Radio Free JoJo

Is the apparent loss of power and influence once enjoyed by the City of Erie. There was a time when Erie was the third biggest city next to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the Commonwealth. The city was once a powerful fishing port, manufacturing center, and regional anchor. It owned its water supply, sewer system, lake port and airport. Even recreational assets like the Zoo, Civic Center, and golf courses were the work of the city. But years of decay, suburban flight, mismanagement, and poor stewardship has taken our town to the brink of bankruptcy and has the city’s leaders scratching to be taken seriously.  The selling off of assets has diminished its importance. And now the region’s top legislator wants more.

Last Thursday, State Sen. Jane Earll proposed a bill to regionalize the Erie International Airport and the municipal authority that runs it. Earlier in the month, the Erie Zoo was in the news for a similar idea. As in anything, with these developments you have to follow the money. In the case of the airport, it is the call for $20 million or more as a local match to lengthen the runway to meet or exceed federal standards. With the Zoo, it’s the allocation of gambling money that has the county balking on whether it should give to an asset of the city.

If I were holding all the chips like County Executive DiVecchio or Sen. Earll are, I’m not sure I would feel differently about wanting control over the governance of these assets I’m about to invest in. It’s just a sad state of affairs when you can’t trust and marginalize the government of the entity that gives the region its name and focus. What’s a City Council member to do? You need the cash to keep public safety going, meanwhile you lose control over centrally important assets that your predecessors fought to build and develop.

I guess my dream of a strong metropolitan Erie with buy-in from across the geographical, political, and economic spectrum is really far-fetched, when our regional leaders won’t even trust the city with keeping the polar bear pit clean.

Kelsey Grammer is on the cover of this week’s Parade magazine, promoting his new Fox TV show Back To You, costarring Patricia Heaton. This new show, about the on and off set wrangling of a local television news team, triggered my annoyance about Hollywood: they write a lot about people like themselves!

In the drama genre we have always had crime or cop shows, lawyer and medical dramas. But in situational comedy, it used to be that you showed how regular people lived and how funny that could be. From Leave it to Beaver, the Honeymooners, and My Three Sons, to the well-loved Norman Lear and Gerry Marshall sitcoms of the 70’s, to Cheers, you had typical American families or places featured and there was much laughter in those “situations.”

Now, the networks put real people in reality TV or game shows, but often they write comedies about themselves or people they hang out with, like the new Kelsey Grammer half-hour.  Sure there are a few exceptions (The King of Queens, The Office, New Adventures of Old Christine), but the much-hyped shows are about people in the entertainment, media, or advertising worlds. Look at this list and see if I have a point:
• Studio 60 (TV show about a TV show)
• 30 Rock (ditto)
• Ugly Betty (magazine)
• Brothers and Sisters (one of the sisters is a conservative talk-show host)
• Hannah Montana (girl rock star)
• Two and a Half Men (life in Malibu? Maybe a stretch)

Considering how few sitcoms are made, I think that the percentage of self-involved scenario is pretty high compared to the general populace.  I guess that Hollywood’s fixation on lives like their own is natural. This phenomenom has been part of TV history if you consider these examples from the past:
• Newsradio (news radio station)
• The Naked Truth (tabloid newspaper)
• Just Shoot Me (glamour magazine)
• Frazier (radio psychologist)
• Sportsnight (ESPN rip)
• Growing Pains (mom is TV reporter)
• Family Ties (dad runs a PBS station)
• Lou Grant (newspaper editor)
• Mary Tyler Moore Show (TV station)
• Dick Van Dyke Show (TV comedy writers!!)

Maybe it’s the American public who thinks that their lives are so boring they’d rather yuck it up with people living a celebrity lifestyle.  But the true genius comes from shows like The Office, which takes a much more relatible story line and makes it hysterical!

I wanted to share with you a wonderful article written by Peter Panepento on his Global Erie site about my brother Angelo Natalie.

