…author, Michael James Caughill, from this morning’s show.

Get The Abortionist online at Amazon.com.

When XM and Sirius merged last year, many figured that the new company would give listeners the best of both services. After all, providing separate programming is expensive and defeats the purpose of the merger: cost savings.

That hasn’t happened.

I first purchased an XM radio when it was rolled out in Wisconsin in either 2000 or 2001. In 2004, I dropped the service for a few years, and then picked it up again in 2007. Last month, when I traded in my Pontiac for a new 2009 Ford, my service switched from an XM-branded radio to a Sirius-branded one.

After owning both brands, here’s what really irks me about the two:

1. Many good stations from XM (20 on 20, Fox Sports Radio, Kiss, et al.) are not available on Sirius.
2. The “Best of XM” package on Sirius does not include any of the really good stations. In fact, most of the “best of” stations are quite horrible and should simply be dropped altogether (especially XM Public Radio, The Bob Edwards Show, and The Virus).
3. The “Best of Sirius” includes: Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, the NFL, NASCAR, and Playboy Radio. That’s a little more value than the garbage that comes with the “Best of XM” package.
4. Though my car is new and came out after the merger, some of the stations do not show the right channel name yet. Backspin (Sirius 39), for example, displays some other station name.
5. The packages cost the same, except XM has over 170 channels, and Sirius has 130 channels. The audio quality is the same, so why is the price the same for 40 less channels on Sirius?

I’m going to let my Sirius trial expire and go back to 100% local radio. Sirius XM needs to get serious (sirius? ). What they truly need to do is merge everything together at the same price point, get rid of similar talk stations, and increase the perceived value for the subscribers.

Local radio already has the highest value for its ’subscribers’: it’s free. Plus your local radio stations do great things for your community, including:  offering up-to-date local news and information from local personalities, employing local staff, promoting local events, and the programming is just as diverse as  you’ll find on XM or Sirius.

Yes, I know, I am a terrestrial radio personality and I shouldn’t let anybody know that I have XM, but I do, and I have been a subscriber on and off since its inception. In fact, I was the fourth person to buy an XM radio at Best Buy in Brookfield back in 2000 (or was it 2001)?

Anyway, there are times that I like to crank up XM online while I’m cleaning the house, working on websites, or post-processing photos. Today, however, XM sent me an email informing me that it is going to start charging its customers $2.99/month for the online version of the broadcast.

I was offered the chance to renew my plan for a longer period and be given the service for free. However, with the way the economy has been rolling, I don’t know if I want to commit for any longer than my current three-month blocks.

This all comes on the heals of news that may be going bankrupt.

Plus, XM just merged with Sirius and it cut the amount of total channels between the two birds in half. Less content + less competition = more money. That’s bad math, in my book.

My current $12.99/month is just a drop in the bucket. But I’m sure I’m not the only one who will be jumping off of this sinking ship.

(From The Sacramento Business Journal):

Media giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. on Tuesday told its employees it is cutting about 9 percent of the work force, a reduction that will affect all of the media company’s departments.

The San Antonio-based company, which has operations in radio, television and outdoor advertising, gave pink slips to 1,850 workers at its corporate offices, outdoor advertising and radio divisions, according to a memo from chief executive officer Mark Mays.

The company employs about 20,000 workers.

Clear Channel operates four stations in the Sacramento region.

Mays wrote in the memo that most cuts were in the sales department, but ultimately all operations were affected.

A representative for the company said in an e-mail response to questions that Clear Channel isn’t breaking down the cuts geographically or commenting beyond what is stated in the memo.

I have brought this up with Dial Global (a radio syndication/commercial clearinghouse) numerous times, but they haven’t a clue, so I’ll post it here for the world to see.

RadioAffidavits.com is a website where we radio types go to submit forms stating that our contracted commercials through Dial Global have actually aired according to schedule.

All of the other providers that we work with use Counterpoint Software’s affidavit program, which is fast, intuitive, and very user friendly.

