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Justine Mirth, the woman who has been granted a marriage license to marry convicted murderer Tom Nissen (convicted killer in the Boys Don't Cry murder), was interviewed on the Tom Becka Show on Newsradio 1110 KFAB. The interview is available on the Tom Becka Page at www.KFAB.com
Monday March 20, 2006
Clear Channel Radio today announced it will encode broadcasts from its Houston, Texas, radio stations for the upcoming test of The Media Audit / Ipsos electronic-measurement system. Clear Channel Radio joins CBS Radio, Cox Radio and Radio One in supporting The Media Audit/Ipsos test. Arbitron's portable, pager-like devices measure listenership by detecting codes that broadcasters embed in radio broadcasts. The codes are not audible (read more - Houston Chronicle) (read more - Clear Channel) (read more - The Age A.U.)
One newspaper headline last week blared, "Radio feels heat from iPod generation." This isn't "heat'' it's a brush fire that threatens to engulf the industry. But the radio sector has even fuelled it. It abandoned the future audience — youth — by pandering to the boomers with all those indistinguishable soft classic lite mix jack hits formats (read more - Toronto Star)
WABC Channel 7's Bill Beutel, the longtime television news anchor and host of the show that became ABC's "Good Morning America," died Saturday. He was 75. Beutel, whose trademark signoff "Good luck and be well" closed WABC's nightly local newscast for more than 30 years, died at his home in Pinehurst, N.C., the network said. A private funeral is planned for later in the week. A memorial service will take place sometime in the spring (read more - WABC 7 Online) (read more - WNBC TV) (read more - WCBS TV) (read more - Tracy Connor-NY Daily News) (read more - NY Post) (read more - NY Times)
Sirius Satellite Radio announced that it recently surpassed 4 million subscribers nationwide (visit Sirius Radio)
"I was so micromanaged that they were telling me how to pronounce syllables of words." -- Bob Edwards on his former employer, National Public Radio, telling Newsweek he feels liberated at XM Satellite Radio (read more - Howard Kurtz-Media Notes)
"Most small stations have to compete against a larger market radio station, and they can't afford to have a squeaky-voiced kid read the farm report," said Phil Barry, vice president/general manager of Jones Radio Networks. Jones Radio isn't the only company that provides syndicated radio services - Clear Channel's Premiere Radio, Cumulus Media and Viacom's CBS Radio are among its larger rivals. But it's the only one that doesn't own any radio stations - meaning, Barry says, "there's no place we can force-feed our shows - we have to sell them on their merit" (read more - Joyzelle Davis-Rocky Mountain News)
Spending on advertising in the UK increased by 2.1% in 2005, compared with a 6% rise the previous year, with online spend rising by over 70%, according to research published by the Advertising Association. The rise in online advertising is hitting other sectors however. Print press adspend declined by 3%, radio fell 4.5%, cinema decreased by 2.6% and direct mail by 3.9% between 2004 and 2005 (read more - Brand Republic)
Radio Ink publisher B. Eric Rhoads today announced the appointment of industry veteran Joe Howard as the new Editor-in-Chief of Radio Ink Magazine. Howard joins the Radio Ink executive team and will be responsible for all content and direction in Radio Ink, Radio Ink.com and Radio Ink Conferences. Howard most recently served as Washington Bureau Chief for Radio & Records (read more - Radio Ink)
GreenStone Media has lined up backing from a high-profile group of women to syndicate talk shows for women on FM radio (read more - Washington Biz Journal)
From Claude
Hall --
Lee Baby
Simms on KCBQ, San Diego. Program director at the time
was, as I recall,
Gary
Allyn. Deejay staff also included Jimmy Rabbitt. Some
considered it a hell of a radio station.
(Photo courtesy of George Wilson)
+ e-mails
from Kent Burkhart, Vince Cosgrove, John Hancock, Tom
Noonan, John Long, John Harper and Sam Hale
(read
more - www.ClaudeHallOnline.com)
For once radio got to sit back last week and watch its television cousins take the hit from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Staffers say a similar logjam-clearing decision about radio is expected soon. That verdict will assess complaints filed against Howard Stern back when he was on broadcast radio, including WXRK (92.3 FM) here (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
Katie Couric is ready to ditch "Today" for CBS, as Cindy Adams wrote last week. The only question is, when? "It is well-known with NBC producer-types that Katie's last day will be Friday, May 26 - the Friday before Memoral Day weekend," said our in-the-know source (read more - Page Six)
In case of inclement weather, head to the lowest level of your house with a long extension cord and your TV. Because local radio stations will tell you nothing. Oh, if you're lucky, one of them might be playing songs from "Gone With the Wind." It seems our "local" radio stations can't afford to staff the stations during the weekends. Ironically, the two biggest "local" radio stations are owned by Cumulus Broadcasting and Clear Channel Communications (read more - The Morning News)
The FCC says the Dec. 31, 2004, edition of "Without a Trace" contained a segment that fits the Supreme Court's definition of obscene material and violates federal restrictions regarding the broadcast of such material. They're proposing a record $3.6 million fine for CBS affiliates. I say they're dead wrong (read more - Richard Roeper-Chicago Sun Times)
I was only a few hours into my recent two-week stay in Baghdad when I first noticed the discordant images on Iraqi television: Between the grisly shots of war dead, pools of blood and burnt-out shells of cars came bits of wacky slapstick. Grown men and women joked around in silly makeup and goofy costumes, emoting exaggeratedly, acting like buffoons. It was difficult to compute at first: amid the horror, some Iraqis were actually trying to make the country laugh. With the newfound freedom of speech here, more than 100 television and radio stations have been licensed (read more - Jake Tapper-NY Times)
When the famous watch started ticking on Sept. 24, 1968, Mike Wallace was on the screen, along with the late Harry Reasoner, introducing the first edition of 60 Minutes. Their subjects: the presidential race between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey and the growing tension between police and protest groups, as exemplified by rioting during the recent Chicago Democratic convention. "That was a long time ago, wasn't it?," Wallace asked rhetorically over the phone earlier this week from his Manhattan home (read more - Dusty Saunders-Rocky Mountain News)
Sirius Satellite Radio moves the Dave Ramsey financial talk show show to the Christian Talk Channel 159, 9-12 pm. Meanwhile XM Satellite Radio has moved the Dave Ramsey financial talk show to the Open Road Trucking Channel 171 starting at 12 midnight (visit Dave Ramsey.com)
The deal is hardly Mickey Mouse. Citadel Broadcasting Corp., which owns four Erie radio stations, and Walt Disney Co. agreed in February to a blockbuster, $2.7 billion merger of Citadel and Disney-owned ABC Radio. Disney will be the majority owner of the new company, which will be named Citadel Communications. But the net result should be business as usual at the four Erie stations: WXKC-FM/Classy 100, WQHZ-FM/Z-102, WXTA-FM/Country 98 and WRIE-AM/1260, says Jim Riley, market manager of Citadel Broadcasting Erie. "It doesn't mean anything locally," Riley said. "All the management structure at Citadel stays the same. It means they're part of a bigger company." (read more - TMC Net)
From George Mair -- Odd time of year when St. Patrick wants us to honor the green and tax man wants to take it away*****Will Rogers’ said income tax has made liars of more Americans than golf *****Dick Gregory doesn’t mind paying taxes but wishes they’d send it to a friendly country****It’s not fair to equate death and taxes since you only die once *****Juries make me nervous ***** Why put your fate in the hands of 12 people too dumb to get out of jury duty? (read more - LA LA Land Letter)
How has the industry changed since you got into radio? "When I first started in college, it was all (record) albums, and CDs were just starting to become the mainstream. Technology has changed a lot. Now, the computer runs everything" from midnight until the morning show starts at 5 a.m. "I can leave for the night and walk away." (read more - Aaron "Gator" Glass / WAMZ-FM - Washington Biz Journal)
The Doug Banks Morning Show celebrates its tenth year on ABC Radio Networks this month
Greater Media heritage rocker, WRIF 101.1 FM (Detroit’s 101 WRIF) is airing a public service campaign aimed directly at its audience touting the Conclave’s 2006 scholarship to The Specs Howard School of Broadcasting Arts. A panel made up of members of the Board of Directors of the Conclave and Conclave advisors will choose the winning candidates. The scholarship deadline is April 1, 2006. Winners will be announced shortly thereafter. The Conclave has radio PSA’s announcing the scholarship availability’s via download at www.theconclave.com for stations wanting to help students in their community
In 2004, Bob Edwards, the anchor of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," was unexpectedly shown the door. After the acrimonious ouster, he took his signature voice—all molasses and mint julep—to fledgling XM Satellite Radio. Now, 17 months later, excerpts of his hourlong weekday interview show have begun airing on (drumroll, please) public radio. Launched with Public Radio International, "Bob Edwards Weekend" can be heard on nearly 30 stations nationwide, the first time satellite-radio programming has appeared on broadcast channels (read more - NEWSWEEK)
The Washington Post and Bonneville International, owner of all-news WTOP, will launch a radio station, Washington Post Radio, on which no one will read stories from the newspaper. Instead, the station, WTWP, will try to appeal to listeners who might find all-news radio too superficial yet think of public radio as too dull. The idea is to make better use of the newspaper's wide-ranging expertise, develop Post personalities and give Washingtonians a new reason to stick with broadcast radio. And boost newspaper sales (read more - Washington Post)
A year after Robert Blake was acquitted in criminal court of killing his wife, the former tough guy actor spends his days exercising horses at a friend's ranch and planning a comeback (read more - NY Daily News)
Da Streetz remains on the air. The music from the pirate radio station has been so troublesome over the last month that a federal engineer who specializes in frequency transmissions has arrived in Miami to help investigators locate the signal. ''It's intermittent. Not all day, every day,'' said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. ``But clear communication between air control and the pilots is a critical part of flying.'' (read more - Miami Herald)
NASCAR races, currently on XM, will make their way to Sirius next year, a coup for which Sirius paid $107.5 million. Further highlighting the escalating cost of the content wars, XM paid just $15 million in 2002 for five years of NASCAR. Likewise, the NHL can be heard on both XM and Sirius now, though XM gets it exclusively beginning in the 2007-08 season. Cost: $100 million over 10 years, partially paid by XM's partner, Canadian Satellite Radio (read more - Reuters)
What started as a private party quickly got out of hand. Simply put, too many people tried to enter a rented community center. But during all the chaos, a local radio station was blamed for the riot, accused of overselling tickets to the teens. "We didn't sell the tickets," said Sam Nelson with Cumulus Broadcasting. "We didn't hold the event. Our part in the whole thing was just that one of our DJ's was hired to be a mixer at the party. That was the extent of our involvement" (read more - WTOC 11)
The company that silenced Howard Stern has muzzled 6th Congressional District candidate Lois Murphy. Murphy's recent run-in with Clear Channel had nothing to do with baring a breast a la Jackson or spanking porn stars a la Stern. Murphy, a Montgomery County Democrat, just wanted to pay for a billboard chastising Republican incumbent Jim Gerlach for keeping $30,000 in campaign contributions from former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. “We were told by Clear Channel that they would not put up any billboard that would make Jim Gerlach mad,” said Mark Nevins, a Murphy spokesman (read more - Kori Walter-Reading Eagle)
ESPN has been in Anderson for a week. ESPN Radio, actually. WANS-AM 1280 launched a sport-talk format last Sunday. For now, the station is broadcasting nothing but Radio (except Sunday mornings) ESPN programming seven days per week (read more - Anderson Independent)
With the help of some investors, the Young Turks bought four professional digital cameras and rented a studio space along Wilshire Boulevard's Miracle Mile. In mid-December, they began streaming their three-hour show every weekday on their website, www.theyoungturks.com, billing it as the first live Internet talk show. In the process, they've helped pioneer the rapidly developing field of online programming (read more - LA Times)
... when XM Canada founder John Bitove Jr. called his chief operating officer Stephen Tapp to a morning meeting at a diner in Toronto last year, there was a bigger choice on the menu for the startup satellite radio company. Like many startup ventures, the cost of launching a satellite radio operation is disproportionately high in the first few years. From advertising expenses to deep discounts offered on radio receivers, the list of expenses for a new company is long (read more - The Globe and Mail)
First and foremost, David Ogilvy was a great advertising copywriter. "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock" is considered by many to be the best automobile ad ever written (read more - Jerry Della Femina-WSJ)
Michael
Coleman, the embattled general manager of Detroit Public
Radio, told the Free Press today
that he didn't take
food, alcohol, airline tickets and hotel rooms in
exchange for on-air acknowledgements while he worked for
the University of Michigan s public radio and television
stations. Coleman was one of three former
Michigan Public Media employees charged Thursday in Ann
Arbor on one count of embezzlement under $20,000
(read
more - Maryanne George-Detroit Freep)
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters says the radio industry could lose as much as $188-million by 2015 as listeners drift to largely unregulated options that include Internet radio and cellphone broadcasts (read more - The National Post) (read more - Edmonton Sun)
"... the book contained
a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said,
"The tragedy of our day is
the
climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds
repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of
Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the
patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."
Today, it's the cloak of
anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far
easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."
I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights - we
have to live up to that. We simply must
(click the graphic above to view
and listen to the audio)
(read the
text and view the "Boston Legal" video of
attorney
Alan Shore's closing arguments)
You'll find
this and other "Talk Bites" at RDN's sister site,
www.talkradiodailynews.com
Ireland's first regional radio station, Beat 102-103 FM, has yet to make a profit after almost three years on air, as costs have raced ahead of original projections (read more - Unison U.K.)
WMMR has signed a multi-year contract with veteran Philadelphia talent Matt Cord. Negotiations had been ongoing since Cord joined the station full time in July of 2005, when he replaced the Dee Snider nighttime show. Cord worked previously for the now-defunct Y100 with a prior stint at WMMR. The current arrangement lasts through 2009
Emmis Communications CEO Jeff Smulyan this afternoon settled his lawsuit against American Honda Finance Corp. related to an attempt to repossess his then-girlfriend's 2000 Honda Accord EX (read more - Indy Star)
Video Phone. Finally, it's here and affordable. It uses your high speed Internet service. It's from Packet 8 with unlimited video calling worldwide and unlimited audio-only calling in the U.S. & Canada for just $19.99/month The Packet 8 VideoPhone delivers high-quality, full-motion video and clear, delay-free audio over any broadband (high-speed Cable or DSL) Internet connection. Designed for both residential and business customers (read more - Packet 8)
Walter Cronkite quoted in an Esquire magazine interview -- When President Johnson heard my report that said we should get out of Vietnam, he snapped off the TV and said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." To be honest, I was rather amazed that my reporting from Vietnam had such an effect on history. Indeed, we are in another Vietnam. Almost play by play. It's a terrible mistake that we're in Iraq, and it's a terrible mistake to insist on staying there (read more - Esquire) You'll find this and other "Talk Bites" at RDN's sister site, www.talkradiodailynews.com
There is no western in country music, never has been and never will be. And this crap they play nowadays on so-called country music radio is nothing more than 1960s and 1970s rock and roll. It wasn’t country back in those days and it isn’t country today. Coming in late May up in Osage Beach is the annual Missouri Country Music Association Hall of Fame induction and show (read more - Ray Campbell - Richland Mirror-Pulaski County Democrat)
WOR Radio has launched its second annual "Shining Star Talent Search" (read more - NorthJersey.com)
Previously, Audi offered both SIRIUS and XM satellite radio, but has now selected SIRIUS as its exclusive provider to reduce complexity in dealer ordering. “We decided that the Audi customer demographic fit more closely with the type of content that SIRIUS Satellite radio provides,” said Wolfgang Hoffmann, head of Audi Product Management. “And we believe that SIRIUS will continue to grow and create programming that our Audi customers will desire” (read more- Auto Spies) (read more - NY Daily News)
Rock ’n’ roll will give way to hot Hispanic hits Tuesday at 5 p.m. Tuesday when WXTF (101.7-FM) becomes Spanish-language station WLPP (read more - Louisville Courier-Journal)
Friday March 17, 2006
Buzz Kilman has agreed to stay put at WCKG-FM (105.9) + Tisa LaSorte, former program director of Tribune Co.-owned news/talk WGN-AM (720), is returning to Chicago radio + Oprah's off the hook (read more - Feder of Chicago)
Air America will continue on WLIB (1190 AM), the network said yesterday, dampening speculation that WLIB might switch to other programming after the two parties' original two-year deal ends this month (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
"The old economy of radio has been abruptly replaced by a new economy where radio faces unregulated competition in an open field of media and entertainment services," said Glenn O'Farrell, CAB President and CEO. "We no longer have a single, regulated system of radio services delivered over the public airwaves, free of charge to Canadians. Now, we have two systems: the regulated system of the past, which is now in direct competition – some would say collision – with an unregulated, parallel system of new delivery platforms for audio content" (read more - Broadcaster Magazine)
Steve Harvey heard in Detroit on WMXD-FM (Mix, 92.3), is coming clean. He says he's strengthening his relationship with God, praying daily and reading his Bible. He's also working really hard to stop cursing in his comedy shticks (read more - Detroit News)
The Radio Advertising Bureau has entered into an agreement with Radiozentrale, Germany’s Radio marketing association, to give their members full access to RAB sales and marketing materials, as well as training and consulting services (read more - RAB)
Radio listeners in the Tampa Bay area are about to have a lot more options on their dial. More than half a dozen local radio stations are launching their answer to satellite radio - their own digital radio stations. And they're experimenting with new music, new news and new talk shows, many previously only heard in markets much larger than Tampa (read more - Tampa Tribune)
New technologies like satellite radio and digital players are changing the traditional radio landscape and the industry says it wants help from the CRTC to survive. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission had called for submissions that would be considered in its current review of the country's commercial radio policy (read more - CBC Canada)
Between ballads and banter, Jim Radler's daily morning show is the cornerstone of WDSD. From the day Radler was hired to host the morning show two years ago, he and longtime newsman Feliceangeli "clicked instantly," said program director Andy Harris (read more - Mid State Living)
The sedate, urbane world of public broadcasting was rattled Thursday as prosecutors charged three former employees of Michigan Public Media with illegally accepting golf club memberships, Persian rugs, airline tickets and massages in exchange for on-air considerations at the state's top public radio station (read more - Maryanne George and John Smyntek-Detroit Freep)
Newsrooms around NYC are buzzing over potential changes at WCBS/Ch. 2. There's lots of chatter, inside the station's W. 57th St. studios and elsewhere, that the coming weeks will see talent shifts on some - and perhaps all - of Ch. 2's newscasts (read more - Richard Huff-NY Daily News)
Dave Graveline and the Into Tomorrow team this Sunday will be featuring B. Robert Okun, Vice President of NBC Universal and Jonathan S. Adelstein, FCC Commissioner + more beginning at 2 pm EDST (visit Into Tomorrow)
President Bill Clinton appears on XM Satellite Radio's new sports talk show "60/20," hosted by James Carville and Luke Russert. The show debuted Friday, March 17 in its regular weekly timeslot of 8:00 am - 9:00 am ET on XM Live Channel 200
"We have high
hopes for HD Radio. It has the potential to improve
sound quality and listening choices beyond what
traditional AM/FM radio currently offers. That said,
most people will want to wait before investing in
HD-Radio equipment. At this stage, choices
are limited and prices are high. More and cheaper
HD-Radio compatible gear is coming soon, and analog
radio isn’t likely to become obsolete within the
lifetime of a new radio, receiver, or even a car.
Exceptions may apply if you’re now in the market for a
new luxury car or high-end audio receiver. With those
purchases, the incremental cost of adding HD-Radio
capability might be relatively small ..."
(read
more - Consumer Reports)
From Kent
Burkhart -- WOW!!!!
Unbelievable!!!! I have written this column for 101
weeks. NEVER, have I had such reaction to the two
previous columns (archived at
www.kentburkhart.com columns 100 and 101)
regarding
the
Google/dMarc Revenue Suite. The question was
the same from all who e-mailed me….“What is dMarc's
phone number??” I have learned a lot about stats from
experience…and this response is like a home run from
small market stations ...
(read
more - www.KentBurkhart.com)
Radio host Jay Severin admits that former rival Howie Carr is the most influential voice on Boston radio. "To be honest, I'd have to say Howie, now that I'm in a different time slot. There's no question that Howie's the big dog in local Boston radio ... He's a Boston legend" (read more - Jessica Heslam-Boston Herald)
The College of San Mateo's KCSM-TV could be slapped with a $15,000 fine from the Federal Communications Commission for obscenities uttered in a PBS documentary the station aired in 2004 (read more - San Mateo County Times)
Bill Doleman has resigned as program director of ESPN 1480 to concentrate more on his freelance TV and radio sports broadcasts (read more - Lincoln Journal-Star)
Blake Fulton and Joe Biddle, two veteran Nashville sportscasters who teamed up for seven years on the Nashville radio airwaves have been let go by 106.7-FM The Fan (read more - Nashville City Paper)
iSEEradio, a company of Continental Vista Broadcasting Group Inc., has signed an exclusive broadcasting deal with Orlando Clear Channel radio station XL 106.7 FM. iSEEradio enables radio stations to broadcast live and on-demand interactive video and audio through its customizable media player to audiences anywhere (read more - Houston Chronicle)
Florida
Atlantic University's Board of Trustees this week
made
official a pact with WXEL Public Broadcasting
Corporation (WPBC) that will allow the university to
broadcast programs on digital radio
(read
more - Boca Raton News)
WXTB-FM 97.9 canceled its "Cowhead Morning Show" this week after Clear Channel Communications was reportedly fined by the FCC over an unspecified utterance that was deemed offensive (read more - Tampa Bay Biz Journal)
WMET 1160AM will be changing it’s format from talk radio to paid-programming beginning Friday, March 24th. "The Greaseman Show” will continue to headline WMET 1160AM’s schedule, broadcasting live from 6 to 10 am EST Monday through Friday, with repeats on weekends. “It’s a hybrid solution and a unique opportunity to reach emerging and affluent ethnic groups,” said Dennis R. Israel, the new General Manager of WMET 1160AM (visit WMET 1160 AM)
SIRIUS Satellite Radio says Audi and Volkswagen will offer SIRIUS as exclusive satellite radio providers for Audi and Volkswagen vehicles
Boston radio personality Ron Della Chiesa will be among several guest speakers at a 35th anniversary St. Jude Children’s Hospital dinner-dance Saturday night, April 1, at the Myriad Ballroom in Mendon (read more - Milford Daily News)
Major League Baseball is back in full swing on XM Satellite Radio, the official satellite radio network of MLB. The 2006 MLB season officially begins with Opening Day on April 2 as the World Series champion Chicago White Sox host the Cleveland Indians at U.S. Cellular Field
Salem Communications announced that Howard Garrett's radio broadcast, The Natural Way, is moving to News Talk 660 KSKY (read more - Houston Chronicle)
I felt betrayed
when the Aberdeen area AM radio stations switched from
mostly all-talk radio to, uh - mostly all-talk radio.
Rather than listening to Rush
Limbaugh, Ed Schultz,
Bruce Williams and Phil Hendry, we can now listen to
everything about sports, and more sports, and yet more
sports from ESPN radio.
