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Welcome to RBR's Daily Epaper
Volume 22, Issue 244, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher
Thursday Morning December 15th, 2005

Radio News®

Mel is gone, so is Infinity
Mel Karmazin's imprint is fast fading away at Viacom as it prepares to split into New Viacom and CBS Corporation the end of this month. The company name most associated with Karmazin, Infinity, is history. The radio group at the new CBS Corp. is being re-branded as CBS Radio and it's also emphasizing a new slogan: "Broadcast ... HD ... Streaming ... On-Demand." The jettisoning of the Infinity moniker was jointly announced by CBS Corp. CEO-to-be Les Moonves and Joel Hollander, whose new title is Chairman and CEO of CBS Radio. Hidden well down in the announcement was word of another name change: Viacom Outdoor will become CBS Outdoor. An obvious move, since the billboard company will be part of CBS, not New Viacom. "This is a proud moment for all of us who love the CBS name, and who know the storied history of CBS Radio. It is one of the most revered brands in broadcasting, with a history that predates the television era. CBS Radio was there at the infancy of radio, playing a formative role in shaping and building this dynamic industry, and we're incredibly proud to bring it back," said Moonves. "In reclaiming the CBS Radio name, our division will embrace that strong legacy of quality and leadership while at the same time look towards the future, leveraging our great brands, talent and market-leading positions as we forge new ground in distribution, content and technology. It's only natural that we'd want to use the CBS Radio name to re-brand our radio stations, which will continue to innovate and redefine our industry much as they have throughout the last 75 years," said Hollander.

RBR observation: It was Karmazin who built Infinity from an owner of three stations to a major radio group which he took public on Wall Street, took private, then took public again before leveraging it through a series of mergers into Westinghouse, CBS and finally Viacom. But while the name may have been near and dear to him, it didn't mean much to the general public as a brand. CBS does, so it makes sense for Moonves to emphasize the CBS brand across the TV network, local TV stations, local radio stations, the outdoor division and related operations - - CBS Digital Media Group and CBS Consumer Products. Maybe Mel would like to buy the name back and launch the Infinity Channel on Sirius.

Today is D-day for ratings proposals
Dozens of companies sought copies of Clear Channel's RFP for a new, passive radio ratings system (6/14/05 RBR #116), but today is the day we find out how many actually submit proposals. Only four companies are known to have working devices for passive electronic audience measurement: The Media Monitor from Italy-based Eurisko and the MediaWatch from GfK/Telecontrol in Switzerland, both of which use sound matching (comparing listening recorded by the device to samples from recorded broadcasts), US-based Arbitron's Portable People Meter (PPM) and the most recent entry from UK-based Ipsos, both of which require stations to use inaudible encoding. Of those four, only the PPM is in commercial use anywhere yet. Arbitron thinks it has a leg up on the competition and its President for PPM, Pierre Bouvard, used a press conference yesterday to reiterate that his company is "absolutely delighted" by the Clear Channel RFP. "If radio wants to go, and wants to go now, we're ready - - and anybody else has got a long, long way to go," he said, noting that the RFP requires such things as a demonstration in a US market, which PPM has already done, and MRC accreditation, which PPM is working on now. While PPM has been pitching radio groups for a "radio first" rollout, beginning in April 2006, Bourvard claims any other passive measurement system couldn't be up and running until 2010. "If all you've got is a gizmo, you've still got a long way to go," he said of the possibility that some garage inventor may come up with a device to enter into Clear Channel's competition.While pitching itself as the frontrunner in the radio ratings competition that Clear Channel is running in coordination with several other radio companies, Arbitron is hoping for a win on the TV side as well. Since Nielsen announced last month that it had expanded its due diligence team to scrutinize a potential PPM joint venture (11/15/05 RBR #224), Arbitron officials say lots of Nielsen folks have been at Arbitron's data center in Maryland pouring over data from the Houston PPM test. Nielsen has promised a decision on a joint venture go or no-go in Q1 2006.

Decent debut for Live Nation
Live Nation, the coming spin-out of Clear Channel Entertainment, did well in its first day of NYSE trading on a "when issued" basis. The stock opened at 11.50, which proved to be its high for the day, and closed at 11.05. That pricing was to the higher end of the 8-12 range mentioned this week by Bear Stearns analyst Victor Miller (12/14/05 RBR #243) and alleviated fears that the market might mis-price the concert business being spun out from Clear Channel Communications into an independent company. There were reportedly some vultures ready to pounce if they saw the shares available for a few dollars less.


