December 29, 2019 · 3:00 am

Best of the Blog 2019

DTB Best of the BlogOn this last Sunday of 2019, it’s tradition to look back at the year just past and share with you the Top 5 Most Read and shared blog articles of 2019. Maybe you missed them or perhaps you’d like to read them again.

To date I’ve published 281 articles that have been viewed 188,000-times around the world.

Most Read Article of 2019

My most read article of this past year was “What’s the Purpose of a Radio Station?”

It was published on September 8, 2019 and examined how the role of radio has changed since it was founded almost 100-years ago.

Today’s communications company needs to clearly define its mission and needs to earn the trust of all of its stakeholders. That means building trust between its employees, advertisers and listeners.

We need to stop thinking of “radio” as AM or FM.

We need to think of radio as being the audio leader for creating an environment for convening and supporting groups.

We need to be preparing for a future that is still coming into focus.

Read why this article was the most read of 2019 HERE

Second Most Read Article of 2019

After I sat-in on a webinar in April of this year, I wrote an article lamenting how the radio industry doesn’t think anyone over 55 matters. The world economic forum said for the first time in the history of the world, there are more people living today over 65 than there are under 5. The article was titled “You’re Not Talking to Me.”  The amount of reads and comments almost tied that of the article above. You can read it HERE

Third Most Read Article of 2019

Readers loved learning about radio’s “super power” that will allow it to cut through the plethora of media choices in the 21st Century. The question radio broadcasters need to be asking themselves is, why aren’t they leveraging radio’s most powerful asset? The article was titled, “A New Direction for Broadcast.”

The article created a lot conversation about radio’s mission for the future. You can read it HERE

Fourth Most Read Article of 2019

We all know that all traditional media is having to deal with disruption. The question posed by this article from June of this year was, “Is Radio Being Disrupted or Simply Lacking the Human Factor?”

Radio needs a visionary leader.

Let’s consider what Steve Jobs gave Apple upon his return, and leading the company out of near bankruptcy; a vision. Jobs then backed up his vision with management fortitude and people with the technical skills to make the new Apple vision a reality. It was those human factors that carried Apple to become one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Imagine that same kind of leadership for radio in the 21st Century. Read more HERE

Fifth Most Read Article of 2019

We live in a world of “more, more, more.” In the article that kicked off 2019 in January, I pondered the question: Can we have too many radio stations on-the-air? The article was titled “Too Much Is Not Enough.”

The value of a broadcast license was being a limited commodity, and as such being granted spectrum on the public’s airwaves benefitted the community, the advertisers, the listeners and the broadcasters.

The internet has created an infinite radio dial and has challenged the value of an FCC broadcast license.

The FCC’s inability to protect the AM spectrum from the myriad of electrical devices that produce an ever increasing noise floor, has doomed the future of the senior band as it closes in on a century of service.

Unless something is done, I fear the FM band will suffer a similar fate.

The article drew a lot a response and you can read it again HERE

Most Read Articles, Period

Two articles I’ve written, continue to see quite a bit of traffic and continue to be far and away the two most read on my blog. They are “SiriusXM Radio is Now FREE”  and “The Day the “Dumbest Idea Invaded the Radio Industry”.

Both articles have now been viewed over 18,000-times.

The record holder for any of my articles, for the most reads in a single day is “We Never Called It Content.” 3,587-people read that article when it was published on Sunday, September 6, 2015. To date, the article has registered 4,901-reads and 67-comments.

Why I Blog I blog for broadcasters, educators and students. I blog to provide media mentorship and to pay-it-forward to the broadcasting industry that I have been a part of for over 50-years. I’m grateful for the more than 142,000 people from all over the world who have visited my blog site (https://DickTaylorBlog.com) to read an article that caught their interest.

FREE SUBSCRIPTIONS You can subscribe to this blog for FREE and get a copy of each week’s article delivered to your email IN BOX every Sunday morning. To subscribe, simply go to the bottom right-hand corner on your screen and click on the FOLLOW button. (If you’re accessing this blog via mobile phone or tablet, that button may not be visible, so be sure to do this on a computer or laptop.)

Thank You for reading, next week I will begin my sixth year of blogging with all new articles.

Together we can all learn from one another by sharing our experiences, knowledge and wisdom. Feel free to contribute your thoughts to the discussion in the comments section, I read every one of them.

Happy New Year!

