Can Netflix become HBO before HBO becomes Netflix? And… Can Radio survive without passion? Plus, rants and raves on Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House,” the demise of SEARS, and more. It’s episode 88 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! Click the play button below: And if you’re reading this by email, click here for the audio. Sample and subscribe to Media Unplugged a

If you were to survey most folks in the podcast space, they’d tell you that the primary problem they face is surfacing their content: Discovery. That, of course, is the natural perception you’d expect to find among people with too-small audiences who can’t reconcile the size of their audience with the scale of the always-on, worldwide distribution provided by the Internet. My show is available everywhere and all-the-time! So what’s the problem? Well, let’s assume the problem

The diminishing returns of online advertising. And… Innovation lessons from the Grateful Dead. Plus, rants and raves about the mixed reaction to Lyft’s new “Taco mode,” the easy way to win with Snapchat – assuming you’re HBO’s Game of Thrones, and the “dark side” of Influencers: Douchebags. It’s episode 68 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! Click the play button below:

Everyone’s abuzz about podcasting! Well, kind of. Maybe not everyone. You’ve probably seen the 2016 stats: According to Edison, 21% of Americans ages 12 and up have listened to a podcast in the past month. That’s followed by this spin on trends: “That is up from 17% in 2015. Monthly podcast listenership has increased 75% since 2013.” Everyone deserves a high-five, right? Those numbers are huge! But wait a minute. I think folks in the audio space are missing the bigger story:

Look out! America’s most popular apps will reshape media! And… Was media’s “crisis of proliferation” predicted…back in 1976? It’s episode 28 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Plus, the “Happy Birthday paradox” and HBO’s Westworld nudity PR stunt. Brand authority Tom Asacker and Media Strategist Mark Ramsey go inside what’s really happening in media. Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! Click the play but

The secret to marketing movies like brands. And… Will Vessel crush YouTube? It’s episode 18 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Plus, rants and raves on what a Vine superstar has in common with one of the Staples Singers, faulty statistics in determining that millennials are flooding back into movie theaters, Ben Affleck’s Slave-gate coverup, and a great co-promotion between HBO’s Game of Thrones and UBER. Listen as we go i

Jay Z’s new streaming service Tidal is in for a tsunami of doom! And… Auto dealers say Facebook doesn’t sell cars. Really? It’s episode 17 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Plus, rants and raves on Madonna’s Meerkat fiasco, Selena back on tour – twenty years after her death, HBO REALLY wants your money, and why are “No Kardashian Parking” signs all over LA? Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! Click the

Lots of people have been talking about the phenomenon of This American Life’s Serial podcast and what it has meant to the booming ecosystem of on-demand audio. But there’s more to the story. There’s something nobody’s talking about. And that’s how Serial demonstrated with great clarity how to disrupt public radio. Now I’m not making a value judgment here. Disruption is neither good, nor bad. It just is. And if you’re a content-maker, disruption of traditional content/distribu

We have about two thousand listens to the new twice-monthly podcast I produce with branding strategist Tom Asacker. It’s called Media Unplugged. Have you listened yet? This week Tom and I ask whether the Internet is disrupting the TV industry or – after decisions by HBO and CBS to provide streaming-only subscription services – is Big Media eating the Internet? We think so! Then, is Pinterest the coming ad colossus that could dwarf Twitter and Facebook? There are lots of good

There’s a lot any radio brand can learn from watching TV, especially good TV. Take Game of Thrones, for example. Almost 7 million viewers watched last Sunday night, topping the series’ previous viewing record. There are at least 6 lessons for radio brands from Game of Thrones: 1. Build for Quality Yes, talent is expensive. Yes, great talent is greatly expensive. But nothing great happens without great source material and talented custodians of that material. At any point we h

The rule most broadcasters use in framing their mobile app (if they’re wise enough to have one) is: Does this app offer up a stream of the station? Does it throw in some podcasts and some blogs and even some social media feeds? All of that’s fine – as far as it goes. But does it go far enough? When you ponder a mobile platform for a station that can already be experienced on every mobile platform on every highway in your market (i.e., the “car”), you have to ask this question

One of radio’s biggest problems is that our industry has a tendency to imagine itself inside a bubble. A bubble where the best practices emerge from the broadcaster across the street or across the country rather than from a different medium altogether or the entrepreneur slaving away in his or her garage, powered by a non-stop supply of Red Bulls. The problem with “bubble” thinking is that when what you do is re-imagined, it’s rarely re-imagined by your direct competitor.  In