Making people talk with our own Digital Media

I wanted you to know that I don't just talk the talk, I walk the walk. The past few weeks by using 3 microphones a Yamaha mixer and an Iphone 4s to record, and doing it all in a conference room in downtown Charlotte, we have managed to shake up Charlotte and be on 3 major media outlets who covered our opinions about a podcast show we published.

You don't need a tower to be relevant by using the new digital technology.

We have been featured on www.QCitymetro.com, www.Charlotteboserver.com and the news talk outlet www.WBT.com in Charlotte WBT 1110am on the Keith Larson Show. Even one of my enemies in Charlotte came after me with his news blog called Qnotes.

We recorded a show on our former black Mayor Patrick Cannon who was caught in a bribery scheme earlier this year and will be sentenced next month. I said that I thought the black community had abandoned him and we recieved alot of community backlash for our opinion.

 Key words are..... our opinion. 

We have known Patrick since 1995, and how could we knowing all the good he has done, turn our back on him because of this mis-step in his judgement to take money. He said he was sorry and has repented. There has been utter silence from the black community and no one has to my knowledge publicly said Patrick we are with you brother. So we decided to say it.

 We were accused of trying to use this to boost our media, and I told them this is what I would be saying if I were on the radio any way.

Take a listen to the show where I used the word coward to describe the silence from black leadership and the community. Defense of former Mayor of Charlotte Patrick Cannon


What followed next are a series of articles and some attacks on Digital media.

http://www.qcitymetro.com/news/articles/charlotte_blacks_called_cowards_for_not_defending_patrick_cannon081854427.cfm

DJs accuse Charlotte black community of abandoning ...

Murphy and Richards Start Internet Show - Radio Ink ...

This guy has it in for me and came up with this crazy headline:
Charlotte DJ: NAACP funded by Jews, gay children result of ...

Charlotte radio duo B.J. Murphy and Keith Richards make a ...

Veteran Charlotte radio duo makes a comeback online

This all proves what I wrote about two articles ago...(We don't need a Tower anymore to broadcast)

Please share your thoughts and you get busy creating your own media too.

See this is not about me, this is about us!

GO CREATE AND SHAKE UP YOUR CITY AND THE WORLD!!

In a forthcoming article I will share what I am thinking about in changing my whole approach to streaming www.QC102.com and the Keith and BJ brand.

Also we put up www.KeithandBJ.com

How The Million Man March Changed Black Radio Forever

Where is my Black Radio?

What is black radio? Is it just music?

What makes a Black person relevant being on these precious sacred airwaves?

I humbly say to you that our Black Radio was taken from us, snatched away from us, thrown in a garbage pale and taken to the dumpster and shredded never to be heard from again. What you hear on the radio post 1996 is not real authentic black radio.

Yes we all know things must evolve and our business is one of constant change, but in this writers opinion this was a deliberate plot.

I have alot of silly friends who think that when I talk like this that I am bitter. It bothers me that they can't see that Black Radio has been punked. Black radio is the key to getting information to the black audience. It is a life line that has been cut.

The most recent saddest case was the way that the legendary WRKS 98.7 Kiss in New York was taken off the air in 2012 after 30 years of being a major Iconic symbol of great black radio.

I remember visiting the New York  offices of WBLS in August of 2007 talking with Deon Livingston and Vinny Brown, and Deon said, "with the PPM rating system, it will either be BLS or Kiss that goes away". Did it happen? Yes it did.


I was reflecting on On February 8, 1996, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.  While the Act had significant impact throughout the communications industry, the impact on broadcasters was profound, and is still being debated.  The Act made changes for broadcasters in several major areas:

• Lengthened license renewals to 8 years for both radio and TV, and eliminated the "comparative renewal"
• For radio, eliminated all national caps on the number of radio stations in which one party could have an attributable interest and increased to 8 stations the number one party could own in the largest radio markets.  