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December 22, 2019 · 3:00 am

Grateful for Your Readership

Merry-Christmas

Back next week with the year’s most impactful articles

on DTB in 2019

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December 15, 2019 · 3:00 am

Why?

Why why whyIt’s not unusual for little boys and girls to ask the question “Why?” They ask it a lot.

Why? Because they want to learn, to know why things have to be that way.

But what happens to the person who is asked the why question?

They are forced to think about it, sometimes even reassess the answer they knew and wonder if it was really the right answer or merely a convention. In other words, is the reason simply because, it’s the way something has always been done?

It causes one to consider that maybe things didn’t really need to be done that way, and could be done differently.

What If?

While why questions open our minds to new thoughts and opportunities, “what if” questions are like a fork in the road. They can take us in new directions.

For example, “What if radio stations only aired a single commercial in a break?” Or, “What if all radio commercials were delivered live by the radio personality?”

Edison Research revealed at this year’s Radio Show, that people would change radio stations or stop listening all together due to basically one of three reasons: 1) forced change, 2) engagement and 3) commercials.

Forced change was defined by a loss of signal or a bad signal. Engagement was described as boredom, didn’t like the song, the personality or subject matter. And I think everyone understands the tune-out factor of commercials to radio listeners.

Commercials

Why do commercials have to be a listener tune out? What if commercials caused radio listeners to lean into their speakers and pay close attention?

My first personal experience with doing just that was when I listened to Paul Harvey News & Comment and he said, “Page Two.”

Paul Harvey did his sponsor’s commercials live. He did them with passion and enthusiasm. The result was people listened, and even more importantly, they bought the products and services he told them about.

Podcasts

I’ve noticed that podcasters usually have a single commercial in their program and is usually delivered by the host of the podcast. What if that’s the reason podcast commercials deliver such powerful results and more advertisers are considering using podcasts as part of their advertising program.

Same, but Different

In my radio management career, I had the opportunity to live and work in different parts of the country with some fabulous radio professionals. The radio business is an identical business everywhere in America, but back in the days before consolidation and the concept of “Best Practices,” radio people tended to innovate the creative process in completely different ways. It’s one of the reasons many, my age, loved to DX AM radio signals after sunset.

The Innovators

I believe some of the best innovators for setting the course for radio in 2020 are working for you right at this very moment. They aren’t necessarily the “A players” or even the most focused ones, but they are the ones that are asking “Why & What If” and are continually looking for new problems to solve.

If you create a culture within your radio station that encourages that kind of inquiry, a culture that continually asks “why” do we always do things this way and “what if” we did things differently, radio for the 21st Century will begin to be born.

If you don’t, your business is ripe for disruption by another media innovator.

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December 8, 2019 · 3:00 am

Has Radio Become a Commodity?

commoditiesBy definition, a commodity product lacks a unique selling point. Two examples of what I mean are lettuce and pencils. No one has a brand favorite of either. To the consumer of both, they’re all the same. Commodities are interchangeable with other products or services, widely available, and therefore undifferentiated except maybe by price.

How about Radio?

Recently, an administrator of a radio group that I’m a member of on Facebook posed this question to the group “Rick Sklar once said jocks are like spark plugs and can be replaced with another one. What do you think?”

Now for those readers that may not be familiar with the name Rick Sklar, he became program director of WABC – 770AM in New York City in 1963. With WABC’s clear channel signal, a tight playlist that targeted teenagers and air talent which included Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy, Harry Harrison, Cousin Brucie, Chuck Leonard and Charlie Greer, Sklar made Music Radio 77 into the most listened to radio station in North America from the mid 60s to the late 70s.

Needless to say, the comments by former air personalities in the group took issue with this “spark plug” analogy, me included.

Unique Air Talents

One-of-a-kind radio personalities built radio into the listener favorite that it’s enjoyed for nearly a century. More recently, there’s Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern (who said he was influenced by Arthur Godfrey), Paul Harvey, Super Jock Larry Lujack, Robert W. Morgan, The Real Don Steele, Dave Maynard, Joel Cash, Dale Dorman, Larry Justice, Jackson Armstrong, Salty Brine, Bob Steele, Dickie Robinson, Danny Neaverth, John Records Landecker, J.J. Jeffrey, Bill Bailey, Big Ron O’Brien, Don Imus, Bob Dearborn and so many more. Those are just some of the names that inspired me to pursue a 50-year radio career.

Each of these radio personalities is unique and the shows they presented attracted an audience that was loyal to their style of broadcasting. They were anything but, a commodity.