I've spent good time
and money cultivating this addiction of listening to
political talk radio
(read
more -
Perk
Washenberger-American News)
Robert S testified Wednesday that robbery suspect Michael Jackson's violent rap lyrics don't make him guilty. Jurors viewed a videotape of Jackson singing, "I Am a Robber," when Robert S, a former New York recording artist and now program director for WJNZ-AM (1140), took the witness stand for the defense (read more - Grand Rapids Press)
ABC News Radio has been awarded multiple top honors in the Radio Broadcast division in the 72nd Annual National Headliner Awards
Viacom will sell the film library of Paramount Pictures' DreamWorks to Soros Strategic Partners and Dune Entertainment II for $900 million (read more - Crain's NY Biz)
Jerry Springer has donated $200,000 to the Museum of Broadcast Communications (visit Museum.TV)
Port of Olympia Executive Director Ed Galligan has offered to work with KGY radio officials to find a new home on port land (read more - The Olympian)
Thursday March 16, 2006
Conventional radio stations are losing their grip on the iPod generation as younger listeners shift to new technology, such as MP3 players, satellite radio and the emerging world of music-playing cellphones, the industry is warning Ottawa. In a lengthy document submitted to the federal broadcast regulator yesterday, the industry paints a bleak picture for itself as new technology permeates its market, eroding audiences and eating away at advertising revenue (read more - The Globe and Mail)
Kevin Matthews quoted in a Grand Valley magazine: "Radio in L.A. and Chicago are in horrid shape. The Loop and AM 1000 years ago were unreal. We reinvented talk radio. What we did, the rest of the country is trying to do today. So to me, honestly, there's more competitive radio in Grand Rapids right now than there is in Chicago." (read more - Feder of Chicago)
David Lee Roth, the WFNY (92.3
FM) morning man who spent the last week accusing his
station bosses of trying to destroy his show, yesterday
declared a "truce"
+ Opie and Anthony, who
were rumored as possible replacements for Roth, told
WABC's Sean Hannity a CBS radio deal for them looked
"90%" last week, but now is in limbo + Radio fans on the
New York Radio Message Board and elsewhere are raving
about Hannity's WABC interview with Howard Stern Tuesday
(read
more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
"Stevens
and Cleverley" are moving and
launching their
irreverent
lifestyle show on
FM News
Channel 97.5 in Houston on Saturday.
The show streams live from 1-3 pm CDST
(listen
to the promo- www.stevensandcleverley.com)
David Lee Roth’s radio days are numbered. Critics pan him. His ratings are horrendous. He’s difficult to work with and on air he’s dared his CBS bosses to fire him. And the list goes on. Roth - who replaced shock jock Howard Stern on the East Coast in January - snubbed the Hub. The former Van Halen rockerwas scheduled to do his morning show live at Boston’s WBCN today and tomorrow but cancelled last minute, citing “scheduling conflicts.” (read more - Jessica Heslam-Boston Herald)
As a format, talk radio has tended to be done by men for men. A newly formed Seattle-based company wants to test the idea that that approach leaves a huge untapped market for radio -- talk for women. GreenStone Media has announced a lineup of shows it hopes to distribute to radio stations around the country and a team of radio industry veterans to run the new venture. What it needs now are stations to actually air the programs (read more - Bill Virgin-Seattle PI)
Three men were charged this morning in Ann Arbor with felony embezzlement, illegally taking such things as airline tickets, Persian rugs, golf club memberships and more while they worked for Michigan Public Media, which operates the radio station WUOM, 91.7 FM (read more - Detroit Free Press)
When asked their preference at the same price point - iPod or HD radio - more than half choose HD digital radio. More than half. · 12-54 demo: 53% of men and women gave the “thumbs up” to HD radio compared to the iPod. · 18-34 demo: 51% of adults preferred HD radio over the iPod. · 25-54 demo: 59% of adults picked HD radio versus iPod’s 28% (read more - Radio Marketing Nexus)
Shamrock, Texas celebrates St Patrick's Day on Saturday with a parade and the official dedication of "Bill Mack Blvd", a section of historic Route 66 that will be named after the Texas Panhandle's favorite son, Bill Mack, known as XM Radio's Satellite Cowboy, Grammy Award winning songwriter, DJ and author (visit Shamrock, Texas) (read the schedule of events)
"NAB applauds Senators Snowe, Baucus and Lott for introducing legislation designed to preserve the rich tradition of local broadcasting. It is crystal clear that both XM and Sirius – with nearly $1 billion in combined losses last year and having failed as a national programming service – are skirting the intent of their original FCC licenses. This bill holds satellite radio accountable to those licenses ..." (read more - NAB)
The average age of a 60 Minutes viewer is close to 65 - one year younger than the average age of the correspondents. After Mike Wallace, Rooney and Safer, there's Dan Rather (also 74); Bob Simon, Lesley Stahl and Ed Bradley (all 64); Steve Kroft (60); Scott Pelley (48); and Lara Logan (34.) Executive producer Jeff Fager, 51, says age is of no concern to him, with one exception: "We haven't grown enough young correspondents" (read more - Gail Shister-Philly Inquirer)
Clear Channel Radio announced the winners of its third annual “2006 Clear Channel Radio Engineers of the Year” awards, which recognizes the talent, hard work, dedication and contributions of its station engineers. The winners of this prestigious honor receive free travel, lodging and admission to the upcoming NAB 2006 convention in Las Vegas in April
The family of Atlanta-based radio magnate Lew Dickey Jr. is in talks with Time Warner about a possible purchase of the baseball team, Dickey's brother, David, confirmed Wednesday (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Steve Schram was named interim director of Michigan Public Media at the University of Michigan effective immediately. His hiring brings stability as U-M tries to move past the recent dust-up over fundraising irregularities at WUOM-FM (read more - Detroit News)
Rudy Giuliani's ex-wife Donna Hanover is said to be having a rocky relationship with her new WOR morning radio show co-host, Ed Walsh. One source reports Hanover "exploded" at Walsh after their show last week because, "she doesn't like the way he treats her on air." (read more - NY Post)
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann awarded Rush Limbaugh top honors in his daily "Worst Person in the World" segment for Limbaugh's March 13 reference to journalists Jay Carney and Claire Shipman as "slave master and husband" (read more - Media Matters)
Only the mail strewn on the floor of his Brighton office, addressed to him at WRKO-AM, hints that Jason Wolfe recently expanded his portfolio. After 8 1/2 years as program director of WEEI, during which he established it as one of the nation's premier sports stations, Wolfe is now vice president of programming at both WEEI (850) and WRKO (680) (read more - Irene Sege-Boston Globe)
TalkRadio station 3AW is trading places with stablemate Magic, the easy-listening station. In May, Melbourne's top-rating radio station will switch frequencies from 1278 to 693 (read more - The Age A.U.)
It's time once again for the Randy Dotinga Static Column Awards for Radio (the SCARs). And the winners are: CBS/Infinity Radio gets the "Million Dollar Cry-Baby" award for suing Howard Stern because he kept pimping his new gig at the Sirius satellite radio network during his last days on the job in 2005 + The "All Fired Up" award goes to the liberal talk show network Air America, which played an unwitting role in the alleged sacking of a North County woman (read more - Randy Dotinga-NC Times)
Kevin and Yvonne McCarthy, and Jerry Reynolds bring you The Carguy show on WBAP 820 live this Saturday from 9-11am, then they'll have Kinky Friedman on the phone about 11:35 as part of their "there ought to be a law" theme this week. Kinky Friedman is running for Texas Governor
Radio
consultant Joel Folger
(of BOB FM
fame) unveiled
his
newest format in Billings, MT for Connoisseur Media -- Rock ‘N Country
"THE BAR" --
From Toby Keith to the
Eagles, Brooks and Dunn to Bob Seger, and Johnny Cash to
John Cougar -- a unique blend of current country
hits, country gold and a sprinkling of crossover rock.
This new format features a huge library spanning over 40
years
From Murphy Martin --
"Straw polls are entertaining,
even extremely early ones!" That statement from Arizona
Senator John McCain to a group of GOP loyalists from
more than two-
dozen
states last week. Despite what Senator McCain had to say
presidential possibilities for 2008 will get more and
more attention in the months to come.
According to ABC-TV Research people, Americans have
favorable views of the two most talked about potential
2008 presidential candidates, Sen Hillary Clinton and
Sen. John McCain. A closer look however reflects
profiles vastly different
(read
more - www.MurphyMartin.com)
Are you a ‘MUC-er? WMUC is one of the oldest student-run campus radio stations in the country. The hunt is on for WMUC radio alumni to celebrate the station’s 70th anniversary. A slew of activities are being prepared to coincide with this fall’s University of Maryland homecoming weekend (October 20 - 21st) and the university’s 150th anniversary. You can add your name to the list of ‘MUC alumni, get involved in the celebration and stay informed of upcoming events by joining the WMUC Alumni Group. More info at groups.yahoo.com/group/wmucalumni
A government crackdown on indecent programming resulted in a proposed fine of $3.6 million against dozens of CBS stations and affiliates on Wednesday -- a record penalty from the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC said an episode of the CBS crime drama "Without a Trace" that aired in December 2004 was indecent (read more - Boston Globe) (read more - ABC News)
George Galloway kicked off his radio career on Talksport at the weekend with what he modestly called "the mother of all talk shows". It was an echo of Saddam Hussein's chilling 1991 rallying cry that the first Gulf War would be the 'Mother of all Battles' (read more - East London Advertiser U.K.)
With the government set to ease media ownership laws, West Australian Newspapers Holdings Ltd. is mulling options including a further push into radio and has the firepower to make "reasonable" acquisitions, chairman Warwick Kent said. "If we see a good opportunity (in radio), we might look at that" (read more - Dow Jones)
Two longtime American Indian radio programs that now originate at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque will be shifted to new facilities at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center located across town (read more - New Mexico Biz Weekly)
The BCFM & BCCA Distance Learning Telephone Seminar called "Show Me the Money" (New Revenue Opportunities for Broadcasting and Cable Companies) is being held on Tuesday, March 21, 4:00pm – 5:15pm Eastern (read more - Broadcast Cable Financial Management Assn)
Wednesday March 15, 2006
Kudos to hosts Dave Baum and Clark Weber and the management of CBS Radio sports/talk WSCR-AM (670) for Monday night's five-hour radiothon for Eddie Schwartz. The star-studded event raised tens of thousands of dollars to aid the ailing former king of late-night radio while celebrating the career and the legacy of an extraordinary broadcaster + While filling in today on John Williams' afternoon show on Tribune Co.-owned news/talk WGN-AM (720), midday personality Steve Cochran will throw a "surprise birthday party" for himself (read more - Feder of Chicago)
A Lexington radio sports talk-show host was dismissed from his job Monday, a couple of days after he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and running from police. Tim Woodburn, who was the sports director for Cumulus Broadcasting and the host of a weeknight sports talk show on WVLK-590 AM, asked his employers for a 30-day leave of absence to enter the alcohol treatment after he was arrested Sunday (read more - Lexington Herald Leader)
"60 Minutes" without Mike Wallace? It's almost like "Oprah" without Oprah. But yesterday Wallace, 87, confirmed that this season on the Sunday-night CBS News program will be his last (read more - Tom Shales-Washington Post) (read more - Tim Cuprisin-Milwaukee JS)
Over the last quarter-century, Brian Thomas has programmed a half-dozen radio formats, from top 40 to oldies, on a dozen stations in as many cities. All of which adds up to "a tremendous advantage," he says, in his new gig as program director of Jack, the "playing what we want" format on WCBS-FM (101.1). "I'm very comfortable with different styles," says Thomas (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
For two years, Larry Lang relished his role as China's business talk-show king. On Friday night television, the Taiwan-born host of "Larry Lang Live" railed against corporate corruption and other ills of China's market reforms. The clean-cut, telegenic finance professor boiled economics down to ordinary chatter and he struck a nerve with folks disenchanted with the sagging stock market and widening income disparity. But this month, Chinese officials pulled the plug on his program (read more - LA Times)
San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications on Tuesday disclosed stock awards to some executives who are related. CEO Mark Mays was paid about $879,000 in salary while CFO Randall Mays got more than $787,000 (read more - KSAT TV)
From John Rook
-- Very soon I’d expect the
“David Lee Roth problem” will result in CBS terminating
their solution to reinvent Howard Stern.
In
recent years, how
many
times have we witnessed radio’s top management ignore
local programmers, forcing them to march to the beat of
the corporate drum? And so it was with the choice of
David Lee Roth to “replace” Stern, who cannot be
“replaced”
(read
more - www.JohnRook.com)
Westwood One announced that CBS Radio News is the recipient of this year's prestigious National Headliner Awards. CBS Radio News won two first place awards in both Breaking News and Hurricane Coverage, two second place awards in Best Newscast and Public Affairs and a third place award in the Feature, Human Interest categories
At today’s Radio Advertising Bureau’s first New York Forum on Radio, Carol Hanley, senior vice president, U.S. Media for Arbitron Inc. said that the radio industry is evolving and notes “…the U.S., the largest radio market in the world, is now poised to adopt the technology other countries have been using for years.”
Ozzie Guillen Jr. is following in his father's footsteps despite the fact his baseball career is on hold. The namesake of the White Sox' manager is making a name for himself with the spoken word. Ozzie Jr. is having the time of his life serving as his father's agent, working as a Spanish translator for the White Sox and co-hosting a one-hour sports talk show with Hector Molinas on Sundays at 10 p.m. on WSCR-AM (670) (read more - Lacy J. Banks - Chicago Sun-Times)
Robert L. Johnson, the founder and former chief executive of Black Entertainment Television, said yesterday that he acquired a tiny Florida savings and loan and plans to move it to Washington to use as the springboard for a large consumer financial services company aimed at black customers (read more - Washington Post)
Right-leaning analyst and blond-a-licious MSNBC anchor Monica Crowley spent yesterday afternoon on the witness stand in Manhattan, testifying against the alleged stalker she says "terrified" her by following her, presenting her with unwanted roses and leaving hundreds of yucky e-mails (read more - NY Post)
Bonneville International and KSL Newsradio announced that Kevin LaRue has been hired as News and Program Director for KSL Newsradio AM - FM in Salt Lake city
BBC Wales controller Menna Richards has welcomed the UK government's commitment to a strong and independent BBC. She said BBC Wales was well placed to take advantage of the emphasis on the UK's nations and regions outlined in a White Paper published on Tuesday (read more - BBC)
In a move that sent shockwaves across the airwaves, CHUM Radio lured the Vancouver Canucks away from CKNW (read more - 24 Hours Vancouver)
With technology and regulators moving rapidly, passengers could be making and receiving cellphone calls aboard airline flights next year. But a new study raises questions over whether that will be safe for airplanes (read more - Seattle Times)
MegaStar says: 'Does Chantelle know he's bagged himself a Virgin?' He was a rocker, then a reality show star, then a popstar again and now he's a radio DJ (read more - Mega Star U.K.)
The deadline to submit entries for the 2006 Radio-Mercury Awards competition has been extended to Friday, March 24th. Entries may be submitted online at www.RadioMercuryAwards.com as MP3 files. Entry forms are available on the site for download (read more - RAB)
A national poll by Harris Interactive shows that seven in ten US adults watch broadcast news at least several times a week and 2 out of 5 adults said they listen to satellite radio programming or read a national newspaper as often (read more - Editors Weblog)
Univision Radio owns five stations in Albuquerque and says its KKRG-FM, 105.1 is now "Recuerdo 105.1" (read more - New Mexico Biz Weekly)
Tuesday March 14, 2006
After serving as a correspondent on "60 Minutes" since its inception in September 1968, Mike Wallace said today that he had decided to retire this spring, at the end of the current television season. He said that the move had come at his initiative, and that "CBS is not pushing me." (read more - NY Times)
Meet the new boss: Staffers at ABC-owned news/talk WLS-AM (890) and "True Oldies" WZZN-FM (94.7) are on high alert today for the first inspection tour by Farid Suleman, chief executive officer of Citadel Broadcasting + Marcus Brown, executive producer at WLS, has been named program director of Salem Communications' conservative news/talk WIND-AM (560) (read more - Feder of Chicago)
CBS brass quickly slammed Howard Stern last night following his vitriolic appearance on David Letterman's "Late Show." "We believe his appearance was his desperate attempt to distract attention from the facts of the case," CBS officials said in a surprisingly harsh statement (read more - Don Kaplan-NY Post) (read more - CBS News)
Howard Stern continued his "I Hate Les Moonves" tour Monday night, and the only noteworthy fact about the whole thing: It was on CBS. Stern's appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman" -- scheduled before CBS recently filed a lawsuit against him for defrauding the corporation -- turned into a diatribe against the CBS boss (read more- Newsday)
Arbitron announced today that it will begin the rollout of the Portable People Meter (PPM SM) system as its radio ratings service in the top 50 markets. Beginning with Houston in July 2006, Arbitron will start making the change to the Portable People Meter, an electronic audience measurement technology that has been in U.S. market trials since 2001. The PPM will be used in place of the current paper and pencil diary method that the company has employed to collect radio audience estimates since 1965 (read more - Media Buyer Planner) (read more - Reuters) (read more - LA Times)
Last night, for the 21st year in a row, a roomful of rock 'n' roll movers and shakers morphed into rock 'n' roll sitters and eaters. They gathered at the Grand Ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria, to induct a new group of honorees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This year's inductees are Blondie, the Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Miles Davis, along with the record executives Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. The ceremony is to be shown on VH1 at 9 p.m. on next Tuesday (read more - NY Times)
Audio Design Associates announced today that the company’s first HD Radio tuner module (HDM-1) will be available in April 2006 (visit Audio Design Associates)
"The message is, we're losing listeners," said Carlos Lando, program director at public radio station KUVO 89.3-FM, which in August 2004 became the first Colorado station to switch to high definition. "People aren't listening for quite as long. The kids have been abandoning ship for a while." "For the longest time we sat back as an industry and let satellite market itself," said Don Howe of CBS Radio Denver (read more - Dick Kreck-Denver Post)
Beginning April 3, Carl P. Mayfield & the P-Team, featuring Bubba Skynyrd, will air live 3-7 p.m. Central time weekdays on Sirius' Road Dog Trucking on the network's channel 147. Road Dog is a revamped version of Sirius Trucking Network. "Having a top-shelf, veteran talent like Carl P. Mayfield as the centerpiece of the Road Dog Trucking channel sends a strong message to the trucking community that we have made a major commitment to this very important listener base," Jay Clark, Sirius executive vice president of programming, said in a statement (read more - Tim Ghianni-The Tennessean)
The U.S. Department of Justice has closed its antitrust investigations into Clear Channel Communications Inc. with no adverse actions taken, the company said in a regulatory filing late Friday. The Justice Department investigated whether Clear Channel had violated antitrust laws in one of its radio markets, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Another Justice Department investigation concerned whether Clear Channel tied airplay or the use of certain concert venues to the use of the concert promotion services of the company's former live-entertainment business, in violation of antitrust laws (read more - MSNBC)
A California plane crash has killed ex-TV game show host, Peter Tomarken, and his wife Kathleen Abigail (read more - NY Post)
WBAL is dropping the Rush Limbaugh show, but Limbaugh will on another area station in June. WBAL had commissioned research into what listeners want to hear and found that Marylanders liked the station's local personalities -- Dave Durian, Chip Franklin and Ron Smith. It found that they want more localized programming with "more information and discussion about the events and issues impacting them." (read more - Baltimore Sun)
Virgin Radio owner SMG posted a 46% hike in profits today but warned that continued weakness in the volatile advertising market could hit revenues (read more - Ireland Online)
Premiere Radio's The Glenn Beck Program adds new affiliates KRGI-AM in Grand Island, NE and KTMM-AM in Grand Junction, CO
SIRIUS Satellite Radio and Cosmopolitan magazine today announced the launch of COSMO Radio, a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week channel (visit Cosmo Channel 111)
Chuck DeFeo, who was Bush-Cheney ’04’s e-campaign manager and served in a similar role at the Republican National Committee in 2002, has crafted a multimedia strategy for the Christian broadcasting giant Salem Communications to maximize the political power of its conservative talk-radio hosts and help Salem promote activism among listeners. Next week, Salem is expected to launch a website featuring the hosts of five major radio talk shows: “Morning in America” with Bill Bennett, “The Mike Gallagher Show,” “The Dennis Prager Show,” “The Michael Medved Show” and “The Hugh Hewitt show.” Plans for the new site, however, may be affected by how the Federal Election Commission decides to regulate political activity on the Internet. The agency is scheduled to vote on adopting new regulations Thursday. His new website, www.beyondthenews.com, is intended to give the hosts “an online platform to move from radio to Internet to get active” (read more - The Hill)
The Doin’ It Network -- which includes a new weekly radio series and streaming media website – was designed to provide tools, insights, and inside access to black business in America for those climbing the corporate ladder, running their own companies, or aspiring to do so one day. The network launched on XM Satellite Radio Channel 169 and at www.doinitonline.com (read more - The State)
Two morning programs are jockeying for bragging rights in the Roanoke/Lynchburg radio market: "The John Boy and Billy Big Show" on WROV (96.3 FM) and "The Breakfast Club with Dick Daniels and David Page" on WSLQ (99.1 FM) (read more - Roanoke Times)
Steve Harvey has briefly mentioned the big D-word on his syndicated radio show and used it as the butt of some self deprecating jokes at Friday's NABOB Dinner in Washington, but he’s giving up details of the December divorce from his wife Mary in the latest issue of Jet magazine (read more - EurWeb)
As part of Bridge Ratings' on-going study of audience attrition of traditional radio and subscriber and user growth of alternative digital media, here is an update to findings first published in March of 2005 and then again in December of 2005 by Bridge Ratings. The release covers adjusted projections for satellite radio, Internet radio and wireless internet as well as the industry's first-look at HD radio growth estimates. While this release covers the essentials, you can read more at www.bridgeratings.com
"Chicago Ed" Schwartz, 59, once hosted the top late-night show in Chicago, reaching as many as 380,000 listeners every week in 1992. He launched one of the city’s largest food drives and became an unlikely local celebrity through his startling generosity, on and off the air. His audience ranged from politicians and police officers to truck drivers, nurses, late-night drinkers, and, of course, insomniacs. “Ed connected with his audience, in part, because he understood loneliness,” says Robert Feder, television and radio columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times (read more - Chicago Magazine)
From Happy
Hare -- In telling you about Ben Shirley
in “Happy Hare…Mad as Hell. part 1,” there was some unfinished business.
Ben was the embodiment of Howard Beal, the madman TV news host in the movie
“Network.”
He
was exercised about everything, and gave vent to his fury every morning as the
newsman on my show. He was with me at KCBQ in San Diego, then joined me at WADO
in Manhattan…...via Mexico. People would tune in every morning to hear what was
eating him,. No one was immune. He took swipes at a local hood, reputed to be
the Mafia boss. Corruption among the local politicians was a favorite
(read more -
www.HappyHareOnline.com)
Dear Radio Babe: Subject: Bubba. Thanks for the heads-up on Bubba the Love Sponge's possible appearance on 97X. I have removed that station from the presets in the car. I'd never listen to a station that would even consider having this guy on. -- W.B. Dear W.B.: Not to be facetious, but there was nothing "possible" about it. Bubba the Love Sponge Clem (that's his legal name) faithfully appeared on WSUN (97.1 FM 97X) Thursday. And the whole to-do about him "spilling secrets" was merely a ploy to gain listeners. Go figure (read more - Dawn Scire-The Radio babe)
So, you thought that satellite radio was new? Think again. 46 year ago, in 1960, the McLendon radio stations broadcast an announcement about "Courier 1B", a 500 pound satellite radio station. Thanks to the Don Keyes family and George Gimarc, you can now hear the brief announcement. George Gimarc is collecting and converting broadcast tapes from analog into digital (click here to listen to the satellite radio announcement)
Australia's government plans to abolish media-ownership rules to allow overseas-based companies to control the nation's newspapers or television networks and local companies to expand into other forms of media -- allowing Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., Australia's biggest newspaper publisher, to buy a free-to-air television network, and making John Fairfax Holdings Ltd. a takeover target (read more - Bloomberg)
The World Famous Nashville Palace, located in Music City USA, along with co-owner Craig Morgan, Academy of Country Music Top New Male Vocalist nominee, announced a ‘dream trip of a lifetime’ promotion with ABC Radio Networks 24/7 Real Country format. The trip promotion will allow a lucky winner and their guest to attend the 41st Annual Academy of Country Music Awards live in Las Vegas, Nevada at MGM Grand. The Academy of Country Music Awards will broadcast live on CBS Television on May 23, 2006
Dan Snyder's Red Zebra broadcasting's latest hire is Lewis Schreck, most recently vice president of sports at Infinity/CBS Radio (read more - Washington Biz Journal)
A study
released today by the Project for Excellence in
Journalism finds that in 2005, mainstream news media
began moving significant resources to online journalism,
in some cases merging traditional and online operations.