This was the Death nail! This is what alot of us did not see coming until we were deep into this thing.

So what does the Million Man March have to do with this? 

In 1995 the largest gathering of Black men in the history of America was held in Washington DC. The Million Man March. It was the greatest display of black men loving each other and caring for each other in a way that had never been expressed before in the history of America lead by The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan which posed a problem for the Government of the United States.

Black radio DJ's in every major city in America rallied our black men in cities across America to urge men to get on the bus and travel to Washington DC on October 16th to fall in love with each other and stop the killing in our cities and towns. It was the great beggining of our new future. Producing unity and love among us.

Again The Power of Black Radio was exsposed:

Then look at what happend the very next year in 1996. The power of Black Radio was exsposed for the last time and the people who are diametrically opposed to our rise went to work to make sure we could never come together like that again. If they start loving eachother we can't fill the prisons with them....

In that very next year in 1996, after the Million Man March, Bill Clinton is signing off on a bill that allows corporate radio to buy up  black stations all over this country in 1996. One year after our great mobilization effort in 1995 to rally black people in America. So you have to ask the question, was this a coincidence that it happened like this? Read what a US Senator said below:

STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON

    Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a prepared 
statement for the record, if I could have that entered. I will 
just make a couple of comments.
    The first is that the country is now on the eve of the most 
important set of communications decisions in years, and I think 
it is important to understand what is really at issue before 
the Federal Communications Commission. It seems to me what is 
being debated now is that the media conglomerates are saying, 
trust us, we do not need ownership rules to do what is right. 
They are saying this despite the fact that the radio changes 
that are along the lines of these FCC changes have produced a 
wave of fake localism.

Syndication floods black radio:

So in 1996, the syndicated Tom Joyner Morning show rolls out on black radio stations all accross the country replacing  morning men (leaders) in their respective cities and now they have been taken off the air. In the top major markets to small towns they disappeared from the radio. Now mind you this did not happen in White radio. In both formats Urban adult and hip hop they took the leaders off the air and made black people believe that the people that you use to listen were not good enough to talk to you anymore, so we will pipe in people from another city to tell you whats going on.

Now to Mr. Joyner's defense, I don't know if what I am saying has crossed his brilliant mind before. I love Tom, he is and will always be one of my radio heroes.

However, Tom Joyner's show was the catalyst to make syndication in black radio something we accepted as our lot in life. People in black radio would always say things are changing you have to accept it, this is the way it is. But you never asked why? I mean not a surface why, but the REAL why? Why is this happening to us? Why are the most creative people on the planet being taken off the radio? Why isn't the same thing happening to white radio?

 So from 1996 to 2008 was the heavy dismantling period with the Steve Harvey show and others added to the mix during that time. I just thought of this the other day and it hit me and it was so clear to me. 

Some of you may disagree with me, but it is worth taking a look at. I am talking about the timeline of events and why things are the way they are with us right now.

Today you hardly know what the hell is gloing on in your city or town. Radio has been watered down and homoginized so much you could hook up a computer in the program directors bedroom and let it run...lol.

When the dissenting voices were silenced our Black communities got silenced. You could not call into the morning show anymore and talk about the shooting in your community or the hot school board race or the racist comment the Mayor said at the city council meeting that offended the community. We lost our ability to organize. 

They even brainwashed us to think that black people don't care about the news, just play music. Black people don't care about whats going on in the world unless you are talking about a stupid episode of Atlanta housewives and the program director say's "yeah now thats what I'm talking about, good show".

 You can't rally the troops any more because the SOUL of Black Radio was taken away when the voices were exiled to find work at the home depot or the Sears men's department  because YOUR Beloved Morning Man was assasinated by an FCC plot that was hatched after the Million Man March. You can take it or let it alone, but you have to look at this as not being a coincidence. Not at all.

Who Can  talk to the youth of Ferguson today on the radio?

