Winners and Losers

Robert Feder at the Sun-Times continues to watch the story of Q101's latest reincarnation. It seems like there's a bit of a backlash within the industry, questioning whether the iPod iconography is self-defeating, in that it's promoting the very device that's contributing to radio's current problems.

Once again, though, the key to Feder's coverage is Mancow Muller, and his conspicuous absence from the campaign. Muller was predictably derisive in his comments, saying "I'm trying to talk them into sending XM and Sirius Satellite radios to everyone," allegedly with an evil laugh.

I don't think the point is to promote iPods and MP3 players. I don't even know if that could be an unintended consequence. There's more than enough media player advertising for that already. But if you don't have one yet, or you don't bring it with you in your car or when you're exercising or wherever, it still makes sense to me to portray yourself in a similar light so you look better as an alternative. The other approach is to somehow make the case that you're better than an iPod, and with 200 songs and a talentless Howard Stern clone, that's categorically not going to work.

What I find curious about this course correction is how it necessarily paints the "old" Q101 as really, really crappy. Mancow was a big part of the previous model, too, which has to account for a lot of this tension even if he isn't on the chopping block.