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RDN Central Archives I
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News Burps Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" is one of the warmest, most likable shows on the radio. But if you're wondering about the man who's been behind it for more than 30 years, "American Masters" doesn't offer much more insight than other examinations of Keillor that came before (read more - David Hinckley - NY Daily News) I was supposed to have dinner with Michael Savage, on him, no less, but the dinner plans were shelved by Savage, who was ticked at me because I had the audacity to opine that I thought a lot of his show was an act. Albeit an "act" that I described as one of the funniest, occasionally brilliant bits on radio even though most of Savage's politics is not my cup of tea (read more - Rich Lieberman - SF Chronicle) The spin doctors at Clear Channel who first bragged of 100,000 fans at the B93 Concert Bash quickly revised that number downward to 80,000. Funny about that -- can you imagine a radio station changing an attendance figure so that it winds up being lower for a popular annual event? Their current estimate has been downgraded again like a hurricane to a tropical storm – except now their official attendance figure is 60,000. Maybe they can't count. Maybe they don't want to count. If you want to know why a spectacular event feels compelled to keep downgrading the attendance – kind of the opposite of what you’d expected – it’s because Clear Channel is in a heap of trouble (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) One of the biggest mistakes the radio industry makes is to embrace and encourage "feel-good" statistics from Nielsen, Arbitron, and others that look for and find the good news. There's nothing wrong with good news, of course. But the world knows when you're not telling the whole story and it damages the credibility of the story-teller and our industry, both (read more - Mark Ramsey - Hear 2.0) In an article that could have been written by Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin, CNN Money has labeled the satellite company “the best investment play on an American recovery. Sirius XM is more leveraged to a recovery in the U.S. car market than pretty much any car or parts company” (read more - Mel Phillips) When it comes to new media and gadgets, Classic Rockers are displaying greater comfort with technology. While they're not moving at light speed like their kids, they are becoming increasingly immersed in texting, social networking, iPods, streaming video, and other technologies that are enhancing their lives and communications (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) The deal we did to get the Jacksons tour to play Cleveland guaranteed the group $2.7 million up front for two nights at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. For that, we would get “WMMS Presents” on all of the tickets and be the exclusive distributor. Belkin Productions would produce the shows (read more - John Gorman)
Cowboy Bills Radio
from Key West Florida officially launched at Midnight Eastern on
July 1st in HD at
www.cowboybillsradio.com
with
format of a blend of current and classic country music with a big
honky tonk sound Tuesday June 30, 2009 Russ Martin
loudly yelled “Shut up” at his
fiancee on July 14, lacing his tirade with profanities, according to
the recording. “Shut up, or you are going to get hurt,” the
voice, identified as Radio airplay of Michael Jackson tracks exploded last week: No surprise that radio stations in all sorts of formats played plenty of Michael Jackson the moment reports of his death came out Thursday evening (read more - Rodney Ho - Atlantic JC) (read more - NME) (read more - Adam B. Vary - Entertainment Weekly) Arbitron numbers for Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tucson (read the numbers) The sudden death of Billy Mays has left the future of the Discovery Channel's series "Pitchmen" in limbo (read more - Richard Huff - NY Daily News) TV pitchman Billy Mays probably died of a heart attack and not from hitting his head during a rough airplane landing, a Florida medical examiner said yesterday (read more - NY Post) In an expansive story in the August edition of Vanity Fair, a slew of senior members of McCain's campaign team told reporter Todd S. Purdum that they suffer a kind of survivor's guilt following the 2008 presidential election - Alaska's lipstick-wearing pit-bull is a "Little Shop of Horrors." That's how one longtime friend and campaign trail companion of John McCain, the vanquished 2008 GOP presidential nominee, described veep nominee Sarah Palin (read more - Michael Saul - NY Daily News) Rep. Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has launched an investigation into Arbitron's PPM device to track the public's listening habits because it may under represent some ethnic and age groups (read more - John Poirier - Reuters) Julius Genachowski has been sworn in, begins his term at the FCC and announces his senior staff (read more - Washington Post) Arbitron, in response to reports that U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has requested information from the Federal Communications Commission regarding the impact of the Portable People Meter on radio listening estimates, has issued the following statement: "Arbitron welcomes any opportunity to discuss the importance of electronic measurement, the effectiveness of the PPM technology, the value of the data it produces and our disciplined approach to the deployment of the service across the United States," said Michael Skarzynski, President and Chief Executive Officer for Arbitron (read more - Arbitron)
Glenn Beck’s
publisher reports that Glenn’s latest book,
Common Sense,
has 1.2 million copies in print and that it hit #1 on the USA Today
and New York Times lists, making Glenn one of a few Cumulus Media has entered into an amendment to its senior secured credit facility - In connection with the amendment, the Company has voluntarily prepaid $32.5 million of the outstanding principal amount of the term loan (read more - Cumulus Media) Frank Boal announced on Monday’s 6 p.m. sportscast that today would be his last day at WDAF-TV after 28 years there - He’ll continue to do on-air work for WHB-AM (810), though “how many hours a week is still being determined,” he said (read more - Aaron Barnhart - KC Star) Dallas-Fort Worth sports teams have had its share of ups and downs in competition, but the television and radio personalities of those teams have been a consistent “up” for years. Each of the areas’ four major sports teams has expert voices that shouldn’t be overlooked (read more - Blake Fomby - Dallas Examiner)
News Burps From Jimmy Rabbitt
-- This day in Rock n' Roll History Robert (Bob) Weston Smith aka
Wolfman Jack
died of a heart attack in
Many of you have asked me to tell you when the podcasting client I have been writing about goes "live" with their new age approach to morning “radio”. Now I can share some details about how we are building a franchise for them to make money. I’m proud to tell you about two great talents and exceptionally nice people - Dave Jagger and Geri Jarvis who started their Grand Rapids morning podcast about two weeks ago (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) While most of us will be putting dogs, burgers and shrimp on the barbie this weekend, Edolphus Towns (D-NY) will be grilling Arbitron. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman, in his letter to the FCC has asked the agency to share information it’s gathered on the Portable People Meter (read more - Mel Phillips) After listening to this newest round of creative from the Alliance, and reviewing the results of our most recent Tech Poll, I can't help but grow more pessimistic about HD Radio's ability to reach the public and create demand (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Earthworks Entertainment’s Hit Parade Radio oldies format is now being broadcast on WiFi Radio (visit HitParadeRadio.com) Lee Davis has been appointed General Sales Manager of 1010 WINS in New York Rod Phillips, Operations Manager for Clear Channel Radio Miami’s seven station cluster, has been promoted to SVP of Programming for the Toulas Region of Stations Arbitron has released cumulative audience estimates for the 58 RADAR-rated networks. The most current estimates indicate that Network Radio delivers more listeners across major buying demographics as compared to the prior RADAR network audience report. Compared to three months ago, the June 2009 RADAR 101 saw an increase in the number of people reached by network radio from the RADAR 100 period for key buying and selling demographic groups. The June report revealed 278,000 more listeners Adults 25-54; Adults 18-49 showed an increase of more than 230,000 listeners compared to the RADAR 100 report. “Compared to RADAR 97 one year ago, this month’s RADAR reveals an increase of more than 2.9 million listeners aged 12 and older listen to radio weekly,” said Bruce Supovitz, manager, National Radio Services, Arbitron Inc. “The continuing transition to electronic measurement in top ranked local markets persistently highlights radio’s promise as an effective reach medium” (read more - Arbitron) Jeff Katz is filling in on KLIF-AM 570 in Dallas-Fort Worth today (Tuesday) morning from 6 - 10am Eastern Momentum continues to build for the 20th Anniversary part of KDGE in Dallas. The air staff, management, sales and support staff are getting together one more time in Dallas on July 3rd, at the Lakewood Theatre to celebrate and there are several bands having their own reunions at the event. Special appearances as well by John Easdale of Dramarama, and Deep Blue Something (read more - www.945Reunion.com) Monday June 29, 2009 TV pitchman Billy Mays was found dead at home in Tampa - The news was first broken by Bubba the Love Sponge and posted on the BTLS.com Web site by co-host Matt Loyd (read more - Washington Post) (read more - CNN) (read more - Rich Lieberman - SF Chronicle) (read more - e-Online) (read more - Entertainment Weekly) (read more - Erin Durkin - NY Daily News) (read more - NY Post) (read more - David Hinckley - NY Daily News) RadioDailyNews spoke with Matt Loyd of the Bubba the Love Sponge Show which broke the news of Billy Mays death. Loyd revealed that there were to be insider details on the BTLS Show on Monday morning (listen to the audio - RDN) In a case that tests the limits of free speech, the Justice Department charged that radio host, Hal Turner, crossed the line into hate speech after federal officials charged that his angry postings about a gun case in Chicago amounted to death threats against three judges (read more - Eric Lichtblau - NY Times) The breaking news of Michael Jackson’s sudden death dominated the web, causing spikes in traffic and overwhelming social networks such as Twitter and Facebook with bursts of information and updates from millions of users. In comparison, discussions of Jackson far exceeded those of the swine flu scare as well as the inauguration of President Obama (read more - Nielsen) Walter Sabo is the guest on Mantalk with Bill and Brent Monday morning from 9:45 - 10 am ET to talk about the PPM (read more - listen - Mantalk) Do radio stations attract listeners - and thus advertisers - by being able to play songs without having to pay for musicians' labor or do performers and record labels get a break from broadcasters whose playlists essentially serve as free advertising for recordings? Jeff Parke, general manager for oldies station KOLA 99.9 FM and hard rock station KCAL 96.7 FM, says its the latter and that the performance royalties bill would be disastrous for broadcasters (read more - Andrew Edwards - San Bernadino Sun) Al Rantel says goodbye to KABC-AM and radio - On the Radio: 100.3 FM The Sound to salute KMET; Mark & Brian find homes for pets (read more - Gary Lycan - OC Register) KCBS has lots to celebrate. The all-news station grabbed the overall No. 1 spot in the ratings from KGO (for one ratings period, at least) for the first time in 30 years. If it seemed like 100 years of being a runner-up, that's OK. The station is also observing its 100th year in broadcasting (read more - Ben Fong-Torres - SF Chronicle) Arbitron numbers for Akron, Cleveland, Hartford and Baltimore (read the numbers)
News Burps A court has ruled for the FCC in a radio station dispute in Nevada (read more - Mercury News) Is it time for RealNetworks to switch gears? (read more - Brad Stone - NY Times) Gale Storm, perky star of 1950s TV - "My Little Margie" and "The Gale Storm Show" - is dead (read more - Washington Post) Brenda Jorett, whom WHYY-FM (90.9) let go in January from its morning news, has started a public-relations firm, What's Next Productions, and will teach business communications in the fall at Rutgers-Camden (read more - Michael Klein - Philly Inquirer) From Claude Hall
-- You’ve probably had enough
by now of the Michael Jackson
death. Big news! Among those
interviewed on TV early was Ron Alexenburg. Then, a flood.Missed,
however, by the
From Tommy Kramer
-- It’s easy to fall into a
rhythm of breaks being more or less a certain length. Anyone reading this should ask every service industry person you come in contact with between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five if they still listen to the radio. Just ask that one question. Do it for one day, one week. I don’t care. Then ask the second question. One word. Why? Now, if you really want to fight the performance royalty fee for radio, please take the advise of rational minds. Leave this campaign to the artists who see through the ruse of this performance royalty fee. It’s regrettable that your stations weren’t talking directly to artists and managers about this a few years back (read more - John Gorman) Michael Jackson is still dead and radio is still voice tracking. Back to reality this morning. Late last week when Michael Jackson died suddenly at his Los Angeles home, the radio industry was caught with its pants down and voice tracking up. This is not to say that some stations did not respond -- the ones programmed by real live individuals and/or those who actually had control of their company's voice tracking did the right thing for their listeners. For too many, radio was caught sleeping while new media was feeding the need of the public to know, mourn publicly and appreciate the talents of this great iconic performer. TMZ broke the news and owned the story from start to finish. That's TMZ like in gossip website -- no matter that it is owned by Time Warner (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) I first heard Michael Jackson on the radio in the early 60s in San Francisco and later in Los Angeles. He was erudite, sophisticated and verbally skilled. Not unusual for one born in the United Kingdom. But what made this Brit unusual was that he was a first generation "talk radio" host . Jackson began broadcasting when Rush Limbaugh was barely out of diapers (read more - Ron Jacobs) A strange day, for me. My 'phones haven't stopped; mostly calls from family and friends, in several parts of the world, calling and writing to confirm that the news reports of Michael Jackson's death, were referring to the singing, dancing, mega-star. A 50 year life that might well have been enchanted, but turned from super-talent to a self-imposed complexity and tragedy. What a pained life. The little boy from Neverland, who would rather to have never grown up (read more - www.MichaelJacksonTalkRadio.com) The shocking news of Michael Jackson's death sure felt a lot like when I heard about the passing of Elvis, except that in the digital world of information, it was a whole different story. The fact that TMZ broke the story while the so-called cable news media, USA Today, and AP all waited around speaks volumes about how news travels in 2009 (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) While Nielsen’s latest study of teens showed that radio was still the key source of music for 16 (%) percent and as a secondary source for another 21 (%) percent, it also showed that adults spend more time on the Internet than teens. The latter finding is a killer for radio, which doesn’t need teens to survive but does needs adults, especially those 25+. Not enough adult listeners will kill radio faster than you can say ‘YouTube’ (read more - Mel Phillips) “Less” Is the New “More”: Heard this line on one of the news channels. You’ve got to be kidding me! There seems to be some sort of a campaign going on to make people feel like its OK lose a job, have income, benefits and pensions chopped up. As long as we’ve got “love." Puhleeze! (read more - Joel Raab - Chuck Geiger's Full Throttle Country) Gossip rags rush to cover celeb deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett (read more - Matthew Flamm - Crain's NY Biz) The Michael Jackson Tribute Channel