Dennis Thompson
Y2K, plus 15, and counting–all is well. Well, maybe not all that well. Last week a small drone crashed onto the White House lawn. One of those ‘quad copters’ that you can buy at Radio Shack. If you can find a Radio Shack. Look for their bankruptcy filing in a Wall Street Journal near you. I was cleaning out some closets the other day and found many Radio Shack gadgets (more than I would like to admit here) in various boxes. Most probably purchased 20 years ago from their ‘special discount’ bin. Back when Radio Shack was fun. Back when a lot of things in our industry were fun, twenty years ago. Maybe none of this was ever fun, but it seems like fun now compared to the, fun du jour.
The FCC is standing fast in enforcing the fines against ESPN/Disney and Viacom for airing commercials containing unauthorized EAS tones. The NAL stands at 1.4 million between the two and it appears the FCC is going to slap a Univision FM in New York for 20K for similar EAS tone violations. The FCC appears to be paying attention to non-English programming as well. With fewer ‘live’ operators and more automation of commercial and promotional content how are stations now QC-ing the content? This might make an interesting discussion in an upcoming meeting.
A reminder to current SBE members that membership renewal forms are being sent out in February. You can renew, using either the quick and easy online form at the SBE website, or the paper form at the bottom of the letter you receive. Be sure to update the demographic section when you renew and sign up to get a free, sbe.org forwarding email address. April 1 is the membership renewal deadline.
Thursday night January 29th at 7PM is the SBE66 Meeting/Pizza Bash/Italian Dinner hosted by your local Central Valley SBE (that’s us). If it’s been a few years, or never, since you’ve attended one, think about coming out and saying hello. There’s a lot of fun to be had on Pollasky Avenue on a Thursday night. It sure beats going through the old Radio Shack gadgets and removing the corroding batteries. Hope to see you there.
