If Only

by John Frost, GoodRatings Strategic Service

It's the shortest title of any of the 304 Frost Advisories. Not sure if I can do much with that.

If only.

If only we didn't have those limitations. The budget. The staffing. The signal.

Limitations! There are just 12 notes on a musical scale, only 100 yards on the field, just 90 feet between bases, and barely 24 seconds on a shot clock.

All art has boundaries.

"Embracing the limitation can actually drive creativity" Phil Hansen.

Embracing limitstions can result in a mural made only from postage stamps, 60 foot sculptures of only the faces of four presidents chiseled into granite at Mt. Rushmore, or an iconic TV sitcom that uses only a bass guitar for all its music.

In the world of radio, the limitation is.....time.

We sell time, we schedule time, and we even measure time spent listening.

But often the creative aren't disciplined, and the disciplined aren't creative. The result is either three minutes of babbling....or nice, concise dullness.

What if we embraced creativity and discipline as two sides of the same coin? "Necessity is the mother of invention", Plato said. (Or was that Frank Zappa?)

All musicians want to jam. All hits are three minutes.