Imagine that you had a friend who wanted to start a lemonade stand. 

"Hi.  I'm a record company and/or musician without radio support."

She asked you if you could help her grow her lemonade business.  She would take care of paying for the raw materials and the production of the lemonade.  All she wanted you to do was advertise this business.  She couldn't pay you for the advertising, but in exchange, would allow you to have lemonade whenever you wanted it.

You, being the kind hearted lemonade-loving soul that you are, agreed to help.

Time passes and thanks to your incredible ability to reach the ears of thousands of customers, your friend ends up selling A LOT of lemonade.  Thanks to this incredible growth, your friend is able to improve her lemonade stand in order to serve more lemonade to more customers.

"Hi.  I'm a record company and/or musician with radio support."

You're doing pretty good too.  Word of your excellent advertising abilities got out and now more people want to use your services to market their products.  Life is good and you're still getting free lemonade.

However, like the rappers say, "Mo' money.  Mo' problems".

It seems that the providers of your friend's lemons, sugar and water want a bigger cut of the money in play.

"Hi.  We're songwriters"

Your friend asks you if you'd be willing to pay for the cost of the raw materials that go into making the lemonade.  You see that the raw material providers really are getting the short end of stick on this whole deal.  You also see that this lemonade business is really good for your advertising business so you agree to pay the raw materials cost rather than damage you AND your friend's business.

More time passes.  Your business is doing quite well.  You've even started developing new advertising and marketing services to work with all of the new technology that's available.

Your friend, on the other hand, has just kept coasting on her past success, not bothering to develop any new revenue streams beyond selling lemonade.  Not only that, but she treats her employees rather poorly, signing them to contracts that make them little more than serfs.

Then, the unthinkable happens: 

"Hi.  We're the internet."

Your friend's customers figure out that they can make lemonade at a far lower cost in their own homes.  Not only that, but your friend's customers also figure out that they can have lemonade customized to their individual tastes.

All of a sudden, your friend is losing money hand over fist.  She's panicking.  Her life of riches and excess is coming to an end!  Her customers won't pay her inflated prices any more.  She still has to pay her employees something, but she won't do it at the expense of her opulant lifestyle.  Not only that, but many of her employees have started breaking away to start their own independent beverage companies.

Then she gets a bright idea.

She goes to you and asks you to pay for the priviledge of advertising her lemonade business.  When you refuse, she goes to Congress and asks them to force you to pay for the priviledge of advertising her lemonade business.  Congress, being largely composed of dullards and nincompoops who are easily swayed by fistfulls of cash, agrees to take up her case.

"Hai!  I is Congress"

So where does that leave you? It leaves you begging your friends to call their Senators and Representatives and please ask said elected officials to vote "no" on two bills that, if passed, will put you out of business.

I would call my Congress Critter to save your business.  Will you call your Congress-Critter to save mine?

Please visit this page and save local radio.  Thank you.

Your Blog Keyword is "CountryTime".  It's good for 250 WDEZ Club Points until 1700 on 2/15/10.

Your TTPK Hint for yesterday is "Great Scot!".  Fat lot of good it'll do ya' as the word's expired.  Sorry about that.  If you got stumped, e-mail me at terry.stevens@mwcradio.com and I'll make it right for you.  Starting today, all TTPK words won't expire until 11pm the following day.  This way, I'll actually be able to get the Hint to you in time.

Be Cool,

TS