has launched and will air through Monday, June 29 at 11:59 pm ET on Heart & Soul SIRIUS channel 51 and XM channel 62 o honor the legendary career of Michael Jackson who passed away on June 25, 2009 Jeff Davis "The Thought Zone" - 60 second commentaries this week include America's Piggy Bank, Making the Numbers Work, NIMB, The Other ACORN and Don't Feed the Pig (read more - hear the demos - www.TheThoughtZone.com) "Just call it radio." So, I was told, said Pandora's Tim Westergren recently while in the midst of a conference call discussing strategies for Internet radio or online radio or streaming radio or IP radio or whatever it is that comes to your devices via the internet and sounds pretty doing it (read more - Mark Ramsey - Hear 2.0) Friday June 26, 2009 You already know which will hold us in thrall for days and months on end, which causes more tears and heartbreak and which kind of event will spawn books and movies and tributes and earnest memories by the million until we ourselves pass on to the hereafter, smiling and dancing and humming a desperately catchy tune. Hint: it's not the new Iran revolution. It's not President Obama's historic push for health care reform, currently being beaten to death in various congressional back rooms. It's certainly not yet another aging white Republican politician weeping to the TV cameras about his love of God and family - Who the hell cares about any of that? Who needs it right now? Pop culture just died. Didn't you hear? (read more - Mark Morford - SF Chronicle) The Senate has confirmed a new Chairman of the FCC - Julius Genachowski - and approved Robert M. McDowell to serve a second term (read more - NY Times) (read more - Washington Post) Arbitron numbers for Monterey-Salinas (read the numbers) MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was all set to appear this Sunday on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos until yesterday, when Scarborough canceled because David Gregory, the host of NBC's "Meet the Press," allegedly threw a fit (read more - NY Post Page Six) Michael Jackson is dead at 50 (read more - Guardian U.K.) Celebrities react to the death of Michael Jackson (read more - Seattle Post-Intelligencer) "Call 911- he's not breathing" - The last moments (read more - The Sun U.K.) The timeline of Michael Jackson's life (read more - LA Times) Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Jackson died Thursday. And radio died right along with him. Most radio stations just kept John Tesh rolling, Ryan Seacrest babbling and voice tracking mindlessly ploughing through the playlist. By comparison Elvis died way before consolidation and within ten minutes most stations were broadcasting on-air tributes, news accounts and playing wall-to-wall Elvis. Not so easy when your local program is coming from national headquarters. People not only remembered where they were when The King died, but which station they were listening to. Not yesterday (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) The sudden and unexpected death of Michael Jackson brings to mind the alleged controversies surrounding our decision to play his music on WMMS. In fact, Michael Jackson played deep into the history of WMMS (read more - John Gorman) Farrah Fawcett has died of cancer at 62 (read more - Washington Post) (read more - Rick Kissell - Variety) To commemorate Farrah Fawcett, who passed away on June 25, SIRIUS XM’s SIRIUS XM Stars channel will broadcast an interview between Farrah Fawcett and Barbara Walters from 1980 and 1984 Eight local Columbus men have been nominated for the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame (read more - Larry Gierer - Ledger-Enquirer)
News Burps Top Sirius XM Executive Jon Zellner Is Moving to Clear Channel (read more - Sarah McBride - Wall Street Journal) (read more - Clear Channel) Bill Keeler will return to morning radio on WXUR in Utica (read more - Utica Observer-Dispatch) At a time when everyone's preaching that "Content is king," but so many stations actions suggest the opposite, another gathering of the nation's talent is about to take place in Nashville next month. It's the "Morning Show Boot Camp," put on by Don Anthony, the guy who's been Mr. Talent in radio for more than a couple of decades now (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Sirius subscribers become the latest victim of royalty rates which have risen steadily since 2007 when the CRB established performance royalty rates for satellite radio. The rate jumped from 6 (%) percent last year to 6.5 (%) percent this year and it doesn’t end there. There will be an increase every year until 2012, when the rate tops out at 8 (%) percent. You just know that a new deal cut in 2012 will contain a higher percentage than 8 (%) percent for the first year. What will that top out at ??? (read more - Mel Phillips) I’ve read and heard about the many occupations ranging from our auto industry to banking, the broadcasting business to our medical trade and more, feeling the downbeat blow from consolidations, and budget cuts which cause lay-offs. I believe that technology has certainly helped us more than hurt us, but the steadily improving automation with some of these new machines, has definitely taken several jobs away from people. I became personally impacted by these ongoing changes in the summer of 2001. I had worked with KISS-FM in Dallas Fort Worth for more than seven years (read more - Blake Lindsay) One Photograph and a Student’s Passion Saved Virginia Tech’s WUVT Radio Station (read more - Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) Dave Graveline on "Into Tomorrow" this weekend will be broadcasting from the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco this week (visit www.graveline.com) Thursday June 25, 2009 In recent days, much of the news media's attention has been focused on post-election protests and violence in Iran. But at MSNBC, the crisis has taken on a bit less urgency, at least if viewers are to judge from what the network is airing (read more - Scott Collins - LA Times) Overshadowed by the death of Ed McMahon this week, perhaps, was the death of an equally towering radio/television announcer: Kenneth Roberts - Roberts announced famous shows like "The Shadow" and "Radio Mercury Theater," where Orson Welles performed "The War of the Worlds. He also announced "Ellery Queen," Fred Allen, "Baby Snooks" and dozens of other programs (read more - David Hinckley - NY Daily News) WSJ publisher calls Google ‘digital vampire’ - The Internet search giant is “sucking the blood” out of the newspaper business, Dow Jones Chief Executive Les Hinton complains, before hinting he's working on a cure (read more - Matthew Flamm - Crain's NY Biz) HD Radio Alliance is hitting the airwaves and pages with a new marketing campaign (visit HD Radio Alliance to listen) Like most of us
who aren’t teenagers or in our college years, the great majority of
my time listening to the radio is in a car. That had previously led
to frustration for me because of the lack of options here in the
Ozarks. Listening to the same classic rock songs over and over again
or hearing Jim Arbitron numbers for Bakersfield and Grand Rapids (read the numbers) The Texas Radio Hall of Fame has released a long list of personalities, sales people and executives eligible for the 2009 induction class. There are many Houston names on the ballot. Some are still on the air, some have moved on, some passed on. Here are some of the more likely vote getters: Colonel St. James, Wash Allen, Pam Ivey, Doug Harris, Lana Hughes, J.P. Pritchard, Dan Patrick, Dr. Bruce Nelson, Joe Ladd, Barry Kilgore, Larry Kane, Red Jones, Dusty Black, Bill Bailey, Scott Arthur, Ed Brandon, Debbie Brazier, Ken Charles, Ken Collins, Shotgun Cook, Harold Gunn, Larry Galla and Dave Ward (read more - Ken Hoffman - Houston Chronicle) NBC10's Kristen Welker does a cameo as a reporter in the new Transformers movie - Starting July 4, sports talk WIP (610) will simulcast on WYSP's HD-3 channel (94.1), available to those with HD radios (read more - Michael Klein - Philly Inquirer) Cancer-stricken Farrah Fawcett had taken a serious turn for the worse and her loved ones reportedly gathered at her bedside Wednesday night (read more - Leo Standora - NY Daily News) Its name is Pandora and like its namesake, it's spreading chaos hither and yon. Well, if you work in the radio business, you might think that. For the rest of the tech-savvy world, the Web site known as Pandora is something actually quite awesome: a free (usually) and easy (mostly) alternative to commercial radio (read more - Randy Dotinga - San Diego's North County Times) "I learned the hard way the most important lesson a reporter and interviewer can learn," John Callaway recalled on an edition of WTTW-Ch. 11's "Chicago Stories," one of the many shows he would anchor in 35 years at Chicago's primary public TV station. "When you ask a question, you'd better be prepared to listen, really listen, to the answer." Callaway died on Tuesday (read more - Phil Rosenthal - Chicago Tribune) Rosie O'Donnell will host her own show on Sirius XM Radio (read more - NY Post)
News Burps Helmut Kerling, known as Gary Cocker on San Diego Radio has died (read more - sdradio.net) Jim Gammon, a Kansas City voice, heard on WHB, KCMO, KMBC, WDAF has died (read more - KC Star) Long-time Philadelphia talk radio personality Irv Homer, 85, collapsed and died on Wednesday evening, just after offering opening remarks at a program featuring an author at Eastern University (read more - Pat Loeb - KYW 1060) Radio consolidators are lining up for their long goodbye. Clear Channel is teetering on the brink with lenders who are standing up to The Evil Empire’s demands for more favorable loan repayment terms. In the end the lenders will probably relent, but not before putting a scare into the entire radio industry. To lose the number one radio group to bankruptcy would be terminal for the industry. Citadel is the next best candidate for bankruptcy (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) You won’t find Howard Stern on your iPhone or iPod-touch these days and there’s some question whether Howard 100 and Howard 101 channels are likely to show up any time soon or at all. According to the acerbic one who’s reached first-name status, it’s a “contractual rights thing.” The absence of ‘Howard’ hasn’t hurt the sale of iPhone or iPod-touch, to know one’s surprise (read more - Mel Phillips) A recently released Ad-ology Research study reports that in a lousy economy, consumers are paying attention to companies that advertise - and those who don't. According to the research, nearly half of the respondents believe that when companies become invisible from an advertising perspective, it's an indication that they're struggling financially (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) To deny radio is undergoing stress is to place yourself in jeopardy. Feeling your station is but one of only a few chosen outlets of entertainment and/or information is an indicator that denial is present. Believing that radio's current approach to meeting audience and advertiser needs is adequate is another indication that you don't know the landscape yet. (Radio industry leaders all suffer with this last symptom) (read more - Ken Dardis - Audio Graphics) A couple of years ago I got in the mood to do a long drive, so I thought I would go see my buddy Reid Reker in San Antonio. I started out in Ft. Lauderdale one sunny hot humid morning and brought along a few CDs in case along the way I ran out of radio signals. Radio everywhere was so boring that I resorted to listening to Broadway Show tunes for most of the trip. But it must be better by now, right? (read more - George Johns) While I'm blessed to still be happily employed as the imaging director at several of the finest Country radio brands in America (KBWF San Francisco and KKWF Seattle), I wasn't feeling like I was contributing enough to the world that gave me so much. So I ran for City Council in 2008 and was elected Mayor of my town in 2009. I know that a lot of radio folks they’ve been laid off are now being forced to look at alternative ways to make a buck. I hope my story will give you a little inspiration about how to use your radio experience to find a new non-radio love in life (read more - Chuck Geiger) Sunday night's "The Lost 45's" Barry Scott has a rare interview with Tom Scholz of the band Boston with the program to be broadcast on Sunday July 5th from 7 - Midnight EST on Oldies 103.3/Boston and streaming at www.lost45.com KMET-FM, the legendary renegade FM station that captivated a generation of Rock fans, will return to Los Angeles’ airwaves for one day only, on Friday, July 10. The original DJs, the jingles, the Rock stars, and – of course – the groupies (now in their 40s) all will be there, on a day that host station 100.3 The Sound (KSWD) is calling, “Finally a KMET Friday” JAMTRAXX is offering its RADIO MIXES at no charge in the Mainstream, Rhythmic, Rhythmic AC, and Dance formats to any non-affiliated station with complete market exclusivity for Independence Weekend Wednesday June 24, 2009 Mike North, who reunited with longtime WSCR-AM broadcast partner Dan Jiggetts on the "Monsters in the Morning" program in January, has maintained he, too, did nothing wrong besides place too much trust in this free-spending fan, David Hernandez, with apparently bottomless pockets until the checks bounced (read more - Phil Rosenthal - Chicago Tribune) When you turn on a radio, you expect music to be there, but a bill before Congress might change that. Opponents argue it's just fair business, but folks at one local said it's the end of radio as we know it (read more - Brandon Lewis - WSAZ 3 TV) Drew Lane will return to the airwaves on 101 WRIF and reunite with former co-host Mike Clark in morning drive from 6 to 10:30 am on Monday July 13th CBS Chief Les Moonves hit with a 76% pay cut in 2008 (read more - Aaron Elstein - Crain's NY Biz) Arbitron to monitor out-of-home TV viewership (read more - AP) Turn on, tune in, and make yourself at home. That’s what the folks at KAHI radio would like you to do. “There’s a real feeling of hominess to the station, like none I’ve worked at,” said radio personality Mary Jane Popp. “Listeners feel like we’re part of their family, and we want them to feel like ‘this is their show.’ We want them to feel as if they’re owners of the stations” (read more - Paul Cambra - Auburn CA Journal) Phil Spector wants a TV and music player for new prison cell (read more - CTV CA) Verizon and T-Mobile plan to offer the Google Phone (read more - Amol Sharma and Sara Silver - Wall Street Journal) (read more - Ashlee Vance - NY Times) Intel Corp. has tried for years to get its chips into cellphones, without much success. But a new deal with Nokia Corp. could help it eventually crack the market (read more - Don Clark - Wall Street Journal) (read more - Ashlee Vance - NY Times) Arbitron numbers for Milwaukee (read the numbers) Jeff Vandergrift, the radio personality who hosts “JV Mornings” on WILD 94.9 in San Francisco and who was a member of CBS’s popular “Dog House” launched a new online media show on Revision3.com called “JV’s World” (read more - Mike Aldaz - SF Examiner) The loyal listeners of Abingdon’s Radio Station WABN haven’t heard so much as an ad in over a week. According to the station’s general manager Rusty Cury, the storm that passed through on June 16 is to blame (read more - Mark Sage - Washington County WV News)