Computer Automation

With the advent of computer automation, the concept of voice-tracking was born. Now a few disc jockeys could be heard on-the-air over a multitude of radio stations across America. Unfortunately, this meant that customizing their radio shows to a particular radio market had to be eliminated and the DJ patter had to be appropriate for all markets the program was airing in. It became watered down and because all big box radio operators were employing the same “Best Practices,” the ownership of the station really didn’t matter as everything began to sound the same.

Contests became nationally oriented, jingles (if there were any) all sounded the same, and playlists, which once reflected regional differences and artists, were now homogenized.

On Air production, which was once an art form in and of itself, was now also computerized. The result being a disjointed, sloppy and anything but smooth radio experience.

The result of all of this was radio being turned into a commodity.

Culture Shock

“Technology is enabling great gains in convenience and diversity,” says Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University. “What is being lost is a sense of magnificence.”

He goes on to say

“It is possible we will look back on the present day as a special time when both patterns of cultural consumption could be enjoyed in tandem and enriched (by) each other. But I suspect not. As today’s over-50 crowd slowly passes away, and our experiences fade from collective memory, I wonder if the world might be in for a bigger cultural shock than we currently realize.”

 

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December 1, 2019 · 3:00 am

Radio’s Brain Challenge

radio on brainI often wonder if today’s youth would gravitate to the style of radio that attracted me to make radio broadcasting my career for five decades. Would they be attracted to a Dan Ingram, Robert W. Morgan, Dave Maynard, Ron Lundy, The Real Don Steele, Big Ron O’Brien, Larry Lujack or any of the countless other personalities that so influenced me as I was growing up?

Spoiler Alert: probably not

Old Brains vs New Brains

Our brains are wired by our experiences.

Those of us who grew up in the 60s, most likely had a transistor radio that only received Zenith RadioAM radio. Mine was a Zenith Royal 50 that came with an ear phone, that allowed me to listen to the Red Sox while in elementary school or to radio stations from far, far away after it was ‘lights out’ and I was supposed to be asleep.

This is an advertisement for that radio.

I saw it in Bristol, Tennessee at the “Birthplace of Country Music Museum.” I’m finding that a lot of my career memories are now museum pieces.

My brain was originally wired for AM radio, then FM stereo radio and all of the great radio personalities, promotions and stationality of that era.

More recently my brain has been wired for streaming audio and the convenience of playing anything that fits my mood via an Amazon Echo.

But anyone who has grown up in a world where streaming audio has always been there, has had their brain wired for only this kind of world, not the world of the 20th Century.

Classical Music’s Challenge

Classical music venues, including radio stations, are searching for new audiences as their current audience gets older.

With the typical American adult spending eleven-plus hours-a-day connected to media, today’s musical consumer can’t help but have their brain wired in a new way. Most of that listening is via computer speakers or wireless ear buds, not known for delivering the highest quality sound, but very convenient.

Classical music aficionados are all about quality of sound, so huge sums of money are spent building acoustically perfect auditoriums that often are in locations that are anything but easy for people to access.

People want to listen to music everywhere; in cars, on buses, on trains & planes, and while walking on busy city streets. They don’t mind that the sound quality is less than perfect because convenience for them rules.

Our Brains Re-wire Quickly

To give you an example of how quickly our brains can be re-wired, V.S. Ramachandaran did an experiment where test subjects were shown a group of black dots on a white page. After studying the dots, participants soon began to see the form of a dog. MRI scans were used during the process and monitored participant brains being re-wired. Once the dog was seen, participants could not look at the paper again without immediately seeing a dog. Their brains had been re-wired that quickly.

On Demand Entertainment

I’ll admit it, I want my entertainment – audio or video – immediately available when I want it. My radio and television habits are nothing like they were when I was growing up when the only media I could see or hear came through the ether.

Initially cable TV and the TV remote control re-wired my brain for television viewing, but nothing has impacted my home media entertainment habits like streaming and on demand. Be it audio entertainment via our Amazon Echoes (now numbering 3) or video entertainment via Apple TV or Firestick, everything now is on demand to match our mood thanks to streaming via the internet.

Is It Real or AI?

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has gotten so sophisticated that they are “paving the way for “deepfake” videos, content that falsely shows people saying and doing things they never said or did,” says CNBC.

Just the other week I read where James Dean, who died 64 years ago, will be starring in an upcoming movie about the Vietnam War. This has been made possible by the use of computer-generated imaging of James Dean.

