The Great Lakes Broadcasting Conference & Expo (GLBC) Offers an Outstanding Speaker Line-up! Make Plans to Attend Today!
Make plans today to invest in yourself, in your career and in your future by attending the MAB’s 2008 Great Lakes Broadcasting Conference & Expo (GLBC), March 10 and 11 at the DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids.

As a broadcast professional, we know you are always looking for that extra competitive edge. GLBC offers an opportunity to sharpen your skills and network with other industry leaders to stay on top of your game.

You can’t afford to miss the great sessions offered with an outstanding speaker line-up at such a great value. Business has changed and employers look to those who take the initiative to increase their own net worth as future leaders. It is no longer enough to just do a good job. You must stay up to date on the latest business practices to make yourself more attractive to your current employer and future ones. Continuing education should be part of your “pink slip” prevention plan.

Don’t miss GLBC 2008 in Grand Rapids. It is all new and improved for you at the DeVos Place. This location is a little farther to drive for some of you, we know, but GLBC schedule is arranged so that you can attend for just one day and avoid an overnight stay. GLBC 2008 is worth the trip. Register today online at www.michmab.com.

GLBC 2008 Speaker Commentaries:
Are You Ready For This? HD is Here!
By Katherine Carey, Frank N. Magid Associates
Local news stations are bustling with the excitement of new lighting, cameras, set-designers, and, various production-specialists, in preparation for the launch of HD.
download pdf

Video Preview: The Million Dollar Rep
By Michael Guld, Guld Resource Group

Advertising Budgets Were Made to be Broken
By Michael Guld, Guld Resource Group
While most small business owners set advertising budgets as a part of their overall budgets, these budgets are likely to be more flexible than those of national corporations.
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Use Golden Handcuffs to Retain Top Staff
By Michael Guld, Guld Resource Group
"Recruitment is our number one priority!” goes the radio-world mantra, and although continual recruitment of talent should be a top priority — even when there are no immediate openings — it should still be considered priority number two. At the top of the list should be employee retention.
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Video Preview: Steve Julin Workshops
During this year's GLBC, Apple and Avid certified instructor Steve Julin will present two workshops: “60 Tips in 60 Minutes (Final Cut Pro)” and "Final Cut Pro for Avid Editors".

Digital Day at the Capitol to Take Place February 20
After months of planning and preparation, Michigan Broadcasters are ready to take the wraps off a year-long campaign to educate and help citizens through the digital television transition.

Digital Day at the Capitol on February 20, 2008 launches an intense countdown to February 17, 2009 when analog television signals stop and full-power television stations across the country meet the big digital deadline.

“Digital Day” includes a news conference, luncheon, “Digital 101 for Lawmakers” classes taught by MAB Technology Director Larry Estlack, and our annual Legislative Reception, scheduled from 4-7 at Troppo in downtown Lansing.

Hall of Fame Broadcaster Ernie Harwell will join Senator Bill Hardiman and Representative George Cushingberry for the news conference, which also features Mike Cox, Attorney General for the State of Michigan; Janet Olszewski, director of the Michigan Department of Community Health; James Crisp, Executive Director of the Michigan Community Action Agency Association; and several other partners in the MAB campaign.

The NAB’s DTV Road Show truck and display are scheduled for the event. The truck, which resembles a large TV on wheels, will be parked in front of the Capitol for the day.

Between 7:58 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., virtually every television station in Michigan will participate in a “roadblock” and air a 60-second message about the digital transition. A series of shorter messages featuring Ernie Harwell will urge Michigan citizens to “get in the game” and learn more about the transition.

MAB is working with several partners to spread the word and, for some, to provide assistance with in-home visits and installation of digital-to-analog converters.

It’s a big assignment. Research indicates that as many as 1.5 million citizens in Michigan rely exclusively on free, over-the-air television, and many of them are poor, elderly or disabled, and in need of extra information or help. Part of the MAB program is the “Neighbor to Neighbor” initiative that encourages citizens to help their friends, neighbors and family members who need assistance.

We appreciate the support of broadcasters—television and radio—and our stakeholder partners who are making this statewide campaign possible. Stay tuned.


Hall of Fame Broadcaster Ernie Harwell on the Digital Transition.

