Even though I’ve had fancy VP titles through the years, I’ve never identified well with the “suits”… you know, the people from the corporate office who think they know your market and your product better than you do. \u00a0Even though I was enlisted to be one of them, I was never comfortable with it, because they were really the “best practices squad” – and the problem with “best practices” is that everybody does them.<\/p>\n
The term “best practices” should scare you – because it essentially means to do what is safe and proven in other markets. It’s the exact opposite of what radio should be doing today. The safe, proven playbook has been duplicated by nearly every radio station in the country, and that’s why everybody sounds the same.<\/p>\n
Welcome to DomTheodore.com. This is the place where we’ll talk about how to disrupt the radio industry. \u00a0How do we break the rules and build something unique so that listeners aren’t bored to death? How do we stand out in the sea of other media? How do we use new technology to grow audience? And most importantly, how do we break the model of “best practices” in a way that will likely piss off the suits, but the audience will LOVE it?<\/p>\n
These are dangerous thoughts in the current environment. But they are necessary. We need to be thinking dangerously if we want to attract AND entertain listeners so they’ll keep coming back for more. And that means turning the paradigm on it’s head! That means putting talent in the foreground instead of the background. That means taking risks and breaking the accepted practices… and most importantly, it means having guts. Most companies won’t be up to the challenge – but for the precious few that are, big ratings and revenue are in your future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even though I’ve had fancy VP titles through the years, I’ve never identified well with the “suits”… you know, the people from the corporate office who think they know your market and your product better than you do. \u00a0Even though I was enlisted to be one of them, I was never comfortable with it, because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i4nE-b","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":116,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=116","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":0},"title":"The Day Innovation Stopped","author":"admin","date":"March 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Where were you the day that innovation stopped? As someone who has been programming radio stations for a long time, I've been blessed to work with some of the best talent in the industry. I've also witnessed some massive mistakes made by upper management that are the roots of many\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=116#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=25","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":1},"title":"Announcers versus Personalities","author":"admin","date":"November 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In all the years I've programmed radio, I'm not sure that I ever hired an on-air \"announcer\" - I'm not even sure what that title means or why ANYBODY would have the need for one. I've always searched for personalities. Even when I've hired a station imaging voice, I never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"disrupt\"","block_context":{"text":"disrupt","link":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?tag=disrupt"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":77,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=77","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":2},"title":"Radio Station or Gas Station?","author":"admin","date":"June 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I was lucky enough to grow up in a town that had an unusual set of characters on the radio. In that era of Detroit radio, I was able to witness first-hand the power of the medium when a compelling, unusual, and entertaining personality had autonomy to actually do a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":97,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=97","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":3},"title":"Radio’s Experimental Roots","author":"admin","date":"December 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, it has been a while since I've written anything here. This was partially due to the fact that I feel like I'm preaching to the choir on this platform. Most of the readers here \"get it\" - but the people who need to hear this message the most -\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=97#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":123,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=123","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":4},"title":"Real Solutions for Radio","author":"admin","date":"October 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the most talked about sessions at this year's NAB Radio Show was a presentation on listener's reactions to long stopsets. The presentation included video of the listener's real time reactions to an 11-minute commercial break. Now, I'm sincerely not trying to be sarcastic... but is the state of\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=123#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=51","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":5},"title":"How Powerful is Your Message?","author":"admin","date":"December 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm often asked if I think talk radio is dead. The answer is yes. And no.\u00a0The old way of doing talk radio is dead. The skeleton has been walking around for a few years now to save funeral costs. It used to be that you could find a former Congressman\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}