Thank You - and a Video Blog

So Many Generous People! Our listener community, our Lounge Lizards in Exile, are amazing. If you think about it, we've been on the air for over 3 years and while we're growing, the lack of cash from marketing means the only way the word really gets out is word of mouth. Your mouth. The good news is, through your generosity, your enthusiasm, and your belief in MartiniInTheMorning.com, we ARE growing. So thank you!

Support. Actually, if it weren't for the generous support of MartiniInTheMorning.com listeners, we wouldn't be around at all. We have a few, mostly Friends and Family, investors. But the reality is, our only income is from you. We've had a trickle of ad revenue. But that's it. Someone asked me yesterday if the record companies, music publishers and even artists whose music we play and whose concerts we publicize, have participated in any way. The answer is a qualified, UMMMM. Everyone wishes us well, hopes we succeed, and loves it when we play their music and talk about their concerts. When it comes to moral support, our cup runneth over. When it comes to REAL SUPPORT, helping us with the rent, streaming costs, phone bills, dry cleaning (ha!) it's been YOU!

Yes, we've had tons of moral support. I offered our landlord and streaming vendors some moral support when the rent and bills were due, and they weren't amused. Don't get me wrong, we DO appreciate the moral support. But for us to provide the entertainment YOU expect, and the help the industry, this genre, needs to survive and even thrive, we have to really grow in 2010. That's going to take more than moral support.

Fewer and Fewer radio stations are playing the music of Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Dean Martin, Ella and other "Classic Cool" entertainers. Not that long ago, there were over 1000 stations playing the songs of George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hart, Jimmy Fields, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, all the great songwriters of the Great American Songbook. Today, some estimates suggest there are fewer than 300 broadcast stations in the US programming this music (even fewer making it FUN!).

That's what we're here for; to play The Greatest Songs Ever Written by classic artists like the ones mentioned above, and the Contemporary Cool performances of these great songs by artists like Michael Buble, Steve Tyrell, Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, Tony DeSare, Renee Olstead and other talented new artists joining their ranks every day. In 2010, with your help, we'll continue to grow, and we'll reach new heights. Our goal is to double the size of our current audience - FAST. If everyone listening to MartiniInTheMorning.com right now were to encourage two people to tune in, we'll achieve our goal. That allows us access to bigger advertisers, bigger ad budgets, and more opportunities to grow our listener community.

What we WON'T do is change our approach - we're a community made up of people who happen to live across the USA and around the world - brought together by a common affection for a kind of music and the lifestyle for which it is the soundtrack. We will always maintain the connection we've built, the regular contact with you, our friends, listeners. We will never become a boring jukebox (you can use your iPod for that!) or another radio station over-saturated with commercials - we'll limit our commercial load to 4 minutes per hour, unlike the 15-20 minutes currently the average on over the air radio stations. Additionally, over the next few weeks, we will increase the interaction we have with each member of our community.

You got us here. Together we'll take this to the next level in 20010. Oh hey, speaking of new stuff and taking it to the next level...I've been encouraged (over and over and over) to do a video blog. I never had a camera to do one - but The Accountants got one, I borrowed it, and before they take it back, here's my first video blog. I'll apologize in advance. Seasons Greetings, and thanks for being one of us!