“The transition to digital television is of vital importance to every citizen in Michigan. As a senior citizen myself, I am particularly aware of the important role that television plays in the lives of my fellow seniors. Television is a lifeline to the community for many and we must ensure that television service continues to go into every home in Michigan.”

Ernie Harwell
Hall of Fame Broadcaster

D.R.A.G. Board of Directors

The 2008 Detroit Radio Advertising Group (D.R.A.G.) board of directors posed for this photo at the organization’s recent holiday luncheon. Seated, left to right: Peter Kowalski, WWJ; Til Levesque, Clear Channel Radio; D.R.A.G. President Bill Burton; Christy Torgler, Christal Radio; Jeff Luckoff, WJLB/WMXD. Standing, left to right: Josh Nash, Total Traffic; Michelle Blevins, CBS Radio; Debbie Kenyon, WYCD/WVMV; Mark Fritz, Westwood One; Nancy Dymond, Radio One; Allyson Hillman, WKQI; Mike Koehler, CHUM Radio; Jack Saindon, Katz Radio; Scott Kunnath, WDVD/WDRQ.

Former FCC Chairman Calls Localism Broadcasters’ ‘Lifeblood’
Former broadcaster and former Federal Communications Commission chairman and commissioner James Quello defended the Industry and took aim at public-interest groups Thursday.

Quello – who keeps his hand in as an industry consultant at the age of 90-plus – was responding to the broadcast-localism issue that bubbled up in Washington Oct. 32 during an FCC hearing, including calls for tougher and more quantifiable public-interest standards.

“Government mandating localism for broadcasters is like government mandating breathing for human beings,” he told B&C.

“Localism is the very lifeblood of broadcasting. Everyone should realize that not only the success of broadcasters, but their very survival, relies on serving and attracting their local audiences as measure by impartial public audience-rating services.”

The National Association of Broadcasters’ Marcellus Alexander made a similar point during the hearing, saying that it was in the broadcasters’ financial as well as civic interest to serve communities of viewers who could turn the channel or turn to other media.

“In the case of networks or station groups,” Quello said, “survival relies on attracting an essential national gross number of measured local audiences.”

While groups like Free Press, the Consumer Federation of America and Media Access Project have been highly critical of the effects of consolidation on localism, from the dearth of minority ownership to the quality of local news, Quello argued: “It should also be noted that even well-meaning professional public-interest activists do not represent the overall public interest. They represent their own private version of the public interest, which they have a constitutional right to do. Sometimes they provide useful programming proposals and sometimes they urge excessive, unconstitutional government mandates or controls to further their own private-interest agenda.”

It’s been relatively quiet in Michigan but Washington, D.C. is another story.
Lawmakers in Lansing are positioning for budget battles, but are pledging a more civil discussion than what we witnessed last year. The new Michigan Business Tax hasn’t been in effect long enough to reveal the inevitable hitches and flaws that are bound to surface. And the Governor’s recent State of the State Address didn’t contain any blockbusters.

In Washington, though, the Federal Communications Commission is managing round after round of the spectrum auction, with the aggregated bids topping $20 billion in recent days. Activity has been waning, with fewer bids and bidders as the open-ended auction progresses, so we expect an end sometime soon.

At a U.S. House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet hearing on Feb. 13 the Q&A covered several issues, including the digital television transition and spectrum auction, but the emerging issue was how low power television stations and translators would fare after the transition.

A representative of the Community Broadcasters Association testified that viewers of these stations could be confused by the massive DTV awareness campaign, and that just a handful of the new digital-to-analog converters on their way to stores would be able to tune in or pass through the LPTV and translators’ analog signals.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has asked full-power broadcasters to help create greater awareness of the issue, but also suggested that full-power broadcasters could use their extra digital channels to carry signals from LPTV stations. He also asked converter manufacturers to alter their designs to accommodate analog signals in the new digital tuners. Broadcasters and manufacturers are still contemplating their response.

And finally, the second round of testing for a “white space” device ended with another miserable failure of a prototype. Microsoft officials who supplied the device were unable to explain why the unit failed; the NAB was quick to note that if a single prototype could not be deployed successfully, it would be unwise to unleash millions of these new devices that could interfere with digital television signals and receivers.