A New Radio Format

Larry LujackThat got me to thinking that maybe a new radio format could be created bringing back deceased personalities like Robert W. Morgan, Dan Ingram, The Real Don Steele, Big Ron O’Brien, Ron Lundy, Larry Lujack among other greats by using the power of artificial intelligence. These incomparable radio personalities would “live again” via talented writers and programmers who would tell them what to say. Can you imagine how it might sound?

It would be like the “DJ Hall of Fame” on Rewound Radio, only the weather forecasts, the news, the community events etc. would all be current and up-to-date.

Which brings me back to how I started this article, would the radio listeners of today listen? Would their brains be so completely re-wired that they wouldn’t find it appealing? I fear they wouldn’t. Just as Vaudeville shtick stopped appealing to the generations of audiences with access to movies, television and radio.

In the end, doing something new means doing something fundamentally different.

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If you’d like to know more about how advanced Artificial Intelligence has become, watch this five and a half-minute YouTube video. AI can clone your voice after listening to it for just 5-seconds. Click HERE

And for a really deep dive on how AI will change our future in ways we never imagined, watch this two-hour FRONTLINE report from PBS HERE

 

 

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November 24, 2019 · 3:00 am

A Thousand Years

wedding day 2018Sue, I have loved you for “a thousand years.”

All along I believed I would find you.

Time has brought your heart to me, and I will be forever grateful.

Today we celebrate the 1st Anniversary of our Best Day!

I Love You More Today Than Yesterday.

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Back next week with a new article about “Radio’s Brain Challenge.”

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November 17, 2019 · 3:00 am

Celebrating a Life

IMG_3478How does a moment last forever?

How can her story never die?

Minutes turn into hours, days to years, then gone. But when all else has been forgotten, still her song will live on.

Samantha Eileen Dripps was born on Thursday August 8, 1985 in Pittsfield, MA and then returned to the arms of God on Sunday morning the 15th of September 2019. She was one of 372,522 babies born that day. Can one imagine all those babies crying at the same time? Well, Sam was one of those strong voiced babies that turned into a child with a heavenly voice that could hold one’s attention with bliss and intoxication.

Sam had an amazing freewill, she had the soul of a gypsy, the heart of a hippy and the spirit of a fairy.  Our memory of her will always be running through a meadow in her long flowing dress, barefoot, her long hair jumping with the north wind and adorned in a crown of wildflowers; happy, laughing, smiling. You can’t get any freer than that.  She gave all of us enthusiasm to follow her in this joy for life.

She is now in the air we breathe and with every breath we take. We will see her in the clouds above as she whispers to us all, words of love,  a love that has only been silenced in this realm. Until we are together again, we must listen for her song as she will now follow us and sing that forever song of hope where there is no more pain, and no more fear.

Her smile, her laugh, how she wore her heart on her sleeve, how she stood fierce and strong, backing  others up when they were wronged, that was how she lived. For all those who knew her, you will consistently remember her determination of unbridled independence.

We know that she will continue to be a wonderful mother that loves her children as she soars on wings of eagles, her light and sparkle flickering through them as they grow, protecting them from the force of the winter winds, they will always feel her brilliant and God given gentle smile of love.

Something in her happiness was captured in all of us, and that love will live on inside our hearts as she is a thousand winds that blow, the diamond glitter on snow, she will be the sunlight on ripened grain, and will always be that gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning hush, she will be that swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.

So, remember her with smiles and laughter, remember her in her stronger days for her sweetness, for her caring of others, for that’s how she’ll remember you. Look to that solitary twinkling star in the night sky and know that Sammy will always be watching over all of us. This is how her song will live on.

Samantha grew up in Lanesboro, MA and attended Lanesboro Elementary School, Mt. Greylock High School, graduating from St. Joseph High School. She worked in healthcare field.

She leaves 3 truly loved children, Jacob, Isabella and Alexis.

We will be celebrating her life with family this week.

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November 10, 2019 · 4:00 am

Radio’s $$$ Challenge

Revenues going downRadio, like all traditional media, is in the economic fight of its life.

In 2006, before the start of the Great Recession, the radio industry booked $18.1 Billion in advertising revenue. In 2006, the thought of earning digital dollars from doing anything on the internet was under development.

The Great Recession

Then America’s economy went catawampus. Radio’s ad dollars at the peak of the Great Recession dropped to $13.3 Billion in 2009.

