XM Satellite Radio announced a settlement with EMI, the last of the four major record labels which had sued over XM's Inno receiver with recording features. The remaining plaintiffs are music publishers and a few indie labels.

RBR observation: We may have had lots of disagreements with the satellite radio companies over the years, but this is one case where we took XM's side and warned AM and FM broadcasters that they face the same threat from the greedy record labels. The labels have latched onto the idea that "digital changes everything" - which is bogus - and have tried every which way in the courts and on Capitol Hill to use digital broadcasting as an excuse to pick the pockets of broadcasters. That's true of satellite radio, online radio and HD Radio.

More XM fun
The Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio Watchdog (C3SR), which observers say have more in common with business interests than consumers, has filed comments on the proposed XM/Sirius merger. They suggest that the failure of the two to come up with the interoperable receivers mandated in their charters was a deliberate act to restrain fair competition, that therefore their respective gains are ill-gotten and that they held accountable via forfeitures likely in excess of $250M.

First PPM data from the City of Angels
Radio's daily reach is more than four times larger than the combined circulations of LA's twelve largest newspapers, according to the first data from Arbitron from its pre-launch Portable People Meter (PPM) panel is Los Angeles. Preliminary electronic measurement results from PPM in LA reveals that more than 9.2 million people age six and older heard radio for five or more minutes during an average weekday (Monday-Friday 6am-Midnight) in April.

ESPN chief pushing
multiple platforms
Television is still the big growth driver, but ESPN President George Bodenheimer told the Deutsche Bank 2008 Media and Telecommunications Conference that his company is focused on integrated marketing for its advertising partners. If they want to be affiliated with the ESPN brand, he asked, "why just buy television," noting that ESPN also has strong brands in radio, online and in other new media platforms. Saying he was bullish on the Disney-owned company's growth, Bodenheimer said "we're peddling as fast as we can on every business that serves sports fans." Sister network ABC has wrapped up its successful upfront and, while he didn't offer any revenue predictions for ESPN, Bodenheimer said the ABC success with advertisers in the upfront "bodes well for us."

* Kathy Crawford, MindShare's President of Local Broadcast
* Janice Finkel-Greene, Initiative Media EVP of Local Broadcast &
EVP/Director Futures & Technology
* Pierre Bouvard, President, Sales & Marketing, for Arbitron
* Bob Neil, President & CEO of Cox Radio
* Jim Carnegie, Publisher RBR & TVBR
* Jack Messmer, Executive Editor, RBR & TVBR
* Carl Marcucci, Managing Director & Senior Editor, RBR & TVBR

Sales and Marketing
Talk radio: the real revenue generator
By Mark Masters (archived from 6/07)
Here's some interesting data on just how powerful the talk radio medium is as a revenue generator-it's mind blowing stuff. A while back, I had my staff analyze America's top 20 rated markets, and compared the ratings rank of music stations and talk stations vs. the revenue rank of music and talk stations. The chart, on pg.14, shows that when comparing the logic of Program Directors (Arbitron) to the logic of General Managers (Miller Kaplan or BIA, in the attachment's case, we used BIA) News or News/Talk stations out-billed music stations in 16 of the top 20 rated markets - and get this, the News/News Talk stations out-billed music stations that were usually 5 to 10 ratings ranks above the News/News Talk stations.

CBS Radio Stations Integrated Into AOL Radio

New streaming and Internet consulting service launches
After nearly two years of research and development RadioStreamHost.com, a service of Broadcast Matrix LLC, has officially launched. The company offers custom internet solutions and digital strategy consulting for broadcasters. "Radio stations need innovative ways to leverage and profit from the internet. We find solutions, develop strategies and provide the tools they need while finding them ways to lower costs." according to Broadcast Matrix President & Founder Ron Erak.

Disney to stream movies after ABC airing
People who miss the "Wonderful World of Disney" on ABC this summer can still see the full-length movies - and they won't even need a DVR. Disney announced that it will, for the first time, stream entire movies on Disney.com, with free streaming Monday-Friday following the Saturday airing on ABC.

RBR observation: We've certainly made use of ABC's streaming site for viewing episodes of shows that we weren't able to watch at their regularly scheduled broadcast time. Streaming full movies makes sense as well. After all, this is streaming, not downloading. Also, these are flicks that are not fresh from the theater screens. The streaming helps build the Disney brand, just as the "Wonderful World of Disney" does.