News Burps ABC News Radio will offer three one-hour specials for use over the Fourth of July Holiday weekend. The programs include: “Fourth of July LIVE,” “ABC’s Sunsational Summer 2009” and “The John Stossel Special: You Can’t Even Talk About It” CBS Radio is doing an interesting experiment at KITS-FM in San Francisco with the help of a user-controlled web service called Jelli. I’ll say this for Dan Mason and CBS Radio – while other groups only cut expenses, he manages to cut expenses and innovate especially in the Internet/mobile area. What matters is that CBS is trying (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) Megan Smith is Google's director of new business and strategy. And Google knows a thing or two about both. Since your business - especially if it's connected to broadcasting - is unlikely to have anyone with such a title on board, let alone unlikely to fancy that it needs one, you might be curious about what Megan's three rules are, and why Google believes in them so utterly (read more - Mark Ramsey - Hear 2.0) As evident in the first two monthlies of Spring, Arbitron's PPM and Country seems to be a match made in heaven. Which means that the smaller in-tab of PPM respondents, who don't change for a year, listen to Country radio in these giant East coast megalopolises. 17 of the Top 50 markets have no (New York City) or only one Country station (read more - Chuck Geiger) I hope, like me, nothing surprises you anymore. If not, you’ll be shocked to find out that when ringtones go off in public, the mobile phone melody constitutes a performance and violates copyright law - according to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) anyway, which is suing AT&T over their “violation.” An annoyance tax? yes, a performance tax? Are you kidding me? (read more - Mel Phillips) Recently, AOL Money & Finance created a list of 13 iconic brands that now find themselves on the brink of bankruptcy. It's an impressive list, and it's sobering to see this collection of once monster companies that are now flirting with disaster. The article cites household brands like Citigroup, Sears, Kodak, and of course, General Motors. But in the entertainment category, there are a bunch of familiar names to all of us in media. We're talking Blockbuster, The New York Times, Playboy, and Six Flags. And then specific to the world of radio, Clear Channel and Sirius XM are part of the financially shaky 13 (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Envision Radio Networks’ Full Metal Jackie adds KDJE-FM Little Rock as its newest affiliate The May radio ratings across the country showed more movement among sports radio stations than previous months have in some key markets. In Los Angeles both KLAC 570 and KSPN 710 showed increases, with KLAC almost doubling its audience over the past year (read more - Dave Kohl) Tuesday June 23, 2009 Ed McMahon is gone at 86 (read more - CNN) (read more - Washington Post) (read more - NY Post) Lauren Goode spoke with Robert Struble, iBiquity’s chief executive, about the transition to digital radio from analog, the faltering auto industry’s impact on iBiquity’s business, relationships with Apple and Microsoft, and the future of HD radio (read more - Lauren Goode - Wall Street Journal) Talk show host Al Rantel to leave KABC - The radio personality has been plagued by health issues since 2007 (read more - Gary Lycan - OC Register)
AM 760
Denver's Jay Marvin who's been
in and out of the hospital since March called into his own Sports Radio 560 WQAM-AM and Neil Rogers, Inc. have announced that veteran talk show host Neil Rogers is giving up his day to day show on WQAM but will consult with the station as part of a new agreement. According to Joe Bell, VP and Market Manager for Beasley’s Miami Radio cluster, a sports talk show will launch immediately from 10 am - 2pm (read more - Elinor J. Brecher, Robert Samuels and Glenn Garvin - Miami Herald) (read more - Tom Jicha - Sun-Sentinel) Larry David tells Esquire that the upcoming season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is being shot in high-definition. "I look like I'm 75 years old," he's quoted by www.tvpredictions.com as saying in the piece. "Nobody wants to watch an old man being funny" (read more - Tim Cuprisin - Milwaukee JS) The Top 10 Most-Liked, Most-Recalled New TV Spots (read more - Ad Age) Its been almost exactly 50 years since the call letters KPOI were first heard on Hawaii's airwaves. The original "Poi Boys" revolutionized radio in Hawaii, and KPOI continued to be a high-profile station brand through the decades that followed. Visionary Related Entertainment, the current owner of the name, celebrates "50 Years in Rock" Friday with a concert starring Pablo Cruise and Friends (read more - John Berger - Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
News Burps Air America Media’s WZAA 1050 AM begins broadcasting “Randi Rhodes” today - June 23 throughout the Washington, D.C. region through a multi-year agreement with Premiere Radio Networks. The show will air live from 3-6 pm ET, and stream online at www.airamericawashington.com If you think the media business doesn’t make big consumer mistakes, just look at Sirius XM passing along RIAA licensing increases with the blessing of federal regulators so they can help those poor starving musicians - right! The reason we have poor starving musicians is because of the record labels not radio stations. Sirius XM with one of the biggest attractions it has to get new subscriptions, refuses to make Howard Stern available on its new Apple app. Eight million new subscribers since Stern came to Sirius and some genius decides to offer an app without their star franchise. Oh, and what makes them think anyone will pay several dollars a month to turn their nice, cool, useful Apple phone into a satellite radio receiver? Then there is the concept of burying commercials in six or eight-minute clusters as if anyone really listens to them. Yet we call that a business model that endears us to advertisers (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king punished by being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. In his interview with the Wall Street Journal, Robert (Father of HD Radio) Struble, iBiquity’s chief executive, ordains himself the 2009 version of the Greek king, “still pushing the rock up the hill.” Struble better hope that he has more success than Sisyphus. I thought he was forthright with his answers, although a tad optimistic about HD Radio’s chances (read more - Mel Phillips) At work, computers are far more ubiquitous than radios. At home, there's no shortage of gadgets and media, from the Internet, games, and television. And in the car - the former bastion of AM/FM radio - iPod connectivity is becoming more common, and the Internet is not far behind. But the competitive issues facing radio go well beyond technology (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Rev. Curtis White III of Fort Wayne, a pastor and radio personality at 102.9 The River, has been arrested on three charges of dealing cocaine (read more - By Anne Gregory - Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette) Arbitron reported in its June 2009 RADAR® radio network audience ratings (RADAR 101) more than 186 million persons 12+ heard one or more network radio commercials each week of the survey period (read more - Arbitron) Monday June 22, 2009 With Arbitron now issuing radio ratings monthly instead of quarterly, the changes in rankings tend to be more incremental and less dramatic. Still, a few things are worth noting in the May ratings that just came out: WLTW (106.7 FM) still rules, as it has done for almost 15 years. Lite is No. 1 overall, averaging 6.3% of the audience, and No. 1 among the listeners advertisers pay the most money to reach, 25- to 54-year-olds + WCBS-FM is No. 2 among all audiences, averaging about 5%. Between WCBS-FM and Lite, it seems clear a lot of New Yorkers like comfort radio (read more - David Hinckley - NY Daily News) Ex-radio host Hal Turner to face charge of inciting violence against lawmakers in Connecticut (read more - Fox New) (read more - Turner Radio Network) Local radio stations like WQUT, along with several radio stations nationwide, are airing announcements to inform their listeners of the Radio Royalties Bill and to urge them to contact their local representatives and voice their opposition. WQUT’s Web site states that stations like it would have to turn to talk, news or sports for revenue if the bill is approved - When this spat is resolved, Ken Misch, who serves as program director at B95 WDKB 94.9 FM in DeKalb, and other radio executives worry that the local face of radio may be forever altered (read more - Heather Richardson - Johnson City Press) (read more - Jonathan Bilyk - Dekalb Daily Chronicle) (read more - Jennifer Bendall - Executive director, musicFIRST Coalition - Detroit Free Press) More than 300 people packed into to Texas Southern University's education auditorium to listen and learn about the future of local radio. "We've enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with artists for many years, and that being playing the records and making hits for them, and them selling records," said Doug Abernathy, Regional Vice President of Radio One. But, that relationship is in jeopardy should the Performance Rights Act pass in the legislature (read more - Leticia Juarez - KIAH 39 TV) (read more - Alex Sanz - KHOU 11 TV) B-93 Birthday Bash concertgoers were angry after 100's of vehicles were stranded until Wednesday by rising flood waters and Sunday events were canceled (read more - Jim Harger - Grand Rapids Press) (read more - Jessica Leffler - WOOD 8 TV) (read more - Steve Patterson - WZZM 13 TV) (read more - Michigan Radio TV BuzzBoard) Nearly eight years after leaving CNN, the network that made her famous, Bobbie Battista has resurfaced in the news game as an anchor for Onion News Network, the online video arm of The Onion, the satirical newspaper (read more - Tim Arango - NY Times) Lindsay Lohan was recently spotted having a business meeting with Ryan Seacrest at L.A. hotspot H’Wood and might be on TV soon in a new series (read more - - Cristina Everett - NY Daily News) How the World's Advertisers Cope With Recession (read more - Emma Hall - Ad Age) Jeremy Robinson started his career in radio working at KBEC in Waxahachie at age 16 and is now the host of a national radio show - “The Jeremy Show” - for Citadel Media (read more - Andrew Branca - Waxahachie Daily Light) XM Satellite Radio to Offer $350 Million of Senior Secured Notes Due 2013 (read more - PR Newswire) Les Grobstein, long a Chicago radio presence, is bringing his encyclopedic knowledge of local sports to an overnight weeknight show on CBS Radio's WSCR-AM 670 (read more - Phil Rosenthal - Chicago Tribune)
News Burps TV news icon Walter Cronkite reported to be gravely ill (read more - Cleveland Plain-Dealer) Cronkite assistant disputes "exaggerated" report (read more - Mark Shanahan - Boston Globe) Shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem was missing from the radio Friday morning, following news that two handguns and an honorary sheriff's badge were taken from his car Wednesday night after a burglary at a St. Petersburg bowling alley. Police recovered the items after witnesses reported a description of the burglars and undercover officers arrested two men (read more - Eric Deggans - St Petersburg Times ) Michael Cipriani, 58, a longtime local radio announcer who was better known as Michael Bernz to his listeners on WICH AM, WDRC, WCTY-FM and Light Rock 105-FM , died in his sleep (read more - Adam Bowles - Norwich Bulletin) The Recording Industry Association of America won a big one - a $1.92 million judgment against a woman charged with copyright infringement. But you won’t hear champagne bottles popping open in Hollywood. Is anyone really a winner here? (read more - Sam Diaz - ZDNet) A former Radio 2 DJ has pleaded not guilty to a child pornography charge (read more - BBC News U.K.) From Claude Hall
-- Those of you who worked in San Antonio might wish to checkout
this website:
www.SanAntonioRadioMemories.com
TV MATTERS:
News coming out of Iran this past week has been
WPLR’s Morning team Chaz & AJ want to help the unemployed by putting a smile on the faces of as many unemployed Connecticut residents as possible by giving them the opportunity to forget about their problems with a “free” night of laughter June 25 in Bridgeport, Connecticut at the 99.1 FM PLR Chaz & AJ Comedy Stimulus Show (read more - WPLR) Radio Affiliate Services and Syndication adds Moby in the Morning and Moby Radio Network to its client roster for affiliate services and syndication, and also also signed a representation agreement with The New Broadcast Partners From Tommy Kramer
-- Hundreds of years ago in the red clay of Shreveport, Louisiana,
where Ripley's Believe It or Not! is a franchise that deals in bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims. What a perfect way to introduce Radio’s latest Believe It Or Not! - programming, sales or management practices inspired by cutbacks, firing and Repeater Radio so strange and unusual that you, my readers, may be tempted to question the claims. Just as Ripley’s TV show claims "If you see it on Ripley's, you can bet that it's real", we say if you read it here, it is real -- or unreal if you're wondering how these whacky things could happen to a great industry (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) When you first hit Modesto, you see the growth that has been taking place in this virtual bedroom community of the Bay Area. All the towns around Modesto have large populations due to the fact it really is LA’s Riverside-San Bernardino to The Bay Area. Citadel has been able to tap into those resources with Kat Country 103. From Scott Mahalick to Ed Hill and Randy Bubba Black, the last 11 years at the helm, this station has mirrored the community and sounds bigger than life. It’s easy to hear and see why it’s been so successful. They have a deep advertising base and it maintains ratings and prosperity (read more - Chuck Geiger) A recent article in USA Today about iPhones took an interesting sidetrack about device usage. Nielsen research guru, Roger Entner, put together a mind-blowing analysis that clearly showed how totally active iPhone users really are - compared with owners of other mobile phones, wireless laptop computers, and even Blackberries (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Creative Deconstruction supports artists and bands interested in taking the music business into the future. They advocate the need for ”Artists to have the ability to make a good living creating music” but claim that “this is not the bill to make that happen. The Performance Rights Act amounts to little more than a last ditch maneuver by a flailing industry.” Creative Deconstruction has put together a report titled “5 Reasons Why The Performance Rights Act Is A Bad Idea” (read more - Mel Phillips) WMMS was owned by Malrite Communications. It was a company that encouraged creativity and originality. The success of WMMS in Cleveland influenced other stations in our chain to be innovative. As the company grew, it acquired more properties and our Buzzard artist David Helton took on additional responsibilities, which included redesigning or creating new logos for several Malrite properties – including Z-100/New York (read more - John Gorman) Jeff Davis is offering "The Thought Zone" to stations - 60 second commentaries this week include a thumbnail explanation of the "Progressive" movement with "Remember the word: Progressive", "A Healthy Choice?", "They Said What?", "An Inconvenient Incompetence" and "Canary in a Coal Mine" (read more - hear the demos - www.TheThoughtZone.com) The 2009 Conclave Learning Conference is July 16-18 at the Sheraton South Bloomington/Minneapolis. Tuition for this summer’s Learning Conference is just $299 but only until June 30 A registration form and additional conference information are available at www.theconclave.com A walk through the Nielsen Radio Ratings Diary (read more - Mark Massey - Hear 2.0) Friday June 19, 2009 PPM is being used in 24 radio markets, and Arbitron's current schedule calls for it to come into the Milwaukee market in July-August 2010, although that could change. Chicago radio stars whose shows were ended by PPM-based ratings numbers include Steve Dahl and the Eddie Volkman and Joe "Jobo" Bohannon morning team. The point of all this is that well-established (and highly paid) radio names lost their gigs thanks to the new system. And it's not just Chicago. The Boston Herald last month reported that five months after PPM came to that market, it was shaking up radio, with DJ-less music stations doing well while talkers took big hits. Afternoon talker Jay Severin went from fifth place among adults 25 to 54 to 15th place. Don Imus, whose syndicated show still airs in Boston, dipped to 16th place, from 10th (read more - Tim Cuprisin - Milwaukee JS) A jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset must pay fines totaling $1.92 million to the RIAA, as a penalty for violating the copyrights on 24 songs (read more - PC Mag) KFI reporter hits the streets with Tijuana police: On the radio: AMP Radio closes in on KIIS-FM in the latest ratings (read more - Gary Lycan - OC Register) Walter Cronkite's been ill for a while, but he has definitely taken a turn for the worse. Now, he is 92 years old, and it's worth nothing that his father lived nearly to 100 and his mother, famously, well past 100 (read more - Verne Gay -LA Times) David Hernandez went from a missing person police were looking for to a fugitive sought Wednesday by the FBI. Federal authorities obtained a warrant for his arrest on charges he operated a Ponzi scheme that helped bankroll an Internet radio station - Chicago Sports Webio - started by Chicago radio personality Mike North (read more - Ameet Sachdev - Chicago Tribune) As if WGN-AM (720) wasn't going through enough with the upheaval in its talent and program lineup, the May Arbitron ratings book out on Wednesday gave the station more issues to worry about (read more - Lewis Lazare - Chicago Sun-Times) You can create a radio station, based on the selection of just a single song or artist, with Slacker on a BlackBerry Storm and Pandora on an Apple iPhone (read more - Bob Tedeschi - NY Times) Mild surprise No. 1: For the