"We are seeing a recognition that the Internet is not
simply a place to repurpose what you are already doing,"
he says. "It's a new environment where you can produce
more and where the potential, theoretically, is richer."
There's growing optimism as broadband technology allows
news producers to increasingly shift programming to the
Web, enabling viewers to watch when and where they want.
Nowhere is this optimism being embraced more than at the
Big Three network news outlets, which often have been
considered dinosaurs
(read
more - Peter Johnson-USA Today)
Premiere Radio Networks announced that they’re pursuing a developing opportunity for their radio program, “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” June 1, 2006 will be the first day “The Rush Limbaugh Show” will be heard on a new station, which will be announced in the near future. Until that time, Limbaugh continues to be heard from noon - 3 p.m. ET on WBAL (read more - Baltimore Biz Journal)
Rick & Bubba head to New York later this week in support of their book, Rick & Bubba's Expert Guide To God, Country, Family and Anything Else We Can Think Of. They'll appear "Your World with Cavuto", "Fox & Friends" and "Hannity & Colmes". They'll also be guests on Sean Hannity's syndicated radio show. The book, which is their first, hit the #1 spot on the Amazon.com and Books-A-Million charts less than 2 days after being released
Fiji's conservative political establishment and its military forces are on a collision course, with the military in effect campaigning against the Government, ignoring warnings it should stay out of politics. In the latest development, a popular radio commentator with the state-owned Fiji Broadcasting Corporation has been fired for having the military commander, Frank Bainimarama, on his program (read more - Sydney Morning Herald)
Local public radio station WFAE-FM is launching digital radio service and a new format through its high-definition sub-channels (read more - Charlotte Biz Journal)
Loretta Morgan will be leaving Smooth Jazz 107.5 the Oasis to explore her future with Carter Blood Care as the Events Coordinator. Her last day of employment with CBS Radio will be March 17th
After 33 years in South Florida radio, David Ross, a Clear Channel executive, has departed for an online television company in Georgia (read more - South Florida Biz Journal)
Monday March 13, 2006
Howard TV is Howard Stern’s new uncensored On Demand channel for digital cable that shows uncut classic Stern shows, outrageous new Sirius daily shows, and tons of exclusive programming. Subscribers can get over 40 shows per month, and all the full-frontal Howard they can handle whenever they want with Howard TV On Demand (visit Howard TV)
WMSE-FM (91.7) marks a quarter-century on the air this week + WJZI-FM (93.3), Steve Scott is out as morning host + familiar Milwaukee radio voice Jay Philpott, chosen to fill the afternoon slot when WHQG-FM (102.9) launched last year, has been replaced by Nick Summers, a Wausau radio veteran (read more - Tim Cuprisin-Milwaukee JS)
The motto for Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero's ultra-popular morning show El Vacilón de la Mañana is ''harvesting panic'' and to anyone sticking their head into the tiny studio at El Zol (95.7 FM) in Coral Gables when the duo is on the air, that wouldn't seem hard (read more - Miami Herald)
The local radio biz is crackling with rumors that Opie and Anthony, former morning team on WNEW (102.7 FM) and currently on XM Satellite Radio, will sign a syndication deal with CBS Radio that could include replacing David Lee Roth, current morning man on WFNY (92.3 FM). So far nothing official has been said (read more - David Hinckley - NY Daily News)
As the empires of XM and Sirius satellite radio began their emergence five years ago, the owners of many so-called "terrestrial" local stations around the country remained blithely oblivious to the looming danger, Chris Sargent, program director for four Clear Channel Eugene stations - KPNW-AM and KDUK, KODZ and KFLY FM, says. Those local stations pumped each programming hour full of advertising minutes. They turned away from local personalities and ignored listeners' preferences, snatching up the cost savings of syndicated shows and canned playlists instead. They followed the business plans of defunct businesses everywhere, failing to recognize that if they didn't respond to their customers, someone else would (read more - Eugene Register-Guard)
From
Claude Hall --
Would
someone kindly tell me what radio station this is...and
the
people?
I keep thinking Atlanta. WSB?
I
was there once. But that's not Elmo Ellis at left. Might
be the program director, but I can't recall his name at
the moment. The DJ? I remember my visit fairly well
otherwise. Especially an old restaurant in a modern high
rise office building. Even the floor of the restaurant
had been moved. Walls. Tables. Chairs. Decorations. I
sort of gathered that it was a "members only" place.
Don't recall if the food was any good or not. But I do
remember enjoying myself. Because of the radio guys that
took me there. Great people. Couldn't beat Elmo Ellis,
general manager of WSB at the time
(read more -
www.ClaudeHallOnline.com)
Steffan Tubbs, co-host of KOA 850-AM's "Colorado's Morning News," trekked off to Iraq last week, hoping to be embedded with U.S. troops. By the end of the week, the only place he was embedded was in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, now occupied by military officers, visiting media and dignitaries. One kind of "royalty" for another (read more - Dick Kreck-Denver Post)
Mayor Daley and
dozens of other celebrities come
together on the radio tonight to help out
Eddie
Schwartz,
the ailing former king of the
late-night airwaves. From 7 p.m. to midnight
Monday, CBS Radio's
WSCR-AM
(670) will preempt its sports/talk
programming (and all commercials) to solicit donations
for the man known to millions as
"Chicago
Ed."
(read
more - Feder of Chicago)
Chris Douridas first made a name for himself as the musical director at Santa Monica's public radio powerhouse KCRW-FM and as the original host of the station's cutting-edge and influential show "Morning Becomes Eclectic." But that was just the opening act ... it all seemed to fall apart one night in January when Douridas walked into a popular Santa Monica bar. By the time the night was over, he was in jail and his career and freedom were suddenly question marks (read more - Martin Miller-LA Times)
Deejay Joe Farmer had a tough time trying to nap during his time "behind bars" this weekend. Particularly because he was being "jailed" in a noisy shopping mall. "There’s a high level of ambient noise in here," Farmer said, adding that he could hear people talking about him, asking if he was breathing (read more - NW Arkansas Times)
Philly media columnist Laura Nachman will be on TV as a panel member discussing "American Idol" on "It's Your Call with Lynn Doyle" tonight at 9 p.m. on CN 8
Public Radio is pushing the use of podcasting, which has gone from a buzzword bandied about by tech geeks to a mainstream term, but some local affiliates are concerned about the plan (read more - Dayton Biz Journal)
MacQuarie Radio Network Ltd is beefing up its digital media capabilities amid slowing advertising growth in the radio market. The company, which owns the east coast-based 2GB and 2CH radio stations, is now sending content to customers through internet podcasts, video and mobile phones, according to chief executive Angela Clark. "It's about experimenting and pushing out that content on different formats and experimenting with what listeners and viewers – because a lot of the content we now produce is in video form – are moving into," she said (read more - News.com A.U.)
Knight Ridder, the second-largest newspaper company in the United States, agreed last night to sell itself for about $4.5 billion in cash and stock to the McClatchy Company, a publisher half its size, according to people involved in the negotiations (read more - NY Times) (read more - Star-Telegram)
Arbitron today presented a comprehensive set of initiatives to bolster response rates and improve sample proportionality for young men in the company’s diary-based markets. The Response Rate and Proportionality Action Plan includes substantial increases in cash incentives and other survey treatments to encourage overall cooperation in Arbitron surveys and improve sample representation among the difficult to survey young male population (read more - ARBitron)
"People who are older don't understand where the music comes from," says Anthony Worgs, whose weekly radio show "XyayX Radio: Hip-Hop With Substance" attempts to explicate a culture that many see as a $10 billion-a-year morass of violence, profanity, sexism and extremely baggy pants (read more - Jim Beckerman-North Jersey)
Crusading New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was making music again last week. “In one case, Don’t Tell Me by Avril Lavigne aired 109 times in one week on Entercom’s WQZQ in Nashville,” the court document charged. “Over one third of these spins were paid for by Arista Records, Lavigne’s label.” So, is that how you get from an Ontario church singer to an overnight pop music sensation? (read more - Neil Waugh-Edmonton Sun)
Thirty year broadcast veteran Barry Michaels, ('Michaels In The Morning') became interested in radio at an early age, becoming a ‘gopher’ for one local radio personality and quickly learning where the emphasis is placed in the term ’show business’. Barry's career began in earnest after college, when he finally screwed up his courage to apply at a small radio station near his hometown, where he spoke mostly to cows (read more - ClickPress)
Public stations like KQED, KALW, KCSM and KPFA aren't going for advertising money. They don't subscribe to Arbitron, and so are excluded from the rankings that the company issues every quarter. RRC's Arbitron's numbers for Bay Area public stations in the 2005 fall quarter show KQED (88.5 FM) with a 4.7 percent share of the overall listening audience (age 12-plus, 6 a.m. to midnight every day). This would place it at No. 3 among all stations, behind the perennial market leader, KGO (6.1), and KOIT (4.9) (read more - Ben Fong-Torres - SF Chronicle)
Mark Larson takes his show to the USS Ronald Reagan, live from the Persian Gulf at noon on KOGO. Plus, San Diego's Finest City Broadcasting shows off its new studios (read more - SDRadio.net)
Regent University, founded by evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson, who remains president and chancellor, says its policies don't bar enrollment of gay students , but a Lynchburg-based gay rights organization will challenge that assertion when it deploys "equality riders" today in Virginia Beach near the campus. "You can read what Pat Robertson says about gay and lesbian people, and we have stories from students there who have suffered under discrimination" as non heterosexual people , said Haven Herrin , co-director of the Equality Ride (read more - Virgianian Pilot)
If you're wondering why your cable and satellite stocks are slumping or why AT&T Chief Executive Edward E. Whitacre Jr. is paying a fat premium for BellSouth Corp, take a spin through Keller, Texas. Little more than scruffy prairie two decades ago, this booming suburb of 34,000 near Fort Worth and Dallas is the staging ground for what promises to be the next great media battle among providers of TV, broadband, and phone services. Phone giant Verizon Communications Inc. is signing up slews of customers -- for a new TV service (read more - Business Week)
''This is The Primary News Medium for the North Shore -- WESX in Historic Salem, Massachusetts." That was the line we learned to say as disc jockeys on WESX. The station ID. I was part of the team back in the 1960s, with Al Needham, Norm Decker, Norm Durkee (then the general manager), Hy Sibley, Chip Whitemore, secretary Fraffie Welch, and the indefatigable morning host, Nelson Bragg (''That's Bragg with two G's") (read more - Bob Bradley (Boris)(Boston Globe)
Chicago, the rock group, is giving Clear Channel Radio listeners a one-of-a-kind opportunity through its online program “Sneak Peek.” “XXX,” Chicago’s 30th album, will be available for On Demand stream in its entirety only from Clear Channel Radio station Web sites
A resurgent Virgin Radio will offset disappointing figures for cinema advertising operation Pearl & Dean when parent company SMG reveals that new DJs and digital formats have helped turn round the station's fortunes. SMG boss Andrew Flanagan will tell the market that the flagship AM channel will continue to outperform the difficult radio market (read more - The Scotsman U.K.)
If you're like me, the Cowboys' announcement last week that they're moving their games to "The Ticket" (KTCK/1310 AM) made you feel a tad uncomfortable. Not because of the change in radio address, because if anything, this might simply make the games even more fun to listen to on Sunday afternoons. What troubled me, just a little bit, was what wasn't said. You know, no announcement that Brad Sham and Babe Laufenberg would be back in their usual seats, doing play-by-play and color analysis. For most of us, it's the familiar voices that we care about a lot more than where the games are on the radio dial (read more - Jim Reeves-Star Telegram)
On Monday, the rest of the world - not just those who can receive KXRB AM, a Sioux Falls station, on their radios - finds out just how much Jerry Dahmen loves life. The local radio personality's show, "I Love Life," has been picked up by World Christian Broadcasting Inc (read more - Argus Leader)
You know the story, right? Bland and Blander — the duo that replaced me at 610 KCSP — accepted $150 apiece to be hosts of a radio remote that promoted the latest tax provision campaign to fix the Truman Sports Complex. Wall and Jones occasionally masquerade as journalists and should at all costs avoid the appearance that their opinions are bought and paid for, especially by political groups. The New Don delighted in their misstep (read more - Jason Whitlock-KC Star)
The Jackson Sun podcasts consist of Executive Editor Dick Schneider's Monday radio show with George B. on WNWS-FM Talk Radio 101.5 and my short weekday opinion commentaries. Frankly, I stole the idea for my daily commentaries from an old acquaintance in Dallas, Alex Burton. Alex is somewhat retired these days and a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. He is a broadcaster, journalist and newsman who did talk radio before there was talk radio. When the talk genre began to take hold back in the 1980s, Alex did daily commentaries for FM station KRLD in Dallas (read more - Tom Bohs-Jackson Sun)
ABC's "Good Morning America" has hired CNN producer Jennifer Seidman + former "Today" star Alexis Glick, once a contender for Katie Couric's job should she leave, is out (read more - NY Post)
Two Milwaukee money managers with millions invested in Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications Corp. are crying foul over the company's attempts to buy the Washington Nationals baseball team (read more - Don Walker and Kathleen Gallagher-Milwaukee JS)
Lake Wobegon met Town Lake on Friday night at the historic Paramount Theater at the official kickoff of this year’s South by Southwest, the 20th anniversary of what’s become a giant film, music and Internet festival in Austin. Robert Altman’s latest star-studded vehicle, a movie takeoff on Garrison Keillor’s popular public radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, made its global premiere before an enthusiastic capacity house (read more - Star-Telegram)
You're driving down the road, calmed by the soothing sounds from your favorite Christian radio station when, all of a sudden, Howard Stern hijacks your radio. This is just the most outrageous example of a phenomenon radio station managers in the lower end of the FM spectrum have been hearing from listeners in recent months, a situation they attribute to improperly installed satellite radios (read more - Philly Daily News)
This may come as a shock to some readers, but I actually do believe public service broadcasting is a Good Thing. Commercial radio and TV have their merits, but I am not convinced that handing over the rest of the airwaves to them would raise standards in the British media. An heretical thing to say in a conservative paper, I know, but that's the truth of it. No, I think the real problem with the public sector, alas, is that it only exists in theory (read more - Clive Davis-Washington Times)
There were rumblings of discontent when the controller of Radio 2, Lesley Douglas, brought him back to the BBC last year. But they are as nothing compared with the venom that has greeted her announcement that Chris Evans will take over from Johnnie Walker as the presenter of Radio 2's drive-time show from 18 April. Replacing Walker was never going to be easy. His seven-year stint at drivetime has coincided with a period of dramatic success for the station. Total weekly reach has increased to 13.25 million listeners, three million more than its nearest rival, Radio 1 (read more - The Independent U.K.)
Yankee Stadium became a wedding chapel for baseball fan Allison Pheifle and Ed Lucas, a radio baseball reporter who was blinded as a child when hit between the eyes by a line drive (read more - Salem News)
Ramiro Tellez Contreras, an anchorman for a Mexican radio station in Nuevo Laredo was shot to death early Friday by gunmen waiting for him in the bushes in front of his house in this violent border city (read more - Seattle PI)
The mother of slain student Imette St. Guillen is bristling at suggestions on Boston talk radio that her daughter could have prevented her rape and murder by avoiding a New York City bar in the early morning hours (read more - Jessica Heslam-Boston Herald)
Rhattigan Broadcasting recently named Susan Browning of Plainview the general manager for Plainview Radio, effective April 1. She will oversee the operations of the four Plainview stations: KKYN, KVOP, KRIA and KREW (read more - Plainview Daily Herald)
The radio station that was already ranked No. 1 with Hispanic listeners in the Boston metro area has gotten bigger. Costa Eagle Broadcasting of Methuen earlier this month received Federal Communications Commission approval to take its WNNW signal from 1,000 watts of power to 3,000 at the 800 spot on the AM dial (read more - Eagle Tribune)
First it was the warnings to NBC chairman Robert Wright, next there were phone calls to NBC president Jeff Zucker, then the petition to get Keith Olbermann fired and Phil Donahue brought back, and lastly erroneous ratings were given out. Now, Bill O’Reilly is threatening callers to his radio show who mention Olbermann’s name. Ted Baxter told uncooperative listeners that he'll turn their phone numbers over to Fox security, and that Fox security will in turn contact the local authorities (read more - MSNBC)
The Capital Radio drivetime show with Richard Bacon will be sponsored by Thorpe Park from Monday in a six-figure deal running for six months (read more - Media Bulletin U.K.)
Dr. Joseph Lowery, former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who has walked side-by-side with Martin Luther King, Jr. during the heyday of the civil rights movement, took the pulpit, telling the standing crowd to ``Sit down before I take up an offering.'' Lowery praised Curry for the progress WMBM has made. ''If we'd had a radio station during the movement, things would have gone a lot better,'' he said. ``I thank God for independent radio stations like WMBM. And I thank God for Bishop. I like the way he talks about boycotting and about letting justice roll down'' (read more - Miami Herald)
A ruling that forces ads onto four XM Satellite Radio music channels will surely require the company to rework its "100 percent commercial-free music" slogan, but it may actually bolster the argument for subscription radio in the long run (read more - Motley Fool)
Philadelphia's B101 Radio (WBEB 101.1 FM) today announced that President and Co-owner Jerry Lee has finalized a purchase deal to secure sole ownership of the adult contemporary station. Lee purchased the outstanding equity stake from the estate of his recently deceased partner, David L. Kurtz (read more - Business Wire)
ARBitron numbers for Baton Rouge, Greenville-New Bern, Huntsville, Jacksonville and West Palm Beach (read 'em)
Art Buchwald, 80, is now known as the Man Who Wouldn't Die. The Queens native, whose humorous columns have been running in newspapers for more than 50 years, discontinued dialysis for his failing kidneys six weeks ago and checked into a hospice to die with dignity. "One of the reasons for the decision was that I lost a leg at Georgetown Hospital," Buchwald said in a column syndicated yesterday by Tribune Media Services (read more - NY Post)
Fox Broadcasting President Peter Ligouri has banned use of the word "retarded" in response to a complaint from a Down Syndrome advocacy group (read more - UPI)
The initial attraction for consumers purchasing a satellite radio system is the lack of advertising and the unedited content. But a question that is arising is whether XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio will be able to continue their growth without it. From committing over $500 Million to bringing in Howard Stern to spending over $50 million for Oprah Winfrey, though the content is in demand how do the satellite radio companies capitalize on that? (read more - Louis Victor-New Age Media Concepts Newswire)
Friday March 10, 2006
A defiant David Lee Roth yesterday challenged his bosses to fire him by brazenly violating new rules slapped on him this week by Free FM. "They're gonna come after me on this, and ultimately I'll be fired [but] I refuse to dummy down," vowed the feisty ex-rocker. Howard Stern's successor has been under pressure from the station to revamp his morning show since his first set of ratings proved disastrous (read more - John Mainelli-NY Post)
Tom Langmyer, who once fired McGraw Milhaven from his speaker's spot on KMOX radio, has hired him for the next three weekends to host a show at his new station, WGN in Chicago (read more - Deb Peterson-St Louis Post-Dispatch)
CBS' breach of contract suit against Howard Stern might be "frivolous." That's from the mouth of Stern's replacement at radio 92.3 FM, David Lee Roth - as told to Stern's Sirius news outlet. Howard 100's Steve Langford yesterday caught up with Roth, who is engaged in a battle of his own with CBS Radio brass over the direction of his audience-challenged morning radio show (read more - Richard Huff-NY Daily News)
When Keith Olbermann "punches upward" at Fox News, "the clever response, the cynical and brilliant response is to just ignore." But they don't. "They attack," Olbermann says in a conversation with Brian Lamb on C-SPAN's Q&A this weekend. "Bill O'Reilly's agent calls the head of NBC week after week saying, you have got to get Olbermann to stop this," Olbermann said. So does Olbermann hate O'Reilly? No, he explains (read more - MediaBistro)
A Tahlequah radio station is trying to help preserve an endangered piece of Native American culture. Experts say the Cherokee language could be extinct in two generations. Tahlequah's KTLQ is trying to keep it alive (read more - KOTV)
Though Phillies rookie announcer Scott Franzke is aware of the feud between fellow broadcasters Harry Kalas and Chris Wheeler, he said it won’t affect his job beginning this weekend on WPHT 1210-AM + New Sportstalk 950-AM program director Jason Barrett is sitting in his office one night, sifting through the hundreds of CDs, MP3s and tapes from hopeful sports radio talk show hosts. "I’m evaluating everybody on and off our air," said Barrett, 32, who arrived from producing "The Dan Patrick Show" on ESPN Radio (read more - Laura Nachman)
Billionaire television producer Haim Saban, Mexican broadcasting company Grupo Televisa and a group of other well-heeled investors are planning a $12 billion bid for Hispanic television giant Univision, sources told The Post (read more - NY Post)
Roanoke's WDBJ-TV (Channel 7) is hooking up with other area news outfits and trying new Web-based projects in an attempt to address shifts in how viewers get their news. This pairing comes weeks after WDBJ announced a similar arrangement with WFIR-AM, a Mel Wheeler Inc. radio station (read more - Roanoke Times)
From Kent
Burkhart -- Last week I
wrote a column about the Google purchase of dMarc.
Google is pretty much a magic company, and they have a
tendency to move into
the
future with clarity. Please read last week’s column
number 100
www.kentburkhart.com for details.
And to answer the question I posed last week…where
are these new radio revenues coming from for the dMarc
national advertising concept???? Well, I can assume that
dMarc will have a sales team looking for new regional
and national advertisers….in other words new revenue
(read
more - www.KentBurkhart.com)
It can't happen the way it used to, when disc jockey support and radio airplay could help lightning strike an Elvis or a Bowie or a Springsteen, and when being fresh and different meant something. The music business went corporate and turned art into a product it could plot on flow charts and earnings sheets. They started playing it safe, which meant something "new" had to sound like something you've already heard, something that worked before, something that fits neatly in a category (read more - Tom Feran-Cleveland Plain Dealer) (read more - Sun Herald)
In post-truth era, facts mean less: Ralph Keyes wrote "The Post-Truth Era,'' the title of his 2004 book about the acceptability of lying in today's culture. Facts aren't what they used to be. In the old days, they were the meat and potatoes of an informed opinion. I was reminded of this Wednesday as people responded on talk radio and online to the comprehensive evidence of Barry Bonds' repeated, knowing use of illict performance-enhancing drugs since 1998 (read more - Joan Ryan-SF Chronicle)
Why is every political pundit you see on television, hear on the radio or read in the newspaper a conservative?Why does it seem that, with the exception of a few, the liberal pundits are relegated to NPR, satellite radio and small, local newspapers that nobody reads? The answer is actually very simple. The idea of a liberal media is one of the dumbest (yet most widely accepted) myths in America today, an urban myth as silly as pop rocks and soda (read more - U of Dayton-Flyer News)
WSUB, New London County's first and only Spanish language radio station, is reaching out to local Hispanics in an attempt to forestall a possible format change. The station, which broadcasts at 980 AM, has been running announcements asking local businesses to purchase advertisement time on the station and for residents to support the station (read more - Shore Publishing)
Telecommunications lawyer Robert McDowell, nominated to be a commissioner on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, said on Thursday he would not prejudge issues before the agency despite having worked for one side of the industry (read more - Reuters)
Are Bill
O'Reilly and Fox Security contacting local
authorities to hold O'Reilly's radio show callers
"accountable"? (Transcript from March 2
broadcast of Bill O'Reilly radio show)
O'REILLY: Orlando, Florida, Mike, go.
