Promotion Idea for Classic Rock Stations:
Give Away a Turntable, and Some Vinyl
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
LAS VEGAS — As in past years, last week’s massive, mind-boggling Consumer Electronics Show was star-studded. Someone from “The Biggest Loser” introduced Brookstone’s BodyForm Roller. Dr. Phil spoke at the CES Health Summit. And, of course, Ryan Seacrest was there.
More pertinent to radio: Familiar faces from the Syfy Channel’s “Ascension” and “Battlestar Galactica” were there for Elektrobit, a company that makes the innards of new-tech dashboards that listeners use to take-their-tunes to-go. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson signed autographs in the SMS Audio booth. And possibly the most passionate celebrity appearing there was Neil Young. He wasn’t just speaking. He was speaking-OUT, about high-resolution music. Young is irked about MP3 files, which he says aren’t the whole song. It’s like Jay Leno’s gag about soup. “It’s not a meal! You’ve been cheated!”
And look who RE-APPEARED at CES, a genuine 1980s icon: The Sony Walkman. They’ve dusted-off the brand, and slapped it on a new digital version that sells for about a thousand dollars. Adjusted for inflation, not that much more than Walkman’s cassette-format ancestor. And, like big screen TVs and other shiny objects that debut at CES, prices predictably plummet after early adopters have spent. This new Walkman supports the bigger music files Neil Young advocates; as does Young’s own new PonoMusic player.
See what’s happening here? Evolution…and possibly an opportunity for some artful devolution. The cassette and CD era Walkmen were, like the VHS recorder, limited by the technology then available. Many owners couldn’t get their VCR to stop flashing “12:00;” and cassettes and CDs wore out and got damaged. When MP3 and iTunes came along, radio had stiffer competition for music TSL. Fast-forward to the era of Tivo and DVR, and a bigger-file music trend was inevitable. And based on what I heard in Vegas, it can deliver a discernibly higher-fi experience than MP3.
Yet Vinyl lives! In recent years, good-enough turntables with USB cords enabled us to migrate our 45s and albums to MP3 players. This year? $1500 turntables to plug into high-end amps and speakers. The new Annie Lenox album is only being released on vinyl. And high-end products like a mono Beatles LP re-issue harken-back to an era when today’s classic rock P1s bonded with their tunes. Call me old school, but CSNY’s “Wooden Ships” seems incomplete without surface noise accompanying the low level intro.
I recently got the tour at CBS Radio’s handsome high-tech Hudson Square, New York City studios; and when I asked, ‘CBS-FM DJ Dan Taylor, he grinned ear-to-ear and pointed and said, “There it is!” as he showed me the studio turntable.
Holland Cooke is an aging disc jockey (WPRO, Providence; WKBW, Buffalo; WBIG, Washington), who, for the last several decades, has masqueraded as a news/talk consultant; and he covers conventions for TALKERS and RadioInfo. Follow him on Twitter @HollandCooke, and hear his CES radio reports at www.HollandCooke.com
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