first time since August 2008, one of
Houston’s four all-sports radio
stations cracked the top-10 in
morning drive among men ages 25-54, according to Arbitron. The “Twitter Revolution” in Iran is being aided by the old media - TV and radio (read more - Alex Dobuzinskis - Reuters) Arbitron PPM numbers for Atlanta, Boston, Detroit and Washington DC (read the numbers) Greater Media has unveiled a brand new website to coordinate opposition to the proposed performance tax. Listeners and advertisers are encouraged to log on at www.helpsaveradio.org to learn more about the proposed Performance Tax, sign an on-line petition, and find their congressional representatives by ZIP code
News Burps Despite suing 30,000 people over the past five years, the RIAA has not stopped illegal file sharing. In fact, file sharing has increased and continues to proliferate at a rapid pace. That’s why the record labels and their legal arm, the RIAA, by and large lost in court yesterday. The labels are certainly not going to collect on Thomas-Rasset’s judgment. File sharing continues to elude the labels' ability to control it. And all those poor artists are still going to get screwed by a record label near them someday (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) Commonwealth Broadcasting President/CEO Steve Newberry who also serves as Chairman of the NAB Joint Board wrote an op-ed piece this week warning terrestrial radio that “While certainly a significant achievement, our work (in opposition to the Performance Tax) is by no means done. The record-label proponents of a performance tax are not backing down (read more - Mel Phillips) Being a Hall of Fame athlete certainly doesn't automatically translate to the same level of performance in another endeavor, especially the broadcast booth. Tony Gwynn has not set the world on fire with his broadcast analysis, but he did manage to handle a broadcast challenge with class worthy of a Hall of Fame style mention (read more - Dave Kohl) The Tom Kent Radio Network adds programming on affiliates WODS 103.3 FM Boston, Classic Hits WIOP 95.9 FM Charleston SC and Classic Hits WBPC 95.1 FM Panama City From The Fairness Doctrine to the latest in Podcasting and Technology, the 2009 Conclave Summer Learning Conference will enhance your career and your knowledge with information you can put to work as soon as you get back (read more - The Conclave) Dave Graveline on "Into Tomorrow" this weekend will broadcast from the "Games for Health Conference" in Boston where you mix fitness with gaming (visit www.graveline.com) Voting is now underway
as members decide who will be the
2009 inductees of the
Texas Radio Hall
Thursday June 18, 2009 A free application on the Apple App Store will allow iPhone and iPod users access to 120 channels of SIRIUS XM Radio sports, talk, entertainment, news, comedy and commercial-free music directly from their iPhone or iPod touch -- but no Howard, MLB and NFL (read more - Larry Dignan - ZD Net) (read more - Sirius XM) Remember John Ziegler? He's the conservative talk-show host who used to have a show on L.A's KFI. He left the station and posted an amazingly bitter screed about co-workers John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou ("The John and Ken Show") on the Internet. Among other things, he claimed the talk show industry is dominated by "freaks, fakes, frauds and phonies." Now he's back on the air from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays at 540 AM (read more - Randy Dotinga - San Diego North County Times) Melanie Morgan is going back to KSFO 560 AM on "America's Morning News" a new, national radio morning program in conjunction with The Washington Times that will be heard live on KSFO from 3 to 5 a.m. five days a week Arbitron PPM for Dallas-Fort Worth, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Nassau, Middlesex and Riverside-San Bernadino (read the numbers) With the
iPhone 3G S, in stores Friday,
Apple is finally throwing your
head a crumb. After two
years, the iPhone’s designers have finally gotten over whatever
weird objections they had to providing those basic Thousands of motorists could be left without radio signal in their cars if government plans to switch off FM and AM radio signal by 2015 go ahead (read more - Emma Barnett - The Telegraph U.K.) A Fox Newser is accused of dragging a cyclist through Central Park in NYC (read more - John Cook - Gawker) The Republican National Committee isn't buying ABC News' assurance that its day-long focus on the Obama administration's health-care package will be unbiased. Indeed, the RNC will open up its television studio in Washington next Wednesday - the day of ABC's programming - and foot the bill for House and Senate Republicans to do interviews with stations in their home districts (read more - Richard Huff - NY Daily News) WIL 92.3
and their "Team Breadhead" set the World Record for the Susan G.
Komen Race for the Cure this past Saturday, June 13, 2009 at the St.
Louis event; WIL 92.3's
2009 "Team Breadhead"
News Burps The Nielsen Company reported that 2.5 million American households, or 2.2% of the television market, could not receive digital television signals through the week ending June 14 (read more - Nielsen) Jose Miguel Agrelot, Harry Kalas and Studs Terkel are being inducted posthumously into the National Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago (read more - radiohof.org) Music 1 has introduced a low-cost buy-out version of its popular music scheduling software for Live365.com webcasters: Music 1 SE (visit GoMusic1.com) The Center for Spanish Language Media at the University of North Texas will offer a workshop on "Media Sales" on June 24 at the Gateway Center on the UNT campus. The workshop is designed for people interested in breaking in to media sales and will cover the basics of the sales process and selling across different media. Details and registration information can be found at www.spanishmedia.unt.edu 103.3 ESPN and the Dallas Mavericks have agreed to a four-year extension of their radio play-by-play agreement says GM Pete Dits Broadcast Architecture adds Tim Garrison’s “Chill Out Tonight” to its lineup of air talent SpectraRep, iBiquity Digital and Sage Alerting Systems have joined forces to develop emergency alert services - safety and security notification and other homeland security services - using HD Radio technology Even in a car, radio is a mere part of the automobile's entertainment system with growing competition from new media. No young person these days (or many older for that matter) buys a car without an iPhone jack. The HD concept of adding more channels than the federal government would let consolidators have was fatally flawed when it turned out radio groups couldn't operate all the stations they bought. And now we've seen that they can't pay the debt on these acquisitions, either. It would have been so much better to check with the consumer first - not iBiquity, the NAB, auto manufacturers (oops) or radio makers (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) Half of the people questioned in a new Zogby Poll do what you’re doing now, they go to the Internet for their news and information first. Okay, so maybe you didn’t come here first but 56 (%) of the 3,030 adults polled call the Internet their top source for news and information, followed by television (21%), radio (10%) and newspapers (10%) (read more - Mel Phillips) A new study from Coupons.com shows that entertainment-oriented coupons have jumped in usage from #6 to #3, as consumers crave value on their leisure time activity. Of course, this category is radio's sweet spot. As listeners struggle to make those tough decisions on which concerts they can afford to see, radio can come to the rescue with great coupon deals OR free shows and events. It's not difficult to be a hero in this environment (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) More than a few stations and radio groups are now earning a significant fraction of their total revenues from digital sources. And one of the ones that impresses me most is Gap Broadcasting (read more - Mark Ramsey - Hear 2.0) Look, I just got done with
American Idol and the Octomom, and now this
Twitter
deal rolls through. Wednesday June 17, 2009 "Someday, black radio is going to wake up and realize it has to do more talk programming," says Bob Slade, news director of WRKS (98.7 FM). "I know that the listeners are ready for it. But sometimes black radio, all across the country, lags a little behind" (read more - David Hinckley - NY Daily News) The chief of HBO Sports on Tuesday apologized for a series of profanities uttered by comic Artie Lange during the launch of new sports talk show anchored by Joe Buck (read more - Verne Gay - Newsday) Among the public service announcements that ran in place of paid ads in the final hour before Chicago Sports Webio shut down Tuesday was one urging vigilance for fraud - The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit, accusing David Hernandez of bilking investors to support a very nice lifestyle for himself and to finance the local Internet radio startup Webio featuring Mike North, Dan Jiggetts, Chet Coppock, Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini and others (read more - Phil Rosenthal - Chicago Tribune) Jeff Dubay will be sentenced July 21 for felony fifth-degree drug possession. Sentencing guidelines call for a year in jail. Dubay was a morning-show host at KFAN-AM, but was fired after he was charged in mid-October (read more - Pat Pheifer - MInneapolis Star-Tribune) Jelli,
the first web service to enable 100% user-controlled radio, today
unveiled a social music offering that allows users to take over a
radio station with their browsers. Jelli is community-powered, 100%
user-controlled radio and the first service to bring
crowdsourcing
to radio.
Taylor Swift won the top honor at the Country Music Television awards (read more - Appleton Post-Crescent) Bryan Broadcasting's Scott DeLucia and Mary "Mike" Hatcher accepted the honor as Bryan Broadcasting Corp.'s reputation for supporting community service helped it secure a lifetime achievement honor at the 16th annual Newman 10 Business Performance Awards (read more - Cassie Smith - Bryan-College Station Eagle) You can’t be loved and adored by everybody, but if you’re President Barack Obama and it concerns the media, you can come awfully close. In an interview on CNBC’s June 16 “Closing Bell” with the network Washington correspondent John Harwood, Obama reflected on the media coverage he has received to date. Harwood asked the president to respond to the claim that lack of media criticism has allowed him to “hurt” the country (read more - Jeff Poor - Business and Media) On the heels of network neighbor Stephen Colbert, who recently traveled to Iraq to film four episodes of "The Colbert Report," "The Daily Show" correspondent Jason Jones has filed reports from cities across the Islamic Republic, which will air starting Monday at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central (read more - Cristina Kinon - NY Daily News) Starting June 22 “The Don Geronimo Show” begins on 92.7 WGMD-FM (read more - Brian Shane - Del-Marva Times) Air America Media debuted the new 1050 AM throughout the Washington, D.C. region on Wednesday, June 17 at 12 midnight under new call letters WZAA and also streaming online at www.airamericawashington.com featuring Ron Reagan, Rachel Maddow, Ana Marie Cox, Montel Williams, Lionel, Arianna Huffington and Carlos Watson You can keep your iPod and your satellite radio. MP3s? Jack LaVelle has no use for them. Enter the back room of LaVelle's Oak Forest house -- the room built 15 years ago for one purpose -- and step back 100 years to when radio was born and poised to revolutionize home entertainment. Radios by Edison, RCA, Emerson and many other pioneering companies line every wall; immense but beautifully crafted ancestors to the gadgets that fill our homes today (read more - Joel Hood - Chicago Tribune) All of Britain's national radio stations and many local services would stop broadcasting on analogue by the end of 2015, and moved to Digital Audio Broadcasting, according to a government's report released on Tuesday (read more - Xinhua) Radio tower causing families to leave their homes: Strange sounds from a TV that isn't even on. "The radio station playing over like the computer and other devices, like through the speakers of the computer, it will start playing the radio station," said Douglas Helfert, a resident of Floyd. Helfert lives just a few hundred yards from the tower and says the radio waves haven't just had an effect on his electronics, they've also affected his health (read more - Jim Gibbons - News 10 TV) Parting with smooth jazz radio WZJZ hasn’t been a smooth process for some Southwest Florida listeners. “Am I the only one who feels lost without it?” asks Naples resident Nanci Breeze - “I think we should consider a blog or Twitter to gain support,” Breeze said. “If these people at Clear Channel don’t get it, maybe another station will change their format (read more - Tim Aten - Naples Daily News) Local radio revenue is disappearing: Radio will survive. It is just going to be a very different medium, led largely by Internet radio which has no barrier to entry (read more - Brad Saul - Gershon Lehrman Group) Arbitron numbers for Tampa-St Pete (re-issue) (read the numbers) Mark Vail, vice president of Eagle Radio said that a farmer mowing hay around the KFEQ St. Joseph Missouri radio tower caught one of the wires holding it, causing it to fall (read more - St Joe News) Bob Lawrence and his wife, Rebecca, made the trip from their South Jersey home to Long Island for a reunion at WGBB-AM in Freeport, where Lawrence served as the longtime voice of the Islanders and program director. He let little on about his three-year battle with lung cancer, opting instead to address the crowd and tell them how honored he had been to know them - Bob died on Friday (read more - Mark Macyk - Newsday)
News Burps I was at dinner recently with an ad agency executive who got me thinking about whether advertisers really need the media business in the coming digital age. I know what you’re going to say - why would they want the expense, the grief? And do they really have the expertise? And, that in some small ways, advertisers have tried to do directly to the consumer with mixed results - targeted magazines, niche programming, infomercials. I thought the same thing. But then again, this great digital beyond we always talk about in this space makes many impossible things seem possible. Is it likely? Let’s take a look (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) The biggest media gains over the next five years will be in satellite radio, despite the fact that they rely so heavily on new car sales for distribution. Sirius XM has been able to resolve its liquidity issues thanks to sugar daddy Liberty Media, which now owns 40 (%) percent of the shares with seats on the board (read more - Mel Phillips) All the out of work brothers and sisters know the feeling, the highs and lows of searching for work in radio, not much has changed over the past few years. Even with the economic conditions, there are still openings that needs to be filled (read more - Chuck Geiger) While the RAB says that it will be announcing new initiatives designed to foster better commercial production, it has missed an opportunity to make a statement about how radio is simply mailing it in. In its release about the Mercury Awards, the RAB ducked its decision to drop prizes for radio production, focusing instead on the categories where awards will be announced. This could have been a great forum for the RAB to stand up and make the statement that everyone in radio knows is true: We simply aren't doing a good enough job on the commercial production side because radio has stopped investing in this all-important area (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) A Primer on Radio's Future - an Interview with MediaPost's Diane Mermigas (read more - Mark Ramsey - Hear 2.0) It was twenty-six years ago - June 16, 1983 - when we lost Peter Schliewen, the founding owner of Record Revolution on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights. You seldom hear his name mentioned today and that’s a shame. He was a prominent part of the star maker machinery behind the Cleveland rock and roll scene in the seventies and early eighties – and a close friend to everyone at WMMS (read more - John Gorman) Tuesday June 16, 2009 One day after David Letterman apologized to Gov. Sarah Palin for making a joke about her daughter, the governor says she has accepted his apology (read more - Crain's NY Biz) David Letterman
milked the
Sarah Palin controversy for
eight minutes last night, apologizing -- as only Letterman can do --
for his jokes about the governor's daughters.