CALLER: Hey Bill, I appreciate you taking my call.
O'REILLY: Sure.
CALLER: I like to listen to you during the day, I
think Keith Olbermann's show --
O'REILLY: There ya go, Mike is -- he's a gone guy.
You know, we have his -- we have your phone numbers,
by the way. So, if you're listening, Mike, we have
your phone number, and we're going to turn it over
to Fox security, and you'll be getting a little
visit.
HILL: Maybe Mike is from the mothership.
O'REILLY: No, Maybe Mike is going to get into big
trouble, because we're not going to play around.
When you call us, ladies and gentleman, just so you
know, we do have your phone number, and if you say
anything untoward, obscene, or anything like that,
Fox security then will contact your local
authorities, and you will be held accountable. Fair?
HILL: That's fair.
O'REILLY: So, just -- all you guys who do this kind
of a thing, you know, I know some shock jocks.
Whatever. You will be held accountable. Believe it.
We'll be right back.
El Pistolero is a sort of Spanish Howard Stern, a shock jock with a wacky sidekick who jokes about breasts and bodily functions. But in addition to his verbal spitballs, he has become an unlikely champion of immigrants' rights, credited with energizing thousands who plan to take part Friday in a massive march and a rally at Federal Plaza. By Thursday, organizers were predicting that an array of labor, religious and ethnic groups could push the total to tens of thousands, possibly paralyzing Loop traffic in the process. And they were giving Pulido much of the credit (read more - Oscar Avila-Chicago Tribune)
Nine communications professionals and one educator will be inducted next month into the N.C. Journalism and Advertising Halls of Fame and the N.C. Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame (read more - Charlotte Observer)
Young Broadcasting today announced results for the three months and 12 months ended December 31, 2005 (read more - Business Wire)
Macquarie Bank will soon be booming Meatloaf, Bon Jovi and Queen across the English port city of Plymouth, after being awarded its first radio licence in Britain. The bank outlined ambitious growth plans in its licence application, claiming the British radio market was an "attractive long-term growth opportunity" given the size of the market, the development of digital radio and the cultural similarities between Australia and Britain (read more - The Age A.U.)
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates's net worth has risen to $50 billion, making him the world's richest person and widening his lead over No. 2 Warren Buffett, according to Forbes magazine's annual survey (read more - Bloomberg)
The greater Hartford area is one of the few markets in which Howard Stern´s departure hasn´t had a seismic impact. Until his terrestrial radio show went off the air on Dec. 16, 2005, Stern´s show was played on Hartford-based radio station The Rock, 106.9 WCCC. ¨All across the country, Stern stations are taking a huge hit. We´re not,¨ said WCCC general manager Michael Picozzi. ¨We went from, like, first to second. Other stations went from first to 18th.¨ (read more - Hartford Advocate)
Role models on morning radio? This weekend, PBS's NOW David Brancaccio interviews actor, comedian, and social critic Steve Harvey. Harvey, who hosts a syndicated radio show (visit PBS NOW)
Prostitutes in the Brazilian city of Salvador are starting up their own radio station (read more - Reuters)
Dave Graveline and the Into Tomorrow team this Sunday will be featuring "Technology on the Go" + more beginning at 2 pm EDST (visit Into Tomorrow)
Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion" makes its North American premiere tomorrow on opening night of the South by Southwest film festival. Celebrities including Charlize Theron, Ray Romano, Brad Garrett and Erykah Badu are expected to appear throughout the week in Austin (read more- San Jose Mercury News) (visit South by Southwest Film Festival)
A San Diego County woman is suing her former employer, accusing her manager of firing her on the spot when she saw the woman's car had a bumper sticker advertising a progressive talk radio station. The suit also alleges that, after seeing the sticker, the employer commented that the woman could be a member of al-Qaida (read more - NC Times)
Some of the things you WON’T hear on La Kalle 105.9 FM, the city’s newest Spanish radio station: Salsa. Merengue. Pretty much any type of traditional Spanish music. What you WILL hear: Daddy Yankee, Don Omar and plenty of other reggaeton artists, along with hip-hop and reggae stars, and DJ’s and commercials using “Spanglish” — a mix of Spanish and English (read more- MSNBC)
One-time WRKO talk radio host Doreen Vigue remembers a programmer telling her that it doesn’t matter how serious the subject matter is: When a male listener hears a female talker on a radio program, all he hears is ‘‘take out the trash.” ‘‘It was disconcerting at the time,” says Vigue (read more - Greg Gatlin-Boston Herald)
Westwood One announced that, effective immediately, David Hillman assumes the newly created role of Executive Vice President, Business Affairs and General Counsel and effective immediately David Halberstam assumes the newly created role of EVP/General Manager of Westwood One Sports
ARBitron numbers for Albuquerque, Austin TX, Bakersfield, Colorado Springs, Des Moines, El Paso, Gainesville-Ocala, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol, Orlando and Shreveport (read 'em)
Arbitron announced that Horizon Media, the largest U.S. independent media services company, has signed a commitment to use radio audience estimates for Houston and Philadelphia based on the Portable People Meter (PPM SM) when Arbitron makes a decision to deploy its state-of-the-art audience measurement service in those markets
From Murphy Martin --
It is strange, powerfully strange, how twenty-four-
hours can separate indelible impressions of four
decades ago. But that happened this week.
It all came back to me Monday night as I met Jim
Leavelle,
the man in the light suit and big Stetson hat, at
the very spot where Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey
Oswald on November 24, 1963. I had been back to that
spot several times since then but it was never as
cold and jarring as it was Monday night. Only one
car in the big parking garage which is the basement
of that historic building. The noisy, old
air-conditioning system covered the sounds of
traffic from adjoining streets. In walks Jim
Leavelle, now 85-years-old, who still looks like he
could break up an illegal dice game and arrest all
seven players by himself ...
(read
more - www.MurphyMartin.com)
Thursday March 9, 2006
Morning host David Lee Roth of WFNY (92.3 FM) spent four hours yesterday telling his bosses where they could stick their ideas for improving his low-rated show. "They want me to copy Howard [Stern]," Roth said. "But I refuse to regiment this show. ... I told them I would quit if they will not let me do what I was hired to do, which is create something unique." (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
NY AG Eliot Spitzer alleges payola in lawsuit -- In an e-mail released by Spitzer, Entercom's vice president of programming, Pat Paxton, wrote to a colleague: "A quick lesson on how CD Preview works: Record companies buy the program to better their chart position…. It generates millions of dollars for Entercom that is found money." (read more - LA Times) (read more - BBC) (read more - Bill Virgin-Seattle PI)
Bubba the Love Sponge Clem this morning made his first local radio appearance since being fired by Clear Channel Radio two years ago amid a federal crackdown on radio indecency (read more - 97X)
Wendy's signed a multiyear agreement with Arbitron to use its Portable People Meter, a cell phone-sized device that measures people's exposure to radio, television and other broadcast media (read more- Baltimore Biz Journal)
In an interesting bit of booking, CBS's "Late Show With David Letterman" announced yesterday it has lined up Howard Stern, who is being sued by CBS, for the March 13 show. Ostensibly, Stern will appear to chat up the video-on-demand version of his Sirius Satellite Radio show on iN Demand Networks. But we're guessing some talk of the lawsuit will find its way into the conversation (read more - Washington Post) (read more - Richard Huff-NY Daily News)
New channel changes are ahead -- SIRIUS Trucker (channel 147) will be re-named Road Dog Trucking, effective March 14. SIRIUS will announce new programs and hosts for Road Dog Trucking in the near future + SIRIUS will reinstate FOX News at channel 131, and will add Fox News Talk to channel 145. SIRIUS will also launch the new channel Blue Collar Comedy on channel 103 (visit Sirius)
The first thing you notice about Monique Marvez is her voice. It's raspy. Somebody-please-get-this-woman-a-lozenge raspy. But all the gargling in the world won't help: 100.7 Jack FM's new morning host has sounded like a post-bender Lauren Bacall since she was a teenager, and she doesn't even smoke. The second thing you notice about Marvez is her mouth (read more - Randy Dotinga-NC Times)
Cumulus Media today reported financial results for the three and twelve month periods ended December 31, 2005 (read more - Cumulus)
Radio One said that it has agreed to purchase the assets of radio station WIFE-FM for about $18 million in cash (read more - Business Wire)
Cox Radio announced today that Bill Hendrich has been named Vice President and Market Manager of its Jacksonville radio stations including WAPE, WFYV, WJGL, WMXQ and WOKV
Major radio companies on Thursday said they narrowed their search for new audience ratings technology to three firms with a particular interest in Media Audit/Ipsos' usage of cell phones as a measuring device (read more - Reuters)
Two of the valley's most popular radio personalities are teaming up to try to conquer the morning airwaves. Casey Dolan, longtime host of "The M Show" on KMRJ, M99.5 FM, will join Erin De Veaux, assistant program director and hostess of "Da Morning Show" on KKUU, U-92.7 FM, it was announced Wednesday (read more - Desert Sun)
An impressive line-up of major advertisers, leading advertising agency executives, and top Radio talent has been finalized for New Rules For Radio: What’s The Frequency. The one-day advertising summit takes place 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 pm. at the Grand Hyatt in New York City next Wednesday, and is presented by Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), the Advertising Club of New York, and Adweek Magazines (read more- RAB)
The state says an Akron agency that provides reading services to the blind has run afoul of bingo laws. This could force the Written Communications Radio Service to end its programs for 6,800 blind and sight-impaired people (read more - Akron Beacon Journal)
Steve Harvey, who presides over the WMXD-FM (92.3) morning show, is flying in to Detroit on Tuesday to appear at a red-carpet premiere of his new movie "Don't Trip, He Ain't Through With Me Yet " (read more - Detroit News)
Mike Fitzgerald, long-time host at oldies WCBS-FM, starts Monday as program director and morning man at The Breeze (106.3 FM, 99.1 FM and 107.1 FM) at the Jersey shore. Breeze's consultant Joe McCoy, former WCBS-FM program director, calls Fitzgerald "a consummate pro both on and off the air (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
Rush Limbaugh has been working with Apple Computer and plans to introduce a new podcast service for his show available via Apple's iTunes Store (read more - Mac Daily News)
Thursday, Spanish Broadcasting System reported fourth quarter loss from continuing operations of $2.39 million compared to income from continuing operations of $3.44 million last year (read more - Trading Markets)
Entercom Communications Corp. on Wednesday said its fourth-quarter profit fell 19 percent from lower revenue as political advertising boosted year-earlier results (read more - MSN Money)
Pope Benedict XVI has joined the masses of millions of iPod users. A group of Vatican Radio employees gave the Pope an iPod nano loaded with Vatican Radio programming and classical music. Pope Benedict visited the programming and broadcasting hub of "the pope's radio" March 3 to mark the station's 75th anniversary. Vatican Radio already offers podcasts in eight different languages (read more - PodCasting News)
ARBitron numbers for Charleston SC, Chattanooga, Columbia SC, Knoxville, Raleigh-Durham and Tulsa (read 'em)
"Last week, two of our affiliates changed their format, leaving Air America with the need to find new outlets for our programming in those markets. In recent weeks we have also picked up affiliates ... in El Paso, Texas, Buffalo, New York and others." Danny Goldberg, Air America CEO, confirmed that the network is negotiating with Inner City. If those negotiations are unsuccessful, the network could be looking for a new home in the New York metro area (read more - Claudia Perry-NJ Star-Ledger)
Keith Olbermann's COUNTDOWN list of today‘s three nominees for “Worst Person in the World” (Transcript) -- "The runner-up, speaking of wrecking balls, Rush Limbaugh, on radio discussing the, quote, “Hillary fear” that America should have a Clinton run or of a Clinton run in ‘08. Quote, “When she‘s genuine, she sounds like a screeching ex-wife. And, my friends—and I don‘t say that—there‘s nothing against ex-wives or women. I‘m just trying to be descriptive here for you. Men will know what I mean by this.” Well, Rush would, “men who have ex-wives.” Rush has three of them" (read more - MSNBC Countdown)
Rick and Bubba's "Expert Guide to God, Country, Family and Anything Else We Can Think Of", hit the #1 position today on Amazon.com's Top Sellers list just over 24 hours after being released (visit RickandBubba.com)
Q: Jay
Resso of Milwaukee - Tim do you think CBS will win
over Howard Stern?
A: Tim Cuprisin - I'm betting CBS'
lawsuit against Stern will be settled out of court
(read
more - Tim Cuprisin-Milwaukee JS)
Adam Carolla and the entire cast of THE ADAM CAROLLA SHOW are heading to Las Vegas for a remote broadcast of the nationally syndicated morning show. On Thursday, March 9 from 3:00 – 7:00PM/PT, Adam alongside Rachel Perry and Dave Dameshek, will host the show in front of a live studio audience at the Palms Resort Casino. The program will air live on KXTE-FM in Las Vegas and will rebroadcast on its flagship station, KLSX-FM, and affiliate stations during its normally scheduled time on Friday, March 10, 6:00 – 10:00 AM/PT (visit Adam Carolla Web site)
David Finfrock, Chuck Rooke, Tracy Rowlett and Mike Snyder wil be honored for 25 years of outstanding contributions to the television broadcast community at the Silver Circle Induction Ceremony March 26. It's presented by the Lone Star Chapter of the National Television Academy (visit Lone Star Emmy)
Controversial British MP George Galloway has signed up to host a weekly radio show. The Respect MP, who came under fire for taking part in Celebrity Big Brother, will be presenting a current affairs phone-in. The representative for Bethnal Green and Bow will be the new host of talkSPORT’s weekend evening show (read more - Ireland Online) (read more - BBC)
According to published media reports, an arbitration panel has ordered XM to inject commercials into some of its ad-free music channels. The decision ends a legal tiff between the orbital broadcaster and Clear Channel Communications (read more - Forbes) (read more - Motley Fool)
Three of the Nation's Farm Radio Stations have just been named by the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) Foundation to receive the Foundation's Farm Broadcast Student Internship Grants. Stations WMBD/WIRL, Peoria, Illinois; KRVN, Lexington, Nebraska; and KKOW, Pittsburg, Kansas, will each receive a grant of $1,000 to further develop their Farm Broadcast internship programs (read more - Brownfield Network)
Television station WCCO of Minneapolis and a radio documentary by The Stanley Foundation, of Muscatine, Iowa, with KQED Public Radio, of San Francisco, were honored with grand awards, the highest honors bestowed as part of the national journalism contest run by The Press Club of Atlantic City (read more - Toledo Blade)
Lex and Terry took their show to another station. Now, Cox Radio has signed a new morning team. Cox Radio Inc. signed on a new morning show team for its classic rock station, WFYV - Rock 105. The team of Mark Summers, Genny Lane and "Dahmer" replaces top-rated Lex & Terry team which left rock 105 in October (read more - First Coast News)
Leveraging the latest in communications technology to bring news and information on the RapidIO standard to the world, the RapidIO Trade Association today unveiled the schedule for its debut season of RapidIO Radio, a series of free quarterly podcasts presented by the association and its members. The first trade association to leverage this technology, RapidIO Radio will be broadcast on www.RapidIO.org as well as through the iTunes Music Store (read more - Houston Chronicle)
We're still
having problems at radio," Dan Marsala lead singer
of Story of the Year, St. Louis' top rock
band says. "The whole radio business is weird.
Music is rough
nowadays.
Our band is just bummed on the whole scene. It's the
same stuff over and over. Maybe we're guilty of the
same thing, but at least we make a conscious effort
to try to put content in, for it to make sense."
(read
more - St Louis Post-Dispatch)
Donald L. Perris, retired president and chief executive officer of Scripps Howard Broadcasting Co., died March 7 in Florida (read more - Cincy Post)
Salem Communications announced results for the three month and twelve month periods ended December 31, 2005 (read more - Business Wire)
Wednesday March 8, 2006
Howard Stern launched what he calls his "I Hate Les Moonves Tour" last night, trashing the CBS president as "vindictive, vicious and jealous" telling Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" the "frivolous lawsuit" is a smokescreen to hide Moonves' shortcomings as an executive (read more- John Mainelli-NY Post) (read more - News Hounds)
Gifts, trips and cash were used to pave the way for air time for certain songs and artists at radio stations owned by one of the nation's largest chains, according to lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The suit filed Wednesday, stemming from Spitzer's "payola" investigation, targets Entercom Communications (read more - Newsday) (read more - Reuters)
Is there anyone on TV or radio with a larger ego than Bill O'Reilly? Maybe Keith Olbermann. But right now, O'Reilly is ahead in the Egomania Sweepstakes. This battle of egos took a weird turn last week on O'Reilly's nationally syndicated radio show, dropped locally from KHOW-AM (630) last fall because of declining ratings (read more - Dusty Saunders)
Rivalries between radio personalities (Elliot Segal and Tony Kornheiser) -- both real and fabricated -- are nothing new, but Clear Channel Radio this week briefly took one if its hosts off the air for talking about another (read more - Washington Times)
Quick -- name the hottest morning radio personality in Chicago over the last decade. Spike? Mancow? "Crazy" Howard? Nope. Nope. Nope (read more - Feder of Chicago)
Calling his victory the start of a revolution, KSEV radio talk-show host Dan Patrick on Tuesday won the Republican nomination to succeed state Sen. Jon Lindsay, trouncing three politically experienced opponents (read more - Houston Chronicle)
KMOX is rumored to be looking to put more clout into its baseball coverage and analysis this spring by adding Wayne Hagin, late the voice of the Cardinals and, once again the voice of the Cards on KPLR (Channel 11) (read more- Deb Peterson-St Louis Post-Dispatch)
Unless the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has some long-form events planned for its annual induction dinner Monday at the Waldorf - like inviting Louis Farrakhan to say a few words - this could be one short ceremony. Of the five inductees in the Class of 2006, the Sex Pistols have said they have no intention of showing up, and Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne has trashed the Hall more times than he has sung "Paranoid." (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
AT&T will on Thursday be given a rare opportunity: the chance to hear what Robert McDowell, a Republican nominee to the Federal Communications Commission who fills a crucial tie-breaking seat at the telecoms regulator, thinks of the telecoms giant's $67bn acquisition of BellSouth. Mr McDowell will be testifying before lawmakers on the Senate commerce committee ahead of his expected confirmation by the Senate in the next few weeks (read more - Financial Times-MSNBC)
The never
ending need for government to help themselves to the
public tax trough is on the agenda in Virginia where
“representatives of the public” have
voted
overwhelmingly to slap a 5% tax on the subscribers
of satellite radio. Scheduled to take
place on January 1, House Bill #568 is being watched
closely by other states eager to follow suit.
Camouflaged as a tax for wireless, landline and
Internet-based telephone, as well as video,
satellite radio is being included in the package
(read
more - www.JohnRook.com)
ARBitron numbers for Albany, Birmingham, Charlotte-Gastonia, Fresno, Memphis, Nashville, Oklahoma City and San Antonio (read 'em)
AM 1490 Music and Memories WAZZ-AM today congratulated Curt Nunnery for making radio broadcasting history with his 10,000th live broadcast in Fayetteville which occurred March 1, 2006. Curt Nunnery has broadcast morning shows in the Fayetteville market for over 45 years
VIP Radio is a UK based international radio station which is currently dry-running on the web awaiting a European satellite launch in the Spring. PD Andy Wint says, "We're very happy to have some prime US talent on-board - Dick Heatherton, Bob Shannon, Bobby Jay and John Hook will all feature during our weekends ..." David Hinckley featured VIP Radio in a recent NY Daily News column. (visit VIP Radio's Jock's line-up and listen online )
VEGA FM and Wendy Harmer insist they remain the best of friends after a conspicuous parting of ways between the struggling new music station and its flagship talent last Friday (read more - The Age A.U.)
What we had here, with Katrina, was a failure to communicate. An independent panel created by the Federal Communications Commission to study problems before, during and after the storm held its second meeting at Jackson State University's e-Center on Monday and Tuesday (read more - Biloxi Sun-Herald)
5 weeks after ABC anchorman Bob Wood ruff was seriously injured in an Iraqi explosion, he remains hospitalized but can say a few words and is starting to walk, his brother said yesterday (read more - NY Post)
A retired Coeur d'Alene radio exec, John Rook, is behind a national petition drive to get Pat Boone inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (read more - Doug Clark-Spokesman-Review)
Sinclair Broadcasting has decided to pull the plug on its 10 p.m. newscast on WNYB-TV (read more - Buffalo Biz Journal)
Radio and television broadcaster Southern Cross Broadcasting will cut programming and other costs to compensate for a softer advertising market that dragged back its first-half profit (read more - Sydney Morning Herald A.U.)
Two new radio stations are on the brink in Denver. Formats? Your guess is as good as anyone's, even Steve Keeney's, the man in charge of getting 101.5-FM and 107.1-FM on the air, probably by the first week of April (read more - Dick Kreck-Denver Post)
Tom Holiday has been named general manager of the Sacramento radio stations owned by Salem Communications of Camarillo (read more - CVBD)
Nearly 500 couples (496) entered ESPN Radio’s “Mike & Mike Marriage Madness” promotion for the chance to win “The Ultimate Sports Wedding” at ESPN on May 26. The "Sweetheart 16" couples, chosen by the special selection committee, will be announced on Monday, March 13 during Mike & Mike in the Morning (6-10 a.m. ET)
Tuesday March 7, 2006
Kathy O'Malley and Judy Markey returned to their WGN-AM (720) midday show Monday after agreeing to a three-year contract renewal with the Tribune Co.-owned news/talk station (read more - Feder of Chicago)
AIR
America is close to losing its New York flagship
station - knocking Al Franken and his liberal
colleagues off the air on their second anniversary.
The network has a two-year lease with WLIB (AM 1190)
that is reportedly set to expire April 1 - and at
least one reliable report says it is "extremely
likely" the deal will not be renewed.
