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I knew I was going to be of little help to my 8th grade daughter this year when the school supply list said she needed a graphing calculator for math class. She picked out a $79 model.

Texas Instruments tries to explain why kids need such a device.

I don't know about your kids, but I am reading about school supply lists that include things like ziplock-syle plastic baggies, paper towels, computer headphones, tissue and even chalk.

Chalk?

We have to supply the classroom chalk now?

The National Retail Federation says consumers will spend more this year. The average family will spend $527.08 on school clothes and supplies, $83 over last year's average of $443.77, the trade group found:

• Total spending on electronics or computer-related equipment, such as home computers, laptops, PDAs, or calculators, is estimated to increase by more than $1.5 billion this year ($3.82 billion vs. $2.06 billion), rebounding after a sharp decline in 2005. 
• Apparel is also expected to be a big performer, with the average consumer expected to spend $228.14 (up from $205.31 in 2005).  Other popular items on consumers' back-to-school lists include shoes ($98.34) and school supplies, such as notebooks, folders, pencils, backpacks, and lunchboxes ($86.22).
• One in five (15.9 %) parents with school-aged children have kids that are required to wear a uniform. According to the survey, those parents will spend more on apparel and accessories ($233.73 vs. $228.14) and shoes ($119.91 vs. $98.34) than parents who do not have to buy uniforms. 
• More consumers with children who are required to wear uniforms will shop at department stores (56.8% vs. 53.3%), specialty shops (36.2% vs. 30.9%), and through catalogs (7.1% vs. 5.0%) than those with children that do not wear uniforms.
  

College Newspapers Grow

The Wall Street Journal notes:

It's not breaking news that the newspaper industry is losing the attention of young readers. But one sector of the industry is defying the trend: college papers.

Hip, local, relevant and generated by students themselves, college newspapers have held steady readership in recent years while newspapers in general have seen theirs shrink. Big advertisers are going on campus to reach these young readers. Ford Motor Co., Microsoft Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have all placed recent ads in college newspapers.

Now, media giants are jumping in. Two weeks ago, Gannett Co.'s Tallahassee Democrat acquired Florida State University's FSView & Florida Flambeau, one of the nation's few for-profit college newspapers. The same day, Viacom Inc.'s MTV, which already runs a network targeted at college campuses called mtvU, agreed to buy Y2M: Youth Media & Marketing Networks, a company that hosts the Web sites for 450 campus papers. MTV executives hope the deal will give mtvU credibility in the college community, providing its advertisers with easy access to college students.

The story said:

It's an audience that reads regularly, despite the conventional wisdom. According to a 2005 survey by market research firm Student Monitor, 71% of college students read at least one of the last five issues of the college paper. By contrast, 46% of students (down from 49% last year) read the print version of at least one national newspaper in a typical week, according to Student Monitor.

News Theme Music

When Katie Couric takes over CBS Evening News, she will be introduced by new theme music.

Interestingly, NBC bought a new theme to introduce Meredith Vieira. (See/hear it here.)

It seems to me that news viewers from the 70's and 80's may have stronger feelings about theme music than today's viewers do. Today's music seems so generic. Maybe it's just me.

Theme music is no little thing for a news show. News theme music is big business too. Several years ago I wrote an article for RTNDA Communicator about the importance of news theme music to the overall feel of a news program.

The story said:

Music is the very first signal that a newscast is about to start. And yet, news directors often underappreciate or ignore the power of that music. "There are some stations in some very big markets that spend almost no effort thinking about their music," says Randy Wachtler, owner of 615 Music Productions. "The news director sits in a conference room with the creative services folks and they listen to 20 CDs and pick out a tune that fits their budget and they think they have done their work. They need to be more thoughtful than that."

The story continued:

"The simple fact is, you only get to viewers in two ways, their eyes and their ears," says Wachtler. His Nashville-based company is one of the nation's most prolific producers of news music. Wachtler is not unlike dozens of others on the Nashville music scene: He is looking for a great song. But his songs sometimes are only seconds long. "Great themes are the ones people remember and sing," Wachtler says. Think of something simple and memorable, like the Oscar Meyer wiener song. "If you can get the viewers to sing or hum, that is key," he says. "The song will keep the station in the viewer's head. It will keep them coming back."

News music does not have to be loud and complex. "The largest network in the world is known by three musical notes," says news music pioneer Frank Gari. "Everybody knows the NBC chimes."

To make it memorable, focus on melody. "When news directors go for generic rhythm and no melody, their news music may have lots of energy and energy that sets a tone, but it's not something people can remember," Wachtler says. "The melody is what is memorable. That is what sticks in people's heads."

"Music portrays energy," Gari says. "Musically speaking, a great song has a melody, a bright arrangement and emotion. It is the song that inspires and gives you chills, bumps or a tear. It gets your feet tapping."

The story also said:

How you open your newscast sets the tone for the entire show. "If you have a fast open, the producer of the newscast wants to have a fast story that is hard-hitting," says Wachtler. In almost two decades of writing themes for close to 300 stations, Wachtler has seen the length of news opens shrink from an average of 20 seconds 10 years ago to now only a few notes. "It started in Miami, with the drive to have shorter opens to beat the other station to the punch. They said, 'We need fast music.' We found ourselves being asked to do a 10-second theme, then eight seconds and now, six."

In 2003, Slate analyzed every networks' theme music for war coverage.

You may remember the scene from the movie Broadcast News where the producers of news theme music explain their latest work.

Believe it or not, there are entire websites devoted to news theme music. A wonderful website called Network News Music includes themes from more than 30 years ago. Other sites are dedicated to Action News opens from the 70's and 80's.  Another site is www.80stvthemes.com, which includes downloadable video clips of classic news opens and image campaigns from local stations.

If I were going to do something on this topic I might go to somebody like 615 Music,  Frank Gari Communications  or Stephen Arnold Music.

Guitar Tab Sites Under Fire (Follow-Up)

Last week I told you that online guitar tablature sites were under new pressure from the group that looks after the interests of songwriters. The songwriters want websites to stop making tabs, which are a sort of easy to use music shorthand, free.

NPR followed up on the Al's Morning Meeting tip. Listen here.

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.