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hear from you
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Posting pushback
Many executives feel the way this executive does as he writes in reaction to RBR's report, RAB Board passes posting resolution; Goldstein comments (5/29/08 RBR #105).

In over 40years of Radio Broadcasting I never thought I would see the RAB endorse anything as damaging as "posting." To rely on survey methodologies that have always been suspect, PPM that is getting fire from all directions, and now having our future revenue further controlled by Arbitron is inconceivable. Rather than put the blame on agencies and look to them for the solution to sliding revenues in Radio the focus should be redirected to recognizing who the "client" really is. How about getting back to the selling basics rather than rely on advertising agencies to sell and then price Radio's product? This slide toward being little more than order takers has been long in coming. I guess the radio industry is getting what it deserves by letting others tell us how to run our own business. Radio has value, too bad the Board of the RAB can't relate to that concept.

Rex Tackett
Wendlee Broadcasting

Media Markets & Money
Upside for Georgia AM
To realize the upside
move to a new state

Washington Business Report
Station hung-up with FCC fine
Conversation with DJ on the air,
without permission, a no-no

Ratings & Research
Mobile advertising:
18-24 year olds lead the parade

A seat in the Boardroom

M2O partners
with Mark Ramsey
Mass 2 One Media, a leading on-air, online marketing and research company for radio, announced that veteran broadcast researcher and strategist Mark Ramsey has partnered with M2O to provide local market research for local businesses and clients of radio.

Omaha move
Jim Timm has joined Connoisseur Media as Market Manager in Omaha, where the company owns KBBX-FM "Radio Lobo" and a CP for a second FM. It is a homecoming of sorts for Timm, since he previously worked for the Journal Broadcast Group Omaha cluster, from which Connoisseur bought KBBX.

Digital side channels
still face hurdles
The distribution of crystal clear high definition programming, whether it's video or audio, is supposed to be the driving force behind the move to digital broadcasting. But when the HD isn't turned on, there's room for extra streams of programming.

RBR observation: Why would broadcasters want to dilute the pool even further by cannibalizing their own audience? It seems to us that it would be better to embrace the vastly improved audio and video offered by the switch to digital and make the investment to make sure that the programming offered is worthy of the technology.
06/10/08 RBR #113

Smaller markets seen
rebounding fastest
After hitting bottom in 2008, radio revenues should rebound. But that growth line is still in negative territory for a while. Expanding on earlier forecast of no growth for the radio industry until 2010. Markets 51+ and 11-50 getting back to '07 revenue levels by 2011, but with the largest markets, #1-10, lagging. View the analysis and stats at RBR.com
06/06/08 RBR #111

Do young media planners even think of radio?
Question whether young people today relate to radio. "They've got MP3 players and little screen TVs and all kinds of other things. And radio - you know, tuning in to a dial is not [what they do] - and who does the planning? The planning is done by young people.
06/06/08 RBR #111

What's upfront for
Hispanic Radio?
While most think of the annual Network Radio Upfront being held in September and October, the Hispanic Radio Upfront has been held in May. Radio overall should take a strong lesion from Hispanic Broadcasters. The events bring attention to their programming, content, entertainment, and ROI.

RBR observation: Radio get off the can get on the stick. Read and learn how Hispanic has taken control of their business and not following the down turn. They are attacking the issue to show that Radio and Hispanic Radio works.
06/06/08 RBR #111

The next generation
of news branding
For a lot of years local TV news has stayed away from more contemporary advertising tactics and stuck with tried and true creative campaigns born in the 80s and 90s. There are more than 500 TV news operations in the country. You can't build a strong brand unless your customers have a perception that your product is different from the other guys.
06/06/08 RBR #111

Houston: Is its methodology
better or not?
In our RBR exclusive PPM Roundtable, Cox Radio CEO Bob Neil pressed Arbitron President of Sales and Marketing Pierre Bouvard on what it would take for Arbitron to use the PPM panel recruitment methodology it developed with Nielsen for Houston in all PPM markets. If there is a price tag for that, Bouvard dogged naming it.

RBR observation: The full audio is posted in the Media Center at RBR.com. The exclusive roundtable conference you will hear the exchange between Neil and Bouvard. But the entire discussion between broadcaster, agency, and the ratings company sheds a touch more light on the PPM issue. Listen, you decide and drop us your viewpoint at [email protected]
06/05/08 RBR #110