TOA - History con't

History (continued)

Fast-forward 30 years.

In May of 1996, the Steve Dupont Corporation opened its doors to the public. Having just been released from the swaddling confines of academia, founder Steve Dupont (I’m maintaining the third-person here, for the sake of consistency) strode with utter confidence into the marketplace and proclaimed, “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages ... come and get it!”

This was a bold entree into global commerce, especially since Steve Dupont Corporation, as yet, had zero products to offer, zero products in the pipeline and roughly zero capital with which to conduct its operations. What they did have, however, was a slightly used Olympus DR-5 dictation machine (dictaphone) and several micro cassette tapes. They also had a lot of dreams, and a great big pipe to smoke them in.

Over the next few years, Steve Dupont smoked and talked and recorded and sometimes even transcribed the recordings into a modern electronic device known as a “computer.” He also made several ill-fated alliances with other corporations, among them media, telecom and healthcare giants, with each alliance terminating in a uniquely bad way. One company fell victim to a hostile takeover. Another relocated its corporate headquarters overseas. A third became embroiled in an accounting scandal and virtually collapsed overnight. Each instance left the Steve Dupont Corporation to reevaluate its strategic objectives.

February 9, 2005 found the Steve Dupont Corporation on the verge of irrelevance, and Steve Dupont attending a new age management conference in Chicago, Illinois. He awoke with a savage hangover, barking orders into the telephone for coffee and grapefruit and aspirin, post haste – yet little did he know that if opportunity could really knock, it probably would have banged down his door hours ago ...

For, upon opening his complimentary issue of USA TODAY, his attention was drawn to the “Life” section, and a headline article entitled “Podcasting: It’s all over the dial.” As he read, his bloodshot eyes opened wider and wider. Dawn and Drew ... just a computer and a microphone ... audience of thousands ... literally and metaphorically, his vision became quite clear. He would create his own podcast.

By this time he had upgraded to a digital voice recorder – the Olympus DM-1 – and he had plenty of recorded material just sitting on his computer hard drive. Now all he needed to do was figure out how to take that audio, edit it and publish it on the internet. Oh, and he also needed a name for the show.

As tends to be the case with Steve, his thought call the podcast “The Obtuse Angle” came without warning, straight out of the ether. He knew little about history, much less radio history, and thus (to his recollection at least), he had never heard of any prior entity that went by this name.

Within days of establishing The Obtuse Angle Corporation as a subsidiary of the Steve Dupont Corporation, Steve’s lawyer (now deceased) received a telephone call from in-house council at the Tropicana Corporation. They planned to sue, claiming that “The Obtuse Angle” was a trademark under their ownership. This came as a shock of course – both to Steve and his newly hired staff of employees.

Well, it turns out the Tropicana Corporation (owned by PepsiCo) didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. They never officially owned the trademark in the first place – in fact, believe it or not TOA had never been officially trademarked at all. So it was fair game. The Obtuse Angle podcast was going to happen, and no corporate soft drink peddler – or anyone else – was going to stop it. After a month of research, preparation and technical trouble-shooting, The Obtuse Angle podcast debuted on May 1, 2005 with an episode entitled “Colin Powell’s Penis.”

The response was underwhelming.

Nevertheless the show pressed on, releasing episodes weekly and often bi-weekly until, on June 15, 2005 (shortly after episode #8 – Vegas, Baby! in which Steve got down on his knees in the Ritz Carlton Hotel and begged for listener feedback) an e-mail finally appeared in the TOA mailbox. It was from someone called Vinnie, an Australian living in Hong Kong, and it basically said “keep up the good work.”

No increase in stock price could have been more valuable at this time – to the morale of the organization. In the days and weeks to follow, more e-mails started to come in, and the stats reflected a growth in downloads (albeit slow). It seemed the venture was “over the hump” so to speak, and certainly not looking back.

TOA’s surge in popularity – and visibility – attracted a number of sponsorship offers from corporations, both domestic and international, some lucrative, some not. One of the not-so-lucrative offers came from the Jumex Corporation out ofMexico, a producer of high quality fruit juices and nectars. On paper the deal didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then one day a case of blue cans arrived at TOA’s (temporary) headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama. To say these products were thoroughly enjoyed would be an understatement of mammoth proportions. Not only that, but who was among Jumex’s most despised competitors?

None other than PepsiCo and Tropicana.

The partnership was what you’d call a “no-brainer.” Together, Jumex and TOA resolved to crush their competition – and the ever-elusive Scurvy – in one fell swoop. This, while proliferating the juicy goodness of Jumex the world over.

It was a joint venture that would prove “fruitful,” but short-lived. On September 22, 2005, a letter arrived at TOA Corp from Jumex, which, by all accounts, terminated the relationship due to certain moral differences – namely, TOA host Steve Dupont’s liberal imbibing of Jumex products with alcohol. It was a devastating, unexpected blow, but it didn’t stop Steve Dupont from enjoying the wholesome juiciness of Jumex – or promoting it with reckless abandon.

Another milestone for TOA came on October 18, 2005 with the release of episode #33: Holy Shit. Inspired by a profound religious experience in the desert of New Mexico, many would call it one of the most significant artistic expressions yet achieved in podcasting. Others, however, including the Catholic Church, would call it a “blasphemous abomination” – or worse. The ensuing firestorm rocked TOA Corp to its very foundations. Steve Dupont’s connection to the material clouded his judgment, and he fired back at TOA’s detractors with all barrels blazing.

It was your classic PR nightmare.

The incident served as a much-needed wake-up call for TOA, specifically with respect to the corporate hierarchy. The fact was, Steve Dupont’s duties as head of the Steve Dupont Corporation – AND The Obtuse Angle Corporation – were stretching him too thin. And like anything stretched too thin, he was on the verge of coming apart. Thus, the decision was made to create a executive oversight board to stabilize operations going forward. These five highly qualified, well-renowned individuals became known, affectionately, as the “BigWigs.”

Indeed, things went much more smoothly after that, and TOA sailed right along – through 21 more regular episodes and nine “Mountain Chronicles” – to show #50, a whopping two-hour-long podcast culminating in the much-anticipated Big 50 Mega Prize Pack giveaway.

No doubt buoyed by the media flurry surrounding the Big 50 Contest, TOA entered into a landmark sponsorship arrangement with a non-fruit-beverage-producing entity – the VersaFrame Corporation. Episode #56 of TOA featured a groundbreaking event in podcasting, the first full-length infomercial – performed before a live studio audience no less. The show met with praise from regular listeners and industry insiders alike.

Five episodes later, the sponsorship ended with no sales of VersaFrame framing systems. Furthermore, shortly thereafter in the “Spatial Special” contest, the sample VersaFrame system was awarded as a prize – but graciously turned down by its winner, Adam from Japan. To this day, the “world’s most versatile framing system” continues to collect dust in the TOA storeroom.

On May 16, 2006, TOA leaped into the listener participation arena with the “Jingle Sells” episode, a jingle contest for the launch of the Steve Dupont Corporation Gift Shop. Out of the six fantastic entries, Seth Jacquay’s “Buy All You Can (from a Famous Man)” ultimately emerged the winner.

On September 16, 2006. episode #73 concuded a ridiculously long (100 actual episodes!) “Season One” of TOA.

AND THE HISTORY CONTINUES TO BE WRITTEN ...

Or not. There’s a bunch of stuff after that, including a downward spiraling Season Two, but you know what … FUCK IT.

I don’t work for those bastards anymore.