He repeats the jokes,
cuttingly saying that this may be his last show. Of course, that got
some laughs -- as did most of his apology
(read more - view the video - USA Today)
(read more - Rich Lieberman - SF Chronicle)
(read more - Scott Collins WOR (710 AM) likes Glenn Beck so much it has expanded his morning show by an hour. Starting Monday, it will run from 9 o'clock to noon (read more - David Hinckley - NY Daily News) Artie Lange hijacked Joe Buck’s new HBO show from Brett Favre on Monday night (read more - Richard Sandomir - NY Times) It seems like a chicken-or-egg sort of argument. Do musicians make more money because radio stations play their songs, or do radio stations make more money because they play the artists’ songs? That’s part of the conundrum facing lawmakers as they consider the Performance Rights Act, a proposed piece of legislation that would require local radio stations to pay royalties to musicians whose songs are played on their airwaves. Picking a side in this dispute carries some political risks, given the powerful adversaries (read more - Jeanne Cummings - Politico) Although it was targeted by a campaign on Twitter for supposedly under-covering unrest in Iran, CNN is offering the best U.S. TV coverage of the unfolding post-election drama (read more - Tim Cuprisin - Milwaukee JS) Commercial radio has suffered its worst quarter since 1999, according to new research by Britain's leading radio analyst Grant Goddard. Although radio is still part of as many people's lives as ever, it's a more fleeting one. Radio reaches over 90 per cent of people - but hourly listening is in a steady decline. And so is commercial radio (read more - Andrew Orlowski - The Register) Three respected international media representatives were presented awards from CMA during an Irish showcase at the Sommet Center Plaza Stage Friday during CMA Music Festival. Joe Fish and Pio McCann, who hosted the Irish showcase, were each presented with the International Country Broadcaster Award for 2008. Roger Ryan received the 2008 Wesley Rose International Media Achievement Award WGN 720-AM will bring a new face to the prime morning-drive spot on Monday, bumping John Williams from the 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. spot he's held only for six months and replacing him with Greg Jarrett, an afternoon host and news anchor from KGO 810-AM in San Francisco. Williams will move to the 9 a.m. to noon slot that had been occupied by Kathy O'Malley and Judy Markey for 20 years until "The Girlfriends" were let go last month (read more - Chicago Daily Herald) (read more - Phil Rosenthal - Chicago Tribune) Bouncing Checks: Mike North's Chicago Sports Webio struggling in more ways than one (read more - Eamonn Brennan - NBC TV Chicago) Coast to Coast AM with George Noory has hit a broadcasting milestone of 525 stations - an all-time high for the program From Jimmy Rabbitt -- Don
Kirshner assembled the group,
Toomorrow,
this week in 1970. He had
What is going on with the ratings at CBS Evening News? (read more - Felix Gillette - NY Observer) Iran puts curbs on media after disputed election (read more - Boston Herald) Reports about fires and crime will give way to fashion news in the fall when WNBC 4 TV replaces its 5 p.m. newscast with an entertainment show geared to women (read more - Richard Huff - NY Daily News) Arbitron numbers for Des Moines, Albuquerque Charleston SC and El Paso (read the numbers) Voting is now underway
as members decide who will be the
2009 inductees of the
Texas Radio Hall
News Burps Cox Radio's Cox Marketing Services has partnered with the City of Orlando for a new public safety campaign called Choose Peace that is designed to decrease juvenile crime throughout the City during the summer months It promises to be a bonfire of Sydney's breakfast radio egos on August 6 when all announcers will be corralled into the one location - a Martin Place pen - for a potentially volatile industry event (read more - Daily Telegraph AU) Tongue tied in Iran (read more - Howard Kurtz - Washington Post) Jay Guyther, a long-time Arbitron executive, is joining ROI Media Solutions, Inc., a full-service broadcast consulting firm, as a partner of the firm Today is the day the Senate hosts a confirmation hearing for FCC nominees Julius Genachowski, would-be chair and current Republican Robert M. McDowell. To be sure, this will not be a tea party (read more - Mel Phillips) Radio is still a good free cash flow business with little overhead except for – debt. Many stations throw off positive cash flow but radio companies don’t generate the super huge numbers they need to clean up their debt obligations. Many radio companies have previously refinanced their debt at terms favorable to lenders in order to avoid judgment day --- the day that is coming for sure at a radio consolidator near you (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) An interesting thing is happening on late night television - David Letterman actually edged past "The Tonight Show" one night last week. While everyone is talking about Conan versus Dave, and their new head-to-head competition, it's hard not to conclude that competition can be a good thing (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Let’s cut right to the chase. Did you hear the latest one from the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB)? They finally did something that made sense. No, really. I know I’ve been rather critical of the RAB and its leadership. They’ve backed all the wrong horses from David Rehr’s laissez-faire version of the National Association of Broadcasters to their ineffective Radio Heard Here campaign and supporting Lyin’ Diane Warren and the HD Digital Radio Alliance. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe we’re in the majority when we scream bloody murder that the RAB has done absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing to help radio advertising since deregulation - until now (read more - John Gorman - Gorman Media) Syndicated Solutions has expanded its partnership with Allen Hunt and will assume the full national syndication responsibilities associated with The Allen Hunt Show which will expand to Monday-Friday syndication September 7 A CEO of Ziff-Davis in the days when it was a tech publishing giant, Eric Hippeau has become the Huffington Post’s third chief executive in less than two years (read more - Matthew Flamm - Crain's NY Biz) Monday June 15, 2009 In Radio These Days, Small Is Better: One solution is an industry restructuring involving the closure of stations. That could happen if there are some bankruptcy filings (read more - Martin Peers - Wall Street Journal) Australian technology is powering the world's first internet car radio, which will soon provide drivers worldwide with access to 30,000 stations including online broadcasts and AM and FM stations from around the globe (read more - Asher Moses - WA Today AU) Radio reaches more than 235 million persons age 12 and older over the course of a typical week, according to the RADAR 101 National Radio Listening Report which releases Monday, June 22 The remarkable run of success in St. Louis baseball radio booths started with a guy named France in the late 1920s then rolled through a Dizzy period in the '40s. The tradition was able to Caray on through the '50s and into '60s. The Bucks stopped there, too. Throw in long runs by Mike Shannon and Buddy Blattner and a shorter spree by Joe Garagiola and the roster is resplendent (read more - Dan Caesar - St Louis Post Dispatch) Virgin Media and Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group will start a music download subscription service allowing users to keep songs forever on any MP3 player (read more - Simon Thiel - Bloomberg) A rift between flamboyant Chicago sports commentator Mike North and his estranged business partner, David Hernandez, took a turn Saturday when the FBI confirmed it's investigating a Hernandez company - Hernandez's Spectrum Entertainment Group owns a majority stake in the sports talk Web site Chicago Sports Webio www.ChicagoSportsWebio.com, which North helped found last year (read more - Mark J. Konkol - Chicago Sun-Times) For the second time in two days, a major celebrity has hung up on Kidd Kraddick. The nationally-syndicated morning radio host was still reeling from the rude disconnect he experienced Friday at the hands of Miley Cyrus, when, incredibly, it happened again. This time, from YEAR ONE star, Michael Cera (read more) Miley Cyrus has hit back at accusations she cut short a phone interview with a radio show in Florida after the DJ began asking uncomfortable questions (read more - Contact Music) Under normal circumstances,
Amy Goodman
and Daily News columnist Juan
Gonzalez say, they'd be happy
their daily "Democracy Now" show has moved from 9 a.m. to 8 a.m. on
WBAI (99.5 FM).
After radio icon
Paul Harvey
died in February, author Paul
Batura's
"Good Day! The Paul Harvey Story"
became the first biography on
the beloved Harvey when it was released in May
- Batura mentions Harvey's controversial military record, his
trespassing arrest at an atomic lab while going after a scoop and
subsequent fabrication that he was on a secret government mission,
and his general proclivity to not let facts stand in the way of a
good story when it came to his personal history
(read more - Bill Reed - Colorado Springs Gazette) What Will Cell Phones Look Like 10 Years From Now? (read more - Alissa Walker - Fast Company) Fox News bowed to pressure from Kelly Preston, Tom Cruise and other members of the Church of Scientology when it fired columnist Roger Friedman, the entertainment journo is expected to charge in a wrongful termination lawsuit this week (read more - Rush & Molloy - NY Daily News) Reports of the death of radio appear to have been greatly exaggerated as the latest financial figures for Canadian commercial radio show healthy profit and revenue increases in 2008, despite much of the rest of the media landscape taking a beating (read more - Eric Lam - National Post CA) In today’s world, the concept of a Radio Station is dead. Who wants to sit and be force fed commercial after commercial after commercial about products and services that they either have no interest in or just plain can’t stand hearing about? Who wants to endure the ’shock jocks’ announcers who laugh more at their own jokes than the vast majority of the listeners out there? (read more - Karl D. Susman - Westside Today) New York Festivals announced the Finalists for the 2009 Radio Programming & Promotion Awards. Top honors went to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation who took the lead in the preliminary round with 14 Finalists, followed by SIRIUS Satellite Radio with 8 Finalists. Companies with multiple Finalists also include Radio Free Asia, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and RTE. All Radio Finalists will go on to the second round of judging to determine Gold, Silver, and Bronze award winners (visit New York Festivals) Arbitron numbers for Omaha-Council Bluffs, Chattanooga and Columbia SC (read the numbers)
News Burps Jeff Katz filled in this morning on Southwest Florida talker 1240 - 1270 WINK for Mandy Connell who is out on maternity leave Radio voice facing big challenge: John Mullen, a mainstay at major high school events, could soon be without a job thanks to the crushing, consolidating forces of today's corporate radio world (read more - Adrian Dater - Denver Post) Local radio advocates have been cranking up the volume, and it’s paying off. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a Federal Communications Commission ruling that protects existing Low Power FM stations from being knocked off the air by full power stations (read more - Candace Clement - Free Press) From Tommy Kramer
-- In a seminar with a couple of stations recently, we did a group
aircheck From Claude Hall
-- e-mail from Scott St.
James: “I remember driving to
KGB in San Diego and the program director (it might have been
Charlie Van Dyke,
but I'm not sure and he would have no reason to remember) saying
something like, ‘Close, but not quite!’
