Just saying “no”

The other day I was listening to Don Imus on a radio station, and the local commercial was for an ad for “specialty glassware” for BLEEP (giggle) from a head shop in town.  I found this particularly disturbing given Don Imus had a history of drug and alcohol abuse, and his fight to stay sober.  Talk about a mixed message.

So I created a poll asking you what you would do if you were a sales person at a radio station and were approached by this advertiser.  The most popular answer (probably us up-tight right wing wackos) was to tell them “no” and hang up the phone.   However, a substantial number of people gave the answers to rationalize why they would not say “no”.   My assumption is many of those are the people who work in radio sales :)

Now to the point – I read today that Lew Dickey, the head guy at Cumulus is putting the word out that radio needs to learn to say “no” to advertisers.    He may just be saying he won’t sell his ad inventory slots cheap, but maybe we can dream that Cumulus would take the lead in recognizing that their choices affect the quality of life of their communities and the prospects for the future for the country.