn't say no, so he thought he had a very good shot.

So now comes the special birthday Sunday and she wonderfully says, Tom lets do our run a little earlier today and he thinks hot damn it's going to happen.

Out they go on a typical Santa Rosa beautiful sun shiny day and as they slowly wind their way up the breath taking hills, Tom starts to wonder if she has stashed a blanket and maybe even some champagne somewhere along the run. This kind of thinking is getting him so worked up, he finds it difficult to even continue running.

As they continue their run Tom starts to notice some neat spots where if he was in charge of all this, that that's where they would of done it, but they just keeps quiet because this is her gift to him, so he just hangs on and keeps on running.

Now Tom starts to feel a little nervous tension because he knows they soon will break out of this beautiful tree covered area they are in on top of the hill, and are about to go down the other side and out into the open.

Sure enough much to his chagrin they don't stop any where, and just end up at home.
Tom cant help himself and blurts out ... Hey what the hell happened to my special run today for my birthday. His wife responded with ... Are you insane, do you think I'm going to get pine needles all over my ass so just so you can live out one of your weird fantasies, get a grip Tom.


The first air talent I ever hired was named Gary Russell. I hired him to do an Adult music show (MOR) at night on CKOM in Saskatoon.

The first thing he said when he opened the mic was Hi Ya Hi Ya kids ! I knew right then that along with his long hair and the self confessed fact that he was a hippy, was going to lead me to a lot of office time with the GM.


Bill Gardner said that he didn't think I ever knowingly lied to him but he thought I might have left out some of the truth occasionally.


When I asked Delilah if she still had all her houses in Seattle she said no she gave them away to her staff.


Ann McMartin told me that women only remember five of the affairs they have ever had, but absolutely have no memory of any one night stands.


My brother Reg said that when he joined CFTR in Toronto, many years after my tenure, the by now sales manager John Seymore after being introduced to Reg said ... I hope your not related to that p**ck George Johns.

Jay Williams told me that they improved on our 50% off free fare in Boston. They charged to get in!

I remember playing a gig once with my band The Jury in Tuelon Manitoba for then concert promoter J Robert Wood. It was a very cold night and the roads were kinda slippery. I noticed as we were driving back to Winnipeg and I was following Terry Kenny our lead guitar player's car that something seemed to hanging out of his front door.

I carefully sped up to pull along side so as to point it out to him. Lo and behold it was our singer Donny Burns who was hanging on to Terry's door handle and kind of skiing along at about 50 mile an hour and Terry was yelling at him to jump.

I think we all had too much anti freeze that night.

I will always remember the look on Woody Cooper's face when in the middle of one of his many very serious radio raps his co host Doc Harris blurted out using a Gabby Hayes type voice.

I don't know whats got into 'em General Custer they all seemed friendly enough at the dance last night.

Bob Christy told me that at a family reunion his older Aunts were all sitting around having a little too much wine. One of them confessed she was a Lawrence Welk groupie and had done him in the back seat of his touring Oldsmobile when he and the band came to her town for a dance.


Ralph Conner taught me that people don't listen to TV they watch it.


Cris Conner showed me what I've always believed, All real talent do is observe life and comment on it. On the way to the track in Indy Cris the whole way would say look at that, is that strange or what, George look over there man that is very weird. This went on the whole drive and in fact he gathered enough material for three shows. I could hardly wait to hear what his take on what we saw was going to be.


Bill McDonald wrote a spec spot for me once that was so good that the client turned it down because he claimed his establishment wasn't as good as Bill's spot.


David Wolfe told me that the thing he likes best about his new NTR program The Legal Line, is the fact that a lawyer sends you a check rather than the other way around.


Dave Charles told me when he was talking to Lowry Mays a while back that Lowery said he only cared about radio's clients. I told Dave I think Mr. Mays may have missed it. Radio actually has two customers, the clients and the listeners, and if you don't respect and treat them well equally, one or maybe both will soon turn on you.

Jamie Gold once said I wish you were from a bigger city like DC that way you could get over being from Transcona and get on with it.

Over the years a lot of people have said some very nice things about me, but that doesn't make very good reading and my Mom has passed on so the hell with it.

Tom Cochran emailed remembering when he first got the call to interview with Fred Heckman for a news position at WIBC/WNAP in Indianapolis. Being very excited he told his wife Lana to cut his hair real short so that he wouldn't blow the interview looking like a hippy.

The interview went real well and Fred asked him to start in two weeks. As Tom was leaving in a hurry to tell his wife the good news, Fred said oh by the way get that hair cut!

One day a long time ago Ted Rogers excitedly burst into my office and said to me that he had just gotten off the phone with Allan Waters who told him he should be very very wary of me. George he said I love that new thing your doing but lets take CHUM straight on and go top 40, I think he's afraid of us.

Keith Elshaw wrote, George you have got to use your influence to write about more things than radio.

Lana Johns said, Don't you ever forget that your from Transcona.

Jim Quail wrote, George make these things shorter or take me off your e mail list, I don't have high speed Internet and I don't know any of these people anyway.

When I asked Rick and Bubba if I was the only person in the room that noticed one of their staff members was a knock out, they responded with ... Frank Osborn wont allow us to notice, it's against the company rules.

A few years ago at a conference my brother Reg and I put on in San Diego, Jack McCoy told the crowd the way they all could do great promos like he did, was to simply go into the studio with a bunch of soundtracks from movies and just ad lib for an hour or so.
He said hearing the music would give you the words and you would end up with about 35 or 40 promos ... RIGHT, JACK !

When I asked Cami Johns Summerfield if she liked how clean Dad's place was all the time, she replied she did but didn't think it was worth the effort.
I think most people think about success the same way.

Charlie Van Dyke wrote me that when he was the morning man at the legendary KLIF in Dallas, the thing that irritated him the most was every where he looked he saw a billboard with a huge picture of Ron Chapman on it.

I told Charlie that at the time we could only afford one billboard so we stuck it right outside of his studio window.

Mark Hubbard said at the station's annual Christmas Party, George get me out of here before lightning strikes this place, as our music director went slowly slow dancing by us with her pretty little intern assistant followed by the news director with his man in the street news reporter.

Years ago when my brother Reg was but a pup he called me in Indianapolis all excited because CHUM in Toronto had flown him in from Winnipeg for a production job interview and it looked like he got it.
I asked him if they knew his real name because he was going by Garry Roberts then, he said he didn't know.

I told him you better tell them, he did and the job offer disappeared.
Years later he went back to Toronto at CFTR as PD and kicked their ass. What have we all learned from this (-:

When I got out of high school I attended the Manitoba Institute of Technology. Joe Amaturo said I should just shorten it to MIT.
 

---

February 28, 2009

Life & Radio Roll On

My 13 year old daughter Cami who has been living with me for a few weeks now was quite excited about the new adventure with Dad, I think, until I went from my usual fun position of entertainment director, to Mr. Mom.

 

If for some unknown reason you need to get your thoughts or ideas across to me you better do it through a song, a novel or a movie because I think those are the only times I have my heat shields down.

 

You can play any tune you want on the radio as long as your explanation of why you're playing it is an interesting one.

 

According to Robin Williams we should have known we were in trouble when the smart Bush's name was Jeb.

 

Which one says they're not in the mood tonight in a gay relationship.

 

A question the rest of the world is still asking is ... What if there are no weapons of mass destruction.

 

Is it just me that thinks the jox who have nothing to say take a way too long to say it.

 

My favorite breathless moment of all time besides the birth of my children was when I heard on the radio, Jimmy Darin introducing my group the Jury as he played our record for the first time. I think I blew the speakers out in my car.
 

Anybody needing help in anyway from the government, will never be anything.
 

There is no up in a down economy.
 

Young and old will listen to a young person, but only the old will listen to a old person.
 

Did you ever notice how many laws and protection devises are put in to place to protect Mr. business man from us, but if any one mentions we might need some laws put into place to protect us from him, he gets totally outraged.
 

Maybe if I took my two daughters and my nieces off this list I could really get into the good stuff, what do you think ? 
 

Speaking of daughters my 13 year old told me today that she really dislikes boring people and she dislikes annoying people even more. I think she was trying to communicate to me.
 

Where did all the engineers go that used to work at all the radio stations and what did they do ?
 

How much money would a radio group have to bill to make the stock go up. I'm sure somebody knows but they ain't talkin', because they know there is no hope and they would be out and they all have sweet deals for producing nothing, well actually less than nothing.
 

When I asked Al Mair what the hell he was doing in small time Saskatoon buying me dinner, he said because I don't think you will be small long and I want to come see you again then. When I finally made it to Toronto I guess I lucked out because Al had moved from records to film. 
 

Sales folk must have really sucked back in the day because I think stations bill more now then they did back then when a lot of stations had double digits.
 

How come it only takes about 8 weeks of boot camp to get our soldiers ready for combat but years to get the Iraqis ready.
 

Is there anything more distracting than a beautiful women walking into the room while you are having a business meeting ?
 

When Chuck Knapp was in Philly with us I remember hearing him do a bit on the air about how bad smoking was for you. It made me so nervous I had two cigarettes before he was done.
 

When we hired Bill Gardner for KVIL we got him out of Minneapolis, Ron Chapman and I were going together to pick him up at the airport, so never having met Bill I asked him what he looked like, his simple reply was that he looked like a Dallas Cowboy with long hair.

So of course me being the type that always likes to flaunt our assets, we immediately put a billboard up with Bill stretched out all the way across the top of it. The caption read, "Bill Gardner, Six Foot Five, Single and Sounds Like It." I'm not sure what it did for Bill's night life, but I know for sure it did wonders for the our station's ratings.

 

Don't you just love the lame line, "It's Not personal It's Just Business". Some person is trying to destroy your life but its not personal. I think that line was created by a little business guy who was afraid we were all going to hit him.

 

I think most women are up for almost anything as long as they don't have to talk about it the next day.

 

The big thing I learned growing up in my home town of Transcona was ... Go south young man go south!

 

Two very bad things happened in February. The Music died February 3rd 1959 and Radio died February 8th 1996.

 

If you have a radio station for the youthful they will find you but if you need any adults you will have to find them.

 

Am I being unfair when I say that if the guys in radio who are presently cutting folks pay were in the middle of a windfall they would not be handing out bonus checks.

 

I am still not mature enough to handle the word NO !

 

Jim Hilliard gave us freedom of choice, we had enough rope to hang our selves or do something better than he could do it.

 

I was just in LA listening to radio and it sounds exactly the same as it did when diaries were king. I guess they don't realize it's a PPM town now.

 

One of the many things I don't understand about the stimulus program is it's in the hands of lawyers, other than over charging what the hell do they know about money?
 

---

February 24, 2009

Random Thoughts about Radio and The Real World

For most of my life I just wanted to be somebody, now all I care about is being a good Dad, a good Buppa, a good Brother, a good Uncle and a good Friend.


A person of power isn't necessarily right or wrong.

I think maybe my brother Reg is more successful than me but I might be having more fun.


The law is for lawyers the intent of the law is all I care about.


I think they should have perfected HD radio for AM only, it makes it sound a whole lot better.
We don't need anymore FM channels they just need to fix the ones we've already got.


If you do your show for people who don't know who the hell you are, the ratings will go up.


Who would Michael Jordan be without the NBA.


Who would Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh be without radio.


It takes ten years to be real good at anything.


When Chuck Riley who ended up being a Hollywood million dollar voice asked me why I had Gary Todd doing mornings on WIBC instead of him. I answered him with that it was all mathematics.
On a scale of 1 to 10 Gary did a 5 every day Chuck you do 10's and 2's but not enough 10's. Do the math !

Where would Ryan Seacrest be without TV.


Where would Paris Hilton be without sex.


I drove by a hospital yesterday that was for women and children only, I never did find the one for men only.


I think the thing I do the very best of all is clean up and paint pretty, a sales idea before it even finishes coming out of a sales persons mouth.

The easiest format in the world to sell to a radio station owner is The Much More Music In The Morning Format.
It's never worked anywhere but owners love it anyway.

Some people say I don't know anything about music because I don't spend the thousands of hours in meetings debating it.
For me It's just like searching for the lost chord.


Speaking about music which I don't do too often, I've found that people generally know what they like and like what they know.

The fastest come back I ever heard was said by Loren Owens of Loren & Wally fame.
When Jim Hilliard and I walked into a studio together in Boston at WVBF, there was recently hired Tom Doyle with Loren & Wally getting re acquainted.

Jim said, hey I've got a lotta money invested in you guys, somebody better make me laugh pretty quick. Loren without missing a beat said ... Show him your dick Wally !


I think the long lasting marriages are the ones where the woman married her husband because she loved him.

When we brought Harry Nelson (the decent one) to San Antonio to work on the first of many CLASS FM's, he came into work one day with a black eye, so I asked him what the hell happened to him.
He said he had picked up a girl in a bar and took her back to his place. As he was sitting on the bed getting undressed she hauled off and punched him in the eye.

When he crumpled over on the floor she stood over him and said ... Your not going to take that from me are you?

