Free Republic

A radio station that asked listeners to vote on whether two turkeys should be killed has been criticised by animal lovers - including Queen guitarist Dr Brian May. And the RSPCA has urged Jack FM to rethink the online vote on whether the turkeys should be cooked or kept alive. The RSPCA said it opposed any practice with the "potential to cause animals pain... in the name of entertainment". Currently, 62% of people have voted to save the turkeys, named Sage and Onion. The Oxfordshire station said if listeners voted to kill the pair in the "cook it or keep...

When big corporations have bad news to announce, they often hold off until as late as possible on a Friday afternoon. By burying the story over the weekend, they hope to minimize criticism from the press and outcry from the public. That no doubt figured into the timing of Infinity Broadcasting, which waited until 4 p.m. Friday to blow up two of its heritage oldies stations -- WJMK-FM (104.3) in Chicago and WCBS-FM in New York. With absolutely no warning, their popular and successful formats were replaced with a trendy pop/rock hybrid known as "Jack FM." Make no mistake about...

Recently, I've been writing commentaries about as often as a song repeats on the Jack format. As a matter of fact, more stations will switch to the new "flavor of the month" than records will be repeated. By the time you finish reading this column, another station will have probably switched to the "Jack" format. Brilliant. For months, I've been writing commentaries about the dangers facing radio from satellite, iPods and audience lethargy. I have been waiting for one of the great programming minds of our time to come up with the magic formula that will help save the medium....