Snapping Back At YouTube

Viacom just told You Tube to remove 100,000 videos from its site. Ouch! Hate to have that job over the weekend! I have to watch Prince at the Super Bowl!

What a crazy world. People pay millions for a website that features kooks and stolen material, and I get looked at for a car loan.

Technology and taste go hand in hand today, and Music Row and all of broadcasting are trying to sort it out as young people basically tune out and around to the many distractions in their cyber- real world.

HD this and Blue Ray that, and I have no plans to get Vista. How far up the technology ladder do we climb to stay current? Listening to XM tonight salute WABC Radio sure seemed like a carefree, if not prehistoric, time.

We watch the Super Bowl for commercials, and the game has got who this year? "American Idol" gets 33 million viewers getting people to dress up like Big Bird and smile, screech and cry on national television. Shall we buy a red razor phone or another?

There is a huge disconnect in the generations that is growing by the second. Somehow the afterburner turned made the distances seem even greater.

My point is that we all try to keep up, and that is a must, but the basics really never change.

I was watching all the school closings this week as Nashville was infected with dangerous white stuff called snow. It had the city on its knees -- all one inch of it. I was watching and just wanted to know what was OPEN, not closed. Not the wreck locations, but what was basically going OK. See, we try to keep up so much and we choke to death on the basics. Simple, clear statements that give the audience an overview in a very eatable portion. We often make simple things overly complicated. Technology meant to simplify can make us crazy and less effective. Its balance and knowing how to use the tools, not letting the tools use you.

Look at the concert calendar for the year. How simple: Hank Williams Jr. and Lynyrd Skynyrd -- perfect match for a party night. How simple can you get.

Urban and The Wreckers, probably just as perfect a reflection of that side of the Country fence. Toby Keith and Miranda Lambert? Two kick-ass folks with more attitude than three stadiums.

The concert folks are making sense. The Police and Eagles coming back. All this summer? Where will we get the money for all this. Tim and Faith and Chesney too?

Brooks and Dunn/Alan Jackson? We need to get a loan.

The concert folks have got it together. Now to get radio to make all this so exciting.

We have to get the audience that is busting with every technology to think local broadcasting is just as cutting edge and cool. The kids have to think radio is their friend again and that they can't imagine a day without it.

Imagine leaving your cell phone at home. Then you can't imagine not listening to your friend who talks to you and plays you music on the radio. Turning a radio station into an ever cold and sterile jukebox is not going to win this game. Bad talk isn't either. Entertainment and information will. Did you hear what so and so said today? That still applies even in the age of Vista, Blue Tooth and Google.