Aside from only being able to use Internet Explorer to submit affidavits, Dial-Global’s system contains WAY too many clicks and scrolls in order to submit one affidavit.

Here’s the process:

1. Log in
2. Wait for screen to load. (it takes a long time)
3. Click on the affidavits button which is placed BEHIND a flashing marquee.
4. Wait for the page to load.
5. Scroll all the way down to your show’s schedule.
6. Scroll down on your show to get to the correct date. (three frames deep)
7. Click on the date.
8. Wait for the page to load.
9. Two different “Loading, please wait” pages pop up.
10. Scroll down on the page so that you can:
11. Scroll down in the affidavit frame.
12. Click “Submit”
13. Wait through another “loading” message.
14. Click “I Agree.”
15. Click “Submit.”
16. Click “Close Window.”
17. Initial page loads, but…
18. Wait five seconds before scrolling because page RELOADS.
19. Goto Line 5

You could submit three months worth of affidavits with Counterpoint in the time it would take you to do a month’s worth in Dial-Global’s mess.

Get a clue, Dial Global.

Now I’m off to find a computer that still allows me to access Internet Explorer. Fun.

Actually, yesterday was my eight-year anniversary on the air at 92.5 WBWI. In case you are wondering (or more for my memory), here’s my career time line, so far:

Sept. ‘96 – Auditioned for and won a shift at 91.7 WSUW

Sept. ‘96 – Hired as part-time board-op/announcer at 104.5 WSLD

May ‘97 – Took full-time sales position at 104.5 WSLD

July ‘99 – Left sales position at WSLD to go back to school

July ‘00 – Hired as part-time NASCAR board-op at 92.5 WBWI

Nov. ‘00 – Hired as full-time copywriter for WBWI

Jan. ‘01 – Promoted to afternoon-drive personality at WBWI (plus music director and associate program director duties)

Dec. ‘05 – Promoted to program director and morning-show host

This morning, I was feeling kinda bad because I got to work at 5:30. That’s reeeeeallly late for me. It’s 8:25 P.M. now. I am still at work. With the snow and the 1/2-hour commute, I might be better off staying here.

Reasons I’m here late:

1. Engineers were in town installing cool stuff.
2. A new show starts tonight at Midnight and I needed to make sure that the clocks, relays, and closures were in line.
3. Less people in the building === more work for me. Consolidation rocks. </sarcasm>

This morning, my news guy was talking about Michelle Obama’s trip to Wisconsin. I asked him, rhetorically, “Is she going to tell everybody how she hates America?” Whoa boy. My VP/GM had a complaint call as soon as he walked in the door.

The listener, who says he listens every morning in his basement when he’s polishing his guns (no lie), exclaimed, “you guys are a bunch of right-wing radicals. I don’t know who that Fuzz guy is, but he doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about. I am going to go to all of your advertisers and tell them that Fuzz is a right-wing radical and that they shouldn’t advertise with you anymore.”

My GM’s response: “when you read a left-leaning editorial in the newspaper, do you drive around telling all of the newspaper’s advertisers to stop advertising?”

The complainer said, “Well, I live in the town of West Bend, and I don’t get to drive around that much.”

Priceless.

*straps on Kevlar*

Good luck with the new gig. Bastard.

This is that time of the year when I am inundated with work, school projects, and more work and school projects. I will be done with school two weeks from tomorrow! After that, it’s fun, sun, and taking my GMAT for my Master’s.

Now, back to a hot word processor. Later tonight I might tell you about the awesome trip to Chicago that Tracy and I took over the weekend. But right now… I’ve got isht to do.

On your way to work this morning, come watch my show live at the Mineshaft on Main Street in Downtown Hartford. Bring in a non-perishable food item for the Full Shelf Food Pantry – or a cash donation for the Exodus House Transitional Living Facility – and we’ll give you a pair of promotional tickets to Country USA in Oshkosh.