I remember a few years ago speaking at a meeting of Frank Osborn's radio group.
My talk was after lunch so I wrote on the board behind me in giant letters my "formula" for how a personality can make over a million dollars a year on one line, and on the other I wrote the words, "The 2 secrets on how you can keep any woman in your bed",

During my talk I explained in great detail my formula that would turn you or someone on your staff into a million dollar morning man.

At the end of my talk I asked if there were any questions. Almost everyone shouted out at the same time ... What Are The Two Secrets ?


There is no rain check for a missed opportunity.


Men are into what it is, women are into why it is.


Have you ever noticed that the people who whine about the economy the longest and the loudest don't ever have to change their life style because of it.


Have you ever wondered what the Japanese people do with all those photos they take .


When I moved to the United States from Canada the first thing I noticed was Americans never seemed to do anything without an appointment so I immediately put that attitude on all my stations.


Someone said to me that Sam Zell told Randy Michaels to stop chasing ratings. Sam claimed there was no big money in just doing that over and over again and Randy needed to use some of his other skills.


A long time ago I came up with a thing called the Magic Ticket, it bought me my first Mercedes. It took me a client list of 40 stations much later on to get my second.


If you want to make a lot of money America is the only place to be. If you just want a decent life style then you might want to check out Canada.


I think Shakespeare was right about the play and real right about all the lawyers.


Never invest in a company whose dreams are smaller than their memories.


How do I tell my 13 year old daughter Cami that this is the easiest time of her life.


I hate the sound of most disc jockeys, but I sure love the sound of radio characters.


I was very lucky in Dallas because I had recently arrived from Canada and didn't know any radio people, so I was free to do what ever I wanted on the air.


Have you ever noticed that all those great ideas you and the staff came up with at the radio station don't sound that good at lunch.


Why do a lot of women believe in horoscopes, psychics, palm readers and sometimes even go to a psychotherapist for even more thoughts.
See it's questions like that that cause me to mostly sleep alone.


Justice is a great concept that just never got off the ground.


Income tax was created to help out with WW1. Hey maybe if we stopped paying it, the wars would stop.


What would radio sound like if every last place station in every market had to give up their licence.


Oh what are the 2 secrets you ask ?
Passion & Imagination and those two secrets just happen to work real well on the radio too.


For some strange reason the jox on music radio now promote what they are going to talk about after the record is over. They've got it bassackwards !


The main tune outs of radio always were and always will be, #1-Bad Music, #2-Dee Jay Chatter #3-Commercials.


Canada hasn't been in any wars since the big one. So I wonder why they still get to pay a huge income tax. Hey maybe it's for that free health care.


The first time a male hears about his imperfections and PMS is shortly after he utters those fateful words ... I Love You !


I thought I was having a great life what with having a couple of records out, starting my radio career and all. Then God gave me a daughter so I could see the error of my ways. I must have started slipping again because many years later he gave me another.


The very best thing you can do on the radio is sincerely tell the listener over the front of their favorite song that this tune is your favorite also.


I remember when Reagan started a war with Russia which seemed to jump start our economy.
The best thing about it though was no shots were fired and nobody got killed.
I think both the Bushes missed that part.
 

---

February 19, 2009

Did they really mean all this ?

Delilah proved to me that her not sounding radio enough was a very very good thing.


Rollye James left me speechless once at an early morning aircheck session.


Robert Murphy told me he passed on a good gig in Dallas because he listened to Ron Chapman and realized he didn't have a chance because he couldn't love Dallas as much as Ron did.


Chuck McCoy told me that I told him that your not a real top 40 jock until you drive a rag top.


JR said he liked to hang out at bars because that's where all the girls our fathers warned us about hung out.


Linda Energy said to me as we were waiting for JR to show up to see if I should put them together as a new morning team ... God I hope that's him walking in the door because I want to f ** k him right now.


Mike Donahue once told me at a rating party with tears in his eyes that he didn't care about the listeners he only wanted to impress me.


Jan Jefferies ( no Jan the other one) said that country folk didn't like my stuff.


Harry Nelson ( no Harry the nice one who passed away) said that the little trick I taught him got him all the voice over work in San Antonio.


Bobby Cole showed me you could do pop radio intellectually.


Jim Harper like some others I knew became a Morning Man /PD was to make sure the PD didn't hurt the morning show.


Don Bleu proved you could transfer TV fame to radio.


Sandy Hoyt's last words to me were, "fours fun".


Tha Magic Christian said his idea of the perfect vacation was to spend it in a iron lung so he didn't even have to breath.


I actually heard Chuck Dann say on the radio ... Hey here's a dedication from a c ** t Oh I see, a country chick.


Mancow told me with out boundaries most stuff on the air is not very funny


Thom Hunt said he doesn't run any more for trophies he only runs for cash.


Lawrence Amaturo once wrote in a memo to his staff ... Anybody who doesn't get George Johns gets gone.


Randy Bachman and I heard Daryl B say on the radio many times that he was takin' care of business, but Randy turned it into a world wide hit.


Burton Cummings told me that when The Guess Who were scheduled to do a live album at Carnegie hall he got so excited that he partied all night and missed the gig.


Jack Wells asked me almost every day if the Beach Boys were taking it in the arm as I spun the early morning tunes for him.


My daughter Candis told her sister that she hoped that she was present when Cami discovered I wasn't as stupid as I appeared to be.


My brother Reg said that when he had a jock on the air at CKGM in Montreal that mixed French and English together much to the delight of the listeners, the government told him to stop.


Bill Gardner told me when he added "good morning" to the top hour ID in Philly, he was hot lined by Paul Drew who told him to cut out the superfluous language.


Ron Chapman told me that he warned Major Tom Lewis that he was going to pick a different time each evening and tune him in. Tom had 15 minutes to make him laugh or he was gone. Ron ended up usually using what he heard, on his own show the next morning.


Larry Dixon wrote to me recently and said when he first came to KVIL he thought we were making huge mistakes. He says he is sure glad now that he kept his mouth shut.


Cat Simon told me that the TV spot he cut for his morning show was free this time but he was charging me for the next one.


When I told my son Curtis that the free money from me was drying up unless it was for something educational that would enhance his future he told me that he understood. When I pressed him about what he thought he would like to do with his life he said he would just like to hang.


Roy Cooper told me recently that if he gets involved with a woman, from now on she has to bring her own lunch.


Pam Cesak told me that the reason she hired me to coach Jeff and Jer when they first came to San Diego was because she knew that I knew that music in the morning just didn't "git it"


Dave Spence wrote that he let Ron Chapman be the spokesman for the station because the folks thought he owned it anyway.


Ron Chapman claimed that when he proudly told me that he didn't allow any jox to answer the phones while they were doing their air shift because he felt the phones distacted them, I responded with ... Well Ron we are doing a lot of new and different things now at KVIL, you just might want to pick up the phone once in a while and check out what the folks think of it. Ron says from then on, he turned picking up the phone into a brand new career for himself.


Jimmy Darin told me if I ever wanted to attend another jock meeting I was to keep my mouth shut and listen.


Ted Bolton informed me that people who fill out diaries knew a lot about radio, just like people who vote know a lot about politics.

Bill McMartin claimed that at the dinners he threw for tha staff and their spouses, that the only reason I brought up questions about the mysterious behavior of most women was because I knew I was sleeping alone that night so I wanted everybody to sleep alone.

When I asked Christina Johns if she was going to do anything special for her up coming 18th birthday, she replied yeah, watch porn. WHAT ! I said, with a shocked and bewildered voice. It's the only new thing they allow you to do at 18 she said with a very sarcastic voice.


More at www.georgejohns.com

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February 18, 2009

 

They Wouldn't Lie To Me Would They?

My Father once said to me ... George stay away from the bad girls.

Jim Hilliard said, I'm giving you the right to be wrong.

 

Mark Hubbard preached to me that you only have three choices, be first, be best, or be different.

 

Barry Smith claimed that sales has never been about rates.

 

My Brother Reg said everybody thinks their part is the biggest part.

 

My Daughter Cami whined that my recordings with The Jury weren't very good when ever I force her to hear them.

 

Ted Ruscitti once told me that women lose their appetite for new music after 30.

 

J Robert Wood said that you have to ask for ownership it is never offered.

 

Mr. Fairbanks told me he was selling KVIL because the bubble was going to burst.

 

Buzz Bennett said that if a record didn't make it to the top 10 of the CHR charts hardly anybody would ever remember it.

 

Jack McCoy claimed that if you controlled the language you control the budget.

 

My daughter Candis convinced me that Art was just exaggerated emotion.

 

Jim West said to me a long time ago, make sure those sand dollars in California don't get in your eyes.

 

Hugh Heller told me that you don't need somebody who can do everything. You just need to get a person who is the best in the world at one thing.

 

Frank Osborn said to me a radio station manager gets two PD's, a PD gets two books.

 

Jeff & Jer said you have to marry the city if you want to be successful in mornings.

 

Ron Chapman told me that when he was pressed for an instant answer his answer was always no. That always bought him a lot more time to think about maybe a different answer.

 

Randy Michaels shouted at me in a bar that my brother Reg was the real Johns genius.

 

Chuck Riley told me to make sure the suits never ground me down.

 

Gary Russell informed me that if you want more billing get more sales people.

 

Randy Bachman said I can teach you all The Guess Who music, it's all that other stuff you do that we need.

 

Rick Moranis told me that being bankable is the ultimate show biz position.

 

Martin Milner said I can't go on the radio without a script.

 

Ted Rogers told me that sometimes you have to go on without the people that got you there if you ever want to be real successful.

 

Gordon Zlot said I'm stickin' with the people who got me here.

 

Tom Skinner asked me if I had ever heard about client run.

 

Brent Farris reminded me that a consultant is a person who advises you about women, but doesn't have one.

 

Bob Christy taught me that when you sit at a bar you are marketing yourself.

 

Jamie Gold told me that most women leave the bar scene at 27

 

Vic Gold reminded me that most communication is done with the eyes, so you must make me see what you are saying.

 

Mike Vance taught me that managing from the bottom up sometimes produces a super success like Disney World.

 

I figured out myself that women only make sense if you love them.

 

Arbitron proved to me that some listeners lie.

 

Cris Conner showed me that sometimes all you have to do to have a great radio show is observe life.

 

My Mom taught me that reading is the real great escape.

 

I learned that surrounding yourself with people smarter than you, makes you the smartest person in the room.

 

Russ Morley told me that having too much stuff takes away your freedom.

 

Reid Reker shouted to me ! Why can't we have it all.

 

Steve Hicks looked at me and said ... We just went #1 how can that be possible.

 

Tom Hicks said to me you are exactly what my brother needs.

 

Tim Reever said he thought he could even sell the squeal of the pig if someone would hold it.

 

Sales folk have told me a way too often that if they missed a sale it was because of the ratings. If they made a sale they didn't need the ratings to do it.

 

Rich guys taught me that they always love to share the downside with you, whether you wanted to or not.

 

Lee Abrams told me if you want the ratings to go up you have to play more Super Stars music.

 

Shakespeare wrote that the plays the thing not the client.

 

Disney taught me that you can turn fame into fortune.

 

Dave Charles told me that the rest of the world was standing by and waiting for America to come up with the new radio thing.

 

I learned from the Disciples that ... He's the Son of God works much better than I'm the Son of God.

 

US Air taught me that when you charge for Cokes & Water it makes the drink cart move much faster.

 

Ryan Seacrest showed me that you can turn fame into a radio career.

 

My niece Christina proved that when you mix English, Scotch, Korean and Italian together in equal portions, you end up with a very beautiful and intelligent woman.

 

My son Curtis has finally convinced me that work doesn't have to be your life to have a decent life.

 

Tracy Johnson said to me that a tune was either up or it wasn't.

 

Ann McMartin told me that women are just looking for the right guy to play the part of the groom at the wedding ceremony, they have the rest of their life already picked out.

 

Ed Shadek once said ... If George Johns or one of the people who work for him don't like a spot on the radio either do the Shadeks.

 

Keith Elshaw wrote that the staff who worked for me loved me, and the people I worked for were afraid of me.

 

Joe Amaturo told me that use becomes abuse becomes law.

 

Betsy Cameron convinced me that she is a very serious person, and only laughs when I am around because she can't help herself.

 

Jan Hall claimed I would only last two minutes with her.

 

Barbara Hilliard told me that there is more to life than sex.

 

Kari Summerfield said either I wasn't very deep or I wasn't showing it for some reason. 

 

Most of my teachers in high school tried to convince me to leave school.

 

Jim Quail told me that if I ever went for his bad knee I better be sure I knew which one it was because it was the only way I would come through the experience alive.

 

I believe I shouldn't write a book because I have to leave out all the good parts that would really sell a book.

My daughters I think, read this stuff.

 

Governor Charlie Crist told me if I sucked up to him before he announced his candidacy for Governor of Florida, it would be worth double.

 

Mike McVay told me a lot of stuff and I stole it all.