Jeff-Pilot renews with Interep
In a year when it's made news for some high-profile client losses, Interep was happy to send out word yesterday that Jefferson-Pilot Communications had renewed its radio rep contract with Infinity Radio Sales through the next decade - - an early renewal, since the current contract still had two years to run. And yes, you read correctly - - Jeff-Pilot is repped by Infinity Radio Sales (look for a name change shortly, based on today's lead story). Besides repping most of the CBS/Infinity stations, Infinity Radio Sales is the national rep for Jeff-Pilot and Craig Karmazin's Good Karma group. "We have enjoyed a long and successful partnership with Interep and look forward to working together in the years ahead," said Don Benson, President of Jeff-Pilot's radio division. "In this day and age when our competitor is out there offering guarantees and incentives and all those things, the exciting thing is that we have a broadcaster that cares about relationships and great performance and that's what won out at the end of the day," Infinity Radio Sales President Michael Weiss told RBR.

RBR observation: No doubt some other broadcasters might like to have their national ad sales effort associated with the venerable CBS name. Now that the grand name has been reactivated, we expect Weiss and CBS Radio CEO Joel Hollander to have some talks about whether it would be advantageous for both to allow Weiss's unit at Interep to court other rep clients as well.

Distillers dispirited by tobacco promo
How often does an often-embattled retail industry get to bash one that's even more embattled? Such a situation has now arisen. "The distilled spirits industry is outraged by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company's unauthorized, irresponsible campaign condoning excessive, illegal drinking," said Distilled Spirits Council President Peter Cressy (pictured). "The spirits brands highlighted in the R.J. Reynolds marketing promotion were included without the knowledge, consent or participation of any spirits company. The spirits industry does not condone any marketing materials that glorify drunkenness and illegal, underage consumption." At issue is a promotion in which Reynolds used this line: "Camel - - It's your birthday. Drinks on us." Allegedly used without the permission or even the knowledge of manufactures were products from Bacardi, Brown-Forman, Diageo and Pernod Ricard. "These same materials would be a clear violation under the Distilled Spirits Council's own advertising and marketing Code if there had been liquor company involvement, which there was not. This Reynolds promotion blemishes the reputation of the distillers' longstanding commitment to responsibility and we join the Attorneys General in urging Reynolds to immediately halt this promotion." The quotes are from a letter defending distillers and detailing their lack of involvement in the campaign which apparently used recipe coasters as a venue. The letter was addressed to three state attorney generals: Eliot Spitzer of New York, J. Joseph Curran Jr. of Maryland and Bill Lockyer of California, and cc'd to G. Steven Rowe of Maine and Mark Shartleff of Utah.

Is CATV's trail of tiers a raw deal?
That's what a columnist for the Charlotte Observer believes. Andrew Shain thinks that the only consumers who stand to benefit from the proposal from a number of cable MSOs to offer a special tier of family-friendly channels are those who are hopelessly befuddled by channel blocking technology already offered and, he claims, not at all difficult to use. First, he argues that objectionable material may find its way into the living room regardless, since it hasn't been eradicated, in the opinion of many, from "steamy afternoon soap operas and bathroom-humor sit-coms," not to mention "playful" animals on The Discovery Channel. That's just his set-up argument, however. His main concern is that cable is offering the tiers to avoid offering the fee savings which might be required in an a la carte menu system. Indeed, the fact that a family tier would be confined to a cable system's pricier digital service would likely mean that subscribers would actually pay even more than they are already - - he estimates as much as 170 dollars more per year in Charlotte.

RBR observation: Shain also writes, "Niche channels can charge subscribers and advertisers a little extra to survive." Is that how it works? The less viewers you have, the higher your rates? Shain continues, "And if they don't get enough eyeballs and revenue, they deserve to fold." The provision of a national platform is precisely what gives niche services the critical mass they need to make a go of it. This is the kind of stunningly naive grasp of advertising economics that would leads an industry insider to discount the entire opinion as frivolous and ill-informed. Unfortunately, the civilians who read the Charlotte Observer will not have the same knowledge to draw on when they read it.


Adbiz©

What increases are being paid for the 2006 radio upfront?
Now that the 2006 network radio upfront is getting finished but is still hot, we thought we'd get a few opinions on how it's going - - up, down, flat, and why. What increases, if any, are being paid? (continued from Tuesday).