Losing its New York outlet would be a serious blow
to the fledgling liberal radio network
(read
more - John Mainelli-NY Post)
The Washington area has lost a local radio personality. Celeste Clark, of radio station Mix 107.3 FM, died Sunday morning after spending the past year battling cancer. She was 50 years old and was on the radio for almost 20 years (read more- NBC 4)
Greg Mudry, BBM Board Chairman announced today that 23 major broadcasters in the Québec Franco market have chosen to increase the Portable People Meter (“PPM”) panel to 800 households (visit BBM)
Sunday night's Oscars didn't impress local radio hosts, except for the performance of "It's Hard Out Here to Be a Pimp" by Three 6 Mafia. "That was the only hint of energy in the whole show," said Bernard McGuirk, producer of the Imus show on WFAN (660 AM). "And then they spent the next three minutes reading the names of people who died." Miss Jones of WQHT (97.1 FM) said the performance of "Pimp" made the Oscars "look like the Source Awards." (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
SIRIUS Satellite Radio announced that Candace Bushnell, New York Times bestselling author and creator of the Sex and the City phenomenon, will host Candace Bushnell’s Sex, Success and Sensibility, a live, weekly talk show debuting this spring on SIRIUS Stars channel 102 (read more- Forbes)
Winners in the Texas Associated Press Broadcasters 2005-2006 radio and television contests have been announced. Awards will be presented Saturday evening, April 8, at the TAPB banquet at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine. Registration is $60 per person (read the list and more - KGBT TV)
KRLA 870's Laura Ingraham will make a rare Southern California speaking appearance on Thursday, April 6 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale
Sirius Satellite Radio shock jock Howard Stern talks to Sean Hannity tonight and Wednesday at 8 on Fox News Channel about being sued by his former employer, CBS Radio + WUWM-FM (89.7)erects a new antenna on the tower it rents from Channel 6 on Milwaukee's east side (read more - Tim Cuprisin-Milwaukee JS)
The Howard Stern effect has lifted Sirius Satellite Radio subscriptions in recent months, but the hype will likely wane during the first half of 2006. That's what Banc of America Securities wrote in a report issued today (read more - Forbes)
Doug McDuff returned to early morning news/talk radio at WNTA 1330-AM, bumping Ken DeCoster to a later time slot. The move is an attempt to boost poor ratings at the station bought a year ago by Connecticut-based Maverick Media (read more - Rockford Register)
Envision Radio's "The Rockin’ ‘80’s" announced its newest affiliate, 93.5 “The Quake,” KLKX-FM/Los Angeles
The Parents Television Council needs to stop it with the lamebrain TV-content surveys. The group recently came out with a report denouncing bad language and sexual content on kids' TV and claiming that children's programming was too violent. In fact, the PTC said, there's more violence in children's shows than there is in prime time. But the PTC proved the silliness of its work, and offended me in the process, by printing - oh, gosh - some curse words in the media release announcing this news (read more - Richard Huff-NY Daily News)
The University of Memphis athletic department has signed a new broadcasting agreement with Clear Channel Radio to make WREC 600 AM the flagship station for all Tiger football and men's basketball games through the 2010-11 season (read more - Memphis Biz Journal)
From
Happy Hare --
Last
week, I told you about Senator5 John McCain’s
appearance with me on #1 12+ KOGO, my description to
him of the hardships endured in Ensenada
by
America’s Finest Generation, and his pledge to
introduce a bill to veto the Act.
He did, in latter 1999:
SB 1551,.but as powerful as McCain is, his effort
was smothered by a pile-on of senators beholden to
various conflicting interests. Yet, he created the
initial impact for me to get going on my own. If you
want to create attention, call on John McCain, I
always say.. Now, it was up to me - and radio. This
was going to be harder than I thought. I knew about
the standard Clear Channel music sweep and four spot
cluster format, but the reality of it didn’t sink in
till I was actually sitting there running it
(read
more - www.HappyHareOnline.com)
The Birmingham-based morning team of Rick Burgess and Bill "Bubba" Bussey have released their first book titled Rick and Bubba's Expert Guide to God, Country, Family and Anything Else We Can Think Of
Gerry Graf, Executive Creative Director at TBWA/ Chiat/ Day New York, will serve as Chief Judge of the 2006 Radio-Mercury Awards, the richest Radio creative awards competition (read more - RAB)
The free-speech rights of controversial Michigan radio personality Thayrone were violated when he was fired in April 2003 by WEMU, a state Court of Appeals panel has ruled (read more - Ann Arbor News)
Doug Stephan's Good Day program has added new affiliates, KKFT 99.1FM, WJBW 1000AM & WDJA 1420AM, WYXC 1270 AM in Cartersville/Atlanta GA, and KVBR 1340AM. Doug Stephan's TalkRadio Count Down program is being heard on WTAQ 1360AM, KKFT 99.1FM, KFJB 1230AM, WNSH 1570AM, KSCJ 1360AM, KSVC 980AM and WYXC 1270AM
Anne-Marie Petrie has been named Business Development Director for CBS Radio stations in the state of California. She will focus on creating, implementing and managing sales strategies for government initiatives and political candidates
ARBitron numbers for Dayton Indianapolis Las Vegas Louisville Omaha-Council Bluffs Phoenix Salt Lake City Tucson (read 'em)
Monday March 6, 2006
CBS Radio today announced it has renamed its integrated marketing department the CBS RADIO ALTITUDE GROUP. Formerly known as Infinity Solutions and Beyond (ISB), the change reflects the division’s expanded focus on creating multi-platform campaigns utilizing CBS RADIO’s extensive broadcast and digital assets. The change is effective immediately (visit CBS Radio)
Some of the same critics who blasted the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for creating widespread consolidation and delocalization in the broadcast industry say certain forces are back again 10 years later, quietly calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to provide additional deregulatory relief. If successful, they warn, companies like San Antonio's Clear Channel Communications Inc. could wind up owning even more radio stations in some of the nation's larger markets. They could also acquire major newspapers in markets where they already own a radio or television station (read more - MSNBC)
Jack Bonaparte, a radio personality from Cape Breton, has lost his battle with cancer.. The 32-year-old from Reserve Mines hosted the program Wake Up Cape Breton on Oldies 950 and later the popular Halifax radio show The East Coast Kitchen Racket (read more - CBC)
The Broadcasters Foundation honored Emmis Communications CEO Jeff Smulyan with the Golden Mike Award at a black tie dinner awards ceremony in New York City last week (read more - Susan Guyett-Indy Star)
Today, hip-hop is everywhere. Yesterday's obscure rappers are today's movie stars -- Mos Def upstaged Bruce Willis in "16 Blocks," one of last weekend's movie openings. Stations catering to white kids play what was once considered the blackest music since the blues. That is one of the problems facing Radio One. As urban music has gone mainstream, Radio One stock has lost close to two-thirds of its value in the past two years. The shares hit a five-year low of $8.13 on Thursday and closed 9 cents higher on Friday (read more - Jerry Knight-Washington Post)
WABC has spent 23 years building itself into the most listened-to and best-known news/talk station in the country. WPLJ has so-so overall ratings - it finished in 19th place last fall - but advertisers love its sneaker-mom audience. In 2004, it earned $39.6 million in ad revenue, highest for any Disney station. "I get no sense Citadel will want to do anything really different," says Mark Fratrik, vice president of BIAfn, a media financial network. "WPLJ attracts a great demographic" (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
Chuck Matthews jokes that WTOD-AM (1560) is "the best station no one can hear." The Cumulus-owned talk station operates at about 360 watts - well below the 5,000 watts for which it is licensed. That will change in about a year, however, when construction of a tower is completed (read more - Russ Lemmon-Toledo Blade)
Acerbic comedian Jon Stewart made his debut as Oscar host on Sunday with lots of good-natured jokes about gay cowboys and Hollywood excess while aiming his sharpest barbs at his two favorite targets -- journalists and politicians (read more - Washington Post) Here are some observations about the telecast of the 78th “Academy Awards” (read 'em - Laura Nachman) Crash was the shock winner at the 78th Academy Awards, winning best film ahead of favourite Brokeback Mountain (read more - BBC)
Speaking in very broad, sloppy terms, at least nine million people (and counting) have decided that they would rather pay for radio they choose than not pay for free broadcast radio that may be 30-40 percent ads. And that is where satellite radio is having an impact - not in employment numbers, not in revenues, but in format. Broadcast listeners have, since about 1995, been in revolt against narrowing formats foisted upon the ear by companies such as Clear Channel, Cumulus Media, and Infinity Broadcasting. What are listeners revolting against? Two things: advertising and homogenization (read more - John Timpane-Philly Inquirer)
From Claude Hall --
Barbara and I and kids spent a couple of days
there (Joey Reynolds' home in Palos Verde) and David Moorhead came out
one day. A moment gone, circa 1982-83. Except for this color slide, saved
on laptop now. Claude Hall, left, college student; Joey Reynolds, disc jockey
between radio stations; the late L. David Moorhead, right, former general
manager of KMET-FM, Los Angeles, who was also between jobs +
e-
mail
from Rob Moorhead; "There are lots
of bright and talented people in the media world. Yes, they are artists. Their
true talent lies in building upon what has gone before. They learned their craft
from others, and they themselves passed it down to the next young turk. It's all
public domain. A brushstroke, a shading, a combination of elements, a
perspective. Yet, the palette is the very same one used to paint a bison on the
cave wall in the neolithic French Pyrenees. Radio is, for the purpose of
dramatizing my point, simply painting a better bison. Learn that priceless
little gem and you will program circles around all the other cavemen ..."
+ more e-mails (read more -
www.ClaudeHallOnline.com)
Larry Elder remembers a story his father told about going to a government office in the South when he returned from his service in World War II. When he approached the window, the woman clerk told him he had to go around to the back. He can be heard nightly on WWRL (1600 AM), 6-9, saying things like: "You cannot tell me anyone in America today is prevented from succeeding because of skin color." ... the libertarian Elder would slash or eliminate most government entitlement programs, including Social Security and welfare, as well as agencies like FEMA (read more- David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
Dear Readers: Did anyone actually think Bubba "The Love Sponge" Clem, Tampa Bay's once-top- rated morning schlock jock, would exit quietly from this area? (read more - Dawn Scire-The Radio Babe)
The Washington Nationals and Mid-Atlantic Sports Network announced their television broadcast team for the 2006 season, tapping veteran broadcasters Bob Carpenter to handle play-by-play and Tom Paciorek for color analysis (read more - Washington Nationals)
XM Radio Canada announced today the company had signed up more than 50,000 self-paying and trial subscribers since the satellite radio service launched in November 2005 (read more - Digital Home Canada)
If you were casting about for a hot personality to juice up a struggling news show, a white-haired man of 69 would probably not jump to the top of the list. But a year after Bob Schieffer was tapped as a temporary replacement for Dan Rather, he has loosened the collar on a buttoned-up newscast and made modest progress in winning back viewers. "Bob instills confidence -- a man of his experience, there's something comforting about that," says CBS President Les Moonves (read more - Howard Kurtz)
Audio Graphics has released survey results on online radio listenership under three titles; "RRadio Network - Online Radio Listener "Survey 35" Results", "MP3 Player Ownership", and "How About Those Podcasts" (visit Audio Graphics)
The wealth of Trinity Broadcasting Network has raised eyebrows and added to criticism about its operation. The most recently available IRS form shows TBN took in more than $184.3 million in 2003. After expenses, that left $71.1 million unspent, on top of at least $311.6 million invested in securities. Paul F. Crouch Sr.’s pay was $408,562 as president and his wife Jan $361,000 as a vice president. Wall Watchers, a Christian nonprofit group that monitors Christian organizations, says TBN is “hoarding too much cash” and is not open about its finances (read more - Anne Paine-The Tennessean)
If you’re a Satellite Radio subscriber or think you might become one, I’d like to point out 3 things I’ve recently either noticed or read about. All three have the potential of affecting your enjoyment of Satellite Radio (read more- Corey Deitz-About)
A statewide ministry co-founded by former Nebraska football assistant coach Ron Brown has announced plans to purchase Grand Island radio station KMMJ and introduce a Christian-based format (read more- Sioux City Journal)
Former Denver anchorman Carlos Amezcua caught up in a pay-for-play controversy. Amezcua left KCNC-Channel 4 in 1991 to be a founding anchor on "KTLA Morning News" in Los Angeles, which has become a model for similar shows across the country. But it was anything but model when three of the station's four anchors spent a free night at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pasadena. The threesome, including Amezcua, got free deluxe rooms at the hotel, at $300-$400 a pop, in exchange for the "Morning News" being broadcast from the hotel. The station did not tell viewers that the rooms were free. (read more - Dick Kreck-Denver Post)
Pakistan's North West Frontier Province is always hard to control, but it now poses a new challenge, with scores of illegal radio stations transmitting a message of jihad and sectarian hatred. This has so alarmed the central government in Islamabad that it is has closed 40 stations in the mountainous region along the Afghan-Pakistan border (read more - Telegraph U.K.)
KERA/Channel 13 and 90.1 FM, which have suffered more than a few hits during the past few years, announced new multiplatform initiatives this week including the cuts of two key staff members. Jeff Luchsinger, the vice president and station manager of KERA/90.1 FM who was familiar to radio listeners as one of the voices of its pledge drive, and Sharon Philippart, the vice president of corporate communications, lost their jobs as part of a streamlining in which three executives will report to President and CEO Mary Anne Alhadeff (read more - Robert Philpot - Star-Telegram)
Anyone who doubts the Latino market's growth need only twirl the radio dial. Seven stations broadcast full time in Spanish between Portland and Eugene, with two more in Southern Oregon. And their audience keeps growing (read more - Statesman Journal)
The man behind "get on with it" is doing just that. CKNW talk-show host Peter Warren is getting on with it and pursuing work as a freelance investigative journalist (read more- CKNW 980 News)
Speaking a Bear Stearns media conference Wednesday, which was web cast, Sirius Chief Financial Officer David Frear said he feels satellite radio companies shouldn't have to pay music labels anything in royalties while labels feel they should get something like 30% of revenue. "There's been some tough talk from some of the labels," he said (read more - CD Freaks)
The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. "There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors," said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. "I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad" (read more - Washington Post)
Any lingering doubts about the Bush administration's view on telecoms mergers evaporated last November, when both the FCC and DOJ approved the joining of SBC and AT&T, and Verizon's acquisition of MCI without any onerous conditions. For analysts and antitrust attorneys, approval of the deals by FCC chairman Kevin Martin underscored how vastly the competitive landscape in the communications sector has changed since 1997, when then FCC chairman Reed Hundt said a reconfiguration of Ma Bell was "unthinkable". The emergence of wireless and voice over internet services over the past few years means traditional industry lines have blurred, they say, and that telecoms companies and other groups have successfully argued that the build-up of bigger communications networks to fuel the economy requires more investment – and biggercoffers (read more- FT-MSN Money)
CMU Public Radio news director David Nicholas and producer Rick Westover are among the winners of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters 2005 Broadcast Excellence Awards, to be presented at the Great Lakes Broadcasting Conference in Lansing on March 14 (read more - Midland Daily News)
Jim Cramer, rested and recharged after a vacation in Costa Rica, is raring to get back on the radio airwaves. "Jim Cramer's Real Money," which debuts Monday on KDKA-AM (1020), airing weekdays at 1 p.m. The radio show, which launched in 2001, recently moved to CBS Radio -- KDKA's parent company -- from the WOR Radio Network (read more - Adrian McCoy-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Terrestrial radio plays up to 27 minutes of advertising an hour. With Sirius, I can listen to four hours of Martin Lewis' morning program on the Underground Garage stream (supervised by Bruce Springsteen's guitarist, Little Steven Van Zandt) without ever hearing a commercial. It's startling at first to hear so much music without interruption; your ear keeps waiting for a mattress sale ad, but it never comes. That format is typical with all the music stations on both satellite providers. I know this because I am a bona fide "early adopter" who loved the concept of satellite radio so much I subscribed to both just about as soon as they came on the air. I have Sirius in the Jeep and in the house, and XM in the Suburban. As it happens, programming like that is encouraged in satellite radio because the DJs don't compete for ratings; they just want to entertain (read more - Buzz McClain-Star Telegram)
Wednesday marked the first day that the
Air America Radio affiliate in Phoenix (KXXT-AM 1010) was off the air.
Air America's progressive format operated in the black and was growing in its
market share but was mysteriously replaced by yet another Christian broadcasting
network, Phoenix's ninth to be exact
(read more - Arizona Republic)
Although NBC and ABC have spent millions launching new anchors for their flagship broadcasts, their audiences are in sharp decline. Meanwhile, Bob Schieffer's soars. According to the most recent Nielsen ratings (for the week of Feb. 20), CBS Evening News is up 513,000 viewers compared to the same week last year. NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, however, is down 905,000 viewers, and ABC World News Tonight is off 1.09 million viewers (read more - David Zurawik - Baltimore Sun)
In the 30's and through the 60's, KRLD 1080 AM and KRLD TV Channel 4 personnel took photographs and left a black and white history of the CBS affiliated properties. They include on air and support staff, recording and broadcasting equipment and the evolution of both the studios and the city of Dallas. Andrew K. Dart presents those historic photos online at http://www.akdart.com/vtr/vtr.html
Newstalk 106 radio station has denied claims that it was responsible for broadcasting “tribal” commentary before last weekend’s riots in Dublin. Executives at the station, controlled by the millionaire Denis O’Brien and which is currently applying for a national licence, met with their lawyers on Friday after being criticised by unionists who objected to some material broadcast in the week leading up to the violence (read more - Sunday Times U.K.)
Somebody needed to shake up the comfy liberal political environment of Charlotte, but who would have guessed it would be WBT radio? What was once a stodgy and conventional, though always professional, AM radio station, habitually steering away from politics, has now become cutting edge (read more - Tom Ashcraft - Charlotte Observer)
A Ledyard-based radio broadcaster (John Fuller, the owner of FM radio stations WBMW and WWRX) on Wednesday filed a lengthy petition with the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to deny the licenses of numerous radio stations owned by competitor Citadel Broadcasting Corp (read more - TMC Net)
Radio personality and actor Jack Lazare, a local resident for two decades, died after a long illness. Lazare's radio career later took him to Boston, hosting "Music 'til Dawn" on WEEI, and "Sounds in the Night" and a talk show on WHDH (read more - Hartford Courant)
Bubba (the Love Sponge) is a non-issue, more-so today than when he couldn't produce a quality program on broadcast. That Cox Radio would issue a press release stating "Bubba will have the chance to finally speak to the Tampa Bay radio audience about the details of his firing, his future, and the of events of the past two years," shows how far radio has gotten from addressing issues about the local community. It also shows how radio continues to dip into the bottom-of-the-barrel for easy programming, instead of working to provide quality (read more - Audio Graphics)
University of Michigan police are investigating the school's public media service. -M officials have launched an internal review of Michigan Public Media, the umbrella organization for Michigan Radio, operating as WUOM, 91.7 FM; Michigan Television, the Flint-based public television channel broadcasting as WFUM, and the Michigan Channel (read more - WMMT TV 3) (read more - Detroit Free Press)
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Ideas, an hour-long program on CBC Radio One. A recent show explored the history of Asian throat singing, the fate of the world's oceans and the motivations of modern-day Christian pilgrims. It is, in other words, a must for anybody who takes more than a passing interest in the world around them (read more - Wolf Depner-Penticton Western News)
KSFI ("FM-100") became Salt Lake's first HD2 multi-cast radio station last month, meaning the station offers its "Soft Sunday Sounds" program throughout the week through a multi-cast, that is a separate radio signal (read more - Lynn Arave-Deseret News)
Just as DAB has become established in the UK, a new digital radio standard called DRM is making an appearance. An added benefit of DRM is that the transmitter power required may be as much as 75% lower than for an equivalent analogue transmission, reducing energy and maintenance costs (read more - CIE U.K.)
John Shannon has been appointed to the new position of NHL Senior Vice President, Broadcasting (read more - NHL News)
ARBitron numbers for Atlanta, Columbus OH, Miami, Milwaukee, Seattle-Tacoma and Tampa-St Pete (read 'em)
Paragon Media Strategies, in conjunction with Goodratings Strategic Services, conducted an online survey of 605 Christian CHR listeners (37% male / 63% female) November 10th – 21st, 2005. This study explores who the Christian CHR listener is, why they listen to Christian radio and what other formats they listen to and like. This is the third part of a five part series that summarizes the results of the study (click here to read the study - Adobe PDF Format)
The idea of capturing and carrying someone's voice across oceans and continents was a radical idea at the turn of the 20th century, and one pope saw the groundbreaking possibilities in such a project. Pope Pius XI was fascinated by this "awesome invention," and in the late 1920s he invited the inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi, to build a radio broadcasting station on the grounds of the newly established Vatican City State (read more - Catholic News Service)
St. Augustine's only local commercial radio stations, including one of the oldest in the country, have been sold to a family-oriented broadcasting company in North Carolina (read more - St Augustine Record)
Friday March 3, 2006
Investors should sell shares of CBS Corp. as Howard Stern's departure knocks radio revenue and increased Internet usage hurts television news ratings, according to Citigroup Investment Research (read more - NY Daily News)
In the wake of the abrupt disappearance of progressive talk radio on Missoula’s local KNS station, New West rang up Simmons Media CEO Dave Simmons Thursday to find out why. Just one month ago, the Salt Lake City-based company took over operations of three Missoula stations: KNS 105.9, The Trail, and an adult contemporary station (read more - New West) (read more - The Missoulian)
Hit the pause button, drop the remote, and turn your radio down. It's time for another installment of cards and letters across the television/radio desk: Dave Connell: Isn't it a little ironic, that at WGN, the so-called "Voice of Chicago," 90 percent of their on-air personalities live in the suburbs? + Ray Heiden: I trust that the obviously-inebriated WLS executives who signed off on the orotund agreement to extend Roe Conn's contract and add an hour to his show will soon be relegated to the Kathy & Judy negotiation team beat (read more - Feder of Chicago)
NBC reportedly has upped the ante to $20 million a year in an effort to keep Katie Couric from jumping to CBS when her NBC contract runs out in May (read more - Tom Jicha-Sun Sentinel)
The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a confirmation hearing on March 9 for Robert McDowell to serve on the Federal Communications Commission (read more - Reuters)
From Kent
Burkhart -- Here is
something for you to think about for the next
year!!! I have thought for many
decades
that a well heeled syndication company should
initiate a concept needed by small market radio
stations … a national advertising
network. You see, small market radio stations have
not had national sponsors/business. And these small
market stations have PLENTY of audience and deliver
excellent results
(read
more -
www.KentBurkhart.com)
When Chuck Schaden discovered he could purchase original reelto-reel tapes of Orphan Annie, The Cisco Kid and The Lone Ranger broadcasts, he wanted to have as many as possible. He collected more than 50,000 hours of tapes from 1930-1955, the golden age of radio (read more - East Valley Tribune)
According to the results of our readers’ poll, maybe the Phillies’ broadcasts should be titled “Everybody Hates Chris.” The general consensus among fans is that Harry Kalas is the favorite broadcaster and Chris Wheeler is the least favorite (read the list - Laura Nachman)
Steve Harvey's morning radio show comes to Birmingham beginning on Monday, March 6 on WUHT-FM (Hot 107.7) (read more - Charlotte Observer)
As radio providers like XM and Sirius battle for control of car dashboards, new digital radio standards are likely to increase competition and confuse consumers, a study released Thursday said. North Americans will soon have the choice among XM, Sirius, and HD Radio receivers, said Frank Viquez, director of transportation research at ABI Research, which conducted the study (read more - Red Herring)
SIRIUS Satellite Radio will devote an entire music channel to the music of David Gilmour and Pink Floyd, beginning at 7 am ET on Monday, March 6 on SIRIUS’ deep classic rock tracks channel, The Vault, channel 16
Chris Evans' return to top-level broadcasting was completed yesterday when the BBC announced he was to take over Johnnie Walker's Radio 2 drivetime show. The job is his first daily radio show since being sacked by Virgin in 2001 an event that triggered an extended sabbatical and saw him leave the UK and move to the United States with his wife Billie Piper (read more - the Independent U.K.)