Companies like Clear Channel began jettisoning employees, their biggest expense, by the boatloads. I sadly remember coming back from Clear Channel management meetings with a thumb drive and the dates that different spreadsheets would open and outline where the next employment cuts would be implemented.

John Hogan, Clear Channel CEO, told us at one of those meetings, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” By that he meant, by using cloud of the Great Recession that the entire structure of the company could be changed.

Digital Dimes

In 2010, the radio industry began tracking the impact that the Internet of Things (IoT) began having on the total revenue of the business. That first year, $0.4 Billion was earned.

In those early years, traditional media talked about how they were converting traditional advertising dollars into “digital dimes.” In other words, for the same amount selling effort, the Return On Investment (ROI) for digital was minuscule.

U.S. Inflation Rate (2006 to 2018)

Not helping the radio industry chiefs was the inflation rate in America. A dollar in 2006 was only worth 75.44-cents in 2018.

How did radio revenues in 2018 compare to what they were in 2006? They were down $4.8 Billion. That’s comparing the same Over-The-Air (OTA) revenue of 2006, which had no digital income, to the OTA revenue produced in 2018.

But what about those digital initiatives?

From $0.4 Billion in 2010, they rose to $0.923 Billion in 2018.

So, comparing total revenues for the radio industry from 2006 to 2018, we see that radio is only down $3.9 Billion. But here’s the problem, just to stay even with 2006, and not grow in revenues, radio would need to have earned about $22.5 Billion in 2018. In other words, instead of being down $3.9 Billion, radio needed to be up about $4.4 Billion. That’s an $8.3 Billion gap!

A Look Ahead

Local radio is one of the top five advertising platforms in America today. BIA Advisory Services SVP and Chief Economist, Mark Fratrik, is predicting that OTA radio revenues will continue to decline one to two percent in 2019 and for the next few years.

Even adding in those digital revenues predicted to be $1 Billion for radio in 2020, Fratrik says total radio revenues are expected to remain flat for the next five years.

That’s why we’re continuing to see radio companies trimming their employment rosters every time we read the latest radio trade publications.

If misery loves company, the only bright spot – if you can call it one – is that the advertising dollar challenge for newspapers and television will be even greater.

Traditional media is converging on one delivery platform, the internet.

Today in China OTA radio trails streaming music for in-car listening. Even in America, for people who listen once or twice weekly, streaming and OTA listening are tied at 33%.

“The decision we have to make is

not whether this is the media environment we want to operate in,

it’s the one we’ve got.”

-Clay Shirky

 

 

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November 3, 2019 · 4:00 am

How is Radio Affected by Being Efficient?

EfficiencyI started my professional radio career in the 10th grade of high school. However, I started dreaming about being a disc jockey for as long as I can remember. I built my own AM/FM radio station in the basement of my parent’s home and broadcast to about a three block radius around my house.

Lots of People

In my early professional days, radio was people, lots of people!

Every aspect of running a radio station required people to make things happen. Sales, bookkeeping, reception, disc jockeys, copywriters, news anchors, reporters, engineers, production and promotions people with layers of management on top of every department, up to the general manager who oversaw the entire operation.

As an example, CKLW a stand-alone AM radio station in the Detroit metro, had 23-people just in their news department. Today that’s about double the total number of people running a cluster of AM/FM radio stations in any metro.

Was radio efficient back then? No.

Was radio effective? YES!

Did radio make money? Tons of it!

The Gatekeepers

What traditional media had back then, were gatekeepers. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television had people charged with making sure there was a good flow of information and entertainment. These people acted as filters, and overtime they developed standards and ethics that all Americans could rely on.

It wasn’t perfect and mistakes were made, but it got us through the 20th Century and unified us as a nation.

The New Gatekeepers

The birth of the internet ushered in a new gatekeeper, the algorithm. Now lines of code would replace people as the filter for what Americans read, see and hear. Unfortunately, these lines of computer code lack transparency in how they filter the flow of information.

Have they been encoded with a sense of civic responsibility? Who knows?

Is the flow of information the same for everyone? No, it has been personalized to our likes and dislikes. It has put each of us in our own information silo.

Bowling Alone

In 1995, Robert D. Putnam wrote an essay entitled “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”. The essay chronicled the decline in all forms of in-person social interchange. What Putnam saw in his research was that the very foundation Americans had used to establish, educate and enrich the fabric of their social lives was eroding. People were now less likely to participate in their community, social organizations, churches, and even their democracy.

