Confused

11/5/1993

I’m confused. Again. Most of you who read this column already know that I get confused from time to time. Usually when it concerns R&R. But this time, I’m really confused.

It’s hard enough for me to understand a Hitmakers convention. It’s harder still to comprehend a Hitmakers convention with R&R publisher Bob Wilson as a featured speaker. Excuse me, but what is this all about?

Why are radio programmers asked to pay to participate in a gathering sponsored by one trade magazine to hear another trade magazine make a sales pitch? Hey, maybe it’s a merger.

Now I get it. It’s like those Miller Lite commercials you see on television. If they can combine great taste and less filling, we could do it with R&R and Hitmakers. Let’s see, if you combine Bob Wilson with Barry Fiedel, you get Barry Fiedel with shoes on. If you combine the back page of R&R with the front cover on Hitmakers, you get a back page that you have to pay for. And if you combine the Hitmakers Discovery Club with R&R’s vapor-ware, they might just discover an on-line system that offers hype and speculation.

Wilson has cracked. For years, he has sat upon the top of the heap, content with making money at the expense of radio. Have any of you in radio ever heard from Bob Wilson? Has he ever called to offer you help or advice? Would any of you recognize his face or voice? It’s doubtful. Up to now, he’s been as accessible as the Wizard of Oz.

Now, facing an industry that has lost faith in R&R and its entire process, the mountain comes to Mohammed in an effort to sell us the Holy Grail. Bob Wilson, unfortunately, believes that just because he tells us something, we’ll believe it. My question is: Where has he been the last 20 years? If Bob Wilson and R&R had been attentive to the problems of radio and concerned about the industry in the past, they wouldn’t have to resort to a misguided, 11^th-hour plea for support and understanding. Where have you been, Joe DiMaggio, when the industry complained and pleaded with you to change the reporting status of radio stations? Where were you hiding when radio asked for clarification on reporting guidelines? Why did you not care that your system welcomed corruption and choked the record industry into a pattern that rewarded “reported” record play with no correlation to sales?

Bob Wilson was making money, that’s where he was. And as long as the cash flowed, the system continued. So why is he now, like a Scientology recruiter, speaking to an assemblage of radio programmers to hype his heralded vapor-ware? Because the radio and record industries have finally rebelled against R&R’s dictatorial approach. This has caused R&R to lose power and with the loss of power comes the loss of money. Dwindling power and decreasing revenues brings Bob Wilson to the Hitmakers convention.

Does Bob Wilson believe that just because he is the founder and publisher of R&R, the industry will embrace his empty promises with open arms? With all due respect, Joel Denver has done an admirable job in selling the coming of vapor-ware. It wasn’t Joel’s fault that the system has been delayed and flawed for years. Hey, he’s just been following the company line. Empty promises are empty promises, no matter who delivers them. It ain’t the messenger, it’s the message.

Had R&R been listening to the industry instead of dictating to it, maybe this point would be moot. Welcome to the 90s, Bob. The industry isn’t buying hype and bullshit any more.

The emperor has no clothes.

Since I inexplicably wasn’t invited to participate in this gathering of the greedy, I won’t be in Hoot-lanta to pose questions to the podium. But if I was, here are some to ask, supplied by the readers of The Network Forty:

#1:  Please explain, in 500 words or less, the exact criteria for reporting status.

#2:  Why do you limit the number of reporting stations?

#3:  Why do you keep making promises about delivering this vapor-ware and not coming through?

#4:  How long would you allow a reporting station to promise to deliver information, then not doing it, before you wouldn’t accept anything reported by the station as fact?

#5:  Exactly when will this vapor-ware be available? (This answer is easy…it’s always “three months.”)

#6:  How much is this going to cost? I know the company line is that the software is free for the first year, but what about hard costs and telephone charges…and please spare us the MCI “Friends And Family” line.

#7:  Do you really think my life will change because I get “Street Talk” earlier? It’s useless information anyhow.

#8:  Why isn’t WPLJ (whose Scott Shannon was honored in R&R as the top programmer of the last 20 years) an R&R reporter?

#9:  Speaking of selling, R&R has been for sale for almost a year and no one has bought it. Why?

#10: Do you still insist on predicting Plays Per Week and do you think radio will participate?

Of course, the biggest question is when will the R&R monitor system go on line? Perhaps we’ll invite R&R to invite that question at the 1994 Network Forty convention. And 1995. And 1996. And 1997.

Most of us won’t be in Atlanta to hear Bob Wilson’s speech, but we won’t miss a thing. I’m sure, to quote from William Shakespeare’s “MacBeth,” “It will be a tale told by an idiot…full of sound and fury…signifying nothing.”