Beasley Broadcast Group announced that HD 98.3 WHHD-FM, a Top 40 formatted station, is replacing WSLT-FM Lite 98, a Soft AC formatted station
ARBitron numbers for Cincinnati, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver-Boulder, Houston-Galveston, Minneapolis-St Paul and Pittsburgh (read 'em)
Dave Graveline and the Into Tomorrow team this Sunday will be broadcasting from the Kodak exhibit at the Photo Marketing Association's annual convention showcasing the latest innovative, cutting-edge digital photography technology + more beginning at 2 pm EDST (visit Into Tomorrow)
After being the first woman presenter at the Maxwell awards, ESPN's Suzy Kolber will be taking things a step further this year. During tonight's 69th annual Maxwell Club Dinner at Harrah's in Atlantic City, Kolber will be the first female award recipient when she is honored as the third annual sports broadcaster of the year (read more - Marc Narducci-Philly Inquirer)
Somebody was leaving golden eggs around the Twin Tiers. Turns out, it was an on-air promotion organized by Joel Clawson, who was then general manager of WIQT and WQIX radio stations based in Horseheads (read more - John Cleary-Star Gazette)
MIKE 93.7 (WMKK-FM) has signed actor John O’Hurley - who is perhaps best known for his role on “Seinfield” as the eccentric J. Peterman - as a spokesman (read more - Boston Herald)
Backyard Broadcasting will leave Baltimore and will move into new offices in Jacksonville's Southpoint in mid-April. Backyard owns 27 radio stations in five states (read more - Jacksonville Biz Journal)
The Los Angeles Dodgers announced that they will spotlight former Dodgers Jerry Reuss, Steve Yeager and Tom Goodwin as guest analysts on seven of the team's Spring Training broadcasts, according to Chief Marketing Officer Tagg Romney (read more - LA Dodgers)
Embattled over 40s radio station Vega FM has suffered a blow with the departure of one of its key personalities, Wendy Harmer. The news comes as a further setback to the station, which is broadcast in Sydney and Melbourne, after last month's disappointing ratings figures (read more - Herald Sun AU)
Univision Communications reported a lower 4th quarter profit due to charges for cost cuts, a decline in the value of its investment in Entravision and payments to Televisa (read more - Reuters) (read more - LA Times)
Natalie Eig was promoted to the position of Station Manager for Radio Disney AM 1110 KDIS. Eig has held the position of Marketing & Promotions Director for KDIS since 1999 and also for ESPN Radio 710 since its inception in Los Angeles in 2001
Eddy W. Hartenstein has joined the XM Satellite Radio board's audit committee (read more - XM Radio)
KXXT goes to a Christian broadcasting format from Air America political talk after being sold to a Christian broadcasting group last year (read more- Phoenix Biz Journal)
VoIP (Internet Broadband Telephone) use is soaring in the U.S. The largest VoIP provider is still independent Vonage Holdings Corp. It had 1.2 million subscribers at the end of the year, just ahead of the 1.1 million at Time Warner's cable division. But Time Warner Cable is the fastest-growing provider and appears set to surpass Vonage this year (read more - USA Today)
Regent Communications posted losses for the fourth quarter and full-year 2005. The reason? Advertising declines (read more - Cincinnati Business Courier)
The Radio industry caught the marketing-savvy attendees of the American Association of Advertising Agency’s (AAAA’s) Media Conference off-guard today in Orlando. During the professional conference’s exhibit hall luncheon, the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) infiltrated the exhibit hall with dozens of Radio-promoting tweens (read more - RAB)
Thursday March 2, 2006
Lin Brehmer, morning personality on WXRT-FM (93.1), is out to prove why he calls himself "Your Best Friend in the Whole World" + Jack Taddeo, the northwest suburban-based radio consultant and former program director of adult-contemporary WLIT-FM (93.9), has acquired four radio stations in Champaign-Urbana along with partner Jim Glassman (read more - Feder of Chicago)
According to the NY Post's Page Six, CBS kingpin Les Moonves, who's suing Howard Stern for "stealing" CBS airtime to flog his switch to satellite radio, is actually a Sirius subscriber himself + media attention from the lawsuit has, ironically, triggered a spike in subscriptions (read more - NY Post)
Former Radio 1 Breakfast DJ Chris Evans is to take over from Johnnie Walker as host of BBC Radio 2's Drivetime show.
Bob Bateman leaves afternoon drive time at country music WMIL-FM (106.1) at the end of the week to take a job with a Michigan company called Information Station Specialists (read more - Tim Cuprisin-Milwaukee JS)
XM Satellite Radio will offer 19 channels of in-flight entertainment for United Airlines (read more - XM Satellite)
A day after
CBS Radio filed a lawsuit against shock jock Howard
Stern and his new employer Sirius, the satellite
radio company had something to say on the record.
A Sirius spokesperson said, "CBS Radio's
claims have no merit, and Sirius plans to vigorously
defend this action." The spokesperson added,
"Nothing in this complaint would prevent Stern from
fulfilling his obligation to Sirius through December
2010."
(read
more - Sky Report)
Red Wolf Broadcasting, which owns 106.5 WBMW-FM and 107.7 WRX-FM in Ledyard, filed a petition Wednesday with the Federal Communications Commission to deny the renewal of licenses of nine radio stations owned by Citadel Broadcasting (read more - Norwich Bulletin)
The decision to change the ratings-challenged WXTM to K-Rock had everything to do with Cleveland’s yearning for its own full-time new rock/alternative station. One problem: K-Rock isn’t it. It doesn’t sound “Cleveland.” It’s generic, dull, and devoid of personality (read more - John Gorman-Cleveland Free Times)
From Murphy
Martin -- Keeping the
world informed is much more difficult in 2006 than
it was in the 1960's when we began at ABC Radio and
Television networks.
Yes
we got roughed up a bit from time to time covering
demonstrations, anti-marches for various causes, and
those reporters in Vietnam were on much safer ground
than those covering the wars in the Middle East.
No it was not fun dodging Molotov-cocktails tossed
from tops of buildings onto the sidewalks below in
Harlem where we worked with our camera-crews trying
to piece together another chapter of the
civil-rights struggles of those days
(read
more -
www.MurphyMartin.com)
With the popularity of podcasts, News Generation, Inc. has announced the addition of audio podcasting production to its comprehensive list of radio services it provides clients (visit News Generation)
Brad Dolbeer, the evening host at KMTT-FM (103.7), has departed to become assistant program director and midday host at Portland's KLTH--FM (106.7) (read more - Bill Virgin-Seattle P-I)
Matson Multi Media and KTSA radio are providing some current reminders with its replay of a truly memorable series narrated by Henry Guerra that was first broadcast in the '70s: "13 Days of the Alamo." The historic series began last week — at 4:09 p.m. on KTSA — and the brief daily segments will continue for 13 business days (read more - Jeanne Jakle - SA Express-News)
If nominated, he will not run. If elected, he will not serve. Bob Schieffer, who marks his one-year anniversary March 10 as "interim" anchor of CBS Evening News, says he has no interest in making it his permanent address (read more - Gail Shister-Philly Inquirer)
One of the criticisms of political talk radio these days is predictability, as if you always know where the various conservatives and liberals will fall on a given issue. That’s hard to argue lately, as various topics have created some strange bedfellows. Something as basic as the war still has a general framework of conservatives for and liberals against, but many on the right are wondering how optimistic to be. For the record, I am not one of them. I remain confident that we will succeed. But I hear naysayers, and some of them have been supportive in the past. The key issue creating strange divisions last year was the tragic case of Terri Schiavo (read more - Mark Davis-WBAP)
Cincinnati's 700 WLW has begun airing on XM Satellite Radio on channel 173. It's the only terrestrial radio station on XM satellite radio. Sirius Radio airs Nashville's WSM 650(visit Channel 173 XM Radio) (read more - Cincinnati Biz Courier)
La Promesa is trying to reach Dallas-Fort Worth, with an effort to get Guadalupe Radio on the air here. If the effort succeeds, the Metroplex affiliate would be the largest Catholic radio station in the United States. La Promesa Foundation, which has nine stations in Texas and New Mexico, recently signed a letter of intent to buy KHFX/1460 AM, which airs Fox Sports Network (read more - Robert Philpot-Star Telegram)
Most of the necessary ingredients are now in place for the success of digital radio, according to chip maker Texas Instruments. But it’s still not clear when, or to what degree, U.S. consumers will adopt the new technology. John Gardner, TI's digital radio product manager, told Electronic Business at the company’s annual developers conference in Dallas this week that 2006 could be a “watershed year” for HD Radio (read more - Electronic Business)
Arbitron announced the termination of Nielsen Media Research’s option, as granted in a May 2000 agreement, to join Arbitron in a commercial deployment of the Portable People Meter in the United States. On February 28, 2006, Nielsen Media Research did not exercise its option to participate in a commercial deployment of the Arbitron Portable People Meter as a radio and television ratings service in local markets in the United States
After 3 years of broadcasting, the Portland Radio Authority was paid a visit by a person identifying themselves as an agent of the Federal Communications Commission at 2pm, Wednesday (read more - Portland Indy Media Center)
CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, with Premiere Radio, will launch a weekday ''Money Minute'' personal-finance segment May 1st on Clear Channel radio stations nationwide (read more- Houston Chronicle)
Nearly 300 white-collar workers and support staff at the corporate offices of Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff Co., its Susquehanna Media division and its communications subsidiaries will be laid off from the company as early as April 24 (read more - York Daily Record)
ARBitron numbers for Baltimore, Fredericksburg VA, Monterey-Salinas, St Louis, San Francisco, San Jose and Washington DC (read 'em)
790
KABC's Al Rantel
broadcast his show live from the lobby and Bill
O'Reilly entertained a crowd of more than 500
(a sell out for the venue) with his thoughts and
opinions on the news of the day on February 22 in
the Orange County Pavilion
Larry Elder will discuss his views on the disconnect between Hollywood and the rest of the country on CBS News Sunday Morning for a segment pegged to the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 5. Elder will provide his perspective on why most of the Oscar-nominated films this year were relatively low-grossing, suggesting that what the Hollywood elite regard as relevant or compelling does not necessarily resonate with the rest of the country
FCC Chair Kevin Martin says that cable TV companies need to do more to provide consumers with more choice (read more - Reuters)
ABC Radio Networks today announced the promotion of Darion Melito to Director of Affiliate Relations for The Sean Hannity Show. Melito will be responsible for managing and strengthening relationships with radio affiliates on behalf of The Sean Hannity Show. Melito will be based in New York City
The Detroit Auto Dealers Association and News/Talk 760 WJR have teamed up to develop a new radio program that celebrates the auto industry and the individuals working to keep it successful. The one hour show, named "In the Driver's Seat," will be heard at 6 p.m. Sundays beginning March 5 (read more - The Auto Channel)
Merle Pollis was one of radio's original firebrands. The well-known Ohio talk host, who spent the early part of his career in Pittsburgh, died Monday at the Cleveland Clinic of respiratory illness and congestive heart failure (read more - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
If you don’t get enough of her on the radio, you can now find her in print. Sheri Lynch, co-host of “The Bob and Sheri Show,” has come out with her second book entitled “Be Happy or I’ll Scream.” (read more - News 14 Carolina)
Wednesday March 1, 2006
Radio jumpstarts 2006 with a 6% increase in national ad sales figures for January compared to the same month from 2005. Local Radio revenue slumped a bit, inching down 1% this January compared to last January. The total combined local and national ad dollars for Radio grew 1% January 2006 over January 2005 (read more- RAB)
CBS Radio has filed suit against Howard Stern, his company One Twelve, Inc, his agent Don Buchwald, his agent’s firm Don Buchwald & Associates, Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc. The lawsuit is for compensatory and punitive damages for multiple breaches of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment, and misappropriation of CBS Radio’s broadcast time. It further seeks damages from Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc. for unfair competition and tortious interference with Stern’s CBS contract (read more -Richard Huff-NY Daily News) (read more - NY Times) (read more - Washington Post) (read more - CBC Canada) (red more - Financial Times) (read more - LA Times) (read more - Reuters) (read more - Forbes) (read more - CNet)
ARBitron numbers for Akron, Boston, Detroit, Hartford, Philadelphia, Riverside-San Bernadino and San Diego (read 'em)
While their contract talks went into overtime Tuesday, Kathy O'Malley and Judy Markey signed off for now from their midday talk show on WGN-AM (720) + " 'Rover's Morning Glory' is a reductio ad nauseam of the testosterone formula of morning zoos -- an unwittingly but supremely unentertaining parody" (read more - Feder of Chicago)
That the BBC's share of the UK radio market is now 12.3 percentage points bigger than commercial radio's is a much-trumpeted fact. But a look at listeners' habits by age reveals a different story. As radio listeners hit their mid-40s they start to tune out of commercial stations and in to the BBC's services. But it is pensioners that really swell the BBC's market share, listening to the corporation's stations for more than three times a long as they do commercial stations. Whereas commercial radio has the lion's share of the UK.'s 15-64 year olds (read more - The Guardian U.K.)
This Saturday, as Power celebrates a slightly early fourth birthday, it's sitting in a virtual tie with long-established WQHT (Hot-97, 97.1 FM) as two of the most popular stations in the city. For the last year, since former Hot-97 morning host Star jumped to Power, the two have been so close that both claim to be No. 1 (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
The Rick & Bubba Show adds 2 new affiliates on Monday (3/6) as Cumulus' WALG/Albany, GA and WPMW-FM/Mullens, WV pick up the show
Univision Communications announced the appointment of Timothy Ward as Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer of Univision Radio (read more - Houston Chronicle)
Operators of Missoula's KNS, 105.9 on the dial, plan to drop the progressive talk radio format this week, citing weak advertising sales. The talk radio station featured local news and commentary, but the heart of the programming was Air America Radio (read more - New West)
From John
Rook -- CBS has been
forced to cut the value of its 39 TV stations and
179 radio stations to less than $30 billion, half of
what was paid for most of the stations
in
recent times. Other group owners are seeking to sell
off what have become “unproductive facilities”.
With values plummeting, perhaps some of the radios
past ownership will return to give it a new future
by actually offering local programming
(read more -
www.JohnRook.com)
The broadcaster Linda Smith, one of the small band of women to make it to the top of the male-dominated world of comedy, has died of cancer. She was 48. A stalwart of Radio 4 quiz shows, notably the News Quiz, she was regarded with warm affection and admiration by listeners who named her the wittiest living person in one poll (read more - The Independent U.K.)
Garrison Keillor - These are troubling times for all of us who love this country, as surely we all do, even the satirists. A blowhard French journalist writes a book about America that is full of arrogant stupidity, and you want to let the air out of him and mail him home flat. And then you read the paper and realize the country is led by a man who isn't paying attention, and you hope that somebody will poke him. Or put a sign on his desk that says, "Try Much Harder." Do we need to impeach him to bring some focus to this man's life? The man was lost and then he was found and now he's more lost than ever, plus being blind (read more - Garrison Keillor-Salon)
The Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) will present a free sales training workshop on Breaking The Daily Habit: Winning New Radio Dollars From Print in Denver, Colorado on March 16th. Sponsored by Media Monitors, LLC, the Denver session is part of an ongoing free nationwide sales training series that began last year (read more - RAB)
Glenn Beck's newest affiliates are KTLK-FM in Minneapolis and WIST-AM in New Orleans
From George Mair -- Saddest moments of the week were passing of Don Knotts and stubborn stupidity of skier Bode Miller****Olympics remind us running is an ancient sport that some believe began with a messenger in Greece and others think it was a tourist in Mexico ****We’re told there are two critical points in the marathon ****16-mile mark where you’re afraid you’re going to die and the 22nd mile point where you’re afraid you won’t (read more - LA LA Land Letter-George Mair)
Westwood One will present exclusive coverage of the 2006 Masters Tournament, Thursday, April 6 through Sunday, April 9, 2006, live from Augusta National Golf Club
99.9 Kiss Country WKIS-FM announces that Michelle Schecht has been named General Sales Manager
Spanish Broadcasting System is launching Mega TV Channel 22 (WSBS-TV), the Company’s television debut in the South Florida market
Tuesday February 28, 2006
The loss of Howard Stern was devastating to all-talk Free FM (92.3). Ex-rocker David Lee Roth shed a whopping three-fourths of Stern's swan-song December audience, according to unofficial monthly "extrapolations" from interim Arbitron quarterly ratings. Whereas Stern was top dog as usual in December, Roth ranked 18th in January, between Don Imus — who also lost listeners — and Spanish-language WADO (read more - John Mainelli-NY Post) (read more - New Jersey Star-Ledger) (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
Ratings for the month of January extrapolated from the latest Arbitrends audience survey showed Jonathon Brandmeier's new morning show on WLUP-FM (97.9) in first place among listeners between the ages of 25 and 54 -- with a 6.1 percent share of the group most coveted by advertisers. But for Shane "Rover" French, the Cleveland import who replaced Howard Stern on CBS Radio's "Free FM" WCKG-FM (105.9) on Jan. 3, Monday's Arbitrends brought the worst news imaginable, prompting one competitor to rename the station "Free Fall FM." No one is listening + Jay Marvin, the former Chicago talker who now hosts mornings at Denver's KKZN-AM, fills in Thursday and Friday for syndicated host Ed Schultz (read more - Feder of Chicago)
CBS/Infinity chairman Les Moonves is about to launch a $500 million lawsuit against his departed superstar Howard Stern, claiming Stern breached his contract by failing to disclose the details of his new deal with Sirius Satellite Radio while still employed by Infinity (read more - NY Post)
CNN.com is offering broadband Internet users worldwide free access to CNN Pipeline, its commercial-free on-demand video news service, on Tuesday, Feb. 28. CNN Pipeline’s first “Free Preview Day” began at midnight and will run until 11:59 p.m. (ET) coinciding with Fat Tuesday celebrations across the U.S. Gulf Coast (visit CNN)
Viacom Inc., CBS Corp. and News Corp. all moved to broaden their plans to sell content over mobile phones, extending their traditional media offerings such as television shows and streaming audio to portable devices (read more - Denver Post)
ARBitron numbers for Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Middlesex and Nassau (read 'em)
Ted Tuner Blasts Richard Parsons' Time Warner -- "I thought my company was more innovative when it was smaller," Robert E. "Ted" Turner said Monday night, possibly through mouthfuls of bison burger (read more - Forbes)
SIRIUS Canada and
Canadian Music Week today
announced that together with Standard Radio Inc. they will be hosting a live
concert in Toronto on March 3, 2006 in celebration of Canadian Music Week
(read more - CNW Group)
Michael Smerconish of WPHT-AM (1210) will sub all next week on MSNBC for Tucker Carlson (live at 11 p.m.) and will do his regular 5:30-to-9-a.m. radio shift (read more - Michael Klein-Philly Inquirer)
Dear Radio Babe: The other day I was in the mall, and I swear I saw Pete Jarrett, whom I last heard on Oldies 108. Is he back in town? I turned on the oldies station, but I haven't heard him on the air. Is he on another station? My friends and I were wondering. Signed, Hoping to Hear Pete, R.K. Dear Hoping/R.K.: Jarrett, last heard on WIBQ 1220 AM's "Talk of the Suncoast" in 2004, is an area resident, so your detective skills could use a bit of honing (read more - Dawn Scire-Radio Babe)
At WMUC, the dedication to the art of radio overpowers any dedication to classes. It’s a place where no-name bands haul their guitars into the studio to perform during late-night time slots, where students analyze politics on their 6 a.m. shows and where a rich history of aspiring journalists and musicians have gathered to fill the airwaves (read more - Diamondback Online)
Walk into the control room at WKPX-FM 88.5 and it's clear why the station needs new facilities. Beside the control board is a record player. Mounted in a rack is a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Both were once staples of any broadcast operation, but most radio stations phased them out more than a decade ago (read more - Miami Herald)
After a series of high-profile journalism scandals, at a time when many Americans doubt the media's accuracy, a safe route for news outlets might be to focus more on soft news and features and less on investigative reporting — which is not only expensive but risky, especially if you're wrong. Nowhere might this be more true than at CBS News (read more - Peter Johnson-USA Today)
ABC Radio Networks announced that Flashback! with Bill St. James, the weekly Rock music program hosted by the veteran radio announcer, will broadcast its 1,000th program during the weekend of March 4. St. James also commemorates his 20th anniversary as the voice of Flashback! this year
A major broadcasting dispute in Canada has ended. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation today reached a tentative contract agreement with the Canadian Media Guild to end a lock out of 5,500 staff that has lasted 50 days and which provoked protests around the world (read more - Global Unions)
The Oklahoma professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists recognized the state's top journalists at its annual banquet Saturday night at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Tulsa. KLBC's Luke Willman won seven awards from OK-SPJ in the radio category (read more - North Texas e-News)
Arbitron announced that J.L. Media, a leading advertising agency in the United States and one of the largest buyers of radio advertising, has signed an agreement for the Company’s Portable People Meter ratings service when deployed in the Houston and Philadelphia markets (visit ARBitron)
Institutional Investor magazine has listed Entercom's president and CEO, David J. Field, among the best CEOs in the U.S. (read more - Memphis Biz Journal)
Keith Olbermann devoted an entire segment to responding to Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's call for the replacement of Olbermann's show with one featuring Phil Donahue. Donahue previously hosted a show on MSNBC in the same 8 p.m. ET time slot as Olbermann's Countdown, which is also in the same time slot as O'Reilly's show, Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor (read more - Media Matters)
Before VH1, Mo Rocca was a correspondent for Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” He joins the growing list of successful “Daily Show” alumni such as Steve Carell and Steve Colbert. As for his former boss Jon Stewart being named host of “The Academy Awards,” Rocca said, “I’m sorry I was unavailable, but Jon will be great.” (read more - Laura Nachman)
From Happy Hare --
It had been years since I had been on the air with a show when I was called by
Roger Hedgecock to fill in on his top rated talk show on KOGO
Radio.
Roger, as you may know, is Rush Limbaugh’s
favorite sub. He has publicly proclaimed me as his mentor. So, what could I say?
Of course, yes, but I also did it to promote my favorite cause which was to
rescue the thousands of travelers, mostly elderly, from having to end their
cruises in Ensenada, Mexico, instead of San Diego because of an archaic law that
restricted cruise travel
(read more -
www.HappyHareOnline.com)
Mike McCurry, who was President Bill Clinton's press secretary a decade ago, is kicking himself to this day for ever allowing the White House briefings to be televised live. "It was a huge error on my part," Mr. McCurry recalled the other day (read more - NY Times)
KBEC 1390
Waxahachie sports reporter and Daily Light Sports Editor John Hicks died
suddenly on Friday at the
age of 38. He is being remembered as a "gentle giant"
(read more -Waxahachie Daily
Light)
SD Radio reports that Woody and Wilcox are trading the weather and everything San Diego for Anchorage, Alaska. They are leaving everything San Diego (except housing and cost of living) for the beautiful outdoors of the 49th state. 100.5 The Fox in Anchorage is their new address (visit 100.5 The Fox)
Some homophobic Clay Aiken fans have lodged a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the marketing and promotional practices of Aiken's label. They charge false advertising and misrepresentation and conspiring to market and promote Aiken - the "American Idol" contender who allegedly had a tryst with a former military man - in a false and deceptive manner (read more - NY Post)
Dennis Weaver (Chester Goode of TV's "Gunsmoke" and "McCloud," has died. He was 81(read more - LA Times)
Listeners to Roe Conn's fine afternoon show on Chicago's WLS-AM (890) get a fifth hour of fun when the 2 p.m. show extends its daily run to 7 p.m -- And while we're talking Chicago radio, queries come in regularly on where Conn's former partner, Garry Meier, ended up after turning down a new WLS contract. The short answer: nowhere (read more - Tim Cuprisin-Milwaukee JS)
The three-day "Alice's 36 Hours for Kids," sponsored by KALC 105.7-FM, raised a record $1.1 million for The Children's Hospital (read more - Dick Kreck-Denver Post)
Michael Medved picks his Oscar favorites and has a special screening of "I Walk the Line" this Wednesday in a special appearance at 1170 KCBQ (visit KCBQ)
Monday February 27, 2006
Weddington native Kevin Martin, 39, returned home this weekend to speak at a local Republican party event. Staff writer Jennifer Rothacker spoke with Martin, who is finishing up his first year as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (read the interview-Charlotte Observer)
Will the generational chasm dividing Pittsburgh listeners into two broadcast bands lead to the demise of AM radio stations? The line of demarcation in the Pittsburgh radio market is age 50. Listeners younger than that typically listen to FM radio stations that play music because broadcast band offers much better sound quality (read more - Dimitri Vassilaros-Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
Steve Rivers of MusicBiz contacted programmers and label reps to give them a forum to express their perspectives on the suspension of the reporting of record adds to the trade magazines. For some strange reason, there has been no response from anyone. Not a peep. Not a call, not an E-mail, not an IM. Not even a message by carrier pigeon (read more - Steve Rivers-MusicBiz)
Dozens of commercial
radio stations will face bankruptcy within the next 10 to 15 years if the
Government does not put a stop to the rapid expansion of the BBC's radio
business, according to a report published today. The study, by the
economic consultancy Indepen, commissioned by the Commercial Radio Companies
Association (CRCA),
warns that the BBC's recent wave of radio station launches have unnecessarily
distorted the commercial market, threatening the many private stations which are
already struggling financially
(read more - The Independent
U.K.)
