The Infinite Dial

Many years ago, veteran R&B programmer "The Mad Hatter" told me about a '70s promotion by WHYI (Y100) Miami that had particularly impressed him when he was across town at WRBD. He remembered Y100 telling listeners to come to the Fort Lauderdale airport right away for a chance to fly to New York with Elton John.

That actual promotion might have been apocryphal. The closest that veteran Miami programmer Bill Tanner remembers was Y100's "Party In The Sky," a live concert on an L-1011 with acts that weren't quite on the Elton level. (Probably the Andrea True Connection, he jokes.) But it was a great idea for a promotion anyway.

Which brings us to Cory Booker, mayor of a resurgent Newark, N.J. In recent months, Booker has become so active on Twitter that New Jersey's Star-Ledger has done a story on "The Mayor of Twitter." The topics of Mayor Booker's tweets range from cracking down on gang violence to needing coffee in the morning, but a few weeks ago, he used Twitter to notify local residents that they could come join him at a screening of "Star Trek" on the weekend it opened.

Two things stand out here. One is that Mayor Booker is effective with his tweeting in a way that many radio stations can only envy. And "spontaneously" joining your constituents at "Star Trek," while not quite flying to New York with Elton John, is still the kind of personal moment with a celebrity (and a few hundred other people) that radio ought to provide on a regular basis. But it also requires a level of promotional spontaneity -- and staffing -- that isn't available to many stations now.