 

Kevin Metheny taught me that the only way to find out what tunes the folks were tired of was to do music research.

 

Paul Ski showed me that it was a lot smarter to go to night school and get your MBA then hit the bars with the rest of us when our air shift was over.

 

My sister in law Savvy might be the only person I know that is even close to figuring me out.

 

---

February 12, 2009

A Little Radio & A Lot Of Life

You can sell anything at any price as long as it is not ordinary.


I knew radio was headed for trouble the day I was driving along with a GM and we were listening to his station. On came a spot for a gun show, I turned to him and said that's a stupid spot to run on a station that is primarily aimed at women. He said oh it's all changed now, women like guns.


How do all the bozos that got us into this radio mess still survive and also have the power to fire all those that had nothing to do with it.


There are a handful of people in the world capable of making a stock rise, unfortunately none of them work in radio.


The best thing about being # 1 is when it starts happening again you'll recognise the signs that it is on the way again and maybe you will get out of the way and let it happen.


In Canada they have more oil than they can ever use but gas is at about four bucks a gallon. So much for the let us drill everywhere so we don't have to rely on foreign oil theory.


Me and my 13 year old daughter Cami both have cell phones, mine is in my pocket most of the time hers is always in her hand. She needs to feel connected, I feel over connected.

I was never very technical so I was a little slow getting into doing e mail.
My brother Reg used to bug me all the time about it and he thought that it was time for me to catch up with the times. Now he wants to hunt down who ever taught me and kill them.

You can get over true love, I know because I have several times.

If it really is about supply and demand why isn't wine about a buck a bottle?


I spent most of my radio career just trying to get permission to win from management while the troops patiently waited ready to kill somebody.


Why is it that the bigger the entity gets, the more evil it seems to become.


The only good show is the show that produces a good promo.


Once at a meeting in San Diego a news character by the name of Steve Tom, who is now a successful TV actor threw a piece of wadded up piece of paper at me in a pretty serious staff meeting.
A rookie news reporter who was attending the meeting told me later that she thought I didn't see it coming, and was horrified for me about how embarrassed I was about to be.
When at the last moment I simply moved my head slightly to let it go by and kept on talking, she thought it was the coolest thing she had ever seen and claimed I could have had her right then on the conference table in front of everybody. Damn and I always thought it was riding your bike with no hands that got it done.


Profit is a privilege not a right.


Doc Rivers coach of the world champion Boston Celtics said it best ... You don't have to change how you coach, just get better players.


Thank God I'm finally immune to beautiful women plus I'm also immune to smart women. But if you put the two together, just go ahead and get me a dog collar.


The softest I ever get is when my two daughters Candis and Cami are around, otherwise you might need a gun to soften me up.


The only way to end sexual harassment at a radio station, is to make it illegal to sleep your way to the top.


The two great things about America is the middle class and business competition, but it's working very hard to eliminate both, so we will soon resemble Mexico.


If women can't give up new shoes, how the hell do they expect us to give up new women.


Radio has always had two customers, the listeners and the advertisers but alas they don't like the same things.


February 8th 1996 is when all this radio mess began. Clinton must have been very busy with Monica when he signed into law this horrendous nonsense.


Back in the day when we were very concerned about a thing called 1/4 hr. maintenance I used to log all the spots everywhere but on the quarter hours, so of course that's where they always showed up. When I finally gave up and started logging them on the quarter hours they never showed up there again.


They say if you even wonder if your crazy, your not.


I know why I am what I am, but I am not qualified to fix it.


No real man is immune to a beautiful woman.


During my career I've had a lot of great talent around me, I'm not sure if they even liked each other, but I sure loved them, mainly because I couldn't do what they could do.


Bob Gaudio of The 4 Seasons once told me that when he was young most of his songs got ripped off, but he was 15 and had three cars and didn't even have a drivers licence so he didn't care. Now he cares.


If you could do it all over again what part of your life would you leave out ?


I would rather be Reg Johns' brother than George Johns' brother.


If you marry for any other reason than love then you deserve what happens to you.


Top 40 radio died with the British invasion.


Rock & Roll was simply the fusion of R&B with Country music.


When Chess records signed Chuck Berry Muddy Waters asked Leonard Chess why he signed a country singer.


My four year old grandson Nathaniel is very easy for me to figure out but I think he is a mystery to his parents.

---

February 10, 2009

Enough is Enough!

Last week, my daughter Candis, her husband Charlie, and my Grandson, Prince Nathaniel flew to Florida from LA for a nice week long visit with me and Auntie Cami.
The weather was a little un seasonal but we got Nathaniel to Lion Country Safari and a few other things so all went well and a great time was had by all.
Nathaniel's visit though got me thinkin' about a little over four years ago when I met him for the first time but it had all started on the night before his arrival.

I remember It being a dark and stormy night, well no actually it was a typical California evening, a little cool but not bad for a January 10th. Very nice in fact if your from my home town of Transcona which is a suburb of Winnipeg up in Canada. Transcona at this same time of year is brutal no it's worse than that, very very brutal.
Anyway there I was this cool January evening at the Sheraton hotel right across the Bob Hope airport in Burbank which was on the eve of my Grandson Nathaniel's birth four years ago in a Burbank hospital right next to the Disney corporate head quarters, how appropriate.
I was sitting in the lobby waiting for my daughter Candis to drive over from her place in Sunland and join me for a early dinner.
She was being induced into giving birth early the following morning because for some reason my Grandson Nathaniel was enjoying his surroundings and was in no rush to join us in the real world, or he already knew what was out here and was hiding from it. But Candis and the good doctor had other plans for him.
Candis was on her way and we were going to one of our favorite restaurants which we really liked mainly because they served bread pudding.
Bread pudding was something special my late mother used to make in an old Scottish style and theirs came the closest.

During our meal my daughter who seemed all a glow with pending motherhood asked me if I would mind doing her a huge last minute favor.
Those of you that know me well at all know what my answer was, but let me put it this way, I don't think either of my daughters has heard the word no from me. I've heard it from them a bunch but that's how it goes.
I of course said what do you need honey. She asked if would I go with her to her office for some last minute work she needed to finish up, but please don't tell Mom or her husband Charlie that we did, because they would kill her?
I said it's too late for me to start saying no now so lets lets get going so we can get you home early and ready for your big day.

Candis at that time was Director of Licensing for Warner Brothers, Electra, Atlantic, and Rhino Records. She later took on an even more important position when she gave it all up to become the Mother of my Grandson Nathaniel.
Anyway it's off to work we go. About a half hour later we arrive at her building and head for her office. Once inside she immediately starts searching around for something while I'm busy wandering around the halls checking out all the signed gold records and posters that are hanging on the walls from their various artists.

All of a sudden Candis comes out of her office and says says ... Dad this is so cool ! I say what's that honey and she hands me a box set of CD's called British Bands and Beyond that her company was about to release.
As she was handing me the box set she says....Dad, Nathaniel is going to be so proud some day that his Grandpa was a Rock & Roll star.
The box set she gave me actually contained one of The Jury's tunes from the same year Candis was born, now how neat was that.
Wow what a gift and after all this time The Jury have finally gone gone digital, we are current man!
All of our four releases a way back then of course were on vinyl, in 45 fashion, so I was knocked out and very excited that this was on a CD.
I for one have never figured out how all that digital stuff works. I am so in awe of all the new technical stuff, "I" everything and HD etc.
Being an old production guy my speed was tape and splicing blocks. I still can't figure out if the promo isn't on a cart where the hell is it.

So there I was now almost thirty years later with The Jury all up to date. It sure doesn't get much better than this baby.

All goes well with the birth of Nathaniel so I head back to Florida.
The next day I pick up my 9 year old daughter Cami from school and we head to the Apple store to look at what's new in this ever changing world of technology that she is really into but is still mostly a mystery to me.
I'm all pumped up on this day for two reasons, one because Cami has just become an Aunt at nine, and the other of course is Dad's on CD babe, Dad has gone digital! How cool and today is that.


I tell her all about the birth of her nephew and show her a bunch of pictures I took and she seems very pleased with the whole thing.
Then I tell her about the night before Nathaniel's birth and the great gift Candis gave me. I ask her if she would like to hear the Jury song that is on the Cd.
She says of course Dad, so I pop it into the player click to The Jury cut and crank it up. The tune was called Who Dat and we were rockin'.
About half the way through Cami shouts ... Daddy how much longer is this song, I say not much more why. She says because it's not very good.
What The Jury, with the # 1 Canadian Record in Canada at the time and now it's even on CD but my loving daughter says it's not very good.
What is she talking about surely she jests, I cant believe what I'm hearing out of her mouth.

So I lick my wounds and try to remember the part about unconditional love, as we head in to The Apple store to see all the wondrous new technology that has me so perplexed. I mean at that time I was barely into a hunt and peck e mail system and texting and IM ing was out of my reach.
All of a sudden I spot this tiny little I-pod and I say hey Cami look at this .... Wow I wonder how many tunes this little unit holds. She says enough.
What's that you say, enough.

She it turns out is not in in awe of technology in fact most of the time she is bummed with it because it's too slow or doesn't work right or the special adapter she needs is missing or now where is that special power cord that also charges it?
"Enough" means, she doesn't have 3000 favorite songs, nor the 3 K to buy them with.
Her thing is product not technology. She hopes new technology will come out soon that's better than what she's got because now she thinks it all sucks.
She loves her favorite product (song) she just wants something decent to play it on and that hasn't showed up yet.
The geeks don't impress her but the singers sure do. Well not all singers it turns out because I guess the new technology didn't make The Jury sound any better, to her ears. :-(
 

---

February 5, 2009

"We Caught the Ball"

Last year I was having dinner with Jim Hilliard and Mark Hubbard in Florida at the Bone Fish Grill in FT. Lauderdale.
I had brought along my daughter Cami and her good friend Brynn because it was Cami's twelfth birthday and even though we were celebrating a dual birthday party the coming weekend with Brynn because it was soon going to be her birthday too, but I thought hey I've got to do something special on her special day too, so we hooked up with my buddies Jim and Mark. How exciting for the girls. Not!


I knew Mark because I used to travel around the country with him few years ago when he was the president of a large radio group and the end result was we became good friends. Jim of course I've known most of my life.
Mark has a great family and I have spent some special nights at their summer home in Nantucket with his wife Bridget and his son Matt who grew up to be a Doctor.
But I think the smartest one in the family is Bridget and we poor males were sadly out numbered or at least it felt that way.
I have alway loved discussing the meaning of life with her every chance I get. Mark claims I was the only radio guy she ever allowed in her home.

Mark now is a business consultant to a bunch of different kinds of companies and even teaches a business course at Notre Dame.
My life long friend Jim Hilliard who owns some radio stations in South Florida and elsewhere uses Mark's business expertise in a bunch of different projects he's involved in.

So while we sitting there are waiting for our food, Mark turns to Cami and Brynn and says .... Ok girls maybe you can help me with this.
My son Matt is a young good lookin' guy who also happens to be a Doctor but he has no girlfriend.
Now you would think he would be a pretty good catch and his mother and I are looking forward to being grand parents in the not too distant future. But we see no prospects on the horizon.
What do you think the problem is ?
Without missing a beat 11 year old Brynn says it's very obvious to me that he has bad social skills!
With that, we all just broke up and said I think she's nailed it. Mark tells me that has used her remark in a lot of different social situations ever since and of course Matt was the first one who got to hear it and by now I'm sure he is very tired of the story.

Because the girls had helped him out with his perceived family problems he decided to give them and us a peek at how the world works from his side of the table.
Hey do you guys realize that there are several billion people living on the planet earth and yet somehow the three older folks at the table financially ended up in the top 10% of the worlds population.
The main reason for our success Mark claimed was because, We Caught The Ball !
What's that mean Mark we caught the ball, I asked. You've got to catch the ball to have any shot at being successful he replied.
Mark why do I think that it's not as simple as it sounds. He went on to say catching the ball was actually the easy part. The real hard part is being in the right spot at the right time to catch the ball.
About this time the girls went back to texting their friends and were only half listening because so far they knew they had already caught the ball, they both had fathers who spoiled them.
Mark went on to say ... Hey we all know that Barry Bonds was going to break the home run record a couple of years ago didn't we, and couldn't we almost predict when he was going to do it and where it would be done.
All we had to do was catch that ball and we would easily be worth an extra million dollars which would move us closer to that cherished top 5 % group that seem to run every thing including who becomes President.

I said come on Mark you would need to know the exact spot where Bonds was going to hit it that ball and be there waiting for it, how could you do that.
He smiled and said ahh grasshopper thats the crux of the problem.
No matter how much you prepared and planned for that special moment, the exact outcome really isn't in your power to fully control.
But that doesn't matter you do have to catch the ball in life anyway, or somehow you will be doomed to end up average or even below average.

You can have all the great attitude and aptitude you want, but that's still not near enough juice for the game of life.
You dont get to choose what country were you born in, who were your parents where did you grow up etc.
Even who your friends were, what schools you went to, and what clubs you belonged to, figure into all of this.
All this kind of stuff has more to do with your lot in life than you realize. And the real sad part is most of it you can't control.
Think about your own career George hey how did that work, what was your plan and when did you come up with it.