In El Paso's crowded radio market, where 36 stations from both sides of the border compete for listeners, only a handful of stations consistently stay atop the ratings. Five or six are consistently on top of the ratings and are "getting the bulk of the advertising budgets," said Ellen Ordaz, vice president and media director at SWG&M Advertising Inc., an El Paso advertising agency (read more - El Paso Times)
Ron Jacobs' "Radio
Programmer's Playbook" -- Part 2 -
"Jacobs' Ladder ... Ten Steps to Radio for Fun and Profit"
One
of Boss Radio’s most exciting promotions was staging an actual “Last Train To
Clarksville.” That’s right, a few hundred KHJ winners rode to “Clarksville” (the
City of Del Mar, north of San Diego, whose train station was hustled by
Promotions Director Don Berrigan. Once the winners debarked there and ate their
fried chicken lunch…whackatawack, WHACKTAWACK…a quartet of helicopters slowly
alit near the train. Out came (SFX: Shrieking teeny bop orgasma) THE
MONKEESS!!! (read
more -
www.RonJacobsOnline.com)
The new program director at KTRS-AM (550), Al Brady Law, has been accused in a police report of e-mail harassment by a former employee of his at Toledo, Ohio, radio station WSPD-AM (1370) (read more - Deb Peterson-St Louis Post-Dispatch)
Entravision Communications Corp has agreed to buy back 7 million Class U common shares held by Univision Communications for $51.1 million, or $7.30 a share. This will reduce Univision's stake in Entravision to less than 15 percent (read more - Reuters)
Soon after Republican Rep.
Fred Upton publicly lobbied for the raising of the number of radio stations a
company can have from eight to at least 12, Bill Blog discovered that Upton's
2006 re-election campaign has already
received over $100,000 from communications and entertainment interests such as
the NAB, Universal Music Group, Time Warner, Comcast, Viacom and Clear Channel
(read more - MusicBiz)
A radio museum, sort of: David F. Jackson of Livermore calls himself a "Columbia School washout." In other words, he took courses at the old Columbia School of Broadcasting but never made it into the biz. So, instead, he's built the closest thing the Bay Area now has to a radio museum -- online. Jackson's Web site, called the Bay Area Radio Museum www.bayarearadio.org is the most immediately accessible (read more - Ben Fong-Torres - SF Chronicle)
From Claude Hall --
"... got to hear Jack Gale on the radio after, I
guess, more than 30 years (heard an hour
tape,
unedited, when he was on WAYS, Charlotte; that was the year Billboard magazine
presented him an award as Radio Personality of the Year, Medium Market)" +
Rob Moorhead was kind
enough to mail me the KMET tongue and a couple of other items that I plan to
feature with a coming article. "I contacted Foster and Kleiser, long ago
absorbed by Clear Channel, for old artwork from the KMET ad campaigns prior to
the dayglow upside down billboards
(read more -
www.ClaudeHallOnline.com)
Are recent changes in local radio messing up the pre-sets on your radio dial? Pittsburgh radio listeners have had their world rocked in the past few months. In what was a somewhat stagnant market, there have been several format, programming and personnel changes, with a few more just around the corner -- enough to make listeners feel lost on their own radio dials. And they're going to change our listening habits, whether we want them to or not (read more - Adrian McCoy-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Guardian angels founder and WABC 770 radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa is scheduled to take the stand when the re-trial of John "Junior" Gotti picks up on Monday (read more - NY 1)
Radio executives say that the HD2 stations - which are relatively cheap to program and operate - are not designed to supplant conventional radio. "We consider this complementary," said Blaise Howard, general manager of WBEB. "It's an investment in everyone's future." (read more - Michael Klein-Philly Inquirer)
Spanish Broadcasting System will release fourth quarter and full-year 2005 financial results before market hours on Thursday, March 9, 2006 (read more- MSN Money)
Some 1,500 employees of the CBC and its French-language service rejected fresh contract demands from the network on Saturday, prompting their union leader to warn the broadcaster it could soon have a strike on its hands (read more - The Globe and Mail)
Call Rush Limbaugh a blowhard, say his politics is beyond the pale, that he's a right-wing wacko. He's OK with all that. But question his business model on which his enormously successful syndicated radio talk show is based and Limbaugh springs to his own defense. Last Wednesday's column featured comments by a former radio executive from West Chester, Pa., who was one of the first five station owners to air Limbaugh's afternoon show live. While many of the comments had some kernel of truth back in the 1980s, the column prompted Limbaugh to e-mail and then telephone me (read more - Ron Williams-Delaware News Journal)
Blake Lindsay, an Indiana native, is a longtime Dallas disc jockey (he was at KISS-FM from 1994 until 2001) who's gone by the handles Blind Blake and, later, Blazin' Blake. He now owns Blazin' Blake, a voice-over production company that specializes in radio station promos and commercials. And, yes, Blake is blind (read more - Dallas News) (visit BlakeLindsay.com)
After two fires fires within two months' time, Austin community radio station KOOP-FM 91.7 is searching for a new home (read more - Austin Biz Journal)
For nearly three decades, Prior Smith, a veteran broadcaster based in rural Ontario, has provided the latest word from up north for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who winter in Florida and other warm-weather states. He calls the 5 1/2 -minute segment Canada Calling. Others call it an invaluable link to home (read more - Palm Beach Post)
Radio group Austereo plans to launch an array of new digital platforms - and could even offer an online gaming product in the future - in a bid to keep up with its tech-savvy young listeners. Austereo, which is 60 per cent controlled by Village Roadshow, will become the first Australian radio network to provide a music-based internet protocol television (IPTV) station on Wednesday with Crank TV (read more - News Australia)
The friendly talk will soon end at WESX. After 67 years, the 1,000-watt station long known as ''The Voice of the North Shore" is signing off for good in May. The homey station -- run out of a little white house with black shutters and a 180-foot tower in the backyard -- has been sold, along with its sister station, WJDA of Quincy. The new owner plans to relocate the two stations to Chelsea, move the WESX tower to Lynn, and change the format to Christian and multicultural programming (read more - Kathy McCabe-Boston Globe) (read more - Robert Preer-Boston Globe)
Spanish-language radio has come a long way from the days when ad reps couldn't even get through the doors of local car dealers and grocery store chains. In Tucson and the rest of the country, the rising Latino demographic and Latinos' particular way of listening to radio is attracting advertising from all sectors, said Bob Feinman, director of Hispanic operations for Clear Channel Radio Tucson, and a veteran of local Spanish-language radio for three decades (read more - Arizona Star)
On a day when the whipping wind made Copley Square feel uncomfortably like the Wyoming high plains where Curt Gowdy made his broadcasting debut in 1943, friends and family gathered yesterday to bid adieu to the erstwhile voice of the Red Sox, who died of leukemia Monday at 86 (read more - Boston Globe)
Don't tell Tim Jones that having no experience is an impediment to getting hired at something he's never done. Exactly 42 years after walking in off the street into a Joliet radio station for a disc jockey job he'd never attempted, he's still playing gospel music over the airwaves (read more - Herald News)
Don Knotts, the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on ''The Andy Griffith Show,'' has died. He was 81 (read more- NY Times)
Most people don't think about a radio station changing format until, suddenly, it happens. One day, you turn on your favorite station and it's not there anymore. It's playing programs you don't recognize, or maybe has a different name. It's all part of a process that starts when the station is sold. The old owner departs, and the new owner takes over. People who worked there for years lose their jobs. Perhaps a small group of fans who liked the old station will try to save it. They'll write letters and sign petitions. But the FCC won't step in, and the changes will proceed, whether the public approves or not (read more - Donna L. Halper-Boston Globe)
ABC News Radio named former Senator Fred Thompson to the position of Special Program Host and Senior Analyst beginning in the Spring of 2006. Thompson, a Republican from Tennessee, well-known for his acting roles on television’s Law & Order, will be based from ABC News Radio’s Washington, D.C. bureau. He will host ABC News Radio specials and programs, provide commentary and analysis of politics, policy, national security, and current affairs. He will also fill-in for Paul Harvey when the legendary radio host is on vacation (read more - ABC News)
"Making Airwaves" has been a smashing success for Milo Hamilton, a 60-year veteran of the broadcasting business who is entering his 22nd season with the Astros. He sold 400 copies during a two-day jaunt through Astros FanFest a few weeks ago, and sales since then have been equally fruitful (read more - MLB)
Rick Ammon's radio collection of 250 antique radios from the 1920s and earlier got its start when he was 12. Don Ammon took Rick to a car auction at Holmes Auction, which is now known as Western Auction (read more - Casper Star-Tribune)
Jose Isasi, Que Pasa's president, said that he bought WYSR 1590-AM, an ESPN-formatted station, from Eastern Broadcasting Group Inc. in Slingerland, N.Y. The price was $780,000 (read more - Winston-Salem Journal)
The 19th Annual Dick Purtan Radiothon to benefit the Salvation Army Bed & Bread Club raised $1,808,440 to benefit the homeless and hungry in Detroit (read more - WOMC 104.3)
If you’re an Episcopalian with a computer that receives e-mail and has audio speakers, you may have heard something that sounds a lot like a radio commercial for an upcoming stock car race. Except this one advertises an Episcopal church. A booming voice chanting “This Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! It’s a sacramental showdown at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church!” (read more - Living Church Foundation) (click here to listen to spot)
Mexican media conglomerate, Grupo Televisa, said Friday it is analyzing whether to participate in any sale of US Spanish-language broadcaster Univision (read more - Businessweek)
In a new special report, to air Monday, February 27 - Friday March 3, CNNRadio Washington Correspondent Dick Uliano will investigate the ongoing issue of immigration by speaking with people who have illegally entered the United States and the lawmakers trying to prohibit their entrance into this country. “Chasing America” will cover amnesty programs, day labor sites, national border security as well as the Minutemen project, military incursions, drug smuggling and more (visit CNN Radio)
Latino Communications, a Spanish-language media company, will add a new Triad radio station and change the format of two other stations to appeal to Hispanics who aren't from Mexico (read more - Triad Biz Journal)
Week # 2 of
Ron Jacobs’ "Radio Programmer's Playbook"
will
be available Monday at RonJacobsOnline.com. New
Stuff includes: "Who has “charisma” and why + inside The
KGB Chicken (suit) + more wisdom from The Potentate, Colonel Thomas A.
Parker
(visit
www.RonJacobsOnline.com)
Arbitron announced that Spanish Broadcasting System, Inc. has entered into a multi-year, multi-market agreement for Portable People Meter audience measurement services when deployed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. These five mainland U.S. markets are served by nine Spanish Broadcasting System stations (visit ARBitron)
Friday February 24, 2006
Dave Baum and Clark Weber, veteran broadcasters who worked with Eddie Schwartz, along with other celebrities and colleagues of "Chicago Ed" will join forces for five hours on the air March 13 to raise money for the ailing former king of late-night radio in Chicago. From 7 p.m. to midnight, CBS Radio sports/talk WSCR-AM (670) will invite fans and friends of "Chicago Ed" to help defray his living expenses. There's a profile of Ed in the March issue of "Chicago" magazine (read more - Feder of Chicago)
Ripples of indignation spread across the campus of the University of Maryland over news that its student-run radio station could be forced off the air by a more powerful station in Baltimore (read more - Baltimore Sun)
Injured anchor Bob Woodruff is still being mildly sedated due to head injuries he suffered last month in Iraq, but he is making steady progress at Bethesda Medical Center + Howard Stern is looking for 5 minute films for his first film festival (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
Two Wyoming radio stations have pulled a set of public service announcements advocating medical marijuana use after receiving complaints from the police chief and others (read more - Jackson Hole Star-Tribune)
CBS has now cut the value of its 39 TV stations and 179 radio stations to less than $30 billion, half of what Redstone paid for most of the assets in 2000 and 2001. "This officially recognizes what the market has already stated: Traditional broadcasting assets are worth less than they were a few years ago," said Fred Moran, an analyst with Stanford Financial Group in Boca Raton, Florida (read more - NY Post)
Steffan Tubbs, co-host of "Colorado's Morning News" on KOA 850-AM, leaves for Iraq next Friday, part of a Defense Department tour with six other talk-show hosts (read more - Dick Kreck-Denver Post)
The BBC has announced that its programme Calling the Falklands is to be cut after 62 years (read more - BBC)
Steve Mason, co-host of ESPN Radio 710's "Big Show," is covering the Turin Olympics for Westwood One Radio (read more - LA Daily News)
Westwood One stock prices fell after the company reported that its fourth-quarter earnings fell 19% (read more - Crain's NY Biz)
The FCC is preparing to release its first batch of indecency rulings under chairman Kevin J. Martin -- and CBS and Fox are expected to bear the brunt, Variety said. The rulings could come in a matter of weeks or days (read more - Monsters and Critics)
From Kent
Burkhart -- Last week I
traveled to Nashville for the Country Radio Seminar.
Over two thousand radio and music people attended
this fabulous three day event. The CRS…as
it is called…is always
educational
(great panels) and entertaining (great artists doing
their thing). There is also a friendship that ninety
per cent of those attending have with others. The
other ten percent…..well, that is another story….
about egos, anger, and frustration. (I am not going
there in this column!!). There are great musicians
in Nashville that can ...
(read
more - www.KentBurkhart.com)
The heated issue of turning operating control of six major U.S. ports over to a state-sponsored company based in the United Arab Emirates is splitting some of the biggest names in American broadcasting, including Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly who favor the transfer, and Sean Hannity and Michael Savage who oppose it (read more - NewsMax)
It was celebrity ecstasy at Univision's Premio Lo Nuestro de la Musica Latina on Thursday. The show kicked off with two of Latin and pop music's biggest stars, Colombian rockers Juanes and Shakira, who took the stage less than five minutes after working the red carpet outside Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena (read more - Miami Herald)
Fox Cable Networks has agreed to purchase Turner Broadcasting System Inc.'s Turner South regional sports and entertainment network + Ted Turner will be leaving the Time Warner board by not seeking re-election (read more - Crain's NY Biz) (read more - Reuters)
Dave Graveline and the Into Tomorrow team this Sunday will be covering everything from graphic cards to peripheral gear and Intel chips in MACs + more beginning at 2 pm EDST (visit Into Tomorrow)
Bill O'Reilly sometimes talks about "the gay agenda" of Hollywood in tones that connote serious, dastardly plotting. But with Tab Hunter and Harry Hamliln, and a discussion about the impact of "Brokeback Mountain," Bill was unusually "fair and balanced." Though he agrees with Hamlin, he also said, "It's a different world. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal aren't going to be hurt . . . I think that picture will win!" (read more - Liz Smith)
Long before WLS 890-AM became the Midwest home to conservative talk radio god Rush Limbaugh, a rebellious kid name Larry Lujack ruled the airwaves at the Big 89, the Rock of Chicago ... As a solo act, Lujack reigned supreme in the world of rock DJs. But it took a program director-turned-midday-host named Tommy Edwards to help him create one of Chicago radio's greatest and most enduring classics: Animal Stories (read more - Dann Gire-Chicago Daily Herald)
Thursday February 23, 2006
The FCC is considering a proposal to rule that the word "shit" is profane and violates decency limits in certain contexts. Already the FCC has declared the word "fuck" is off-limits in most cases. Among the decisions, the first FCC indecency rulings in 14 months, are findings against News Corp.'s Fox for broadcasting celebrity Richie saying "s***" and "f******" at the 2003 Billboard Music Awards, the FCC officials said. The vulgarity for intercourse has since been banned in most contexts (read more - Reuters) (read more - NY Post)
Citadel Broadcasting reported its results for the fourth quarter of 2005. Net revenues for the fourth quarter of 2005 were $108.3 million compared with $109.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2004, a decrease of $1.5 million, or 1.4% (read more - Business Wire)
Saga was a no-show at last week's Achievement In Radio (AIR) Awards. Tom Joerres, president and general manager of Saga Communications Inc.'s Milwaukee stations said Tuesday he has became disillusioned with the contest judging by radio professionals from outside Milwaukee (read more- Biz Journals)
Viacom reported lower fourth-quarter earnings mainly because of charges and weak results at its Paramount movie studio. The loss included a writedown of $9.5 billion, reflecting the failure of the CBS radio and CBS television networks to produce the sales growth promised by Chairman Sumner Redstone six years ago (read more - NY Times) (read more - Bloomberg)
One city where the oldies format has endured is Seattle, in the form of Entercom's KBSG-FM (97.3). Entercom and KBSG believe there's still some life left in oldies. The station has just re-signed its morning team of Scott Burns and Scott "Fastlane" Phillips to a new three-year contract (read more - Bill Virgin-Seattle PI)
1190 AM in Dallas-Fort Worth switches to classic country format (read more - Star-Telegram)
Entercom Communications Corp. said yesterday that its net income fell to $15.8 million, a 19 percent decline from a year earlier, despite a 6 percent drop in its radio station operating expenses (read more - Philly Inquirer)
February is when WKCR (89.9 FM) breaks out its annual weekend of full-strength classic country. This year's feature is Sun Records and the legendary "Million Dollar Quartet" session with Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis on Dec. 4, 1956 (read more - NY Daily News)
"A woman calls one day and says, 'You're not going to believe it, my husband's been abducted by aliens, he's been gone so long. He finally came in real late in the morning,' " George Noory recalled. " 'He was sweaty and nervous.' And then she says, 'These aliens, they took his wedding ring!' " Oblivious wives aside, many of Noory's callers are quite serious, and he often sounds as if he's utterly fascinated by what they have to say. It's not an act: Noory is a believer himself, something that hasn't changed since he was a kid growing up in St. Louis (read more - Randy Dotinga-NC Times)
As Bob Schieffer's career begins to wind down, award ceremonies honoring him gain momentum. He'll be in Denver on Wednesday night to accept the Anvil of Freedom Award in recognition of "superior leadership and commitment to the protection of the First Amendment." The award will be given at a dinner at the University of Denver Cable Center (read more - Dusty Saunders-Rocky Mountain News)
From Murphy Martin --
Toughness from the past led to
tenderness from the heart this week when nearly
fifty
former
Dallas Cowboys joined more than two-hundred friends
and family members for the funeral of former Cowboy
Defensive Coordinator Ernie Stautner. The
80-year old Bavarian, who arrived in America in 1928
at the age of three, lost a battle to Alzheimers
last weekend
(read
more - www.MurphyMartin.com)
Roe Conn has agreed to add one year to his contract and one hour a day to his afternoon show on ABC-owned news/talk WLS-AM (890) + It's getting down to the wire for Kathy O'Malley and Judy Markey, the midday duo at Tribune Co.-owned news/talk WGN-AM (720). With both sides believed to be far apart on a renewal, their current contract is set to expire Tuesday (read more - Feder of Chicago)
The late Peter Jennings, who just had a street named after him, is now being honored in the Philly. The National Constitution Center will use part of a $6.4 million grant to establish a journalism institute named after Jennings (read more - NY Post)
Chris Rock and the cast of "Everybody Hates Chris" will appear on a panel at The Museum of Television & Radio's 23rd annual William S. Paley Television Festival March 2 (read more - Forbes)
“Red Hot” Brian Scott is changing radio frequencies and work hours when he signs on at Quad-City station KBEA-FM 99.7, or B-100 (read more - QC Times)
Vin Scully agreed to return for his 58th and 59th seasons as a broadcaster with the Dodgers, accepting a two-year contract extension through 2008 (read more - Cincy Enquirer)
In a speech in San Francisco late last year, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. noted that the notion of a liberal media is a right-wing ruse. "There is a right-wing media, and if you look where most Americans are now getting their news, that's where they're getting it. According to Pew (Research Center), 30 percent of Americans now say that their primary news source is talk radio, which is 90 percent dominated by the right." (read more - Bill Berry-Capital Times)
Clear Channel Radio has signed legendary college basketball coach John Thompson to a lifetime contract with SportsTalk station 980 WTEM
The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council is petitioning the FCC to direct the Katrina Independent Panel to produce, by June 15, a multilingual EAS messaging plan that will ensure that in any EAS-level emergency, significant limited-or non-English speaking populations will not again be left out on the cold as to the vital stream of emergency information that could save their lives and those of their neighbors and family members (visit MMTC)
Lee Clear, 58, a regional vice president and the St. Louis market manager for Clear Channel Radio for the past 10 years, has been let go from his position. He is being replaced by Dennis W. Lamme, who formerly was VP and market manager for the much smaller Clear Channel cluster in Albany, N.Y. (read more - Albany Times-Union) (read more - Deb Peterson-St Louis Post-Dispatch)
The loud clashing of publicity swords between Donald Trump and Martha Stewart is sounding a lot like ringing cash registers. The pair's new public "Apprentice" animosity, media experts say, is likely to give each of them millions of dollars of national, prime-time publicity — for nothing (read more - Paul Tharp-NY Post)
You might recognize his voice from his three decades of Reno radio shows. Now, Dan van Enoo, former longtime Truckee resident, disc jockey and morning show celebrity is the new general manager at Truckee's own KTKE, 101.5 FM (read more - Sierra Sun)
News Corp. will launch a new mini-network called My Network TV. It will supply prime-time programming for its 10 local TV stations (Crain's NY Biz)
Wednesday February 22, 2006
Bridge Ratings recently completed its first six month analysis of in-car cell phone use and its potential impact on other in-car listening including that of radio. The study was commissioned by a wireless company in 2005 as part of a multi-year consumer study. Of significance is the finding that the true amount of time-spent- listening to in-car radio is falling due to significant increases in the cumulative amount of time-spent-talking by cell phone users (read more - www.BridgeRatings.com)
Entercom Communications said its fourth-quarter profits fell 19% from a year ago, hurt by decline in revenue (read more - The Street)
KSFI - FM100 in Salt Lake City has launched a new music channel - FM100 HD2 - utilizing the new HD Digital Radio technology (visit FM 100 KSFI)
Pretty soon you'll be able to hear former WCBS-FM oldies jocks Bob Shannon and Bobby Jay on the radio - if you move to Europe and subscribe to the new satellite network VIP. Both Shannon and Jay are in the starting lineup for that new service. But almost nine months after WCBS-FM switched from oldies to a Jack format, neither they nor any other WCBS-FM jocks have regular daily shows in New York (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
The unsolved hit-and-run homicide of Chicago radio character Ray "Cowboy Ray" Hofstatter will be spotlighted on this weekend's edition of "America's Most Wanted" (read more - Feder of Chicago)
Blaine Young, radio talk-show host of "Frederick's Forum" on WFMD AM in Maryland, apologized for comparing the president of the Frederick County Commissioners to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (read more - KTEN TV)
A broadcasting career that included stints with the Chicago Cubs and Houston Colt .45s and Astros has landed Gene Elston the most coveted honor in his profession -- the Ford C. Frick Award. Elston was elected to the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame and the Texas Radio Hall of Fame (read more - MLB) (read more - David Barron-Houston Chronicle)
Cox Radio, Inc. CXR today reported financial results for the three-month and twelve-month periods ended December 31, 2005 (read more - MSN Money)
Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) plans to award a licence to run a commercial radio station in the south-west. The licence, which is aimed at 15-34-year-olds, will allow the station to broadcast across Kerry, Limerick, Clare, north Tipperary and south-west Laois (read more - Irish Examiner)
The Steve Harvey Morning Show comes back at 5 a.m. Monday on KRNB/105.7 FM. Among Harvey's competition will be Ricky Smiley, who replaced Harvey when his show left KBFB/97.9 FM "The Beat." No word yet on the fate of BJ in the Morning, KRNB's incumbent wake-up program (read more - Star-Telegram)
WRKS (98.7 FM), street name Kiss-FM, turns 25 this summer with a reputation that has spread around the world (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
KLSD-AM has been the Progressive Talk for San Diego -- and will celebrate two years in August. Enter non-traditional revenue: Visit the KLSD website and listeners are invited: "make your own statement" to "help support the station." (read more - SDRadio.net)
Management at baby-boomer station Vega FM predicted their audience would build slowly, and they've been proved correct. After last year's final survey marked it as the least-listened to station in Melbourne, the first radio survey for 2006 shows its audience has slipped (read more - The Age AU)
TalkRadio 790 KABC PD Erik Braverman says he'll add syndicated talk show host, Mark Levin, to KABC's weekday lineup from 9-10pm beginning on February 27 (visit 790 KABC)
ESPN Radio announced an advertising partnership with AT&T making the telecommunications giant the presenting sponsor for 39 different ESPN Radio programs + ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike in the Morning and The Dan Patrick Show have new lead producers, it was announced by ESPN Radio Program Director Larry Gifford. Scott Shapiro has been named lead producer of ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike in the Morning, while Owen Murphy has been named lead producer of The Dan Patrick Show (visit ESPN)
When newspapers are reflecting on their poor advertising revenue report from last year, radio media are regaining the attention of advertisers. A market report in China shows radio advertising spending went up 35 percent last year, compared with a comparatively meek 19 percent growth for TV (read more - China Broadcast)
Among the
many honors and awards given during the CRS-37
seminar were:
CRB Career Achievement Award - Ronnie
Milsap
President¹s Award Industry veteran Jack Lameier
Country Music DJ Hall of Fame -Terry Dorsey, Lon
Helton, Arch Yancey Country Music Radio Hall of Fame
Jonathan Fricke, Ed Salamon
Promotion Winner (Small Market) - WFYR; Peoria, IL
Promotion Winner (Medium Market) - KKCS; Colorado
Springs, CO
Promotion Winner (Large Market) - WQYK; Tampa, FL
Tom Rivers Award - John Hines, Morning Air
Personality for K102 in Minneapolis, MN
Artist Humanitarian Award - Neal McCoy
Radio Humanitarian Award (Small Market) - KDXY-FM
The Fox; Jonesboro, Arkansas
Radio Humanitarian Award (Medium Market) - WIVK-FM;
Knoxville, Tennessee
Radio Humanitarian Award (Large Market) - WQYK-FM;
Tampa, Florida
The Secretary¹s Award for Outstanding Service to
American Veterans - Toby Keith
(visit CRS-37)
A Pennsylvania company has purchased WBEC-FM's frequency and plans to move it to the Springfield area, which will deprive Berkshire County of a radio station (read more - Berkshire Eagle)
Gregg Cassidy, one-time operations director for Salem Broadcasting, is back in Denver as program director at KIMN 100.3-FM (read more - Dick Kreck-Denver Post)
Is there a double standard when referring to race issues as they relate to sports in the media? There’s no place in the media for race hatred. But there must be room for the debate about the impact of race (read more - Nashville City Paper Editorial)
Westwood
One's Charles Osgood was named the 2006 recipient of
The National Press Foundation's Sol
Taishoff Award for Broadcasting Excellence.