Oh… and the ‘Shaft has 2-for-1 breakfasts… so… bring a friend.

I’ll be there from 6 until 10am.

Sue Tupper, one of my station’s account executives, is a great bowler. About six months ago, we were on a remote broadcast when she started talking about how she was going to Vegas to bowl in the Nationals bowling tournament. I said, “My aunt was on Bowling with the Champs, once, but she and I don’t share any blood. I could hardly make it on Bowling with the Chumps.”

Eureka!!! A little light bulb popped up above my head.

I take part in a celebrity trap shoot for Women For MACC each year at the Hartford Gun Club. Women For MACC is a non-profit that supports Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer.

I told Sue, “we should take my bad bowling skills, and the bad bowling skills of Josh Golberg (my afternoon guy), and put on a charity bowling event called `Bowling With The Chumps.`”

I didn’t underestimate Sue. She has put together a tight event that is going to take place tomorrow morning, starting at 11am, at Lighthouse Lanes in West Bend. I encourage you all to stop by and help raise money for childhood cancer research.

A few years ago, I pointed out that country music had an all-of-the-sudden fascination with singing about babies. Then… it was kids. The new trend in country music is singing about other country artists. You can pass your own judgment on the issue (or not care about it either way) – but I think it’s friggin’ lame.

First -> Taylor Swift sang a song called, “Tim McGraw.” It’s a well-written song (especially since Swift was only like 16 when she wrote it).

Next -> Jason Aldean sang, “Johnny Cash.” Okay, Mr. Name Dropper, I’ll give you a pass, but only because Mr. Cash passed away not too long ago.

Then -> Just last week I added, “Kristofferson” (meaning Kris Kristofferson) by Tim McGraw to our station’s music rotation.

Today -> In the mail I received a new single from Heidi Newfield (formerly of the group, Trick Pony) called, “Johnny and June.” Hey, I don’t know if you got the memo, Heidi, but there was a) already a song about Johnny Cash and b) singing about other country artists has already been done.

This isn’t, of course, the first time that country music has played the name-dropping game. Here are some other titles:

• “Are You Sure Hank Done it This Way” – Waylon Jennings
• “Bob Wills is Still the King” – Waylon Jennings
• “Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life” – Moe Bandy
• “Willie, Waylon, and Me” – David Allan Coe
• “Weed With Willie” – Toby Keith

And I’m sure there are more that I couldn’t think of off the top of my head.

During one of my on-air contests this morning, a West Bend middle-school student got through as my contestant. I asked her if she was excited to go back to school this morning, and her reply was, “yes, we’re going bowling.”

Now, I know this caller goes to Silverbook Middle School in West Bend. My question is this, if the school district is so hard up for money that they are forcing kids to have class in trailers, then why the hell are they wasting time and tax-payer dollars taking kids friggin’ bowling when they should be learning? Pat Herdrich, can you answer this, please?

Yesterday, on the air, one of the school-board members was talking about how West Bend School District is not competing with Slinger or Hartford schools, but rather with China and India. Okay, so do you think the Chinese students take time out from learning four different languages in order to go bowling? I’m guessing not.

The student’s mom did call me and tell me that the kids were being rewarded for good work and that the parents paid for the bus, the bowling, and the shoes. The parents, however, are not solely paying for the teachers’ salaries or the fixed costs of the heat/lights in the school building while these select kids are out breaking pins.

They could easily hold this “reward” at night after school or even on a weekend. I know that some schools have deals with places like Pizza Hut or McDonald’s that give the students a gift card when they do well. Why can’t the kids get a “bowling party” gift card or something like that?

Seriously, the school board can’t talk about how badly they need money when they are spending some of ours at the bowling lanes. Furthermore, don’t talk about “competing with China” when we’re taking our kids out of the classroom and putting them in a bowling alley/bar during normal learning hours.

Outside of the radio station, I sometimes do voiceover work for certain companies. The voiceovers are mostly for commercial videos and such. I have never done any sort of voiceover work as a telemarketer, however.

