CPR Promotional Check-Up

Still Hope For Terrestrial Radio

Happy New Year and welcome to the first "Still Hope For Terrestrial Radio" of 2011.

Back in the day at WLOL in Minneapolis we had numerous occasions to get blizzarded in at the facility on North 1st Street. I think the longest stay was three days. At one point we had access to the bar downstairs, five or six promo people or researchers working the phones for closings and whatever poor DJ was unfortunate enough to get stuck there. These evolved into fun raucous parties.

At my class reunion in '09 a woman came up and commented about listening to me co-host a shift during a storm in '85 while Karen the DJ took a nap and that it was so much fun sounding that she and some girlfriends had tried to find a snowmobile in Uptown to get them down to the Itasca to be part of it. Unprompted. 24 years later. You don't get that with a remote or a club gig or a radiothon. Great Radio....just happens.

So, North Dakota got hammered last night. 100 car pile ups. Apocalyptic conditions. Clearly the game plan for the night was going to change. And great radio stations are like great football coaches: they change the playbook when they have to.

At 10:30 AM I sent an email with suggestions because obviously it whatever was planned for the night wasn't going to happen.

Y-94 in Fargo (one of the great CHR's in America: they won Conan to do their morning show and had Paris Hilton for a party) blew up the plan and did the following. You can't beat a station that makes necessary adjustments on the fly:

NYE - our club gigs got cancelled..

So we all headed to the studio, had 2 hours before our Friday Night Hot Mix - part timer that was supposed to run the board got on the air said "we're bringing the party to you tonight....etc." Hyped it up for 2 hours.

James our night guy put together some quick imaging for the party.

An intern setup a webcam in the studio, by 8pm we had twitter and facebook updates, 60 people in our live webcam stream, some choice beverages and we rocked NYE in the studio with interns, girlfriends and anyone else that was stuck in the building.

Maybe the most fun thing we've ever done and people were loving it - every call..."I'm stuck at home, luckily I've got booze and you guys sound like you're having so much fun."

I remember seeing on the webcam chat someone say, "This is cool, none of the other radio stations are doing anything like this..."

Club gigs moved to Saturday, grabbing Tylenol and lots of water.

Btw - we did the kissy face thing you suggested and the pics are posted up on our facebook. facebook.com/y94fm