TODAY CORPORATE CONTROLLED BLACK RADIO IS COMPLICIT IN THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR YOUTH. WE ARE SINGLE HANDIDLY LEADING THEM TO THE SLAUGHTER WITH A DEATH STYLE PROGRAMMING PHILOSOPHY.

Black Radio has abandonded the poor and the weak in our communities. We are suffering unspeakable horror in the hood, in the schools and that brother or sister that use to be on the radio that really cared is gone now.

Look I don't know if you who are reading this agree with me or not, but I have to say it because time is at hand, and more of the same like you saw in Ferguson is coming. What role is so called Black radio going to play in the future?

I say the only way you can do it now is by creating our own media. We must use the digital technology in which we are the number one consumers of, and reach back out to our people.

We can do this!

DON'T GIVE UP!

WE MUST BRING BACK BLACK RADIO ON THE DIGITAL.....THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE ON FM!

Let me know what you think? Let's get back in the fight!!     Leave a comment:

What Do We Need A Tower And Transmitter For?

 This statement keeps coming up.......

What do we need a tower and transmitter for?

Well this is certainly not to say that terrestrial radio is done, however it does mean that there are a 100 new ways to communicate with your fan base and create a new one. Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace is the man that liberated the media with this new technology. A content delivery system with supreme quality in a smart phone. All we have in front of us is unlimited possibilities. What is the difference in having 200,000 to 400,000 thousand people consuming your media in your community that you created just like you did with your radio show?  You did it for corporate media didn't you?  (I will write on that soon)

Question....If you did it for a radio station, don't you know how to do it for yourself? Sure you do! Same principles but being delivered on several platforms and delivery systems. Everything we have mastered in terrestrial,you must now transfer it to digital! That's all!

You are a human being who uses a computer to communicate with people, on whatever digital device they may use.

Well BJ it takes too long and I need a pay check now! Yes we do!!!

Do you beleive you can do it? How long is it going to take? Oh I don't know. But I do know this. 

It has got to get done!

 It may take a minute but you have to do it, but only if you desire to keep doing what you love. I love radio. I am not going to let anyone stop me from using the gift that God gave to me. These companies did not start your career in radio and don't you punk out either if they say, well we don't need you any more, get the hell out of my station! Only you can decide when its really over. You feel me? I hope so! I want to hear you shine again, but in New World of Media which is coming in with or without us.

I had a radio consultant friend who said to me the other day "BJ believe it or not you are in front of the curve". I said really? I feel like I am 7 years behind because I was working at Clear Channel Chicago in 2006 when they told us that some of our bonus structure would be based off internet hits directed to our personality pages. Some of us did not know what was really going on or why we were mandated to do this. Hell at the time Elroy Smith changed the station to V103.com for a month or two, but I did not really see it. Now that our eyes have been opened let's run to it!

Here are some notes I took when I attended Jerry Del Colliano's very first New Media Seminar in Arizona in 2010....I did not alter any of the notes. Let's see if any of his predictions came to pass and are we doing any of these things to prepare for the future.......*At that time Donnie Simpson was making a transition out of WPGC 95.5 in Washington and we were talking weekly up until his exit. Me and his son attended this event together so may see his name referenced a few times in my notes.

1/28/2010 2010 Media Solutions Lab

We have to be more like Steve Jobs…Find new ways to do things

Upcoming Trends

Advertisers go straight to consumers. Go directly to consumers

Apple apps will drive commerce (DJ Idea Donnie Simpson App)

Go into publishing. Run it like a real radio station

2010 begins the decade of mobile media

If you want to fix radio right now, make it 10 times more local than it is right now.

End of traditional advertising is coming

This generation wants everything for free

Take your brand and make it better

*Live reads by somebody they trust (Donnie)

Fans will patronize your advertisers…. We have not looked at P1’s as humans. They are not Avatars or aliens these are fans.

A transition will be made from free to paid on the internet. We can’t have a free Internet. Change your view about social networking. Twitter, Facebook is an avenue to social networking.