Says Matt Feinberg, SVP/National Radio, Zenith Media Services:
"We're doing a lot of planning for next year. We're doing some scatter buying right now for first quarter. Clearly, the market is just not up there to justify any kind of significant increases. Who knows what will happen, but we're planning minimal increases at best. Our bigger concern is really the kind of strategies that the networks can offer us and how they can work with the interactive efforts we are doing, which are pretty significant-both with radio and TV."

Said Rich Russo, JL Media's SVP/Director of Broadcast Services:
"There are no increases. The only increases we'll see are the increased frequency of the sales reps continually begging to get on buys. Flat to backwards. They should call it 'Wal-Mart Radio' - - they're rolling back prices!"

DIRECTV and Twentieth Television expand ad sales to include DIRECTV Para Todos
DIRECTV and Twentieth Television announced the expansion of their current ad sales agreement to include DIRECTV Para Todos, DIRECTV's Spanish- and English-language programming platform, beginning 1/1. Twentieth Television will be responsible for overseeing all general market and direct response ad sales for select channels available on DIRECTV Para Todos. DIRECTV's Para Todos provides access to more than 55 Spanish-language and 220 English-language channels. Currently, DIRECTV Para Todos is available in more than 850,000 homes. With this agreement, Twentieth now manages all advertising sales for DIRECTV. Said Bob Cesa, EVP/Advertising, Twentieth Television: "It has been a pleasure to work with and to represent DIRECTV to the advertising community. We are proud that our success has resulted in growing the relationship to include DIRECTV Para Todos. The Latino community is the fastest growing market in the country with immense buying power. We are now uniquely positioned to empower advertisers with a direct link to this highly attractive demographic." Most recently, the companies announced the formation of the DIRECTV Advertising Development Partner Program, with Chrysler Group as one of its clients. The initiative provides clients with interactive advertising and research vehicle that spans across multiple DIRECTV platforms, including interactive set-top receivers, DVRs and the DIRECTV DVR Client Server. Be sure to catch RBR/TVBR's interview with Bob Cesa in our February RBR/TVBR Solutions Magazine.


Media Markets & MoneyTM
EMF spins off a superfluous AM
When Educational Media Foundation struck a 900K deal for KBNF-FM Chester CA, it also received KPCO-AM in nearby Quincy from seller Carousel Broadcasting. So, to the surprise of nobody who is familiar with the EMF m.o., which involves finding outlets just about anywhere and everywhere for its Contemporary Christian K-LOVE network, it is spinning the AM. The buyer is veteran California radio operater Tom Huth, who will pay 100K for the station he's been running in an LMA since July. Sharp readers will hereby come to the conclusion that EMF values the FM it's keeping at 800K. The deal includes 10K cash and a 90K note. There is also an extra 10K involved in the transaction. At closing, both the buyer and seller will direct 5K apiece to Exline Company, the brokerage of record.


Washington Beat
NC politician cleared in FEC complaint
George Moretz has finally put one more hangover from the 2004 election season in the rear view mirror. He has been facing a complaint before the Federal Elections Commission brought by Thomas J. Strini to the effect that he had made an excessive contribution to the presidential re-election campaign of George W. Bush via express advocacy in the form of a television advertisement. The ad allegedly criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry - - a charge that is not particularly in dispute. Whether it in any way helped George W. Bush, however, was disputed. The ad was run during a Republican primary contesting the US House of Representatives seat for North Carolina's 10th District. Moretz, a state representative, lost the party nod to the eventual winner, Patrick McHenry. His ad's purpose was to establish him as an ally of the President in the war against terror. Since no votes were at stake, Moretz claimed that the charge was frivolous. The FEC agreed.


Programming
Max Media launches first Hispanic FM
Max Media has launched its first Spanish-language FM radio station, also the first in west-central Arkansas. KVLD, now known as "La GranD 99.3 La Mas Mexicana", began broadcasting at 12/12. The format addresses the musical taste of the first and second-generation individuals of Mexican origin in the US. "The Hispanic population in the Arkansas River Valley is exploding," said Max Media Regional Vice President Mike Smith. "Our newest residents bring a strong work ethic and a strong sense of family and community. They're loyal, committed and are having a strong economic impact on the River Valley. This new station covers the Arkansas River Valley from Russellville to Conway and West Little Rock." The format, provided by Bustos Media, addresses the highly sought after audience of males and females ages 18-49 and offers a blend of the most popular music that has an "ideal" amount of Rancheras, Norteñas, Banda, Grupos, plus a dash of Tejano and Cumbia.