Peter and his mates have come out of the box with a bang since starting his blog network in the past month. Peter used to write the Inside Erie weekly e-mail blast and blog from the Erie Times News, but this summer he moved to DC to work for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. He continues to be passionate about the issues facing Erie and its future and gets the discussion going on Global Erie.

Part of the site is sharing profiles of former Erieites who are making a go of it in the rest of the world. They are looking for nominations, so I nominated my brother, who has a 35 year career in music and advertising. He is the first in their series.

Enjoy this with your coffee this weekend.

I’ve always hated overreactive headlines like the above, so let’s start by answering “no.” But in my analysis of the latest release of the Arbitron radio ratings for Erie, which can be found at Radio and Records, with some demographic rankers on Erie Media-Go-Round, I must say that there might be something to be said about “jukebox radio.”

It’s pretty impressive to see a station like BOB 94.7 knock off a perennial ratings powerhouse like Star 104 in its first book in 12+, 18-34, and 25-54. Now Erie is known for liking new things; I’ll never forget that first book in the late 1980’s that Jet-FM 102 creamed K-104 with 3000 watts vs. 50,000 (of course it had to be the TV spot I sold them!).  But the sheer Spartan approach to BOB’s programming is what has me shaking my head. Whimsical liner, three songs, liner, spots, liner, songs, repeat.

I am so old-school. My radio programming core values include:
1. You never go wrong playing the right music
2. Keep the playlist tight, while providing flavor every once in a while
3. Strong personalities who connect with their audience will make local radio win over satellite and I-pods
4. You need to provide services like local news, weather, etc.

The success of BOB-FM kind of blows those values to smithereens! If playing marginal songs, with no personalities, a whiney liner voice, and little services gets you multi-demo success, then I’m depressed. My only solace is that another value of mine, that other-media marketing drives cume is solidly confirmed with BOB and The Wolf.

I’m told that people like BOB because they play songs you don’t hear anymore. I guess that’s why I sometimes listen too. But there are a lot of dogs in that pile of songs, which over the long-run drive tuneout.  We’ll have to see what kind of legs BOB has for the marathon.

Two more insights: the total domination of Connoisseur Media over Citadel Communications has to have the latter reeling. Especially considering the freefall of Country 98 to the 5’s. Some major decisions will need to be made in the next month up on Robinson Road.

Finally, the decent showing of CHWO out of Ontario with their Nostalgia format shows what lengths that loyal audience will go for their Mathis and Streisand.  Too bad they have to leave town for it.

Today is Tuesday, and this afternoon a nice lady named Gail and her sharp-as-a-tack teenage daughter will make their way from their suburban south Erie County home to one of the poorest neighborhoods in inner-city Erie. Gail, her daughter and other volunteers maintain the clothes closet ministry at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, in the heart of Erie’s Little Italy. Most of the clothes the ladies unpack, sort and arrange come from donations from the congregation at McLane Church where they hold a massive clothing drive twice per year. The folks at McLane have been blessed to be a small part of the Holy Trinity story.

You see this clothes closet is just one piece of the amazing effort put out by the parishioners of Holy Trinity to the west-side community where the church resides. Some years ago, facing a changing neighborhood, the folks at Holy Trinity decided to engage their neighbors showing Jesus’ love.  So on a typical Tuesday, not only do less-fortunate people get to choose from some nice clothes from the suburbs, but they can get a hot dinner, a bag full of groceries from the Holy Trinity food pantry, and the kids have after-school programming and homework help. There are other nights for more hot meals and care for the children. On Sundays the church worships, with a vibrancy that reflects the reality that their efforts and their hearts touch the heart of God.

There is something to be learned from the ministry of Holy Trinity Lutheran and the countless other faith-based efforts serving the poor.  Often when we donate clothes, drop dollars in a kettle, or put soup cans out for the letter carrier we feel good about doing a good thing, as we should. But the power comes when we figure out that God’s heart is with the poor, hopeless and hurting. As we “do unto others, as we do unto Him,” we encounter the true “downward-mobility” of the kingdom of God. We will discover that we, with much materially, are the needy ones, and we receive so much as we serve them.

