Quotes from George Johns and Others.
When your an air talent the thing to do is reinvent yourself, become someone most people generally like. You know, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Clint Eastwood, those kinds of people. Why be yourself if you can become even more special and precious.
I think talent needs to be greedier, if you want more you become more. That’s why it is really important to chase what you want not what you need.
Everything is in a state of destruction. Creativity is the only thing I know of, that is the opposite of all that.
If you want to be the biggest thing ever on the radio you must become what it takes to be that. Hey we all saw Caddy Shack didn’t we.
You are who you act like.
A radio station needs a good strategy long before it needs promotion tactics.
Out of the box thinking is what all the creative giants use. Unfortunately the instructions on how to get out of the box are written on the outside of the top lid.
The radio station with the best staff seems to always win.
I still hate the word NO! In fact I am desperately looking for a person who is wearing a T shirt that reads; The Answer Is YES, What’s The Question ?
Now if worn by a beautiful woman … I agree, that is asking for too much.
Tom Feltenstein told me you gotta fire all the turkeys and hire nothing but eagles.
In a creative war it’s your staff against their staff. Not your boss against their boss.
As an air talent when you look around at life and see exactly what your listeners see, than you need to be a listener not an on air talent.
Jim Hilliard told me that a bad plan is a lot better than no plan at all.
A small organized staff can always beat an unorganized staff ten times it’s size.
It is impossible for one person to get the ratings by themselves, they must get the assistance of others, which is no small task in it’s self.
The only way you can get listeners is to be one.
The ability to stay focused on all the important things that help you win, is the beginning of superior intelligence.
I always loved it when a good air talent played me a great bit they did on their show, rather than tell me about it.
The more you care about your listeners the bigger community you all live in.
Have you ever noticed in a department store the perfume counter is first, that’s because they are selling hope. I think a radio station also should supply it’s listeners with hope first.
The great thing about radio is you can take the smallest thing and blow it all out of proportion. Just like when Ron Chapman at KVIL in Dallas asked his listeners to send him $20. He didn’t tell them why or what the money was going to be used for.
In two days he got Two Hundred and Forty Three Thousand dollars and had to beg the listeners to stop sending him the money.
Ron ended up on the cover of People Magazine, The Today Show, not to mention all the local media.
Trying to figure out on air what to do with the money combined with all the publicity, gave Ron his biggest rating book ever.
I have always said to air talent that they shouldn’t open the mic if they don’t know the end of what they are about to start.
I would prefer they just roll another tune because as Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where your going you might end up someplace else.
90 percent of what and how you say things wins the mornings so you should only spend 10% of your time on the other things, what ever that may be.
The thing I love the most about advertising is it kills bad products.
I like Billboard advertising for radio stations the most because of two things. One they make the radio station and/or it’s personalities bigger than life. Two, your potential clients see them as they drive to their business location so when your sales rep shows up, for some reason which they cant remember they have heard of you. You need gigantic ratings if your ever going to sell anything to a client that has never heard of you.
Bob Vistotcky told me that when he launched highly successful Jammin’ Oldies in LA a few years ago the project almost never got off the ground because the powers that be wanted to call it something else. Bob pleaded with them that Jammin’ Oldies is what we do guys!
Why do all the new laws they pass always seem to benefit all the people I don’t hang out with.
When Scott Shannon created Pirate Radio a few years ago my brother Reg and I heard it as we were driving from San Diego to Vegas for some radio convention. Man the station was great, the music was all over the place and we were singing along with most of the tunes. As I think back about it Pirate was the original Jack format and I loved it.
But then someone must of talked Scott into going with the researched music and that was the end of that. Damn!
I left Canada in the 70′s and with time going by so quickly now and starting to pick up speed I am researching all the pension plans to see what they pay.
In Canada old age pension pays $12,144.00 a year but if your status is Refugee you get $28,920.00 a year.
So I think what I am going to do is when my Social Security kicks in here, I am going to apply for a Canada pension as a Refugee from America.
With what’s left of my IRA and both those pensions I think I’m going to be in hog heaven, and might even get meaner.
Tom Watson told me that the reason Jammin’ Oldies didn’t have a longer shelf life was because they couldn’t freshen the music. Nobody was making new Jammin Oldies I guess.
MORE @ georgejohns.com