Looking back, it's amazing to think
Any new formats for radio? Nah. Just the ninth generation hybrid of music formats that sounded similar to the eight others that preceded them. Of course, there was new technology that made voice tracking possible, but didn’t this hurt the consolidators more than help? How about a new generation of radio personalities. No again - Howard Stern changed addresses. Don Imus got more decrepit and talk radio pumped itself full of hot air pandering to the same aging audience that advertisers don’t seem to want (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) Acting FCC Chairman Michael J. Copps, who’s become the hardest working man in show business - the James Brown of the FCC, has put the use of FM translators by AM radio on the agenda for the next FCC pow-wow, July 2. Supported by the National Association of Broadcasters, the use of FM translators would effectively boost AM radio’s service areas. The NAB likes the idea because use of translators would “further the Commission’s policy goals of promoting competition, diversity and localism.” More importantly, a happy FCC means a happy NAB (read more - Mel Phillips) So, this mobile apps thing is becoming big. And as marketing and research guys, we are bringing something a little different to the table with our app development company, jacAPPS. While we get all sorts of calls from people who say something like, "Just get us on the iPhone," the real question revolves around what is the goal of the app? (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) While you were watching David Letterman -- a bitter guy who never saw a woman or a Republican he could stand -- trash Sarah Palin's 14-year-old daughter by "joking" that she was date-raped by Alex Rodriguez and stalked by Eliot Spitzer, you may have missed the memo. Dave's in good company (read more - Andrea Peyser - NY Post) Ruben Perez, Promotions Director for Power 96 WPOW-FM, has also been appointed as Promotions Director for sister station 99.9 Kiss Country WKIS-FM "Live and Local" with John Records Landecker and Paula Griffin will be talking local issues with local callers throughout Northwest Indiana, Southern Michigan and Chicagoland beginning June 15 on WIMS AM 1420 What kind of Broadcaster are you? A manager or an entrepreneur? (read more - Mark Ramsey - Hear 2.0) Friday June 12, 2009 KRXQ's Rob Williams and Arnie States of the “Rob, Arnie & Dawn” show labeled transgender people "freaks" and "weirdos" and apologized Thursday on the air for their transgender remarks (read more - Bill Lindelof - Sacramento Bee) AM 760 Denver and former WLS Chicago talk-show host Jay Marvin has spent the last several months fighting for his life. He's been in and out of the hospital for a variety of serious health concerns since early March, battling a spate of illnesses and infections that hold the risk of permanent paralysis or death (read more - Michael Roberts - Westword) When I asked KFI 640 AM's Bill Handel what he would like to accomplish in the next five years, he had a simple answer: "to survive in this business." No worries, Bill + Jamie White, ex-KYSR-FM, starts hosting her own morning show June 29 on KBZC-FM "The Buzz" in Sacramento (read more - Gary Lycan - OC Register) Veteran Chicago broadcaster Bob Sirott exited NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5 and his anchor role there Thursday with a classy absence of theatrics and his head held high. It fell to WMAQ station manager Frank Whittaker to inform the staff Thursday morning of Sirott's abrupt exit in a brief memo (read more - Lewis Lazare - Chicago Sun-Times) The days of the free Internet will draw to a close over the next five years, according to the chairman and chief executive of IAC, Barry Diller, whose interactive services company operates a collection of more than 30 Internet sites which produce $1.5 billion a year in revenue (read more - Tom Steinert-Threlkeld - ZDnet) Is she still angry? You betcha. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin blasted late-night comic David Letterman on Friday, saying a joke about her daughter contributes to the "acceptance of abuse of younger women" (read more - Robert F. Moore - NY Daily News) (read more - Chris Cillizza - Washington Post) Ken Place
is in his 11th year of working at
Clear Channel
Communications, where he has a variety of duties as executive
producer and board operator.
But to listeners of
"Big Board Sports" on Jennifer Jordan and Megan Vega are the latest victims of the slumping economy and budget-slashing at WWOR 9 (read more - Richard Huff - NY Daily News) KCBS Radio celebrates 100 years on the air (read more - KCBS 5 TV) Grammy-winning hit-makers the Eagles, Christina Aguilera and Weezer will launch a.p.e. (artist personal experience) radio - a.p.e. radio, a Clear Channel and Front Line Management joint venture, will be distributed across Clear Channel Radio's digital network, "iheartradio,” and integrated across each specific artist’s website A three-week strike by employees of Spanish-language radio station KDNA in the Yakima Valley has ended (read more - KNDO - KNDU TV) Cascade County launched a radio station Thursday at 1620 AM to promote wind energy (read more - Karl Puckett - Great Falls Tribune) Early radio in Greeley began in 1909 with a former Greeley High School student named Gordon G. Moss, who as a Colorado State Teacher's College student (now the University of Northern Colorado), built a hand-wound radio transmitter that transmitted a dot-and-dash signal (read more - JoAnna Luth Stull - The Tribune) Arbitron numbers for Knoxville, Nashville, Oklahoma City and Johnson City (read the numbers)
News Burps
The decline of radio and the music industry also prevents both from transforming themselves into audio with pictures and text. The scariest complication from their coincidental decline is that the consumer now demands entertainment when they want it -- they see it, hear it and read it at will. This renders traditional broadcasting and music CDs antiquated as each year produces another generation of Gen Y consumers coming of age (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) The first quarter of 2009 was the worst-ever for radio. Revenues declined 24 (%) percent, which followed a full-year drop of 9% in 2008. If BIA’s estimate is correct for the year, the next three quarters will have to average no more than a 12 (%) drop - which will be an improvement over this year’s first quarter. But like the lousy weather in the northeast, radio revenue will improve - eventually - just not yet (read more - Mel Phillips) United Stations Radio Networks has made an arrangement with KLOS-FM, Los Angeles to become that market’s outlet for its series of tributes to the band generally acknowledged as the greatest hard rock band of all time, Led Zeppelin In 1976, a group of MBA students at Case Western Reserve University did a market study, which verified that The Buzzard was the most recognizable logo in Greater Cleveland. The Buzzard beat out both the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo and Coca-Cola (read more - John Gorman) Maverick Media of Westport, CT has signed a long term contract for The Nielsen Company’s new radio measurement service, scheduled to launch in the U.S. in August The first annual 94.3 FM WYBC “Help Fair” will help the less fortunate get the help they need in a number of areas from 1 - 5:00 pm on Sunday Sun Radio Network
has signed a long-term advertising and affiliate representation
agreement with New York based
“Xtreme Radio with Stephen Baldwin & Kevin McCullough”
and will represent the national advertising space available in
Xtreme Radio as well as their multiplatform Newstalk 1160 in Atlanta is moving “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger back to weekdays from 1 pm- 3pm Thursday June 11, 2009 U.S. ad spending fell 14% in the 1st quarter according to TNS Media Intelligence (read more - Suzanne Vranica - Wall Street Journal) MusicFirst, the group promoting the Performance Rights Act bill, filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission late Tuesday charging that radio stations across the country are running misleading ads, dumping the music of artists who speak out for the bill and refusing to air ads stating MusicFirst's point of view (read more - Susan Whitall - Detroit News) Microsoft has introduced a search engine - Bing.com WCBS-FM (101.1) is replacing its Sunday night "Radio Greats" and top-20 countdown with a customized version of "Dick Bartley's Classic Countdown". "Radio Greats" and the top-20 countdown had been vestiges of the "old" WCBS-FM, and program director Brian Thomas says that two of the most frequently heard "radio greats," Norm N. Nite and Don K. Reed, will return "on special occasions" (read more - David Hinckley - NY Daily News) Sarah Palin lambasted late-night comedian David Letterman Wednesday for "sexually perverted comments" about one of her teenage daughters - and rebuffed his moves to make nice (read more - Michael Saul - NY Daily News) The era of analog television will come to an end Friday (read more - K. Williams Brown • Statesman Journal) IPhone mania is biting back at AT&T wth iPhone users upset that they can't purchase the new iPhone for $199. So what's the iPhone's exclusive carrier to do? (read more - Rita Chang - Ad Age) The Highway on SIRIUS channel 60 and XM channel 16 is offering listeners coverage of the annual CMA Music Festival in Nashville now through Sunday, June 14, bringing country music fans nationwide live broadcasts, special events and live concerts Arbitron numbers for Albany, Raleigh-Durham, Richmond, Greenville-New Bern, Jacksonville and Memphis (read the numbers)
News Burps This piece is about what radio will be like after Clear Channel is broken up. But first, the reason why we’re having this discussion in the first place. The investment companies of Lee Capital Partners and Bain Media made a mistake when they went through with the acquisition of Clear Channel (radio and outdoor) to the tune of about $20 billion. The banks gave them an out. Lee & Bain refused to take it. They knowingly walked down a dangerous path acquiring a company in a declining industry with a recession bearing down. I’ve asked financial analysts to try and explain to me how smart investors could do such a thing and the answer I received was - for the fees (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) The Performance Rights Act has become radio’s hottest issue in a hurry. While all sides were weighing in on the debate it was the MusicFirst Coaltion that wielded the heaviest hammer, requesting that the Federal Communications Commission “investigate and take action against radio stations for abusing their license to use the airwaves.” Do you still want the job, Julius Genachowski? (read more - Mel Phillips) Stations that offer an iPhone application to their listeners are making them happy, giving them the sense that their favorite radio station "gets it" and is providing them with the chance to listen on their favorite device. Those $99 iPhones are going to fly off the shelves - the perfect time for radio to figure it out, and make sure it has prime, branded presence on these devices (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Jay Phillpot is putting together a tribute to Radio & Records and, between now and Thursday June 25th, you can call him to record your remembrance of Radio & Records over its 36 years of service - the first time you encountered it, how you used it, what it meant to you, the features you liked best, what it taught you, your thoughts on the many talented people that put it together, war stories on getting/losing reporting status, and your experiences at one of their conventions (email Jay at Jaydio@aol.com and he will reply with the number you should call) The Conclave's next webinar topic and presenter: The 5 Universal Principles of Every Great Morning Show with Randy Lane on Wednesday June 17 at 3 pm EDT - 2 pm CDT. Conclave webinars are free, but pre-registration is necessary at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/725285792 Bid4Spots www.Bid4Spots.com today will hold its first public auction for premium cable TV airtime Leo LaPorte blew up at Mike Arrington on TechCrunch.com during a videocast (view the video - YouTube) Tom Gresham's Gun Talk has added new affiliates - KKTK AM 1400 Texarkana, Texas; KNOC AM 1450 Natchitoches Louisiana and KPEL FM 105.1 Lafayette, Louisiana Wednesday June 10, 2009 George Parthimos of Melbourne has partnered with German-based Blaupunkt to develop an Internet car radio that will later this year give drivers access to more than 35,000 radio stations across the globe (read more - Jordaine Liddy - Perth Now AU) Arbitron numbers for Austin, Baton Rouge, San Antonio and New Orleans (read the numbers) Smartphone Rises Fast From Gadget to Necessity: In today’s recession-racked economy, penny-pinching is a national pastime. But people are still opening their wallets for smartphones (read more - Steve Lohr - NY Times) Howard Stern was up to his old tricks on CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman" hurling insults at Rush Limbaugh and dishing on his derriere (read more - Joanna Sloame - NY Daily News) The Boston Globe reports today that The New York Times Co. has hired Goldman Sachs to manage a possible sale of the paper (read more - Crain's NY Biz) Local Atlanta news directors were all in one room at the Commerce Club to discuss news director Ellen Crooke of WXIA-TV's recent comments at UGA in which she said local news “sometimes stinks” (read more - Rodney Ho - Atlanta JC) David Letterman closed the gap with Conan O'Brien, tying him in week 2 (read more - Michael Starr-NY Post) Drawing comparisons between the White House and the Kremlin or between Mr. Obama’s economic philosophy and that of Karl Marx is all the rage in conservative media circles these days. Elsewhere in the cable news landscape, various Fox News anchors, including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, have been able to parlay such commie-socialist name-calling into skyrocketing ratings. But at CNN - and also at HLN (né Headline News), where Lou Dobbs Tonight repeats each weeknight - the nightly slicing and dicing of the 44th president’s economic policies has done little to beef up Mr. Dobbs’ ratings. Instead, Mr. Dobbs’ audience seems to be in decay (read more - Felix Gillette - NY Observer) The last time I saw David Carradine, he was puffing on a cigarette and suggesting we go out and find a bar. A bit unusual, given that we were in a radio studio and it wasn't yet noon. I was doing a guest bit on Erich "Mancow" Muller's show. This was before Mancow signed on with WLS-AM. He was doing a syndicated show from a studio in the Loop (read more - Richard Roeper - Chicago Sun-Times) Three prominent fixtures at newstalk giant KGO were fired, including longtime weatherman, Leo Ciolino, news director Paul Hosley and Executive producer, Trish Robbins (read more - Rich Lieberman - SF Chronicle) David Letterman's company to extend deal with CBS through 2012 (read more - NY Daily News) A new report due out Wednesday from the Community Media Workshop, commissioned by the Chicago Community Trust with $25,000 of a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, attempts to look at alternative news sources (read more - Phil Rosenthal - Chicago Tribune) KERA Dallas-Fort Worth is launching a second public radio station that will broadcast music after KERA's board of directors agreed to pay $18 million dollars to Covenant Educational Media for the licensing and transmission properties of 91.7, which currently airs religious programming (read more - KERA) Hit Parade Radio
was launched as a weekend feature on the
Music of Your Life
network to current affiliates and listeners. President and CEO
Mark Angell says, “Weʼll be
launching Hit Parade Radio as a syndicated, 24/7 format for the July
4th weekend with a major entertainer to be announced as
