Interesting Times

For example..

1. A fast-growing ownership group learned yesterday from Miller-Kaplan that they have gone - in just four years - from buying a market's lowest-billing cluster to becoming that city's top-biller in 2011, but still had to work with their lenders to enter bankruptcy because they had the bad timing to have purchased the stations the year before the financial crash of '08.

Going from worst to first in revenues was still not enough to pay the bankers, who - thankfully - cooperated in the restructuring.

2. A longtime major market programmer and air talent who went into music promotion a few years ago lost his job this week when his label owners eliminated their entire promotion staff.

I told him about an on air position with a great company that just opened, but he declined my offer of a recommendation, preferring to continue to pursue work in the record business.

At least he knows where his passion lives and when times are tough, that's the name of the game.

3. Toby Keith's "Red Solo Cup" has sold 1,023,617 digital tracks since its release (ranking #1 again in sales), as almost every single track on this week's digital downloads chart is down roughly 40% from the previous sales week.

Given the state of the economy, I guess we all could use a drink and a good laugh.