Mark Ramsey is a radio consultant. Audio consultant, to be more specific. He has one of the hardest jobs I can imagine — telling radio people that they have to do things differently.
For the past 25 years or so, radio has been a stagnant industry, cruising along without much innovation to speak of. What passed for innovation in radio was inventing the “Jammin’ Oldies” format. Mark’s spent the past five or ten years grabbing the industry by the shoulders and giving it a good shake.
He mostly works in commercial radio, but recently Ramsey did a big study of public radio for PRI, and out of that study grew this remarkable keynote address at the Public Radio Program Directors’ conference last weekend here in LA.
I gave Mark some shit for largely ignoring the public service mission of public radio, which I can forgive since he’s a commercial radio guy… but other than that one point, he is 1000% dead on.
You can download Mark’s presentation here. Whether or not you’re in the public radio biz, it’s fascinating listening.