The award will be presented at the must-attend
National Press Foundation annual awards dinner on
Thursday, February 23, 2006, at the Hilton
Washington Hotel, in Washington DC
(visit Westwood One-Charles Osgood)
Tuesday February 21, 2006
Radio might not sound like the ideal medium for a wedding, but if you tune in for the one on WPLJ tomorrow morning, there will at least be this: The listeners will know as much about the bride and groom as they know about each other. Morning hosts Scott Shannon and Todd Pettengill of WPLJ (95.5 FM) have spent the past few weeks arranging "Two Strangers and a Wedding," where the catch is that the wedding couple won't meet until minutes before they say "I do." (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
Ed Schultz says his nationally syndicated liberal talk show might have outgrown Fargo. Schultz, a longtime broadcaster for KFGO-AM in Fargo, launched his national radio show in January 2004. KFGO dropped his program from its afternoon lineup last month. "It was classless," Schultz said. "I don't deserve to be treated like that after making them millions of dollars." (read more - Grand Forks Herald)
Clear Channel has posted a fourth-quarter profit. Clear Channel's radio broadcasting revenue fell 6 percent to $909.4 million for the quarter. Officials attributed the radio sales slip to “Less is More,” an initiative the company started in 2004 to boost ratings by paring back commercial time (read more - SA Express-News) (read more - Bloomberg)
As promised and ahead of schedule, 12 leading radio companies are this week kicking off the first phase of a massive, $200 million advertising campaign to accelerate the adoption of HD digital radio. Like other forms of old media (newspapers, network television), terrestrial radio must fight the perception that it will inevitably lose major ground to the new media, even though it can still appeal to mass audiences. But radio needs to fight back fast and hard against its satellite competitors, according to analysts (read more - PR Newswire) (read more - Martin Miller-LA Times)
Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said Monday he believes Washington is more broken than it ever has been in his lifetime because of "brutal partisanship." He described the FCC as a "default wrestling pit" (read more - Jeff Smith-Rocky Mountain News)
DJ Chris Moyles yesterday branded a listener's children "f***ing brats" live on his Radio 1 breakfast show. Mum Donna phoned in from her car to take part in the regular Beep Beep Busters quiz. But Chris lost his rag when her kids made a racket in the backseat and blurted out the word (read more - The Mirror U.K.)
Long before the iPod, the Internet, cell phones and computers, even before TV, there was box with no picture and it was called radio. One Bay Area man had a lot more to do with radio than you may have known. A professor of anything is generally, an expert. So it's no surprise that at San Jose State, Mike Adams, who runs the Radio TV Department, has an office filled with tubes and radios (read more - KGO TV 7)
Arbitron Inc.
released the results from studies of how consumers use cell phones that point
out the weaknesses of a “dual-use” survey device such as a cell-phone-based
radio meter. The findings indicate that consumer attitudes about
cell phones and their resulting behaviors will introduce significant bias in the
radio survey results, bias that is not seen with the Arbitron Portable People
Meter system. Based on these studies of consumers and their use of cell phones,
Arbitron has found that too many people:• do not have their cell with them all
the time; • do not have their cell turned on all of the time
(visit
ARBitron)
From John Rook --
Larry Lujack, The Real Don Steele, Robert W. Moran, Gary Owens, Rick Dee’s and
many other’s
blossomed
to play a major role in radio supplying entertainment, informing and selling the
products of local merchants. More than just a voice on the radio,
they were members of the family. They are the superstars of radio. Syndicated
robots from a distant location now occupy the stages where radio’s future was
once cultivated. “Where are the flowers of tomorrow”? They are being plowed
under
(read more - www.JohnRook.com)
"For (Nancy) Grace, anyone who has been charged must be guilty," TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz wrote last year in The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. Grace "never goes a day without blowing a gasket over whatever case she happens to be discussing ... throwing journalistic objectivity in the nearest dumpster, slamming defense attorneys as pimps in fancy suits and declaring defendants guilty because, well, they just seem guilty." If parodies and barbs bother her, Grace, 45, doesn't let on (read more - Peter Johnson-USA Today)
... at the network level, television executive, Frank Traynor, of Bloomberg News says if he was running CBS, he’d hire Philadelphia’s Alycia Lane over NBC’s Katie Couric for the anchor position vacated by Dan Rather at the “CBS Evening News.” He said, “Lets start with America's so-called sweetheart (Couric). First off, she ain’t no sweetheart! (read more - Laura Nachman)
From Happy Hare --
Hal Neal, the president of ABC Radio, was a hero of mine, partly because he had
been an announcer on the old Lone Ranger Radio series that originated from the
huge WXYZ studio in
Detroit
where Specs and I did our morning show. Hal chose
the spacious Lone Ranger studios for our studio, in order to give us a sense of
the rich tradition of WXYZ, aimed toward inspiring us to greater heights. He was
not a stuffy man. He loosened us up in one of our first meetings about the time
the wheels came off the Lone Ranger show…during the early 40’s
(read more -
www.HappyHareOnline.com)
SIRIUS Satellite Radio and Court TV News announced the launch of Court TV Morning Radio SM, a weekday call-in radio news program hosted by Court TV News’ Vinnie Politan. The new show, which will run weekdays from 6 am to 9 am, is expected to debut on March 20 on Court TV Radio, SIRIUS Channel 110 (visit Sirius Radio)
Curt Gowdy, one of the signature voices of sports for a generation and a longtime broadcaster for the Boston Red Sox, died Monday at 86 (read more - Biloxi Sun-Herald) (read more - Henry Daily Herald) (read more - Reuters) (read more - Boston Globe)
Kim Komando of The Kim Komando Show will be featured on the program “CBS Sunday Morning” on February 26th. Martha Teichner, correspondent, spent the day at Kim's Phoenix home and the WestStar TalkRadio studios. The Money segment explains how Kim talks tech to millions each week (visit Komando.com) (visit CBS Sunday Morning)
From Ron Jacobs --
Radio Programmer's Playbook
Illustrated:
The legendary broadcast wizard reveals his secret strategies
(read more -www.RonJacobsOnline.com)
SD Radio reports that Chino returns to the San Diego airwaves on Z90. The morning host takes to the airwaves Tuesday morning (visit SDRadio.net)
The Radio Advertising Bureau and Commercial Radio Companies Association are merging in a bid to pull independent radio out of its current slump and provide listeners with an alternative to Corporation productions (read more - The Stage U.K.)
WRKO-AM in Boston has added The Glenn Beck Program's weekend edition to its lineup (visit Glenn Beck)
It's nearing noon on Thursday in the studios of Shade 45, Eminem's channel at Sirius satellite radio. After four hours on the air, co-hosts Cipha Sounds and Angela Yee are ready to wrap up the show with their 25-year-old producer, Georgetown native Erik Stickels, aka DJ Wonder (read more - Delaware News-Journal)
Channel 4 weekend anchor/medical reporter Kimberly Kane was shown the door last week after seven years at the station (read more - Tim Cuprisin-MIlwaukee JS)
For the third time in his four years as news director at WTVG-TV, Channel 13, Brian Trauring has hired someone from a competing station who had been working without a contract (read more - Russ Lemmon-Toledo Blade)
America Online plans to roll out major new services over the next few months to help it compete in key Internet battlegrounds — taking on teen-networking site MySpace, voice powerhouse Skype and others, CEO Jonathan Miller said in an exclusive interview (read more - USA Today)
Monday February 20, 2006
Unlike Phyllis Redstone, who was compensated handsomely by her former husband, Sumner Redstone, and has resumed more or less cordial relations with him, Brent Redstone has never forgiven his father for dumping his mother. Brent must have noted with unease that Bear Stearns, the bank that arranged the Viacom split, was also allegedly responsible for fixing up his father at short notice with a blind date for a charity event (read more - The Telegraph U.K.)
Lottery officials are still looking Monday for the winner of the record $365 million Powerball prize after briefly being duped by a Colorado radio show prank. Officials investigating a man's claim to be the big winner traced the phone call to the station and said they believed it was a hoax (read more - CNN)
For 15 years, Ellis Henican's columns have filled Newsday's pages with his unique perspective on current events. Now he's filling the airwaves, too. Henican, who will continue to write his thrice-weekly Newsday column, will co-host a radio show called "Henican and White," with Court TV's "Hollywood Heat" host Lynne White. It will premiere tomorrow on WOR/710 AM. The show takes over the slot previously filled by recently retired conservative firebrand Bob Grant, and that's about the only thing the two shows have in common (read more Newsday)
More than 4,000 people showed up Saturday evening to watch radio maven Garrison Keillor broadcast his homespun "A Prairie Home Companion" live from the Milwaukee Theatre - that's right, to watch radio. It has been nearly 32 years since Keillor first broadcast "A Prairie Home Companion" before a live audience of 12, half of whom left by the intermission (read more - Elaine Schmidt-Milwaukee JS)
Radio jumped in this weekend to remember Ray Barretto, the conguero and bandleader who helped define Afro-Cuban music over a half century and whose death Friday added one more closing note to the music's golden era. The tributes, which reflect the vast range of Barretto's music, continue today with a 24-hour salute from WKCR (89.9 FM) and tomorrow with a 9-10 p.m. concert over WBGO (88.3 FM) (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)
Milwaukee's first Spanish-language FM radio station owner plans to add one or two more stations in the metropolitan area for Wisconsin's growing Hispanic community (read more - Milwaukee Biz Journal)
Registration and attendance figures have been announced for the 37th Annual Country Radio Seminar (CRS-37). This year¹s figures for the event, which ended Friday, February 17, 2006, were 1913 full registrants and 766 ³participants² in related events, bringing the combined total to 2679. Last year¹s combined total was 2701. Next year¹s seminar will again be held at the Nashville Convention Center. Its announced dates are Feb. 28 to March 2, 2007. The DJ Hall of Fame Dinner is set for Feb. 27, 2007 (visit CRB)
The traditional, "terrestrial" radio business wanted to wrap its legs and arms around Motorola this week and give the cell phone maker a big, wet kiss. Motorola announced at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona that its new W220 phone, scheduled to be released in the fall, will include an FM radio tuner along with a Web browser and picture messaging (read more - Free Lance Star)
Howard Stern vs. Opie & Anthony. Martha vs. Oprah. Pro football vs. baseball. Satellite-radio rivals Sirius and XM are toe-to-toe on the programming front — each using big-name content to lure more customers. But while subscriber growth is vital to each firm's survival, they also are facing off in other arenas where they see potential dollar signs to add revenue to subscription fees (read more - Laura Petrecca-USA Today)
From Claude Hall --
(photo) Claude Hall, not long out of the
army,
holding a check for $40 for his first fiction sale ...
to Manhunt, a digest-sized detective pulp magazine +
While living on San Antonio, I started listening to KWKH
out of Shreveport, LA. On Saturday night, they
carried a live show called "The Louisiana Hayride."
Among the artists that I heard in their fledgling years
were Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Floyd Cramer, Faron
Young, Bob Luman, etc. I heard Cash and Presley the
first time they were ever on radio live ...
(read
more - www.ClaudeHallOnline.com)
Local listeners who hang onto nearly every word uttered by such national talk show hosts as Jim Rome or “Mike and Mike In the Morning” need to brace themselves for the probable end of an era: Around-the-clock sports talk in the Fayetteville market is nearing an end (read more - Fayetteville NC Observer)
It's one of those cases of bad things happening to good people.
Veteran local broadcasters Bob Carroll and Lou Gutenberger -- both of whom happen to be marking their 50th year in the business in 2006 -- are suddenly without a microphone after the plug was pulled on local radio station KBDB 1400 AM on Wednesday (read more - Guy Clifton-Reno Gazette-Journal)This music subscription business model is not a slam dunk. Let's look at it in the context of cable television. Cable television came in and people said: Nobody's going to pay for television. But of course they would because the alternative was so lousy.
But that's not true with music, and that's not true with talk shows. And when you have 42 million iPods sold and Rush Limbaugh available as a podcast, why do you need to spend $13 a month for satellite radio? You only do it if you're a certain demographic with a certain income level. It's not a mass market (read more - Stephanie Hoo-Virginian Pilot)Spanish-format station KQLM, La Nueva Q-108, once again tops Arbitron's ratings in Midland-Odessa.
For the third time in four ratings periods, a Spanish-format station topped Arbitron's rating for Midland-Odessa (read more - Midland Reporter-Telegram)War News Radio was created a year ago as an antidote and supplement to mainstream media coverage of Iraq.
Convinced that commercial news outlets focused too heavily on violence and incremental developments, students at Swarthmore College tried to home in on more personal topics, all from 6,000 miles away (read more - LA Times)Waipahu resident Resty Baptista said he was saddened by news of a massive landslide that covered an entire village in the southern part of Leyte in the Philippines.
Baptista and other people stopped by or called announcers from KNDI 1270 AM who were conducting a live radio broadcast at the FilCom Center to make a donation or a pledge for the victims of the landslide (read more - Honolulu Star-Bulletin)Doug Bell has been hired by PGA Tour Network on XM Radio to be a roving reporter on PGA Tour satellite radio broadcasts
(read more - Birmingham News)There was one issue at this year's Country Radio Seminar that hovered over the four-day convention like a chalky Nashville winter sky: payola (read more - Ryan Underwood-The Tennessean)
Color commentary just might not be Rush Limbaugh's forte. When Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett was forced out of the Democratic primary in the Senate race in Ohio last week, Limbaugh criticized the New York Times for not saying that the party's preferred candidate is black.
Limbaugh later discovered through listener e-mails to his radio show that the candidate, Rep. Sherrod Brown , is, oops, actually Caucasian (read more - Washington Post)In the not-too-distant future, South Florida could be covered in a wireless Internet blanket under which laptop users could check e-mail and surf the Web from sidewalk cafés, parks, libraries and even from their homes (read more - Miami Herald)
Greg Harper is your classic gadget freak, with the latest cellphones and strong opinions about each of them.
You would think that he'd be wildly enthusiastic about the new third-generation, or 3G, cellphones that play video and music. But instead, he seems less than impressed — a reaction that could spell trouble for Sprint, Verizon Wireless and other providers that have spent billions of dollars upgrading their networks to lure customers to their high-speed 3G systems (read more - NY Times)The Memphis-based broadcasting company that owns the radio station run by talk show host Eddie Floyd has shut down operations, two weeks after Floyd was indicted on federal charges of growing and trafficking marijuana and laundering the proceeds through his businesses (read more - Reno Gazette-Journal)
The Republican Right dominates talk radio entirely by using business pressure to keep Democrats, environmentalists, labor leaders, progressives and independent thinkers off the air.
Arnie Arnesen in New Hampshire and Guy James in Florida are two of the most recent examples of Republican using business pressure to censor Democratic talk show programs. This writer will write more columns soon giving details on Arnie Arnesen and Guy James among other talkers forced off the air by what should be illegal actions by Republican businesses (read more - Stephen Crockett-Op/Ed News)A broadcasting executive who became "a tremendous friend" of the performing and visual arts on Maui, Arthur H. McCoy, 88, died Friday.
He sold broadcast advertising, rising to president of John Blair & Co., the largest company in that industry. In the 1960s, he left Blair to become co-owner of KHON-TV, then the fledgling NBC affiliate in Honolulu. That investment grew into Pacific & Southern Broadcasting Co., a publicly held company of which he was president. When that was sold, he kept KHON and used that as the keystone to build another broadcasting company, McCoy Broadcasting Co. That company was sold in 1979. A private memorial service will be held March 8 on Maui (read more - The Maui News) (read more - Honolulu Advertiser)''I really became really disenchanted with commercial radio,'' he says. ''The kind of radio I've always enjoyed - spontaneous and funny - is gone.
The kind of thing I grew up with had real entertainers. People don't use radio the way they used to; that's been lost. And talk radio has become too combative'' (read more - Candace Hammond-Cape Cod Times)Clear Channel Communications reports earnings for the fourth quarter on Tuesday (read more - Businessweek)
Longtime radio personality Vicente Carranza has signed off from his show on KUNO radio for the last time Friday.
Carranza used his final program today to reminisce about his decade-long stint as one of the city's most outspoken voices (read more - Neal Falgoust-Corpus Christi Caller-Times)Ray Davies of the Kinks guests tomorrow night, 10-midnight, on Little Steven's Underground Garage over WAXQ (104.3 FM). ...
WBAI (99.5 FM) airs a memorial service for "Grandpa" Al Lewis this afternoon, 1-4, live from Riverside Church (read more - David Hinckley-NY Daily News)U.S. radio companies reporting earnings next week may disappoint some investors after a challenging year for the mature medium, which faces soft advertising trends and growing competition from devices like iPod portable music players and satellite radios (read more - Reuters)
If HD radio takes off, it could mean big business for Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc., one of the main suppliers of chips for HD radio receivers.
Radio listeners will have to buy new sets to hear HD radio's digital signals and use the new features it offers (read more - TMC Net)U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., wants to eliminate the rule barring daily newspapers from owning broadcast stations in their cities (read more - UPI)
Dave Ciniero, KVTA 1520 morning show host, has passed away.
Ciniero and his on-air partner, Bob Adams, were the hosts of a popular morning drive-time show on KVTA-AM (1520) for 21 years (read more - KVTA 1520) (read more - LA Times)Citing listener concerns and presumed negative reaction, representatives of both of Midland-Odessa's contemporary country radio stations say they do not plan to play Willie Nelson's new gay cowboy song, "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly (Fond of Each Other)" (read more - Jimmy Patterson-Midland Reporter-Telegram)
A Palm Beach poll worker says he tried to help GOP-loving pundit and frequent radio-TV commentator Ann Coulter vote in the right precinct last week.
But, Jim Whited says, Coulter dashed out of the polling place when he told her she needed to file a change of address. "I even ran out after her," he says. "But she was fast." Registering to vote at the wrong address is a felony that could fetch up to five years in the slammer (read more - Editor and Publisher) (read more - Palm Beach Post)WKTI-FM (94.5) ruled the Achievement in Radio Awards, picking up honors in 14 categories in the annual competition of Milwaukee stations, with the morning show and its crew getting four of the awards (read more - Tim Cuprisin-Milwaukee JS)
Clear Channel Radio Senior Vice President Mid West Region Dave Crowl announced the promotion of Til Levesque to Market Manager for the company’s Detroit Market Cluster.
Levesque will oversee day-to-day operations of Clear Channel’s seven Detroit stations: WDFN-AM, WDTW-FM, WDTW-AM, WJLB-FM, WKQI-FM, WMXD-FM and WNIC-FM (visit Clear Channel)Brown is black in the eyes of Rush Limbaugh. When Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett was forced out of the Democratic primary in the U.S. Senate race in Ohio, the conservative commentator criticized The New York Times for not saying that the Democrats' preferred candidate is black.
Limbaugh later found out from e-mails to his nationally syndicated radio show that the candidate, Rep. Sherrod Brown, is, in fact, white (read more - Mercury News)“It is certainly taking both XM and Sirius a long time to turn a profit, but that does not indicate a crisis or a fundamental mistake in the business model,” said Laura Behrens, principal research analyst, media, at Gartner. “But there is a bidding war going on that is more intense than either company accounted for, and that is prolonging the path to profitability.”
According to Ms. Behrens, XM runs the risk of getting even more deeply into a talent acquisition war with Sirius, but she does not think that will happen (read more - Red Herring) (read more - Financial Times)