News Burps Radio Parties adds Clear Channel's KISS 106.1 in Seattle and CBS's Mix 96.1 in Houston as the latest to join the over 50 radio stations nationwide who have utilized this free source of promotional support John Rohm becomes president/market manager of Clear Channel’s six-station Philadelphia cluster. Rohm will continue to manage the company’s Pittsburgh radio stations while adding Philadelphia Washington DC’s rock station HFS is returning to the Capitol area today, when it will be launched on 94.7 HD2 - Live on-line and mobile streaming will be available at www.hfs2.com in the coming weeks There is growing evidence that radio consolidators are moving to expand virtual voice tracking as a way of continuing to cut costs. Voice tracking, of course, is the process of using one voice to record many pieces of content to make radio sound live. Once the weather forecast says “sunny – get out and enjoy the day” during a tornado (as reported to you a few weeks back), the cat is out of the bag. And when the content is so vapid that only a misguided radio CEO can like it, listeners usually figure it out (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) Well, there's no radio in the new iPhone. And some folks argue that's because listeners don't want one there. Interestingly, pretty much all the research indicates this is wrong. People DO want radios in their iPhones and iPods. So why doesn't Apple drop an FM chip in? And why do phones or mp3 players which do contain radios generally sell no better because of them? (read more - Mark Ramsey - Hear 2.0) When a full, five-member commission is finally in place, they better get ready to hit the ground running. The FCC has extended the deadline (to August 10) for pending waiver applications, amendments and renewal applications related to its newspaper-broadcast crossownership rules filed by a number of broadcasters (read more - Mel Phillips) It’s my retort to those who would rather be lucky than good. The problem with luck is that it eventually runs out. Just ask Sam Zell (read more - John Gorman) Sports fans, especially NBA fans, could be in for a long overdue challenge to telecast regulations if things work out between the Boston Celtics and Comcast. The Boston Herald has reported that the team is talking about having its games streamed live and "free" for next season. The Celtics see the advantage of online telecasts being the interactive possibilities for the fans which are not available from TV (read more - Dave Kohl) Tuesday June 9, 2009 The Nielsen Company reports that U.S. advertising for the first quarter 2009 was down 12% compared to the first quarter 2008. Preliminary figures show that U.S. ad expenditures declined $3.8 billion to a total spend of $27.9 billion in the first quarter (read more - Nielsen) KXRQ-FM radio hosts won't be on the air until Thursday when they will address their transgender issues controversy: Rob Williams and Arnie States plan to apologize during Thursday's show - On the day in question, two of the show's three hosts, Rob Williams and Arnie States, spent approximately thirty minutes of the segment berating transgender children as "idiots," "freaks," and "freaks of nature," who were "just out for attention." They compared the children to "fat bastard kids on Maury" who just needed to be put in their places with verbal abuse and even physical punishment if necessary - At least ten national companies have withdrawn, cancelled, or decided not to renew their advertising contracts with KRXQ. They include Chipotle restaurants, the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, SONIC, Verizon, the Carl's Jr. restaurant chain, Wells Fargo, Nissan, AT&T, and McDonalds - On October 15th 2004, the FCC released its findings in an obscenity complaint brought against KRXQ and fined KRXQ $55,000 (read more - San Diego Mercury News) (read more - Michael Rowe - Huffington Post) (read more - Bill Lindelof - Sacramento Bee) Apple introduced the iPhone 3GS Monday and dropped the price on the 3G to $99 (read more - Ed Burnette - ZDnet) (read more - Jefferson Graham - USA Today) (read more - Sascha Segan - NY Daily News) (read more - Brad Stone and Jenna Wortham - NY Times) Sam Zell could lose control of Tribune Co to a group of banks and investors that holds $8.6 billion in senior debt (read more - Michael Oneal - Chicago Tribune) (read more - Josh Kosman - NY Post) Arbitron numbers for Kansas City, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Honolulu, Huntsville and Birmingham (read the numbers) A pair of right-wing radio hosts (Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt) says there's only one choice for conservatives angry about government involvement in the auto industry: Boycott GM (read more - Gordon Trowbridge - Detroit News) Several years after Knoxville radio station 100.3 The River went off the air taking its popular morning show, Phil and Murphy, with it, it's back. Sort of (read more-view the video - Tonja Burk - WBIR TV)
News Burps Creativity Weekly's Top 5 ads (view 'em - Ad Age) Elizabeth Kay has joined the WMYX-FM (99.1) morning show, taking the chair vacated by last month's axing of Jane Matenaer - WRIT-FM (95.7) has launched an oldies format with the old "Mighty 92" nickname on WRIT HD-2 (read more - Tim Cuprisin - Milwaukee JS) The radio industry wants FM capability on the iPhone - not consumers. Young consumers are even more adamant. Where smart phones have been built with radio access, they have, frankly, laid an egg. You know this, but radio CEOs don’t seem to be getting the message. The iPhone is not a radio. People don’t listen to their phones like media executives listened to Walkman devices and transistor radios before that (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) Thanks to Sam Zell, who bought a controlling interest in the Tribune Co. in 2007, the newspaper/media group is a disaster. They are in worse shape than the banks that will inherit the company, those same banks that were bailed out by the government. How low can you go? A bankruptcy reorganization plan, already underway will save the company but Zell is not likely to survive and you can take that to the bank (read more - Mel Phillips) Blogger and radio host Hal Turner will surrender to Connecticut authorities on Thursday to face charges of inciting violence against two lawmakers there after waiving an extradition hearing today (read more - Matthew Van Dusen - North New Jersey) Hormel launches a radio TV ad blitz for Spam (listen - NPR Morning Edition) From Jimmy Rabbitt
-- “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’
On” entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart on this
Much of what has transpired during the past couple of years runs counter to so much of the conventional wisdom that we were all taught back in college or broadcast school. Today, ratings don't necessarily translate directly to revenue. And some very strong personalities find themselves out of work, despite having great track records. And if you are still employed, the question revolves around what are the best steps you can take to ensure some semblance of stability? (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Sarah Palin said "we told ya so" to President Obama on Monday night, claiming his spending polices to revive the economy were leading America to socialism during an interview with Sean Hannity in a Fox News interview - In GQ magazine's July issue, Levi Johnston said First Dude Todd Palin, the governor's husband, offered to buy his daughter Bristol a new car if she would dump him (read more - Leo Standora - NY Daily News) (read more - Michael Saul - NY Daily News) A letter has been sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi by the National Association of Media Brokers (NAMB) about the Performance Royalty legislation (read the letter) It may be the first Conclave webinar expressly dedicated to radio DJs. Consultant Fred Jacobs, CEO of Jacobs Media, will walk participants through the steps they can take to regain control of their career and brand July 16-18 in Minneapolis Paul Oscar Anderson has died. He worked for radio stations across the country including Knoxville stations WEZK, WNOX and WKGN (read more - Robby O'Daniel - Knoxville News Sentinel) Clear Channel says John Partilla will lead national business development across the company's radio and outdoor businesses (read more - Business Week) Time Warner has named Mark D'Arcy to succeed John Partilla (read more - Crain's NY Biz) Monday June 8, 2009 North Korea has sentenced US journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee who were working for the Current TV channel to 12 years in in labor prison (read more - Washington Post) An appeals court has rebuked a bid to stop the FCC from protecting Low Power FM stations from big station signal interference. The next step is getting Congress to green light an expansion of the service (read more - Matthew Lasar - Ars Technica) Music + Ads: Advertising Is the New Radio (read more - Rachel Barnhard and Jack Rutledge - AdWeek) Internet TV: Is it the wave of the future? Scott Shamp recently broached an unprecedented subject with his family - whether or not to cut cable TV from their home entertainment options as a way to reduce expenses (read more - Don Nelson - Athens Banner-Herald) Stephen Colbert has shaved his head for US troops during a trip to Iraq (read more - NY Post) The Internet gives pirate radio the last laugh (read more - Paul Marks - New Scientist)
News Burps The final Broadcast Pioneers luncheon of the season will salute the late Harry Kalas, Wednesday, June 17 (read more - Laura Nachman) Bank of America, Verizon, Chipotle and other companies have pulled advertising from a Sacramento radio station after KRXQ's "Rob, Arnie & Dawn" referred to transgender people as "freaks" with mental disorders (read more - Yahoo AP) From Tommy Kramer
-- I spend a lot of time
coaching Air Talent in storytelling. As Paul Harvey best
illustrated, most good radio is about STORIES, no matter how short.
And thinking of Content in Angelina Jolie dethrones Oprah as world's top celebrity (read more - Matthew Miller, Dorothy Pomerantz and Lacey Rose - National Post CA) From Claude Hall
-- I go back a heap of
distance with with Gary Allyn
and also with Radio and
Records, a magazine founded by
a radio program director named
Bob Wilson.
I would give them a
Clear Channel Radio today announced record audience levels for its digital properties; a host of improvements to its online platform; and more exclusive online and mobile programming (read more - Business Wire) Think about it. Services used to be a main component of morning radio - traffic, weather, news, school closings, etc. Most morning talent will tell you that there was a reason they saved their “a” material for the 7 o’clock hour. There was so much else to do while the largest audience was waking up. Today, a Blackberry or iPhone can get you a forecast from your pocket whenever you wake up. Traffic services abound. Satellite radio has traffic channels. Auto manufacturers got into the service business with OnStar and similar products. News? (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) By now, you’ve heard the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) claiming a major victory over the performance royalty tax. Last week, the NAB, evidently still haunted by the ghost of David Rehr, congratulated itself for collecting 220 signatures from House members. What the NAB didn’t tell anyone was that those signatures are non-binding and those that signed are not obligated to support radio’s cause. What the NAB did do was provide the RIAA with a list of those who need to be swayed to their side (read more - John Gorman) The court claims the NAB’s “contention that the presumption in favor of LPFM weakens protections for full-power stations is unavailing given the narrow scope of the Preservation Act’s restriction on the commissioner’s authority.” And what is the Preservation Act any way, you may be asking yourself? (read more - Mel Phillips) I know that's how many of you are feeling about the decision to shutter R&R last week. While Nielsen Business Media had to make a tough business decision (one of many difficult ones that have already happened this year), the bottom line is that many radio and records professionals lost the opportunity to hear some final words from the folks they've been reading for years inside the pages of R&R (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Clear Channel has chosen the Adobe Flash Platform for its digital audio and video solution (read more - Business Wire) WND and Radio America, the talk and news syndicator that carries G. Gordon Liddy and Roger Hedgecock, are launching a video-audio joint venture that promises to bring the public new choices in news, commentary, satire and soon live audio and video streaming (read more - WND) In the mid-'70s Norman Lear had seven hit shows on the air: "Sanford & Son," "Maude," "Good Times," "The Jeffersons," "One Day at a Time," and the late night soap opera spoof, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman." He was probably the hardest working man in show business, running from one taping to the next. He even did the warm-up acts. It paid off. Some weeks four of the top-five shows were Lear's (read more - Bill Whitaker - CBS News) Jeff Davis is offering "The Thought Zone" to stations - 60 second commentaries this week include "A CONVOLUTION OF TERMS" points out that evil is cloaked in words that are their polar opposite. "MELTING POT" ties together three distinctly American institutions that were born out of different ethnicities. "BOHICA" With taxes and tax proposals coming at us like incoming rockets, the military acronym fits. "THE LIZARD AND THE FROG" attacks the influence of a type of pseudo social enlightenment in the '60's created a tolerance for socialism. "NO COUNTRY FOR OLD (WHITE) MEN" discusses the reasons suicide most often occurs in older white men (read more - hear the demos - www.TheThoughtZone.com) Is your TV ready for the digital conversion on Friday? (read more - Indy Star) Chuck LaMendola only planned on filling in for a couple of years before TCU figured out a permanent plan for baseball radio play-by-play in 1997. The instructor of Television, Radio, Film and Digital Media at TCU never left the booth and is in his 13th season as the voice of Horned Frogs’ baseball on KTCU 88.7 FM (read more - Stefan Steven - Star-Telegram) How BBC radio reported D-Day: The BBC's Vincent Dowd has been to the beaches of Normandy to retrace the steps of those early war reporters (read more - hear the audio - BBC U.K.) TV news anchors and movie stars' makeup artists find tricks to fool HD television (read more - Springfield News-Leader) Lyle Dean - “the Dean of Chicago Newsmen” - will be joining Hit Parade Radio as news director when it debuts in September The Television Critics Association award nominees have been announced (read more - Reuters) Arbitron numbers for Columbus, OH; Colorado Springs and Denver (read the numbers) Friday June 5, 2009 WRKO radio host Tom Finneran blurted “bull(expletive)” while on the air the other morning - “Take your banjo and shove it up your ass, Cooksey,” Finneran fumed at his producer, Bill - “Why are you so defensive and sensitive about this?” laughed his co-host, Todd Feinburg (read more - Jessica Heslam - Boston Herald) The Armenian Council of America was the latest critic to voice displeasure over comments made on Bill Handel’s KFI morning radio show in which he and his co-hosts, in a sarcastic bite at curing a stressed health-care system, suggested selling off Glendale as a way to “get rid of all the Armenians.” Italian and Irish immigrants were also roped into what KFI AM 460 Program Director Robin Bertolucci called a “crazy over-the-top parody” (read more - Jason Wells - Glendale News Press) Former KFI-AM talker John Ziegler says he is ready to "stir things up a bit" on his new weekday 11 a.m.-1 p.m. program starting Monday (June 8) on KGIL 1260 and 540 AM and streamed live at www.1260.am + Glenn Beck, along with Rush Limbaugh (KFI/640 AM), and Howard Stern (Sirius XM), made this year's Forbes "Celebrity 100" list of top earners (read more - Gary Lycan - OC Register) Arbitron numbers for West Palm Beach, Gainesville-Ocala, Orlando and Charlotte-Gastonia (read the numbers) Rush Limbaugh "cuts loose" exclusively on the Sean Hannity show saying, "If al Qaeda wants to demolish the America we know and love, they better hurry, because Obama's beating them to it" (view the video - Hannity.com) Massachusetts