Broadcasting is no longer needed

Sociology will become more important than technology

Attention span will be new litmus test for new generation

We want what we want when we want it

Social networking will move beyond Facebook and twitter

Radio was the original social network. It got people together

The new talk radio is texting

Content on demand

Get right into your content your content like Larry King does his interview

We are in the mobile content business (not radio). Do it yourself advertising

(Podcasting will be the new radio) You can’t do enough podcasting. You don’t need a tower and transmitter

You want to be in local media. Don’t compete with Pandora and Itunes

Radio has 5 to 10 years left as an audio–only medium

What do we need a tower and transmitter for?

(Webcasting)

Transition your brand. Radio has brands that matter. Brands that meant something to people.

The I-Pad is re-inventing radio.

Consumers expect to hear it, see it and read it. All three when they want it. There are a number of businesses that could be built.

Re-inventing radio

What the I Pad does?

Look at fans and not the numbers. Fans drive community support

The delivery systems have changed and we want to be there.

Study Apple

Whenever there is no funding start something

Build for next generation. Look at next generation.

People have embraced mobile technology. We all have shorter attention spans. Think differently/ Challenge traditional thinking. Know what customers want

Avoid over exposure. Understand technology and sociology

Don’t confuse ppm with fans

Cars are mobile centers

Podcasting is not radio…sync all the senses. Audio and Video. Audio and visual.

Build a radio station that would defy new media. What would it be like? When you have a meeting, have an action plan

I Want My Radio Career Back!

When I quit my radio career back in 2007 when I left Clear Channel Chicago, I walked away from 20 years of struggling to become a great morning personality. I was in Chicago doing overnights on
 V-103 and I did not see myself going anywhere. When I resigned in August of 2007 later in that same week, how was I to know that my mother would be diagnosed with Ovarian cancer. I rushed to be with her back in my home state of North Carolina to be by her side until 2009 when she passed away.

I know it was divine intervention that allowed me to be available to serve my mother in her time of need. So that was not an accident, it was a voice that told me to just go home, so I resigned not knowing. I think it was a Wednesday that I left and it was Saturday when I got the call about her illness. I can't take credit for that kind of insight.

I dibbled and dabbled doing part time stuff, but never on the level I am use to. Also no income. I was living in the house I grew up in, in small town USA.

In 2010 I moved back to Charlotte to work at an independent and spent 3 years at WGIV where I learned to grasp the concept of being a radio entrepenuer. I went to Greensboro in September of 2013 to do Afternoons on WQMG and quit April 30th 2014 cause it did not work for me.

But what I wanted to tell you is that recently I had a conversation with a former top record executive that has been checking out my new media projects (https://soundcloud.com/the-bj-murphy-show/keith-and-bj-show-september-9th-2014) online and  said BJ, "You've got to go back and finish it". Don't let your ego get in the way of you accomplishing your goals. Humble yourself! You and Keith are too good to be on the side lines.

From that conversation, I knew it was time for me to go to work and make my way back to doing the thing that I love doing. Communicating on the radio without boundaries.

You know so many of us have gotten our feelings hurt in the media business because when you get called to the office and they say, "hey we are making a change and you are no longer needed"...it hurts. Sometimes it is the way it is done, that takes some people a long time to get over. Some are more resilliant and bounce right back.

I will admit, I was wandering in the wilderness. "I lost myself"!

But now I am back everybody!

 This is a greater, bolder, more courageous BJ Murphy and I want you to feel inspired by my new found light that was turned on this week!

Never stop believing in yourself. If it is going to happen, you are going be the one to see it through.

I believe in myself again.....So as it was in 1984 when I first cracked the mic at Shaw University in Raleigh NC, so shall it be 30 years later in 2014, when we must begin again to dream and fulfill our destiny in life. I am excited because there are so many possibilities for all of us who are creative people.