This morning, I received a phone call on the studio line from a recorded telemarketer telling me how I can save credit-card interest by switching to some other company. The man doing the voiceover had a great voice and delivery. The only thing I could think was, “wow, this guy could be doing voiceovers for Jaguar or something like that, but instead he’s making himself look like a schmuck by recording a telemarketing piece.”

I know first hand that we don’t make a ton of money in this industry (well, moreso in voiceovers than in radio)… but at the end of the day you still have to look at yourself in the mirror. I don’t think that recording telemarketing voiceovers is something that I’d want anybody to know I did. I’m quite certain that he made some money on the deal, but how embarrassing for him.

On November 13th, 2000, I accepted a full-time copywriting position at WBKV/WBWI. Seven years and a few added responsibilities later ( ), I am still here, and still loving it. Thanks for making my stay comfortably challenging, everybody.

I don’t want to get on a soapbox, here, but there is a radio station in Milwaukee that is playing Christmas music already. There are a few things about this that really get my goat:

1. They started playing the music November 1st. I thought, at first, they were just making a mockery of stations that start playing Christmas music earlier and earlier every year, but then realized that they were just making a mockery of themselves… and they were actually going to stick with it.
2. The station in question only plays a nonsecular Christmas song once every couple hours. And… it’s usually the same tired version of Celine Dion singing, “O Holy Night.”
3.  There’s something to be said for being a first mover in a market… but whoring religion isn’t a great P.R. move. (of course, this will still end up working for them, monetarily.)

Again, you won’t hear Christmas music on my station until Thanksgiving. I’m sorry, but one month is as far out as I’ll start.

I don’t normally pimp work stuff on my personal website… mostly because, well, it’s my personal website… but we’ve got a cool new feature at the radio station, and I’m excited to let everybody to know about it.

You can now text message your requests and take part in text-to-win contests at 92.5 WBWI!  In order to do so, though, you have to sign up on the website. Go to WBWIFM.com and follow the instructions. Then, anytime you want to request a song, simply text your request to this number: 49330.

So… go sign up right now!!!! DO IT!

So, the chick that tried to hock liqueur on my radio station by way of “breast cancer awareness” decided not even to contest the bullshit website. Thick! Of course, a sleaze that knows she’s a sleaze doesn’t really need to defend herself.

Click on the photo to see the end of our e-mail exchange:

After my show, yesterday, I received a call from a booking agent looking to book a young woman to speak about breast cancer. The 25-year-old woman, Lindsay Avner, underwent a double mastectomy as a preventative way of making sure that she didn’t suffer from the same disease that killed her grandmother and great grandmother, and that her mother developed when Lindsay was just 12 years old.

I said, “sure, I’ll do the interview.” I mean, why not, right? She’s got a good story and a good message, so I’ll put her on the air and let her talk about breast cancer awareness.

Then I received an e-mail regarding the details of the call in. In it was a link that the agent had mentioned in her phone call, pink-promise.com. I clicked on the link and it forwarded me to Vanilleroyale.com (a liqueur website). Figuring it was a mistake, I e-mailed the rep back to ask her for the real web address. She replied, “no, that’s it, the information is in there.”

The agent had mentioned nothing of the beverage in the initial phone call, and she was obviously hoping that I wouldn’t do any research. Unfortunately for her, I get up pretty early in the morning… so she’d have to get up even earlier to pull the wool over my eyes.

The part that I feel the worst about is that Lindsay Avner is being pimped out by a booze company in the guise of promoting breast cancer awareness. I snooped through the liqueur website and found the link to BeBrightPink.com, which is really the website that contains all of the information relating to breast cancer.

Shame on the liqueur company and the booking agent for being deceptive. That’s all I’m sayin’. If Lindsay ever wants to do an interview promoting Be Bright Pink, I’m all about it, but I’ll never take another call from the booking agent involved with this. That’s for damn sure.