You mean Mark like when I was working as a production board op at CKY in Winnipeg where I had just been named the music director because my friend Dayrl B. the current music director was headed to Vancouver had recommended me and the fact that I had been a musician with my own band The Jury somehow thank goodness also kinda made sense to the brass, and I got Music Director added to my Production Director title.

Dayrl's claim to fame was, he always used a phrase on the air that went ... This is Daryl B on your radio just takin' care of business. Randy Bachman used to hear him say it all the time when he would hear Daryl's show and the phrase stuck in his head. The only way to get rid of it he figured was to use it in a song. With that he went on to write sing and record one of the biggest hits of all time.
Randy caught the ball several of times 1st with The Guess Who then with Bachman Turner Overdrive, and now on his own.

Talking about right place at the right time for me whew! One day I just happened to walk into the main studio at CKY to put a new record into the record bin and overheard the midday jock George "doody' Dawes talking to someone on the phone and saying thanks but no thanks I'm not interested in leaving Winnipeg.
When he hung up I said Doody what was that all about ?
He said to me that a station he used to work for in Saskatoon wanted to bring him back as PD but he had no interest in becoming a PD
Your kidding, boy would I love to be a PD I said. Hey I'll call them back and tell them about you if you would like.
He did and it wasn't long before they called me and flew me out to Saskatoon for a job interview. Wow I got the job! Or should I say, I caught the ball ?

I remember another day much earlier when a friend of mine made a tough catch. On this day Jimmy Darin (Jim Hilliard) came into the production room with a huge box of tapes, talk about a guy who has caught a few good balls in his life. Anyway Jim waited for me to get off the phone with Warren Cosford. Warren worked at CJOB and I can't remember at the time if he was sending me his Bay Day Sale spots or I was sending him mine.
Warren of course only remembers when he sent me his stuff, and they say the legs go first.
As I hang up the phone Jim says hey squirrel do you have time to help me with a project?
He explained to me that we needed a new night jock, but the station wont let him hire anymore Americans. He said I have to find a decent Canadian jock and I have to find him somewhere in this box. He didn't look very excited or even hopeful.

So the process begins as he begins listening to each tape for about 5 seconds then disgustedly hits rewind and strings up one after another with the same 5 second result.
Then I notice he lets one go a little longer than the others and says to me, hey this kid doesn't sound bad. I laugh and respond with yeh he sounds just like you. Jim says really with a small frown.
I say no just every once in a while he has a little phrasing like you but not all the time.

J Robert Wood caught the ball at that moment and quite a few other moments that I'm aware of.
Bob returned the favour a couple of years later when I was in Sudbury Ontario as PD of an Am&FM.
I got a call from J.Robert's boss who headed up the CHUM group, saying he just happened to be in town and asked me if I had time for lunch?
The next thing I knew I was in Ottawa I had just caught the ball.

About a year and a half later the phone rang in my office at the station and it was some head hunter saying ... Hey my client is trying to choose between two American PD's for his radio station in Toronto that our company found for him.
But he says the owner has heard of you and he insists that we check you out before he makes his decision. Mainly because your a Canadian he says.

But the major problem we have here he went on to say is we are making our decision by tomorrow.
You probably couldn't jump on a plane this afternoon can you you he said hopefully?
I could tell he was real bummed that he even had to go through all this after coming up with two real good candidates that could do the job.
For some strange reason I did jump on the plane met with Keith Dancy and Ted Rogers and caught the ball again.
A few months later CFTR even made me the station manager, which was more like me catching a foul ball but I guess it was still a catch.

Around this time I took a brief vacation back to Winnipeg where I hung out with a couple of my radio buds John Wells and Jim Coghill.
They invited me to join them at the press conference where they were signing Bobby Hull to the Winnipeg Jets for one million dollars. Bobby had just jumped from the NHL to the World Hockey league.
My friend John Wells who was the son of Jack Wells a very famous Canadian Sportscaster caught the ball himself a couple of times and ended up becoming a famous national sportscaster on Canadian TV himself.

At the Bobby Hull press conference I bumped into a great morning man that I had always liked Don Slade. He worked across the street from CKY at CKRC.
Don was a super guy and had wished me well a couple of years earlier when I was leaving Winnipeg for Saskatoon and my first PD gig.
Don had wandered over to me with a big warm smile on his face says hi and gives me a nice warm handshake and asks me how it was going in Saskatoon.
I said oh I'm not there anymore Don. He then sadly shook his head and said oh no what happened?
I told him I was in Toronto now. What are you doing there he asked. Well I'm the station manager of CFTR at the moment was my reply.

Don looked like his life was passing before his eyes.
Kinda like how the hell did this kid go from being a board op in Winnipeg to a station manager in Toronto, Canada's largest market in just a couple or so years? How does that all work?
Well I guess I just caught the ball Don.

As I was catching up with Don the phone rang and it was Jim Hilliard saying ... Hey George some one just hit a long ball and you really need to be in America to catch it!
Wow what a carnival ride this game called life turned out to be and it seemed all I did was shag a bunch of big ol fly balls.

---

February 3, 2009

Remember when the NAB was spending tons of money fighting the Satellite merger. They failed and so did Satellite radio.

January 31, 2009

I was thinking about comedians the other day after reading an interview with the brilliant playwright Neil Simon

He mentioned in the article that even though he writes mostly humorous dialog he would never think of hiring a comedian to do any of his plays.
He claims they are always in a way too much of a hurry to get to the punch line.

Neil went on to say that he felt all the words he wrote were important and he wants them all treated just that way.
He said in fact when he first hired Jack Lemmon, Jack was a very serious actor. Neil's plays just made him appear funny.
I think comedians are just the people who can always remember jokes. Man the best I can do is remember one and it's only a good news bad news joke.
But it's my all time favorite because it really shows you how different men and women are.

I told this joke a while back to Jo Myers, an incredible morning talent out of Denver who left radio to write a book.
Jo and I worked together for a while and I had her paired up with a guy who should have been perfect. But as I've said many times you learn more from your mistakes than you do from anything else. The hard lesson I learned then was you can't force chemistry.

I'm trying to lure Jo back into radio of course. No sense letting a good one get away when there seems so little talent around any more.
Now that her book is published and she is pretty well done the book tour, I think it might be time to fire her up and get her cookin' again.
Besides that she once told me if anything happened to her husband John, she was calling me from the airport to tell me to come and get her.
Does she have my number in more ways than one or what?
But rumor has it now that she might be up for a national gig with Dial Global, but I'll get her anyway I think because we are working on this project together
where she calls herself Anita Mann who is a very naughty Delilah type character. Right now though radio is going through it's we don't want anything new stage and we are just looking for ways of doing the same old boring thing but trying to figure out how to do it cheaper.


But as funny a person as Jo is she didn't even come close to laughing when I told her the joke.
I explained to her that most women don't laugh at this joke and besides that, I'm very suspicous of those that do.
But on the other hand I explained, most men do laugh at it.
Well she proclaimed her husband John wouldn't laugh he was a psychologist, and a way above all that juvenile nonsense like that silly joke.
I said Jo I can't even imagine you being married to somebody that stiff does he also smoke a pipe?
I then asked her if we all could go out to dinner some time and then at the appropriate moment I would tell him the joke?
She said sure no problem but are you buying ?
OK Jo, but you've got to promise me one thing you can't pre set him up in anyway, because I'm predicting he will laugh he wont be able to help himself if he is a real man.

What you dont understand Jo is most men really get that joke and it makes them laugh. Jo responded with, well John may get it, but I will tell you this it definitely wont be funny to him. John is real different, and thats why I adore him.

I let some time go by then we finally all go to dinner one warm and humid night in Palm Beach Florida.
We eat at a fairly fancy place called Chuck and Harold's and end up having a real good time together.
John turned out to be a great guy and not near as serious as I thought he was going to be.


When the time was just right I say to Jo may I tell John the special joke now. She says oh that's right I forgot all about that joke by all means tell on.
So I turn to John and say, John this is just a short little good news bad news joke it wont take long.

So John the joke goes like this ... This guy goes into his Doctors office for the results of some tests his Doctor had been running.
He is quickly ushered in ahead of all the people who were there before him even though they have been patiently waiting to see the Doctor themselves.
The Doctor is looking at charts, x-rays, and lord knows what ever else as the patient walks in. After what seems like forever he finally turns to the worried patient and says good morning thank you for coming in on such short notice. He then goes on to say I'm afraid to say I have some bad news but I've also
got some good news too which do you want first?
The now even more worried patient says you better give me the bad news first.
OK the Doctor says well I've been all over these tests I'm holding in my hands a hundred times but they come out the same way every time.
It seems that you've got a very rare disease that there is no known cure for. In fact I think your going to die in about 30 days. I can assure you that it wont be painful, but you better get your affairs in order.
The now very freaked out patient says, Doc what can I do, should I get other opinions from some other Doctors or something. Most certainly you can do that he replies but know this who ever you check with I've probably already checked with them. In fact I have check with a whole bunch of very smart specialists and they all concur you've got about 30 days left.
I'm sorry but I don't see any hope here.
Now the patient is so freaked out his hair even seems on fire. But then remembering a few minutes ago when he first walked into his Doctors office he calms down enough to plead, Doc give me that good news you mentioned earlier and please give it to me quickly. I need something good in fact I'll take anything just to hold on to ... this is terrible!
The Doctor smiles just like everything is good again and says, Remember when you first walked into the waiting area this morning. Did you by chance happen to notice the very beautiful well endowed blond we now have as our new receptionist?
Yes I saw her. Why do you ask utters the very distraught and anxious patient?
Well the really really good news is ... I'm sleeping with her!

There is just a slight pause then John bursts out laughing much to the disgust of lovely Jo.
But she later paid him back I thought by getting up and singing John a bunch of torch songs while she was sexily crawling all over the piano.
The patrons just thought she was with the band, and warmly applauded her when she was done.
But John just ignored her the whole time she was singing and crawling. When I asked him how come, he said she does this kinda stuff all the time and I'm getting very used to it.
A little while later when talk turned to worldly things all of a sudden John burst out laughing. Jo asked him what the heck he was laughing about? He said he was just thinking about the joke George told earlier and just enjoying it again.

The small side bar here is a few of the words of the Doctors last line have been changed to protect the innocent.
The innocent are namely The Cee Jays. My two daughters Candis and Cami, plus their cousin Christina.
You have to get a little creative here to figure out the exact words the good Doctor really used to give the last line it's full shock impact or you can just call me.


The reason I brought this good news bad news stuff up was because I had another good news bad news situation that happened to me which wasn't nearly as much fun.
I've just recently reconnected with a guy by the name of David Wolfe.
When I first met David he had just arrived in the U.S. from Canada where had worked with my brother Reg when they both were at CKGM in Montreal a few years earlier.

David it turns out was selected in some kind of lottery which gave him a green card. I don't know how that all worked but some how he ended up living at Reg's house as he was getting his U.S. act together.
Now I'm not too sure how my sister in-law Savvy took all this, because it wasn't too long til it was David that answered the door when you knocked, got the telephone, did the Xmas decorations outside, got you a drink and even seemed to host Reg's annual big Christmas party.
But now as I think about it there always seems to be somebody Reg was working with staying at their house.
David when he was in Canada was a station promotion Manager and I understand he was very good at it.
My brother at this time was doing a lot of programming/sales promotions all over the country so it seems David was fitting in quite nicely with his company.


About this time I moved to Boston to do a project with my long time mentor Jim Hilliard and I understand David left shortly there after to do his own promotion thing only this time it was mostly with TV stations.
We lost touch for quite a while or maybe David was just ignoring me because he was still bummed about all those races we were in where he watched me smoke him from a long way back in the pack.


But then I start to notice that David seems to be back in radio and in fact doing some very good Internet things with a few radio stations that I'm very aware of.
I'm a big believer in the internet and believe that radio and it come together quite nicely, but I feel strongly about the fact that the only way your going to get people to go to your Web Page is your going to have to have some interesting and/or helpful content waiting there for them to look at.
I don't believe the folks are ever going to go there just to see you promote yourself.

David's company I find out it gets involved in the content part and has figured out how to make some money while doing it plus maybe it will provide a warm fuzzy for your listeners. The best part I think is the money comes mostly from clients that aren't on radio
I am always very interested in and looking for these types of projects for some of the stations I'm currently working with that are always hungry for cash and ratings. Currently I'm working on a project with Gary Russell in Canada and Dave Charles in Australia. I think we are going to try and make this a part of it because it's a no brainer for us.
I've been very very heavy into NTR for a long time because I like to try and spin some of that extra money a station gets from something that is mainly promoted with promos and sounds like content not spots, spun into some other station promotions.
It was time for David and I to talk again, I only hope he hasn't been training and just wants some revenge, but more on that a little later.

