Paul Rotella

Radio Performance Tax does more harm than good

Support for the Local Radio Freedom Act continues to be strong in the House and the Senate. Currently, more than 186 members of the House are on record in opposition to a performance tax. However, the NJBA is convinced that a stealth attack on free over-the-air-radio is very possible. In New Jersey, Local radio is very important and the prospect of a Performance Tax is akin to a Death Tax for broadcasters.
Bob McCurdy

The data vacuum that exists no longer

There’s been an open debate within the Streaming Audio, Advertising and Radio community for

NASBA gets down to business in DC

At the National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations (NASBA) meetings on 2/24, RBR-TVBR
Paul Rotella

EAS Summit and PEP stations

At the annual NASBA conference in DC 2/24, there was an EAS Summit to go over some of the big issues broadcasters are facing on a state-wide and nationwide basis. Under laws going back to 1951, radio and television stations are already required to participate in the national Emergency Alert System and many stations – called Primary Entry Points (PEP) – have protected, government‐funded circuits connecting them to emergency command centers in Washington and in their states.

State and local Public Notice Requirements are antiquated laws

As we experience here in Tennessee every day and for the past

Membership in BEA a wise investment for broadcasters

In this world of acronyms that we find ourselves living in, BEA (Broadcast Education Association) is one acronym broadcasters would be wise to become better acquainted with or, better yet, become a corporate associate member of.I’m honored to hold one of the two “Professional Representative”- designated seats on BEA’s board of directors (Christine H. Merritt, my esteemed colleague and President of the Ohio Association of Broadcasters, holds the other in her capacity as the Executive Committee’s “Vice-President for Industry Relations.”) Appreciatively, the BEA provides each of the NASBA-member state broadcasters association a complimentary associate membership in the BEA. Just yesterday, Ms. Merritt and I had the privilege of providing a BEA update at NASBA’s semi-annual meeting in Washington, DC, tasked with the responsibility of reminding each SAE (what do you know, another acronym, this time referencing State Association Executive) the tremendous value that BEA’s complimentary membership provides each of our associations, placing a wealth of resources and opportunities at our fingertips.

News from NASBA

The State Leadership Conferences (SLC) for numerous state broadcaster associations are held in conjunction with the annual National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations (NASBA) conference in DC. It’s a great opportunity for broadcasters and State Broadcaster Association execs to gather in our nation’s capital and share ideas and formulate solutions to the many pressing regulatory and legislative challenges facing the broadcast industry. They include:
Paul Rotella

Public Education Partnership (PEP) Program

The New Jersey Public Education Partnership (PEP) Program offers government agencies the opportunity

Radio’s mobile future

In the mid-1950s, the transistor revolutionized radio. Gone were the “portable” tube radios with bulky, expensive batteries

Viewers deserve “freedom” from outdated TV regulations

After years of subjecting viewers to TV blackouts and reaping escalating profits
John Pelkey

Acting in Earnest

The situation has become an all too familiar one. The station has been on the market for the last five years. Few offers have come in and none of those could be thought of as being remotely attractive or credible. In some cases, the proposed purchase price was laughably low. In other cases, the purchase price was attractive, but the buyer’s financing was suspect. The buyer even wanted the seller to finance a large portion of the deal by issuing seller paper. Finally, however, the seller receives an attractive offer. The proposed purchase price is a good one. The buyer supposedly has its financing in place. Nevertheless, the seller has a lingering doubt about the buyer. The buyer has no track record of closing broadcast deals. In fact, the buyer – having made most of its money in real estate transactions – is new to the broadcast industry. Given the length of time that the station has been on the market and the attractiveness of the proposed purchase price, however, the seller wants to explore the opportunity and see if the buyer’s proposal is for real.

Broadcasters and Notice Ads

Several state broadcast associations have made forays into law changes that would permit a more flexible and robust method of publishing notice ads. Our proposed model in Maine called for a centralized statewide website run by an independent third party, with rates deeply discounted from print-ad rates (no overhead or circulation costs, remember) to save some of the taxpayers’ hard-earned, and with a daily “snapshot” of site content delivered to the state archives as proof of publication. It also called for a widespread, ongoing mass media campaign (think radio and TV ads) to create awareness and drive people to the website. Unfortunately, despite support from our Governor, the idea ran up against the press juggernaut and was ultimately unsuccessful.
CRE / Council for Research Excellence

TV viewers are looking at the smartphone, so are audience researchers

A mobile-TV viewer pays closer attention when viewing video on a smartphone as opposed to a larger device. This may not surprise you. What may surprise you is just how much we have been able to learn about the attention the viewer pays to that smartphone.

Technologies from CES to improve TV audience measurement

I attended CES recently with 150,000+ others including an estimated

Research shows which TV ads are likely to make multitaskers buy

Over the last few years, consumers have increased, not decreased, the time they spend watching television content. This might sound like good news for advertisers, save for two important caveats. First, while attention time dedicated to TV content has been rising, this is not the case for people actually paying attention to the ads on the screen. Second, when consumers are watching TV they are increasingly dividing their attention between the TV set and other devices, particularly tablets and other mobile devices. A 2011 Nielsen Co. survey showed that as much as 40% of time watching TV is spent on such media multitasking activities, and it’s likely that this behavior has accelerated over the past three years. While many advertisers are rightly nervous about multitasking, there could be new opportunities to benefit from this trend. My recent working paper with researchers Jura Liaukonyte and Kenneth Wilbur tries to pinpoint what, exactly, these benefits might be – and how they can be achieved.