I guess I should be flattered.

Our months-old pair of McDonalds rants which I recently posted on our blog site (rant.wyattcox.net) apparently got the attention of someone.

Dale Wolf grabbed significant parts of our piece and reprinted them over at his blog.

Although he did "sanitize" some of my less politically incorrect observations, probably because he didn't want to address them, he did get the story as I wrote it pretty much right.

Two points that I would like to correct.

1) He misread--dramatically--the discussion of the internal McDonald's Memorandum regarding Customer Service. He claimed in his text that the number of complaints to McDonald's customer contact number was "20.1 per 100,000 callers" at corporate stores, and "12 per 100,000 callers" at franchise locations. I bet McDonald's wishes they were that low. The actual figures were "20.1 per 100,000 guests" at corporate stores, and "12 per 100,000 guests" at franchise locations. That is no doubt a huge difference. Routinely, only the most upset guests will ever call the line seeking help from corporate. More often than not, they'll just walk away and tell a hundred friends about their bad experience.

2) McDonald's is pretending that this leaked report doesn't exist. While I quote the original story and a quote that the original reporter got from a McDonald's spokesperson, the folks at the Golden Arches never responded to repeated emails and phone calls seeking comment.

Further, if this was just an isolated incident, I would probably be willing to just "blow it off" and move on. This, however, was my wife's second bad experience with this manager, one of several at this location, and another of an ongoing number of substandard experiences with McDonald's. Our expectations have never been horribly high -- adequate food, prompt service, and a somewhat reasonable price -- and routinely we are disappointed at most every location!

To date I maintain that McDonald's is suffering from "We don't give a damn-itis".

1) People at the counter increasingly do NOT speak English, nor do they seem to be able to attempt to do the little things like read your order back to ensure that they have it right.

2) Seldom do the McDonald's near me have more than one register open and always have long lines. (Note that I look in to see, I still am not going there) Wait and service times are far longer than the "60 second service" that Ray Kroc used to set as the standard.

3) Corporate continues to move far beyond their core business and add things that don't enhance their business and lengthen wait times for the rest of the customers.

Mr. Wolf, I understand that the perfect customer experience is a ideal that is rarely achieved. I also know that I continue to visit Jack In The Box (which increasingly has more non-English speakers but they are trying to help me), Burger King (which has had it's moments but seem to, be getting better), and Wendys (which I would visit more if they had locations more in my neighborhood), and they all have problems, but they do not consistently annoy like McDonalds.

Mr. Wolf, I encourage you to rerun the metrics, see if you can actually get someone from McDonalds to talk to you, and then, let's talk again.

Maybe you can give them some solutions.

Maybe they'll listen.

I doubt it.

The National Association of Broadcasters annual Las Vegas get together concludes today, and once again, my fellow broadcasters haven't a clue.

Their new slogan, "Radio Heard Here" means nothing.

I worked here in Las Vegas for some time, and could tell you about a period where our little AM station was Destination Listening for a few hundred people daily. We gave people a reason to call, to listen, to participate, to get, involved.

And to tell their friends.

The failure of local radio to become Destination Listening is why the industry is perceived as failing.

The truth is, the failure is occurring in major cities, where there are far too many people to make that intimate connection, and where owners either don't understand how, or are unwilling to make the commitment to making their station the most important thing in their listeners lives.

Smaller markets understand how to do that. Relating to listeners on a totally local level. Reporting on and talking about the local events that won't change the world, but affect their world.

I know, school lunch menus and local birthdays aren't the fodder of big city radio. It won't work.

Just ask Ron Chapman, who took a daytime only radio station and a low powered FM in Dallas and made it number one for years. When the big boys bought it and homogenized it, Chapman retired and the station now languishes.

Keep it interesting and relevant to your listeners, and you will succeed. Compromise, like most of today's big broadcasters have, and you will not succeed.

A question for you: If there was a disaster in Las Vegas today, where would you turn first to find out what was going on? Go to rant.wyattcox.net to add your comments. Be honest and let me know what you think. I'll pass along your comments and tell you the story of a couple of events in the 12 years I've lived here that may interest you in a future issue