Hey I'm no different than anybody, I love all the new stuff all the new secrets in fact I'm addicted to them. I've always had them and searched for them my entire career. In fact GM Tom Skinner has this project already started on one of my favorite client stations, KZST in Santa Rosa.
Man I wish I could afford to live there it's the only place that might in fact even be nicer then San Diego.
David is already bragging to me that Tom claims this may turn out to be his favorite promotion of all time. I think it's called the Legal line or something then it spins into the cosmetic line then the home improvement line which is just setting up the real cash cow that David is over in India creating at this very moment
I think Tom liked it right from the start mostly because he says it's the first time he ever has recieved a check from a lawyer, plus it matches about what his divorce cost him by about double.
Anyway as David and I go through the specific details about how this all works and how I could get it exclusive for all my client stations he reminded me of our own good news bad news day story back when we first met, which I had completely forgotten about.

When David first arrived in San Diego as a snowbird I was very into running because it seemed to blow all the excess stress off. Reg and I were both doing a ton of stations together at the time and the phone just never seemed to stop ringing.
It was very hard to call me when I was running so I really liked that part but the other part of running just hurt man, I mean have you ever seen a runner smile.
Wouldn't you know it but it turns out that David liked to run too so of course we ended up running a lot together and talkin' a little radio.

After running almost every day we decide, hey maybe we are fast enough to start racing. So we get some new racing shoes and start entering a race almost every Saturday morning from then on.
San Diego by the way is the perfect city to run in with races everywhere all the time and the best part is it's always little cool at early morning race time, unlike where I am now in South Florida.

This one particular Saturday morning we get up very early as usual and David picks me up in my brother's huge black Mercedes which he has borrowed so it's off to the race we go.
Man that car was so big it almost looked like a limo. Anyway David shows up bright and early in it at my place and it's off to Balboa park we go for the start of the 10 K race we had pre registered for earlier in the week.
We park the car with a bunch of others under these towering palm trees that kinda give the car a little shade, but not that much. I'm not sure what the real purpose of Palm trees are. But I know they are not very good for shade. Maybe they just flaunt to the tourists the fact that it doesn't snow here ever.

I never noticed at the time but David told me afterwards that he always leaves the keys on top of the driver's side front tire, that way he doesn't have to take them with him while runs and have them jangling and bouncing against his leg.
Now we all line up for the start and were off and by this time in our racing career David has finally given up trying to beat me and just lets me go.
In those days the rage I had inside me was so strong I didn't even need oxygen, I just finished each race on pure adrenaline.
In fact most Saturdays I would finish each race, jump in my car and head to the San Diego Athletic Club where I would play Reg and his partner Greg, a few games of cut throat racquet ball. As Reg would tell it, hey man my brother is crazy he's willing to die for every point, I'm just here for a little exercise.
Well that's kinda how I raced I guess. But I'm a much calmer and collected person now. Right!

Anyway about a half a mile into the race I sort of notice the course seems to be taking us right by the area where I thought we parked the car but I didn't give it much thought until something in my head said I think that's the exact spot where we parked the car. Then I thought no it cant be because our car isn't there, I must of just missed it so I just picked up my pace and blasted towards the finish line.
The race took me about 45 minutes to do so I'm kinda stretching a little and waiting for David to cross the finish line. When he shows up a cople of minutes later we immediately head to the area where they are handing out the after race water, bagels, bananas, and such.
I say hey David I think the race went right by the place where I thought we parked the car but for some reason I couldn't pick it out. Did you see it?
He says funny you mentioned that because I was wondering how I missed seeing it too it must not have been the same place.
Now we finish stretching and eating so now it's finally time to leave so we head back to the area where we left the car. You've got it no big black Mercedes anywhere.Oh wow what do we do now, no money, no dry clothes, no nothing.


After we deal with the police report and all kind of stuff they were kind enough to give us a ride to my place so I can pick up my car. Good luck on the car they say as they drop us off, but it was probably in Mexico before you ever even finished your race.
I go inside get my car keys and we jump in my car and head over to Reg's. David is muttering over and over what am I going to tell Reg. Man oh man oh man!
We go inside the house and I think Reg was on the phone as he usually is with a client or something. When he finally gets off the phone he says hi guys how's it going. David has been pacing around the room for a while so noticing this Reg says, hey David did my brother kick your ass again in some race you guys always run, you look a little down man whats wrong?

David says well Reg I've got some good news and bad news for you, which do you want first? Reg says David David, how bad can it be, we live in the most beautiful city in the world, the sun is out, business is cooking, and everybody seems healthy, bring on your bad stuff we can fix it.. I mean just how bad can anything possibly be? I'm tellin' ya right now it's going to be tough to bring me down today.
Usually by this time of day I have a headache but today I dont even have one of these so life is good and I don't think I can be bummed out today.

As Reg is saying all this I'm thinking to myself man I think we've got what your looking for little brother.
David says the car is gone man! Reg says the car, what car? Your car your car is gone. What are you talking about what you mean my car is gone? Gone where? I don't know Reg it's just gone David responds. When you were sleeping early this morning I didn't want to wake you so I just took the keys left and picked George up at his place and headed to Balboa Park for a race we were in early this morning.
After the race was over we went back to the place where we parked it and the car was gon he explained. How could that be David ? It's tough to break into a Mercedes they would have needed keys and where would they get those Reg asked David kinda loudly?
Well they probably got them off the front tire where I hid them. Maybe someone spotted me putting them there.
You left the keys to my car on the front tire what were you thinking?
I always do that David responds. That's really stupid, Reg says, have you reported it stolen? Yes but the police don't give it much hope they say it's probably down in Mexico and disassembled by now.
So let me see if I've got this straight Reg says, I have no car and no hope of getting it back. What the hell could be your good news?
David says with a big smile well your brother set a new PR (personal record) in the 10k we ran this morning.
How about that, EH ?
 

January 29, 2009

There are only two types of radio, Foreground and Background

When I was in the middle of all my radio wars, my wife Lana and I split up. When My Mom heard about it she said thank God your father is not alive because this would kill him.


The definition of Art is ... The Observation Of Life and The Artist's Comments About It.


Jeff and Jer's genius is the set up not the punch line.


My two favorite radio concepts to coach are ... The Jack Benny approach (Seinfeld) and The Abbot and Costello style ( Michaels and Madden)


Something emotional has to happen to someone before they will ever change their attitude or their life.


When I was a kid I could pick up WLS in Winnipeg at night, I can't remember any of the bits, I just remember how they said the call letters with so much pride and it made me always want to work there someday.


If you need to get some credit for something just get in the line about whose fault it is for the bad book, not very crowded there. But the line for
the good books stretches around the block.


I don't know why it was that after each good book came out the sales department always seem to be going on a client trip to some exotic
place in the World.


When Disney had to give up ownership of most of Disney and attend board of directors meetings in order to build Disney Land. So he quit and leased them his name.
When they balked at the exorbitant price he wanted he said your right, maybe you should call it Smith Land it would be much cheaper.


To be successful I think you must balance the gift you have with some science.
Mozart was mostly gifted and he died penniless.


I think one of Johnny Carson's greatest talents was he was a great interviewer, just like Howard Stern was.


Every great show has the element of surprise in it.

A few years ago I heard a country song called, "I saw it on the radio". Well I haven't seen much lately.

When I was a pup and gigging with The Jury I always listened to the radio as we traveled, I discovered I hated Country Western music.
But I kinda like Country now it must have been the Western I hated.

Ken Singer who was a first time jock at CKOM in Sakatoon where I was a first time PD said when he asked me what a PD did that I responded with I hire and fire the jox. He said he quickly responded with "Got It"


I just can't handle the word no.


Back in the early 70's I was trying to figure out what adult music was per our Canadian licence.
So all I did was conger up my mother's face as I listened to our library of hits. If I imagined her face scrunching up when I played a tune I threw it away. I played only what was left.
What was left, ended up being called AC


A lot of women knew what color their brides maids dresses were going to be when they were 11 years of age.
They spent the rest of the time looking for a guy to play the part of the groom.


One of my all time favorite trips was on a flight from Dallas to Nashville. Buck Owens had his guitar out and was teaching Dwight Yokum the words to The streets Of Bakersfield, which ended up being a number one record for Dwight


Ron Chapman's great gift is his sensitivity to humor.

I was talking to Delilah about all the houses I heard she bought in Seattle and asked her what she was doing with them.
She said her new deal was so good that she gave them all to her staff. Take that Mr. Business man!


If Mr. business man isn't creating jobs what other uses does he have ?


It used to be that the more unsuccessful a radio station was the more powerful the engineer was. Is that still true?


Is it just me that thinks that when a very smart sounding weather person gives us the weather and all its ramifications sound so stupid when they don't even know the current temp, and the jock or news person has to jump in and give it at the end of the forecast.


You know your great story telling days are almost over when the love of your life says ... You already told me that story!


At all the radio stations I visit the sales department always seems to be in meetings, when the hell do they sell?


How come you never hear about PMS until after you first say I love you?


I've found that most young people will let a bad commercial play on their radio but not a bad tune.


In the tough town of Transcona where I'm from, being a phony was the worst sin of all. Most radio people couldn't make it through the night there.

I was always smart enough to surround my self with people a lot smarter than me. Being any smarter would have just been a waste.


Is radio really over or is that just opportunity I smell.


If a radio station spent as much time and training on the product as they do sales can you even imagine how many listeners they would have.


There are only two types of radio, Foreground and Background. The careful combination of the two of course makes the most money.


My radio buddy in Canada Gary Russell says, if you want more billing hire more sales people, Gary, here in America they seem to be firing them.


What ever happened to Satellite radio ?
 

January 28, 2009

"A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from Kevin Metheny who is now the Big Kahuna at WGN in Chicago"

"Back to Radio Land"
by George Johns

We are always on our best behavior in front of our daughters. Maybe that's how we should do radio too.


Ivan Braiker of Hip Cricket once said it's not what George Johns does that creates that sound ... It's what he doesn't do.


I'm not sure that there is much out there that is mass appeal anymore.


I always loved the sound of a white artist sounding like a black artist or a black artist sounding like a white artist. That sound was almost always a hit.


If someone didn't just say it yesterday, it's probably not true anymore.


It only took Fleetwood Mac 16 albums to finally become an overnight sensation.


Radio is like smoking to me, I don't like it but I can't quit.


Any other words other than yes, always mean no way Jose!


I just remembered that Ray Stevens once had a song out called Mr. Business Man, it followed Ahab the Arab I think, and was supposed to be funny too but there is nothing funny about Mr. Business Man.

On a weekend day part I was once lucky enough to get a hundred share at a station I was PD of. I didn't believe it but I sure wanted my enemies to.

The only words I haven't heard yet about PPM yet is ... "It's the truth"!

When my daughter Candis was a young teenager I had a rule that if any of our talent ever embarrassed me in front of her while they were on the air I would try to end their radio career.
Now I have another young teen named Cami. How do I hunt down all of those hip hop so called artists that embarrass me every 15 minutes?


I think Custer was the last leader to lead his troops into battle, now they just send them.


Most women want the man they love to change and most men pray that their woman will never change. The reverse actually happens.


In a recent meeting with Dave Charles a radio programming consultant in Australia and Asia he told me that the rest of the world is looking to America for the next new Radio thing.

I told him that I hoped they weren't holding their breath because I don't think anybody is working on it. But maybe we should gather together the great talent that has been kicked to the curb, and come up with it.


I read a lot about human rights but all I know about them for sure is they all end at the tip of my nose.


For some reason even though Cheney was in a wheel chair at the inauguration he still looked very evil to me.


I have two daughters, one wants to be a lot older and one wants to be a lot younger. Only one will get her wish but unfortunately it falls under the category of ... Be careful of what you wish for.


Men fantasize about women they know, Women fantasize about men they don't know. (jox look much better on the radio)


A caller to a radio show is not a guest.


A brand takes a long time to create, but goes away quickly if you don't evolve it, or you evolve it too fast.


The more talented you are the less local you have to be. If you are both you are unbeatable.


It's the event stupid not the free ticket.


Every successful enterprise has three types of people leading it ... The Dreamer, The Business Man, and the Son Of A Bitch.


You are always headed into the wind but you don't notice it until you get older.


Rick Moranis told me when he made the movie Little Shop Of Horrors that the plant could only be made to move at half speed so he had to move his lips at half speed so they could double speed it later. When I asked how he could act and talk at half speed at the same time, he replied it was very easy.
They just put a guy behind the camera that I could see from every angle. What did he do I asked. Rick said he simply held up his paycheck.


I think the best sports is when it's stories about heroes and anti heroes not zeros.


A great morning show has to have the courage to be different.


The most popular morning shows are things that are good and against all things that are bad.


According to Einstein imagination is much more important than knowledge.


Women are like crock pots and men are like microwave ovens.


Neil Simon's play, Laughter On The 13th Floor was about the death of manufactured bits.


The old song, Accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative and Don't mess with Mr. in between, about says it all.


Always have the guest say the things you want to say because you are wise enough not to say them.