Gov. Deval Patrick
says he is "disappointed" WTKK
FM Boston reinstated
Jay Severin
who called Mexicans "criminaliens" and other derogatory terms amid
the swine flu New Arbitron radio ratings are due out this weekend, but a closer look at the rankings that came out in early May shows that Clear Channel is the predominant radio station company in the Salt Lake market (read more - Lynn Arave - Deseret News) Radio legislation ignites royalties battle: Pay-to-play act could threaten religious, minority radio stations (read more - Deborah Simmons and Lyndia Grant - Washington Times) Is the new Sprint Palm Pre better than Apple's iPhone? (take a look - Sprint) Shelly Dennis, also known as Shelly Martinez, WCTY's morning disc jockey, addressed a Norwich CT Superior Court judge, a courtroom full of spectators and the young man who nearly killed her while driving drunk two years ago who will go to prison for 2 years (read more - Karen Florin - The Day) There is something striking about a president's first speech to the Muslim world and chatter about allegedly unfaithful reality-show spouses both being elements on a news program. It reflects, I suppose, our Web-surfing mentality, as we skip from Sonia Sotomayor to "Angelina Named World's Most Powerful Celebrity," from GM's bankruptcy to "Mom Accused of Duct-Taping Daughter's Boyfriend" (read more - Howard Kurtz - Washington Post Media Notes) He has one of the most recognizable voices in the Coastal Empire. Often using it over the airwaves to champion community causes- like last year’s “radio-thon” to save the West Broad Street YMCA and a campaign to raise money for victims of Portwentworth’s Sugar Refinery explosion. Now, Gary Young is fighting for a new cause - his own. Kidney disease has forced him to step away from a career he’s known for nearly 35 years (read more - Kim Gusby - WSAV TV 3) An intruder who smashed his way into Galaxy FM radio station before broadcasting obscenities on air was found not guilty of burglary by reason of insanity after a judge heard he believed Barack Obama was sending him orders (read more - The Telegraph U.K.) A man who killed Seattle KIRO adio show host Mike Webb with an ax has pleaded guilty in an agreement with King County prosecutors (read more - Seattle Times)
News Burps No matter how bad it gets, radio consolidators are going to continue to "fix it" their way. Cutbacks. Firings. Less local programming. No Internet or mobile strategy. The usual. It's way past trying to operate the stations. Now, owners just want to cut their losses. That can be the only explanation for an industry where all the major consolidators -- led by, but not limited to Clear Channel, Citadel and Cumulus -- have given up on doing the right thing and opted for doing the cheap thing (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) Car Guy Show co-host Jerry Reynolds is recovering after appendix surgery reports partner Kevin McCarthy (visit the Car Guy Show) Since weathercasters have an accuracy problem beyond a four-day forecast, we’ll stick to BIA Advisory Services for the radio revenue forecast for the rest of the year. Accordingly, look for a decline of 15 (%) percent from 2008 or a total take of $14 billion for this year (read more - Mel Phillips) There will be no shortage of news regarding radio. There will be no shortage of news outlets. There will be no shortage of news reporters. There will be opportunities anew for fresh and profitable sources for all of the services we have come to expect from R&R. R&R's function has not ceased - nor has the ability of their talented cast to perform it. Only the newspaper and its website are gone. R&R is dead - long live what R&R will spawn (read more - Mark Ramsey - Hear 2.0) Are major sports organizations missing the boat when it comes to promoting their elite athletes? By snubbing their "true teams" - collections of great players (like the Orlando Magic or Detroit Red Wings who lack marketable stars) who somehow come together to vie for and win championships - are they sending out the wrong message to fans? (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) I was having breakfast the other day with Joyce Kaufman a very popular talk show host on WFTL in Ft. Lauderdale, that I work with. She brought along her good friend Dion, yeah that Dion, the Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer. Can you even imagine what a great thrill it was for me to exchange old band stories with him. Hey he knew Buddy Holly man (read more - George Johns) Canada will not regulate online broadcasters (read more - Reuters) Clear Channel Radio New York appointed Robert McCuin to Director of Sales to oversee the day-to-day sales operation of the Clear Channel New York on-air and online cluster, including market leading brands Z100, Q104.3, 103.5 KTU, Power 105.1, and 106.7 Lite fm, in addition to the Total Traffic Network A morning radio team for Charlotte’s Power 98 took part in a 28-hour-long effort to help a homeless shelter this week. The Morning Madhouse show is spending the time encouraging the public to donate to the Center of Hope (read more - view the video - News 14 TV) Thursday June 4, 2009
Radio & Records
shut down its Web site Wednesday
citing the current economic climate as the Lambasted by critics for belittling children who expressed transgender feelings, local radio host Arnie States said Wednesday that he didn't do anything wrong. In a show that aired last week, States and his co-hosts included a segment calling transgender people freaks. A gay rights media watchdog group is demanding an apology for remarks aired during a radio segment on transgender kids broadcast on Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning on Sacramento's KRXQ radio station. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said the radio segment promoted “child abuse” in an email alert (read more - Carlos Alcalá - Sacramento Bee) (read more - On Top) Radio host Hal Turner - accused of hosting a website that incited Connecticut Catholics to "take up arms" and singling out two Connecticut lawmakers and a state ethics official - was taken into custody in New Jersey after state Capitol police obtained an arrest warrant for him (read more - Daniela Altimari - Hartford Courant) Die hard fans of the Kathy and Judy show took their cause to the streets Wednesday. The duo's radio show was canceled last month after 20 years on WGN radio, drawing immediate protests (read more - view the video - NBC 5 Chicago) Air America Media www.airamerica.com will begin airing progressive talk programming on radio 1050 AM later this month through a local marketing agreement (LMA) reached with Bonneville International Corporation. The LMA will enable Air America to broadcast its independent political voice, featuring such talent as Rachel Maddow, Montel Williams, Lionel, Ron Reagan and others throughout the national capital region. Air America will manage programming, marketing, and sales operations for the facility Dan McNeil, considered by many observers to be one of Chicago’s and the nation’s best radio sports talkers, is returning to CBS Radio’s sports/talk WSCR-AM 670 Starting June 15 (read more - Lewis Lazare - Chicago Sun-Times)
News Burps ESPN Radio has agreed to a multi-year subscription to Nielsen’s radio measurement in 51 markets, joining previously announced clients Cumulus Radio and Clear Channel Radio Microsoft wants its upcoming Zune HD to go head to head with the iPod Touch. Is that really plausible? (read more - Don Reisinger - CNet News) (Rick and Bubba) Rick Burgess and Bill “Bubba” Bussey's book Rick & Bubba’s Guide to the Almost Nearly Perfect Marriage hit #3 on the overall Amazon.com rankings in its first day of national release A majority of US House opposed to new performers royalty for radio airplay (read more - Minneapolis Star-Tribune) Earthworks Entertainment’s Hit Parade Radio 24/7 Oldies Radio Format (scheduled to debut in September) has signed an agreement with veteran oldies programmer Chuck Brinkman, formerly with KLUV-FM in Dallas-Fort Worth Arbitron numbers for Tampa-St Petersburg, Buffalo-Niagara and Falls Shreveport (read the numbers) Nielsen
bought R&R
from Perry Partners a few years ago. The paper has been sold several
times in its history but R&R has always been blessed with great
managers, editors and employees. It was a publication about good
will toward the radio and music industries.
Beyond losing another great asset, the demise of
Radio & Records,
which took its website down immediately after yesterday's
announcement and will publish no further issues, is a very
meaningful commentary on the plight of both industries. The original
founder, Bob Wilson, was a genius. He knew program directors and
made the publication something expressly for them. Up until that
point you could read Billboard's radio section but that amounted to
Claude Hall, also a very able communicator. But Hall's column Vox
Jox was Billboard. The rest was for the labels and rack jobbers --
you get the point
(read more - Jerry Del Colliano Inside Music Media) They should have renamed it Downloads and Streaming. Maybe it would’ve had a fighting chance. On line. Let’s remember Radio & Records for its many achievements. It was the publication for both the radio and record industries. Nothing was more imperative to the record labels than an add and chart position on top 40 radio. The format played its currents in high rotation and sold product (read more - John Gorman - Gorman Media) For us at Jacobs Media, this is personal. We have had a great relationship with R&R going back decades. Many at R&R, from Erica Farber to Cyndee Maxwell to Mike Stern and Mike Boyle to Paul Heine, have become friends and colleagues. And going back over the years, we've shared some good times and a few challenging moments with AOR editors like Jeff Gelb, Steve Feinstein, Harvey Kojan, and Ken Anthony. And of course, our friend Max Tolkoff, who helped transition our "Alternative Summit" from an intimate Gavin gathering to the successful event that it has become over the past decade (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) The Local Radio Freedom Act or Anti-Performance Rights Act, if you prefer, now has signatures from 220 members of the House, enough for a majority, enough to kill the APRA - but will it? (read more - Mel Phillips) At the root of this "war" between radio and records has been this absurd notion that radio airplay does not contribute to sales or to the overall benefit of artists. The "Going for the Gold" campaign that we instituted a couple months back was a powerful and visual statement to the contrary (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) Cher and the Sonny Bono heirs sue Universal Music over royalties (read more - Matthew Belloni - Reuters) The BBC is still being too secretive over how much it pays its radio stars, a report from a senior group of MPs has said (read more - Ananova U.K.) At approximately 4:15 pm on June 1st, Co-Authors TJ Walker & Jess Todtfeld broke the Guinness World Record for the "Most Radio Talk Show Interviews Within a 24 Hour Period" surpassing the previous record of 72 (read more - PR Web) DirecTV CEO Chase Carey tapped to become deputy chairman, president and chief operating officer at the media conglomerate News Corp. (read more - Crain's NY Biz) Wednesday June 3, 2009 Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly is receiving a heap of national media criticism for comments he made about Dr. George Tiller in the years before his death (read more - Crain's NY Biz) (read more - Howard Kurtz - Washington Post) Q104.3 DJ Carol Miller looks back on WNEW classic rock demise (read more - David Hinckley - NY Daily News) Congressman John
Conyers held a "Town Hall Meeting" at Wayne State University Law
School in
Arbitron numbers for Pittsburgh, St Louis, Cincinnati and Tucson (read the numbers)
News Burps Nearly twice the usual "Tonight Show" audience tuned in to NBC to watch Conan O'Brien's skit-filled debut on Monday (read more - Maxine Shen - NY Post) Are We a Bunch of Twitter Snobs? (read more - Nat Ives - Ad Age) Personal computer manufacturers and software makers hope to do more with touch screens on larger devices by giving people a 10-fingered go at their screens (read more - Ashlee Vance - NY Times) Just because satellite radio's business model is having a hard time finding profitability doesn't mean that paid terrestrial radio content can't be viable. This space is all about ideas and one that I'd like you to consider is the possibility of offering radio content -- or streaming/podcasting content -- for a price. There is precedent for this micro payment approach. It is called Apple apps (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media) Six months into the new Obama administration and we still don’t have a new FCC but there are finally signs that a new agency is starting to shape up. With the president about to renominate Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell for a five-year term and a senate confirmation hearing for proposed new chair Julius Genachowski likely to happen this month, there is hope that we will finally get a new FCC (read more - Mel Phillips) A recent creative advertising roundtable, co-sponsored by the RAB and the VCU Brandcenter produced some revealing - if not depressing - takeaways about why radio is positioned as a second-class citizen in the media world - A takeaway? The quality of radio advertising sucks. Crispin's Bill Wright notes that "Even when you do a good radio spot, it's still the best-looking house in a bad neighborhood" (read more - Fred Jacobs - Jacobs Media) From Jimmy Rabbitt
-- Ray Charles' "I Can't Stop Loving You" sat on top of the
Billboard Hot 100 this
Broadcast Architecture's “Smooth Jazz Weekend with Allen Kepler” debuts in four U.S. markets: on KISQ-FM/San Francisco; KODA-FM/Houston, WLQT/Dayton, and WVLY/Sunbury, PA Envision Radio Networks and 4C Studios celebrate 4th of July Weekend with a free two-hour radio special from The Rockin’ 70’s that celebrates our bicentennial year all over again with great rock tunes and various sounds from 1976 Jeff Davis is the imaging voice of San Antonio's new FM Talk 106.7 (More RDN CENTRAL ARCHIVES - Click here)
|
Martin’s, can be heard at one point.
The recording was played Monday
during a two-hour hearing to suppress the
authors in
history to hit #1 on the New York Times fiction, non-fiction and
paperback original bestseller lists
(Photo:
Glenn Beck's cardboard cut-out poses with News Director Paul
Birmingham, Morning Host Jim Parisi, (Glenn Beck), Bob Lee and KNST
Program Director Josh Leng as they welcome the real "live" Glenn
Beck to the 790 KNST Tucson airwaves)
Rome kiss up to one more athlete isn’t very appealing
from this corner. Romie, “You used to be cool.”
Now, I have a seemingly endless
variety of choices at my fingertips.
Sporting News Radio, Sirius NASCAR
Radio, Sirius NFL Radio, Mad Dog Radio and ESPN Radio
more than fill my need for sports
show Monday to talk
with his producer, John Turk,
who has been filling in for him the last week
and said "It seems to be getting better every day"
of
Fame
functions
Reinventing traditional
broadcasting by empowering listeners to interact in a dynamic web
experience, the Jelli community chooses in real-time what should
play next – not just over an Internet stream, but also on the actual
airwaves - LIVE 105,
a CBS RADIO-owned alternative rock station based in
San Francisco (105.3 FM KITS),
will debut Jelli on Sunday, June 28 during the station’s
10:00PM-12:00 Midnight programming block. Jelli is live today with
an online streaming version at 
WOFX (980 AM), he is
The Big Man,
Kenneth Michael Place, as delivered every morning without fail by
host Rodger Wyland
reason - More than 40
employees have lost their jobs - The last printed issue will be
dated June 5
Detroit
on Tuesday, June 2 to discuss his sponsorship of a bill that
would levy a performance tax
on local radio ( H.R. 848).
Greater Media Detroit
stations WRIF-FM, WCSX-FM and
WMGC-FM joined forces with
fellow broadcasters and local radio supporters at the meeting