Tommy Kramer Tip #221 – Another Seinfeld Content Tip

Cruising around YouTube yesterday, I saw an interview with Jerry Seinfeld by Norm MacDonald.

Norm brought up a hypothetical scene: Two people go to a bowling alley and… what happens next?

If you’ve seen Seinfeld much at all, you know about his ‘internal radar’ as to what makes something funny – or not.  So he interrupted MacDonald at that point and said “Why are they in the bowling alley?”
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When Less Really Is More

When my friend, Kevin Metheny, was programming a small-signal station in San Diego he chose the strategy of creating his own universe to compete in.  The world outside the signal didn’t exist.  He put all his effort, from music research to community involvement (called remotes in those days) into this smaller definition.  He wound up taking the station to the top of the ratings by focusing on where he was, instead of where he wasn’t.
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Tommy Kramer Tip #220 – Dead Streaming

Here’s a question that takes some actual hands-on experience to answer: Is your live streaming even worth listening to?

As someone who has to tape streaming audio often (because of different time zones) in order to do coaching sessions, I can tell you that most live streaming is dead in the water.  Constant cutting out, horribly over-modulated audio (or a stream that’s so low I need a hearing aid to listen to it), too many steps to finally get the audio up, incessant “introductory ads” that we have to sit through before – finally – hearing the station… they’re all symptomatic of just assuming because you buy into a streaming service, your audio is being carried the right way.

And the weird thing is, we promote this ‘feature’ all the time, often without ever checking it out ourselves.

So today – now, while you’re thinking of it – get on your computer, iPad, or smart phone and check your live stream for an hour or so. You may be shocked at how poor it sounds… or you could really pleased with it – until it inexplicably just shuts off after a few minutes.  (Aaaarrrrgh.)