There are only two movie themes ... An unfamiliar path leading to a familiar ending or A familiar path leading to an unfamiliar ending.
 

"The only way to get a piece of the rock is to ask for it"
By George Johns

No amount of loyalty or success ever ever brought on an offer of said same.

I am pretty grey in my thinking in fact I have several shades of grey going on, but when you put me together with a good black and white person we tend to create a lot of magic.

When meeting with a group of radio people and miraculously we agree on something, that's the moment I stand up and try to end the meeting because the next thing that usually happens is we try to talk ourselves out of our hard found decision.

Jack McCoy once told me that you know it's going to be a bad year when even the people who never planned on ever paying you, don't buy anything.

My brother Reg told me that radio is getting so lean and tough now that even yes really means no.

I wonder if the staff was in charge of compensation how much the executives would make.

The only part of show biz that doesn't seem to use a script is radio, but hell we don't need one we wing it real good and the rest of show business only makes chump change compared to us right.

Playwright Neil Simon never hired comedians to act in his plays because he said they were always in too much of a hurry to get to the punch line. He felt all his words were precious

When I returned to WRMF in Palm Beach for my second tenure it had lost some of its early purity, when I teased PD Russ Morley about just when he sold out he replied about the same time it took two moving vans to put all his stuff in, instead of the usual small trailer he used to be able to use.

I don't know why I'm not smart enough to figure out why the induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame isn't held in Cleveland at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The best promotion we ever ran in Dallas didn't cost a cent.
Ron Chapman simply went on the air and said I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet but I need you to send me $20 dollars. In two days he had over two hundred thousand dollars. I wonder what talent in what other city has that power. I know a couple but I ain't talkin'

The late Ted Rogers once told me, George you will never be a great leader until you can leave behind the people who got you to where you are.

You've only got three chances with a radio station ... Be first, be best or be different.

I spoke at the morning boot camp in Chicago a couple of years ago.
At one of the sessions they offered a thousand dollars to the best morning bit from all the morning guys from all over America who were sitting at their own special tables.
When they got to Jeff and Jer from San Diego, Jer stood up and said, Jeff and I don't need the money and sat down. The whole room broke up.

When I had one of those man to man talks with my son Curtis about what he planned to do with his life, he told me he just kinda wanted to hang out because he thought that I had worked pretty hard all my life and I didn't seem particularly happy so far to him, so he thought he would just pass on the hard work part.

Mike Vance the dean of Disney U once told me that life is measured by it's breathless moments and my only job as a passenger on spaceship Earth was to put myself in a position where some breathless moments could happen to me.

There are four types of death ... You stop breathing, you stop making love, you stop noticing beautiful things, and you stop learning. I guess that means all experts are dead because they already know everything.

After months of negotiation I finally agreed to go and help out a guy who had a new station in Oklahoma City. When I arrived at his office he said I cant believe I have George Johns standing in my office. But I only have one problem with it. If you were as big as I thought you were, you wouldn't be here.
I put that comment in the category of you can't win for losin'

A PD is at his most cooperative the day before the book comes out.

When your a PD you train yourself to not to let them see you sweat an hour before the advances were coming out.
All along we should have been working on not sweating.

Ron Chapman from Dallas came to me one day and said a client had a two minute jingle they wanted to play as their spot, he asked me what I thought. I said as long as it replaces two sixties I guess it would be better than two talking commercials.
It turned out the campaign lasted much longer than we had anticipated and we were all burned out by the non hit jingle.
When the day finally came Ron played Taps before the finally playing. After his show he was dragged into the GM's office with a very upset SM sitting there and after telling Ron that the client was incensed with what he had done, they both wanted his explanation.
Ron said I guess the only one I've got is ... When you've got good copy you just have to go with it.

The client is not always right but our job is to not let them know it.

I start a lot of talent meetings out with, today we are only going to talk about what we know for sure, we are not going to talk about what we think because that is just pure speculation and has no relevance for this discussion.

Sometimes the more zip codes you live away from your client has a tendency to add some credibility to your expertise.

Working hard doesn't always get it, but working smart usually brings home most of the marbles.

Why do I have the feeling that all those little pieces of paper they keep shoving at you while your arms are full called receipts, have nothing to do with us needing a receipt?

The thing I kinda liked about Ronald Reagan was he allowed the middle class to get rich, but I think Bush put a stop to all that nonsense.

I remember when I was 12, I heard the day that Rhythm and Blues and Cowboy music came together. It produced a sound that changed my life, Rock & Roll.

I always like to do the traffic reports for people who are not driving at the moment.

The other day I was thinking about the three lies
By George Johns

The other day I was thinking about the three lies........You know the ones. "The Check's In The Mail" always followed of course by by two more that are ever changing depending on the times I guess?
I'm not sure why this subject even popped into my head but I think it was because I was laughing while thinking about those ever changing 3 lies.
I love laughing mainly I think, because it's hard to be bummed while your in the middle of a good laugh.
After I stopped chuckling I started wondering if there was a separate set of 3 lies for all industries and events.


For instance back a few years ago when I was addicted to running and racing, my daughter Candis talked me into training with her for the LA Marathon which we would run together.
The LA marathon ! Candis are you joking with me ? The longest I had ever raced was a 10k and she had talked me into doing that.
Now at the time Candis was in her senior year at UCLA, and I was traveling a lot and living in San Diego, so most of the time we had to train separately.
In fact the only time I think we ever trained together was when I took her to France for her birthday and we ran along the Mediterranean together. Man talk about breathless moments in more ways than one.
Being on the Mediterranean with your daughter is a very wonderful but weird thing to do. Because as you gaze out at that beautiful water you have to desperately try and get your eyes to look at the water and not at all the great distractions on the beach that France has to offer.
I think it must be against the law or something for the French to wear a top.

During the running period of my life I belonged to the San Diego Athletic Club which was located down town. I ran out of there when ever I was in town.
The best thing about the club for me was it was very close to Balboa Park which is just gorgeous, with all kinds of running trails and scenic paths.
When your training for a marathon you need a lot of that scenic beauty just to kinda distract you as you put in your long tedious mileage each day.

One day I was sitting in the steam room resting after just completing a very hard boring ten miler all around the park.
The steam room is kind of your small reward I guess for doing this kind of nonsense every day.
In the steam room with me were a couple of guys from the Padres and the Chargers, plus a few other guys which included Thom Hunt, the assistant manager of the club.
Thom had been 10K record holder when he was in college. Now a days he made his living as an elite runner, besides being the assistant manager of the club. At the same time I was training for the LA marathon Thom was training for the Olympic trials.
I sure knew who Thom was but I had never even chatted with him so I didn't think he knew who I was.
I sat there minding my own business, just letting the steam soothe my tired and stiff leg muscles.
All of a sudden I hear a voice say, hey George I hear your training for the LA marathon. I look up and it's Thom speaking to me. I say yes I am.
He says would you take a little advice from me? Are you kidding me, would I like a little running advice from one of Americas leading runners, I mean is the Pope still Catholic?
But I kept my cool rather than losing it with star flinch and calmly said, sure I would love some advice I sure can use any help I can get.
OK he said this all you have to remember and you will be fine. There are 3 lies in the marathon.

The first lie is ... If you go out too fast in the first mile you will still be in great shape and can always slow down a little when ever because now you've got that extra time in the bank. Not true he says, there is no running bank. The only running bank you have is being built up from all the training your doing now.
When your racing he went on to say, that 30 seconds you ran too fast in that first mile, is going to cost you at least two minutes in your last mile, maybe even more ?

The second lie is ... About the ten mile mark euphoria sets in and you actually think you can really pick up your pace. Not true, it's just the endorphins kicking in and like most drugs, they are lying to ya!

The third lie is ... About the 20 mile marker it's going to feel like a gorilla jumped on your back, and you wont think you can take another step. Not true, it's just your brain trying to con you because it suddenly realizes your almost out of carbs, but your still running and burning them. Seeing as carbs is all the brain eats it wants you to stop and it wants you to stop right now.
Don't listen, your almost home man!

Of course all this thinking brings me back to radio, it always does.
I wonder what the top 3 lies of radio are? I list below a few of my favorites in no particular order.
But I bet you have better ones, I would sure like to hear them.

1. The sales coverage map (over shadowed only by the owners version of the same map)

2. If the rates were lower I could really sell a bunch of this.

3. I do my best work when I wing it on air.

4. No sense fixing that now, everything will work perfectly in the new building.

5. I hear the station is up for sale.

6. We are the only station in town not running this terrible sounding commercial.

7. If we don't do this promotion we cant get the money.

8. If our competition even starts to make a move we are dragging out the war chest.

9. Hey running this wont hurt and it's just a short campaign.

10. I know it's short notice, but if I dont get an answer right now we cant get the money.

11. They had a big storm, all the flights were canceled, so I will be on vacation an extra day.

12. I cant do production today because I think I'm coming down with something. Better save my voice for the show.

13. Why dont you stand on the corner and I'll pick you up in the station van.

14. You say you dont want to answer the phones any more you would rather learn how to do the music. I can teach you that. Lets go have a drink and talk about it.

15. People are calling and saying they cant hear the staion ... Everything looks OK on all the dials must be their radios.


16. Yours

P.S. Oh how did the Marathon go? At the 10th mile I said to Candis I'm getting very tired of running behind all these people, so we got up on the side walk and burned by about a thousand.
Thom was wrong about the 20 mile marker, Candis and I did a leaping high five and said wow only 6 more miles to go, we are almost there.
The Gorilla jumped on at mile 22 and we said how are we ever going to run 4 more miles.
We finished but I've never done another Marathon since.
Candis went on and did a bunch more marathons plus she even became an Iron Man.
I just took up drinking red wine for a healthy heart.
 

January 8, 2009

I Tried To Leave Radio Land But It Kept Dragging Me Back
By George Johns

The two things radio staffs hate doing are probably the only two things they really need to doing if they want to be successful.
In sales it's cold calls, in programming it's show prep.


For a thousand years the unanswerable question has always been ... Is it the accomplishment of the mission or the welfare of the troops?
Well radio certainly answered that age old question in fine style hasn't it.


I've been told that if you spend to much time in the future or too much time in the past and not enough time in the present your psychotic.
Well that certainly clears up a couple of questions about what's going on in radio at the moment dontcha think.


It seems that soon as your memories are bigger than your dreams, your over.


Does the NAB now only speak for about 5 people ? That would explain their thinking that even more relaxed ownership rules would fix something.


In the new coming world of radio, retail sales is going to be the thing that brings in the new money. But someone is going to have to explain radio and how it would help them to the retail clients.
Now who do you suppose that would be. Anybody who who knows anything about radio has already left the building.


Now a question that has been pondered for decades is ... If a radio is on in the middle of the forest and nobody is there to hear it is it making any noise ?
According to Aristotle, Truth is Truth!
It is making the same noise whether your there to hear it or not. But the even sadder truth is, the noise is not very good.


He who controls the language soon controls the budget.


Every 7th rating book is a fluke.

With out some controversy about your station it wouldn't be very interesting. If your station isn't interesting it's real tough to get any ratings.

I learned a long time ago that evolution on a radio station always works out a whole lot better than revolution.


Would you listen to you?


The fastest way ever to get a DJ staff to shape up is with "Jock in a box"
This is where each week the air staff gets to listen to a fellow jock's air check and critique it at the staff meeting. The best part is nobody knows what jock is in the box. Lots of fun. Not!


According to Plato, the host of a radio show has to become a principle of influence as quickly as possible, the money shows up right after that.


The definition of hype is when an air talent enthusiastically endorses something he doesn't believe, when he dose the same with something he believes in it's called passion.


I still love radio but I don't love it enough to buy stock in it.


They say Warren Buffet is on a stock buying spree because he claims this is the time to buy, do you suppose he bought any radio stock?


Jeff and Jer of San Diego told me that it's easy to make the huge cake they are making. Just wrap your arms around the whole city, then marry it.


I told Jeff and Jer years ago, take on the top three non radio personalities in town forget about the radio folks. They did, and they killed them, now nobody is bigger than them.


Robert Murphy once told me he was offered a big job in Dallas once, but after listening to Chapman he didn't take it because he said he could never love Dallas as much as Ron did.


It used to be that during a recession and your station was in the top three, you had a record breaking year.


In South Florida the population swells every winter by several million people, but radio billing goes down, what's wrong with that picture?


When Mr. Fairbanks bought KVIL in Dallas it was billing about 35 thousand a month and half of that was trade.
At the two million a month mark he told me that this bubble was going to burst, so he was getting out. He was right the bubble did burst, about twenty years later.


Radio to me is just like an ice cream store, the folks only buy Chocolate Vanilla or Strawberry but it was the promotion of all the other flavors that got them into the store in the first place.


When national business on radio was huge the GM's Secretary used to handle it. Now that there is hardly any left, it's some kind of executive position. Whats up with that?


Did you ever notice that the thing a busy PD did the least of was listen to the radio.