This trend has only been accelerated by social media and the internet. The unintended consequences of the internet are, that it has isolated each of us to a web of one. Algorithms have taken what Putnam saw happening in the last century and put it on steroids in this century. All in the name of driving more efficiency.

Efficiency Bubble

The “efficiency bubble” means that efficiency is valued over effectiveness in today’s world. It’s a term coined by Will Lion of BBH advertising.

Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy in the UK, recently shared this personal experience that demonstrated the efficiency bubble.

“The absurdity of the efficiency bubble was brought home to me in a recent meeting with an online travel company. The conversation repeatedly included the mantra ‘the need to maximize online conversion.’ Everyone nodded along. Clearly, it is much more efficient for people to book travel through the website than over the telephone, since it reduces transaction costs. But then someone – not me, I’m ashamed to say – said something revelatory: ‘Ah, but here’s the thing. Online visitors to the site convert at about 0.3%. People who telephone convert at 33%. Maybe the website should have a phone number on every page.”

“Perhaps the most efficient way to sell travel is not the most effective way to sell travel. What, in short, is the opportunity cost of being efficient?”

“Nobody ever asks this question. Opportunity costs are invisible; short-term savings earn you a bonus. That’s the efficiency bubble at work again.”

Consolidation is Just Another Word for “Efficiency”

During radio’s massive consolidation, Excel spreadsheets produced by new minted MBAs screamed a multitude of ways to have radio stations become more efficient. Unfortunately, the fast-lane involved the elimination of tens of thousands of radio jobs.

And it’s still going on as I write this article.

I don’t ever remember anyone asking about “opportunity costs” being sacrificed in the process.

In the last radio property I managed before entering higher education as a broadcast professor, I would spend my final year going to corporate meetings about Reductions In Force (RIFs) and coming home with a thumb drive that had dates to open new pages in an Excel spreadsheet, that listed what people and what departments were to be eliminated next.

It’s my belief that efficient radio chases away listeners, effective radio creates them.

Blame It on Competition

Tech Guru Pete Thiel blames the efficiency chase on competition. “More than anything else, competition is an ideology – the ideology – that pervades our society and distorts our thinking,” says Thiel.

When all radio companies chase the same efficiency metrics, they all end up sounding the same, their websites end up looking the same, and in essence, they’ve turned the creative medium of radio into a commodity.

Deregulation of broadcast, as I wrote about in The Birth of Radio in America article, now has virtually all of the radio stations in a radio market owned by one or two companies.

Radio always stole great ideas from other radio stations around the country, but most often those stolen ideas were massaged and improved upon in the process. Everyone was upping the game through their own creativity lens, and each radio station had its own unique sound.

Unfortunately, along with corporation radio came the concept of “Best Practices”. This would be yet another contributor to the end of personal creativity at radio stations, all in the name of more efficiency.

Emotions

Roy H. Williams, the Wizard of Ads, says we buy things emotionally and justify those buying decisions rationally. The pursuit of efficiency is a rational answer to an emotional problem.

The radio business was never built on Excel spreadsheets and doing what was most efficient, it was built by creative people who touched others emotionally. Be it station imaging, air personalities, promotions, contests, community events, advertising or marketing, radio always went for people’s hearts.

The successful radio stations today still foster those emotions in their listeners and advertisers.

They’re just becoming harder and harder to find.

 

 

 

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October 6, 2019 · 3:00 am

Road Trip Time Again

2019 Southern Cross-Country Road Trip

We’re off again!

Last year we drove over 11,000-miles on a Cross-Country Road Trip that took us from our home in Virginia to the State of Washington and back. You can read more about the planning of our 2018 trip HERE and the re-cap of our adventure HERE.

Yesterday, we set-off on our 2019 Cross-Country Road Trip that will take us from Virginia to the International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a visit with Pennie & Roy Williams (aka The Wizard of Ads) on the campus of The Wizard Academy just outside of Austin, Texas, a trip to Mission Control in Houston where they’ve recreated the nerve center that put the first man on the moon 50-years ago, a trip down Bourbon Street in New Orleans, a moment to reflect on a historic moment in American Civil Rights at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama and lots more along the way, finally returning home.

Our road trip this year will be only 3-weeks long and under 5,000-miles.

When we complete our 2019 Road Trip, Alaska will be the only state in America we both have not visited.

This blog will be on vacation for the next three weeks.

I’ll return with a new article on Sunday, November 3rd.

 

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