Imus Debuts on WABC-AM December 3, 2007

Listeners Assured Nothing Has Changed

With his usually tongue-in-cheek and angry edge, Don Imus assured listeners that nothing about his new show on WABC-AM in New York City will be different. He added that “Dick Cheney is still a war criminal, Hillary Clinton is still Satan and I am back on the radio!” to the cheers and applause of a sold-out audience who paid $100 each to attend the maiden broadcast live at NYC’s Town Hall.

Imus also quipped that he signed a five-year contract with Citadel Broadcasting because “it is going to take me five years alone to get even with everybody.”

The Imus program was syndicated to a number of other stations around the country and more, including other Citadel stations, are likely to sign up. The program was also simulcast on cable by RFD-TV, owned by Rural Media Group, Inc, that reaches almost 30 million homes. RFD-TV hopes Imus will get their subscriber base up to 50 million homes in the next two years.

Imus seemed genuinely contrite about the events that led to his termination. He recounted his meeting with the Rutgers’ team for the first time and made his first public comments about his removal from the airwaves on April 12 by CBS Radio. While his comments are unlikely to appease his critics, Imus seemed far more concerned with offering another apology and making his case to his loyal fans. He also added that the whole mess was his own fault. When talking about his anger and frustration over the last eight months, he said, “I would remind myself that if I hadn’t said what I said, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

Consistency on the Ice and in the Classroom April 22, 2007

The Classroom, Corporate Culture and The NHL

One might wonder what the connection is between ice hockey, Corporate America and the classroom, other than the fact that this teacher and his wife (also a teacher) are die-hard season ticket holders for the New York Rangers. And no, this article has nothing to do with my wife’s utter fascination with the “caboose” of Henrik Lundqvist, the Rangers’ phenomenal goalie. However, today’s lesson is about a word that has been lost in this modern day of makeovers and media spin.

What is consistency? How does it apply in the NHL?

Today’s word is consistency. According to the folks at dictionary.com, consistency is “steadfast adherence to the same principles, course, form, etc.: There is consistency in his pattern of behavior. Unfortunately, the lessons from the National Hockey League have to do with the performance of the referees. For those of you not familiar with the NHL, new rules were instituted at the beginning of the 2005 – 2006 season. The new rules required refs to call a two-minute penalty for ALL “obstruction” fouls with zero tolerance – holding, hooking, interference, illegal picks and goalie interference – whereas such fouls in the past were only called when the infraction was highly obvious or prevented a scoring chance.