When I was a PD I never listened to the competition I always had someone else tell me what they were doing. I didn't listen to them because I didn't want them to have any influence on me. But I loved when they listened to us and went out of my way to cause that as much as I could.


Sometimes just being different for difference sake is enough reason.


I think once you take a gig as an oldies jock, that's what you are.


The people really don't know what they like, but they do tend to like what they know.


Jox that aren't funny back stage don't tend to be funny on air either even though they embarrass us and themselves by painfully trying over and over again.


An air talent needs to be sincere and if they can fake that they need to head to Hollywood and pick up some real big bucks.


When I first moved to America my boss used to pick me up every morning, I dreaded that ride because eventually he was going to say ... What the hell is that as we chatted while listening to the radio as we drove to and from the station each day.


I think my favorite part of radio is the day the sweet pretty new receptionist finally notices your alive and says, Mr. Johns I understand you are in charge of picking the music we play. I love music and was wondering if I could meet with you sometime and discuss how I could get involved. There is a God!


When I was a PD my main job was to keep management and the air talent apart because they scared each other to death.


When I was in San Diego I always wanted to have a billboard up that had our morning man standing beside a much smaller man of Mexican decent who was wearing a T-shirt that read Jesus. The head line in big letters on the billboard read, so and so(our morning man's name) is bigger than Jesus.
They wouldn't let me do it. Cowards!


When I worked in Ottawa we had a news clip from the TV station with Canada's Prime minister getting out of a limo and responding to a reporter's question about what he thought about a current crises.
His response that we captured on film was ... All I know is what I heard on CFRA this morning, I don't know anything more than that.
Ask me if we didn't run a TV spot over and over and over again featuring that news clip that went ... When the Prime minister needs to know what's going on in Canada, he listens to CFRA.


The definition of luck is where preparation meets opportunity see above.
 

"Radio just needs to just say what it means and mean what it says"
By George Johns

My thirteen old daughter Cami wants to know when I'm going to put a radio station together for her and her friends. She has to listen to five right now to even get close.


My almost forty year old daughter Candis, mother of my Grandson Nathaniel wants to know when radio is going to get Thomas The Train on the air so she can listen again.


I remember as a young PD visiting Toronto and going out to the CNE to see the mighty CHUM in action on remote.
They had a huge house trailer they were broadcasting from and the on air jock was sitting out front doing his stuff on a small deck.
But all the pretty girls were lined up to meet the board op in back who was actually playing the tunes.
It seems they only care about the people who touch the music.


Recently in Northern California a radio station that actually allows me to visit occasionally and even pays me to do it had one of their best books in years.
They got almost a 10 share and their closest competition was in the fours. The only question from sales was ... Did we notice the demos were aging and and just when were we going to do something about it?


I was told once by a journalist from the Washington post who sat in on a bunch of my jock meetings while she was trying to learn how radio worked that she had me all figured out. She said the talented people loved me the untalented hated me.
I've started every jock meeting with that quote ever since.


I think one of the greatest things that ever happened to me was to hear my favorite jock introduce my band The Jury's brand new record on the radio while we were driving to a gig. I now have that moment burned into my mind and on a CD thanks to my buddy in Toronto Chuck McCoy.
That moment is right up there with great sex.( My daughters are not allowed to read this part.)


When we first started turning up the heat on KVIL in Dallas many years ago, we immediately had a party to celebrate a very modest rating increase.
I will always remember Ron Chapman whispering to me, "George, just which page of the book are we celebrating"?


When Arbitron changed the question in the diary from what radio station did you listen to, to what radio station did you hear, it changed radio.
PPM is about to change radio again, but this time it's forever.


The mere passage of time does not change any of the rules.


I remember when I was working in Toronto, AM's were huge and the FM's were just also rans. CFTR at the time was kind enough to buy me a new car that included an FM stereo.
Man I had to check that out and when I did CKFM was playing a Chicago tune. I became an FM guy at that very moment, and moved to America shortly there after.


Advertising agencies generally want what you don't have.


When you have great ratings it takes about a year for the money to show up, when you lose the ratings it takes about half that time for the money to disappear.


The music you play on a radio station just kinda sets up who you are, hopefully you have who you are standing by.


The folks are always interested in what's going on in their town, what radio station in your town is the best at supplying that.


When the people see a column of smoke in the horizon is it your station they turn on to hear what the hell is causing it?


The real way it works in real life is when the folks have your station on but there is someone else in the room or the car with them, when they start to chat they usually turn you down. If they still cant talk over you they turn you off.


Can you even imagine most of the people on the radio using their on air presentation to order a burger from the McDonald's drive through?


How radio worked yesterday was you just needed to have more money coming in than going out. What the hell happened?


When management used to ask me if I believed in community involvement, I told them of course, but I hate remotes.The conversation died immediately.


When sales people used to tell me that we were the only station in town that rejected that spot I would say, I know isn't that great.


I used to warn management that some day we were going to be over sold and instead of everyone stressing out over it why don't we have a party to celebrate our success.


My friend and long time boss Jim Hilliard had a great rule for long weekends the sales people could go home the moment the traffic person left the building.


Can you even imagine for even a moment the person in the box office selling tickets to a broadway play, ever leaving their post to come inside to tell the actors on stage that the play sucks.? It happens everyday in radio.


I remember the president of a radio chain telling me that every time he hired a new GM the first thing they all wanted was a new logo, then a client party to fix our bad image with all the clients.
The logo of course took forever to get perfect so he didn't worry about that. The cost of the client party was just taken out of the GM's Christmas bonus.


Remember when everyone said satellite was going to kill radio, that sure didn't last long did it.


I remember the first time I ever heard about a thing called station trade, it was in a memo telling me not to use it anymore.


All air talent has to do is look around while they are driving to and from the station. There is more weird stuff happening every moment in the streets than you could ever possibly make up.


Sometimes Arbitron takes a book or two to catch up to actual listening. The trick is knowing just when to stop tinkering with the station.


Give a man a fish he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime, explain the concept of fishing and he can open a chain of seafood restaurants.


One of the gifts I received as a young programmer early in my career from my mentor Jim Hilliard, was the right to be wrong.
But that gift did not include the right to live with my mistakes.


When I moved to America I was lucky, I could almost do anything I wanted on the radio because I didn't have any peers or friends asking me what the hell I was doing. Those people were all back in Canada, and didn't really care what I was doing.


If you launch a new format and radio people understand it, its generally not very good.


Fifty percent of good radio is concept and philosophy, the other half is implementation.


A while back I read a quote an old friend Keith Elshaw made about me ... The thing about George Johns is, the people who work for him love him, the people he works for are afraid of him. Surely that's not true.


The secret sauce for a good show or a good radio station is this, Talent + Science = Art. (But they must be in perfect balance) The whole formula goes like this. T+S=A+(p+i+t)xP+I= $uccess


Great radio for men must be about these four topics, Sex, Sports, Business and Sex.


I recently received an E mail from one of my heroes, Charlie Van Dyke.
He was telling me that when we first launched KVIL in Dallas, he was doing mornings at KLIF, and everywhere he looked all he saw was billboards with a huge picture of Ron Chapman on them.
I had to explain to him that we could only afford one, so we put it up out side his studio window.


One of the things that separates us from the animal kingdom is animals don't get embarrassed so embarrassment doesn't motivate them or deter them in any way. I am very embarrassed about the state of radio today and very very motivated to do something about it.


Most good talent comes from the dark side.


Most human instincts are not good.


The only two extra ingredients you need to have a great radio show are passion and imagination, they'll also make you a better lover.


I think maybe you have to lose first so you can figure out how to win.


One of the real great things about being number one is ... It feels real good and when it starts happening again at another project, you will recognize it and finally stop screwin' with it.


Everybody at a radio station thinks their part is the biggest part.


The greatest thing about advertising is it kills bad products.


Only family gives you unconditional love, with listeners it's very conditional.

The first rule of Show Biz is "Get Noticed"
By George Johns
george@georgejohns.com

It used to be that each PD got two books, and each GM got two PD's.
I'm not sure how it works now because most of the GM's already have more than two PD's.

In Show Business it's never ever been about sales it's always been about product.
So what business does that put radio into?

The only real competitor radio ever had was the off button.

Radio is filled with individual things that were put there under the guise of they wouldn't hurt.
Well it turns out when they all came together, they hurt a whole bunch.

When you go up a tenth of a point each rating book, it pays a whole lot better than a big jump.

All a good morning show really needs to do is sell the city back to the people who have already bought it.

I love morning shows that use the Seinfeld concept.
It's been working ever since Jack Benny invented it.

I know a lot of fun sales people, they're just not fun to work with.

I always loved Ron Chapman's reply when pressed for an instant answer to a sales request.
"If you need an answer right now the answer is no, but if you give me a little time, I might be able to bring it around to a yes".
He always got a lot of extra time.


Clients will pay more for promos than they will for spots but radio still gives them away anyway.


Here's how ratings have worked for the last thirty or so years.
1.People hear your station but don't know who you are, result, no ratings.
2.People hear your station and kinda like it, result, some cume but very little TSL.
3.People hear your station and like it, result, some cume and some good average 1/4 hr.
4.People hear your station and love it, result, some cume and great average 1/4 hr
5.People don't hear your station as much as they think they do, result, some cume but outstanding average 1/4 hour and TSL


PPM will change all of the above.

The morning host should always be the spokesperson for the station, the listeners think they own the joint anyway.

I think a billboard line that describes Jeff and Jer in San Diego perfectly reads ... IF YOU LIKE SAN DIEGO YOUR GOING TO LOVE JEFF AND JER.
There are only a very few morning shows in a few cities that can make that statement and have it be true.

I've got a recently turned 13 year old daughter named Cami, who has gone from exclusively listening to Disney radio on AM to now the 5 stations on FM it takes to satisfy her musical needs and this all happened in less than two years. In the same space of time I have gone from Daddy to Dad to Dude.

Speaking of Dudes, there is one who can sell out two shows a day for 7 straight days in any arena in America and I don't think I've ever heard his name nor any of his greatest hits on the radio. His name of course is Barney.

What radio stations are we using at Jock meetings today to fire up our on air troops and give them an example of elite radio?

My favorite radio characters I have ever worked with when threatened by me to take way all their records to see if they really had anything to say, begged me to do it.

Most DJ's today seem to be talking to their hand.

I found that if you stand behind most DJs in the studio and ask them to repeat what they just said on the air, they cant do it.

If you want your air talent to talk to the listeners just make sure no one else is in the studio with them. They unfortunately only like to talk to their own kind.

When putting together a new morning team, chemistry is everything.

Music is only responsible for 25% of your ratings, but could be 100% responsible for no ratings.

When we used to do outlandish station promotions, they were designed to excite the air talent first, cause talk secondly, and if we got press coverage, I syndicated it.

The only reason to own a radio station is so you can run some spots on it. Otherwise you have to do what NPR does and beg their listeners and the government for money.

The ratings always find the hot station.

Once the station's new music research study comes in, don't go home just yet your only a quarter done.

When people from broadcasting schools would contact me about starting their radio career and just how would they do that. I told them to write down everything they wanted to say on air and send it to me. I told them I would read it and if I liked it I would put them on the next day. I never heard from them again.


How long should a promo be ... I don't really know but we ran some that went for about 15 minutes each on KVIL in Dallas years ago in its hey day.
These promos outlined all of our on air plans for the next 6 months. We even promoted the hell out of what time we were going to play it.
I know for sure that every PD, GM, and SM in the D/FW radio community was listening and they seemed to canceled all their promotion plans immediately after the playing of said same.
They went instead with their old stand by plan ... Much More Music!

When my hip and too cool for the room young daughter Cami insisted after seeing the movie Mama Mia a couple of times that I get her the sound track, I wondered how it was doing on the charts. Wow it was #1 and my daughter was playing it over and over everyday on her CD player.
She asked me how come we radio people weren't playing it on the radio ?

I went to visit my friend Linda in the Tampa area a couple of years ago. When she picked me up at the airport she mentioned that there were some TV spots promoting a new radio station that had just launched an oldies format, her favorite type of music so she seemed very excited about it.
She remembered the dial position they had advertised and went hunting for the station as we headed for lunch.
When she found it they were playing one of her favorite disco tunes, she turned it up full blast and was singing along to it.
We turned a corner and the signal crackled a bit and she said ... Oh it must be an out of town station and immediately tuned to another station and never went back to it again.

The easiest format in the world to sell to a radio station owner is the "Much More Music In The Morning format".. It's never worked yet, but I guess it falls under the there is always a first time theory. I cant think of another reason to keep attempting this perennial loser. Wait a minute there is that old if you don't understand something look for a financial connection thing.

Something emotional has to happen to a person before they will even begin to change their attitude.

Most people don't do anything with out an appointment, so you might need to give your listeners a reason to make one with you.

Most radio stations already have enough cume to double their average 1/4 hour.

The way to get the ratings bigger on the weekend is to simply make your ratings bigger monday through Friday.

So goes the morning show so goes the radio station.