Ok, remind me. What was the number one economic development priority for the Erie region? Juice plant? Nope. Koehler project? Not-a. Parade Street grocery store…community college…convention center? No, no, and no. The agreed on number one priority for our region’s future since the turn of the century has been the runway expansion at the Erie International Airport. This is a project now ten years in process, without a parcel of land purchased or bulldozer scraping. Now there is a major conversation going on whether we can actually afford the local dollars needed to do the whole project, with estimates now hovering around $20 million. It looks like our political ADHD has put this unquestioned top priority in jeopardy.

According to reports, it’s said that a 920 feet addition is needed just to be legal with the FAA. Another 1000 feet is desired to allow heavier cargo planes and larger passenger jets to take off and land. Now since I’m an infrastructure guy I did a little poking around to see our Erie would stand with our larger market neighbors as far as runway length and what kinds of planes are we talking about.

Currently ERI Runway 6-24 is 6500 feet long. Add the 920 to be legal and we are at 7420, and with the total plan of 1920 we would stand at 8420 feet. In comparison:
Buffalo: 8827/7161
Cleveland: 9000/8999/7096
Pittsburgh: 11500/10502/9709
Youngstown: 9003
And for kicks, I looked up Memphis, home of the FedEx “SuperHub”: 11120/9320/9000

So what kinds of planes can takeoff at 7420 (takeoffs take more runway than landings)? According to a study done for San Diego’s airport, here are some of the jets we could handle at the safe length (100% max. takeoff weight):

• Embraer Emb 120
• ATR 42-500
• Airbus A320

Now if you add the other 1000, we start looking at:

• McDonnell-Douglas MD-81
• Airbus A300-600R

According to the San Diego study, a CRJ-200 needs 8800 feet, and we wouldn’t get into the range for Boeing 737’s or 757’s until over 10,000 feet. Of course, they are showing for highest payload and lowest engine thrust rating, reflecting the greatest potential distances.

With this analysis, I don’t see how we can settle for 7420; no airport that we compete with for passengers has a runway so short. While we were spending millions on old breweries and juice plants, we neglected a priority that should have been handled in the 1990’s, not the 2010’s. Find the money and get it done. 

There have been a few reports in the past couple weeks about Erie County Executive Mark DiVecchio’s desire to more forward on developing a community college for Erie County. He’s acting now in spite of an ongoing study being conducted that will not be completed until late October.  In true Carnac fashion, the CE says he already knows that the study will call for the development of a community college, and he just wants to be ready to go when it is released. He’s already picked out a location on prime real estate adjacent to Family First Sports Park in Summit Township, and he has his eye on a half-million dollars from the casino for “start-up costs.”

We’re talking about developing a brand-new educational institution here; we’re not baking cookies for this afternoon’s bake sale! What’s the rush? And why are we so sure that the dozen or so colleges, universities, business and technical schools we already have couldn’t handle this supposed lack of training that a few manufacturers are claiming? Are there underlying issues surrounding the disconnect between trained workers and open jobs?  It used to be that you were trained on the job as an apprentice before you became a master craftsman, but the decline of the unions has hurt that model. Could it be that today’s manufacturer is asking for high-skills without being willing to invest in training for those skills? Probably, but here’s a newsflash: I never hired an employee that I didn’t have to train, whether fresh out of college or years of experience. Perhaps there are some unreasonable expectations here on both the employer and potential employee side.

I won’t deny that our colleges are probably cranking out too many kids with degrees that keep them working in retail at the mall instead in their field. Perhaps more has to be done at the high school guidance level to encourage children into the trades: a welder most days will make much more money than a television broadcaster or even computer network manager in Erie. I’m just skeptical at the needs that right now seem anecdotal, and I’m suspicious at the rush to building and starting another program in the vein of CamTech and its predecessors.

If I’m wrong, I’d love to be set straight on this.