Straight talk from Fig.

Bill Figenshu, radio executive and consultant, is becoming radio's Dutch Uncle. His FigFamilyNewsletters, sent to his growing industry mailing list and posted on his company Web site, never shrink from telling Marconi radio people the plain truth they don't particularly want to hear. Last week, he sent the industry a suggested "letter to Santa." He says he's going to post it on the site soon, so I'll only quote a paragraph here, as my "What he said" endorsement.

...Santa, can you bring all the families in North America an HD radio? We sure could use a bunch for 2006. If you can get them into stores for under $500 that would be good too! We are spending a friggin fortune on new transmitters, but, there is really nothing in the programming cupboard to put on these radios yet. Our programming guy, tiny Tim is working on something to put on HD, but he's so busy with the other four stations, he can't have the time. We're working on getting him help, but this guy in NY, (you may hear from him, he's running for Governor next year, my guess he'll ask you for a win on election day.) is telling us what we can and can't do. I think he's getting a bit bossy myself. Plus he's telling the FCC EVERYTHING! Jeez, what a tattle tale. Just because a few dumb asses took a TV & a trip, we all now have to be careful about everything. I'm scared to even listen to music anymore. (Santa, don't bring the lawyers anything this year. With payola, indecency, and EEO going for them, they have enough money.)