Things I noticed while strolling through radio land  Part Deux!

By George Johns
george@georgejohns.com

Great radio personalities are all great story tellers and all their fans tell great stories about them.


Even a bad radio plan is better than no plan at all.


A personality's real Job is to try and get people to look at the radio.


Retail radio sales is where all the new money is.


Making a radio sales promotion sound like a fun station promotion is an art form. But who cares about Art and just who the hell is he anyway?


Always give up a big salary for a shot at ownership, even though the owners pretend that owning something is real bad.


Nobody ever got rich working for someone else


Radio today is getting so smooth it's starting to fade away.


Intelligent people reasonably informed seldom disagree


Fame usually unveils who the real person was all along.


Most gifted people are a little screwed up because they don't know how to get their talent back if should they lose it, unlike creative people who just get back to work creating.


There are only a handful of people in the world who can make a stock rise, none of them work in radio.


There are a lot of companies who would kill for their product to be consumed by about 95% of the population like ours is.


If dropping 50% to the bottom line isn't enough to make a go of it maybe we should try and get some new radio leaders.


There are only two ways to make commercials more palatable, embed them, or make them sound like the Super Bowl commercials look.


In the radio auditions of radio past, the directors would sit in a room where they couldn't see the actors and just listen to them in read scripts. After a few seconds they would write black hat white hat beside the actors name.
The listeners still do it to this very day.


My 13 year old daughter Cami, when asked why she changes stations so often, replied that she doesn't like commercials or stupid talk from DJ's. But when observed by me I noticed she sometime lets commercials and stupid talk go by. But she never lets a bad tune go by.


The people think the academy awards is one of the years great TV events. Radio people mistakenly think it's the Grammys.


A cause is everything, but making money for the owner is not a worthy enough cause to get the radio troops to rally around it.


The way the system is supposed to work is you make the morning show famous, then the morning show endorses the rest of the station and makes it famous.


People listen to the radio one person at a time.


When did recycling on the radio stop working ?


There are only two types of radio background and foreground.


Local to the people is their community, not a city.


Women over 30 generally have lost their appetite for current music.


23% of Americans are assertive they make a lot of noise but don't tend to participate in ratings surveys.


The only question about PPM we should be asking is ... Is it true?


Good radio sales people are assertives and so are most of their friends. They generally like hip and cool.
I'm not sure the other 77% who participate in radio surveys though totally agree with most of their opinions.


I think the order goes Fame then Fortune in radio.


Real smart people always hire people smarter than themselves.


When I absolutely can't understand something I look for a financial connection ... Aha!


I have always loved radio characters, but I've always hated DJs.


Once you figure out what tunes to play the real art is in figuring out what order you play them in.


When a person is listening to the radio and somebody else walks into the room they stop listening.


When you come up with a new radio slogan it has to be true or it doesn't work.


I think if on air radio people used the word "you" more often than "I", the ratings would go up.


Most people hear the radio they are not really listening to it. The real trick is to get them to listen.


You can still make a lot of money in radio if your willing to give up authorship.

In my hometown of Transcona the biggest sin of all was being a phony. A lot of radio people wouldn't make it through the night there.

A big crowd always follows a charismatic leader, just who would that be at your station?

The great ones always use exaggerated emotion on air.

There are only four things that affect ratings.
You better dominate one of them, be great at two or be at least good at three.
If all that fails just be above average at all four and your golden.

Every special entity has a special secret.

All great radio stations always had one thing in common, they all sounded very different to me.

Radio is a mere reflection of the community it resides in, or at least it should be.

The real # 1 radio station in each market is the top biller.

Good talent should just observe life and give us their twisted take on it.

Promos should only be about what's unique about your station. Boy that should cut down the clutter huh?

At a concert when an Artist does something from their new album people seem to go get a beer.
I wonder what they do when radio plays it.

© 2008 George Johns

George Johns
george@georgejohns.com

December 29, 2008

Things I noticed while strolling through radio land!

By George Johns
george@georgejohns.com

A good attitude with out some aptitude doesn't produce very much but the reverse is also true.

It doesn't take any brains to buy a radio station ... Just money!

Anybody can sell great ratings!

Women make absolutely no sense unless you love them. I would recommend that you fall in love with most of your audience to even have a fighting chance.

We tend to celebrate bad ratings and bad sales figures ten times longer than good ones.

Most women left the bar scene when they were 27, the ones who didn't are the ones radio thinks are your average women.

Radio has never changed a listeners life but a few books, music and movies sure have.

There have been four phenomenas during my life time, and I've studied all four very closely. Frank, Elvis, The Beatles and Women. I have three of them all figured out, the fourth is still a mystery to me.

Nobody is for you.

The #1 radio station in each market is the #1 biller.

Creativity is something you do that is brand new, or something old you do in a brand new way.

There are only 3 types of people in radio: Gifted, Creative and all others.

People only dream about their wants their needs are their nightmares.

If an on air promotion doesn't excite the air talent or cause talk, it's called a sales promotion.

The two things you hear shortly after saying I love you is ... Then turn off that loud music on that stupid classic rocker you always make me to listen to, and let me loudly explain PMS to you.

If your favorite tune of the moment doesn't make top 10 on the CHR chart 25 years from now Time Life wont be including it in a special musical package filled with all your favorite memory songs, because you wont remember it.

There are only two types of people who need to be over paid at a radio station ... The people who get the folks to listen to the radio and the people who bring in the money.

Great radio leaders accomplish their mission through people while having fun.

Never marry a woman you met on the hit lines or at a remote.

Failing with a radio station is not fatal, but failing to change it might be.

If a radio sales person is doing it for any other reason than for money and the air talent is ... You've got the wrong people in the wrong jobs.

When a gifted person starts getting creative the rest of us should just get out of the way.

The easiest radio station in the world to make successful is one that never existed before.
A distant second would be one with a new set of calls.

People only remember the inconsistencies on a radio station, good and bad.

A great air show is one that produced a good promo.

Wrapping a hundred dollar bill around a bad spot doesn't make it sound prettier.

Radio to me is like a fine restaurant, you pick what type you think will work, then resist serving Chinese food at it if you chose to be Italian.

Women only hate three things on the radio ... Sex,
Drugs and Rock & Roll

No matter how big the ratings are someone in sales will soon straighten you out.

If your not talented just get famous.

Hell I'm ready to sell out, but not for these prices.

There are no tunes written or action figures made with Mr. business man in mind.
What should that tell us ?

I never felt compelled to visit the transmitter site, I couldn't really figure out what it had to do with the creation of the product.

I found out early that there is no such thing as motivation.
The only thing that really works is inspiration.

A radio station sounds a lot different outside the radio station than it does inside.

What ever is happening in the halls of a radio station eventually starts to creep on to the air.

When you manage a radio station from the bottom up it puts immense pressure on the troops to come with something worth managing.

It's whats above the bottom line that causes the bottom line ... Socrates wouldn't lie to us would he ?

There are two types of women who listen to a radio station. Women who have babies, and those who don't.

There are only two tempos of music up or not.

As a male, your part in your wife's life was to play the part of the groom at a ceremony that she has been planning since she was 11.
Kinda like radio, we are just light entertainment at best.

If a woman with babies doesn't understand what you are saying on the radio, she assumes you are talking about drugs.
So after she turns you off she also looks for someone to kill you.

Women tend to hear only two types of music, loud or not loud.

When conducting research with female listeners really think about their answers, remember their day started with their first deception, lipstick!

There is no finer celebration than a big ratings party.

If a sales persons lips are moving I would play the odds ... They are probably lying.

A radio station always tends to sound like its PD.

The only way to make any money in radio is to make management afraid your going to leave.

People who are not funny off the air I dont think should tell jokes on the radio, but they always do.

Holding on to what you have usually keeps you from having what you want.

If the air talent isn't making me see what they are saying, I have no idea what they are talking about and move on.

© 2008 George Johns

George Johns
george@georgejohns.com

December 22, 2008

10,000 Hours

By George Johns
george@georgejohns.com

I read a thing almost every day called Warrens list.

It's an interesting blog out of Canada that has contributors from all over North America and beyond.

In one of the recent issues Warren was mentioning a new book that's out that the author claimed having talent is way over rated or some words to that effect.

He stated that The Beatles, Tiger Woods, Bill Gates and other similar great phenomenas had one thing in common.

His claim was that they all had put in 10,000 hours practicing their craft long before they launched their very successful careers.

He then went on to state that he thought that the 10,000 hours that they put in was the most important thing they ever did, and that's the real reason they are so successful. 

I think I'm a little late on this book because I'm guessing our new fearless leaders of radio must have got an advance copy, and have used it to figure out a new way of doing wall street radio.

In the last week or so they have exited some super talents like Steve Dahl in Chicago, John Lander in Boston, Russ Martin in Dallas and a long time before all this didn't they push out Howard Stern, and now he has virtually disappeared into that thing that was supposed to kill radio, Satellite.

I'm not positive but I'm sure they think that talent is just a way too expensive.

I'm guessing that their new scheme is to just hire some ordinary people who may have put in their 10,000 hours but will work a whole lot cheaper than gifted people.

I may be wrong but I cant imagine even in wildest dreams that even after practicing for 10,000 hours that Yesterday by Paul, or Imagine by John would just suddenly pop into my head or that I could walk out on the stage like Elvis, and bring the place to it's knees. 

The world of course just wants it to be about hard work and a good attitude. Oh there is a lot of hard work involved alright, but with out a little bit of magic going on, ain't nothin' going to happen.

When your gifted it just seems to make it all easier and it all happens a lot faster. If you’re not gifted, I'm not sure 10,000 hours is near enough. 

Radio for me it's always been about that unique voice pouring out of the radio. You know what I'm talking about, those voices with a whole lot of character in them.

Those scratchy pipes that conjure up in our minds a life they must of led to sound that way. We can only imagine what it must have been like to live like that 

But the wild life we imagined they lived from the sound of their strange voices was probably created by having too many cigarettes, and a way too many adult beverages. 

I loved those folks, they were so cool they introduced me to Frank, Elvis, John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mick, Elton, Bono and hundreds of others.

They were very cool because they hung out with and knew all the stars and the stars all knew them because they were stars too. 

Dave Spence who was the GM of KVIL in Dallas during it's hey day, told me the other day that Jim Hilliard once said to him that he should try and stay out of the lime light and just let Ron Chapman be our spokesman for the station. Dave said no problem the people already think he owns the station anyway, why and what would they want to hear from me. 

It is the on air talent that makes the whole difference. Most stations are playing the same music, or if they are not they soon can.

But you can't duplicate the sound of a great talent. The talent are very special to the people who listen to them and even adore them. 

When I went to Jeff and Jer's 20th anniversary party in San Diego recently they were kind enough to bring me up on stage in front of four thousand people and introduce me as their coach.

As I wandered around later on checking out the crowd, a bunch of people came up to me and said they wanted their picture taken with me.

They all adored Jeff and Jer so much that they like anybody that Jeff and Jer like and if Jeff and Jer like you, you must be special, because Jeff and Jer sure are. 

The folks who run radio now will never get this part or ever get to experience the thrill of being special in any way like they are. 

Lawrence Amaturo whom I work with on a project in LA was telling recently about the power of the on air talent as he experienced it first hand a few years ago. 

It seems at this time he was a young swinging bachelor searching high and low for the woman of his dreams. He figured he had a lot to offer them so he thought it shouldn't be that tough.

So there he was one cool California night in a very trendy bar in the wine country, chatting up a beautiful blond who looked very worthy of his attention in his quest to find the perfect woman.

When the talk finally got around to what do you do for a living, he told her he was in radio. She excitedly said are you a DJ? He proudly responded with what he thought was a killer answer that would win her over instantly ... No I own the radio stations baby!

She looked at him with a scrunched up face and said ... Oh you’re a suit! Then just faded off into the crowd. 

I'm kinda thinkin' now that I wish back in the day we had given all those accountants a better office than those little cramped ones we provided them with that were located all the way in the back with the engineers.

I think they are still really pissed about it and of course fondly remember how over paid we all seemed to be compared to them.

I guess also the fact that we didn't share any of the radio groupies or restaurant trade with them hasn't helped our cause either.

Hey but it's not our fault that there are no finance action figures. 

They've showed us now though haven't they? They have the big corner offices with even bigger salaries and huge bonuses.  And talk about your golden parachutes.

Wow these boys were really ready when they got their chance weren't they.

But I have a feeling that they are not near done yet, they are coming for our biggest stars, and hell bent on turning radio into a mere commodity.

And just like the early computer geeks who didn't bother to put the year 2000 into the software because I guess they knew they wouldn't be around to suffer with the rest of us. Well guess who else won’t be around when it all crashes. So how much much do they really care. 

Radio has survived the onslaught of a lot things predicted to kill us, TV, CB's, Satellite, Computers, Video Games, I Pods, Etc. Etc. 

We stood tall through it all but we may not be strong enough to survive our newest enemy ... The accountants.

© 2008 George Johns

George Johns
george@georgejohns.com