"Technically Speaking" launches on
the Advanced Radio Network

The Advanced Radio Network, producers of Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline, announcd the availability of a new radio vignette, "Technically Speaking". Technically Speaking delivers an accurate prediction of stock market trends to listeners on a daily basis. In 90 seconds, Technically Speaking will tell not only what the market did, but why the market did it, and what it wants to do next.


TVBR - TV News
Bidding begins for VNU
Nielsen parent VNU confirms that it's gotten multiple buyout inquiries, which its board is considering. It's not saying anything about the bidders, or whether they're being allowed to look at the company's non-public financial details. Indeed, analysts failed to get any hint of any more detail out of VNU CEO Rob van den Bergh in a conference call. A report in the Financial Times said the VNU board was seeking at least 32 euros per share for the company, but he refused to comment on that or any other story that's been published about the bidding. VNU closed yesterday on the Amsterdam Exchange at 28.65 euros (approximately 34.40 US). The main reason for yesterday's conference call was to announce that VNU's 2005 revenues would come in slightly below previous guidance - - up 5-6%, rather than approximately 6% - - but that earnings per share would still be in the 0.85-0.90 euro range. van den Bergh, who's already announced plans to resign, following the collapse of a merger with IMS Health (11/18/05 TVBR #227), insisted those were "very solid results." Nielsen Media Research and the rest of the Media Measurement & Information (MMI) group is clearly the best performer at VNU, with organic revenue growth of 11% expected for 2005. The story is quite different for the Marketing Information (MI) sector, a major piece of which is ACNielsen, where revenues are expected to be up 3.5-4%. Even worse, though, is the Business Information unit, where only a 2% revenue gain is now expected, mostly from its trade show business in the US. The unit's magazines have been hurt by the advertising slump, particularly its European computer titles, although van den Bergh singled out The Hollywood Reporter and Adweek in the US and Intermediair in the Netherlands as trade magazines which are performing well.

TVBR observation: Despite the collapse of the IMS merger, which was vehemently opposed by VNU's largest shareholders, we were surprised to hear van den Bergh mention that VNU is still going ahead to develop "strategic opportunities" with IMS. Does that add fuel to our previous report (12/12/05 TVBR #241) that IMS may be a bidder for VNU?


Transactions
400K WGKY-FM Wickliffe KY from Wickliffe Rental Properties Inc. (R. Keith Kelley) to W. Russell Withers Jr. 100K cash at closing, 300K note. [File date 11/18/05.]

120K WPMW-FM Mullens WV from Castle Rock Investments LLC (Michael A. Muscari) to West Virginia-Virginia Holding Company LLC (Bob Spencer, Rick Lambert). 6K earnest money, balance in cash at closing. JSA 9/30/05. [File date 11/18/05.]


Stock Talk
A mixed day
Lower oil prices gave most stocks a boost, but downgrades of Apple Computer by two brokerage firms pushed the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite lower. The dow Industrials rose 60 points, or 0.6%, to 10,884.

Most radio stocks were slightly higher. The Radio Index rose 1.450, or 0.8%, to 187.912.

The leader was Saga, up 2.6% on a day with no particular news to impact radio stocks.


Radio Stocks

Here's how stocks fared on Wednesday

Company Symbol Close Change Company Symbol Close Change

Arbitron

ARB

40.05

+0.02

Jeff-Pilot

JP

56.20

+0.62

Beasley

BBGI

14.00

+0.19

Journal Comm.

JRN

14.03

+0.08

Citadel CDL
13.50 +0.05

Radio One, Cl. A

ROIA

10.75

-0.03

Clear Channel

CCU

33.04

+0.29

Radio One, Cl. D

ROIAK

10.76

-0.02

Cox Radio

CXR

15.06

-0.01

Regent

RGCI

4.70

+0.06

Cumulus

CMLS

13.11

+0.01

Saga Commun.

SGA

11.77

+0.30

Disney

DIS

25.00

-0.13

Salem Comm.

SALM

18.96

+0.13

Emmis

EMMS

20.09

+0.08

Sirius Sat. Radio

SIRI

7.00

-0.01

Entercom

ETM

29.52

+0.25

Spanish Bcg.

SBSA

5.26

+0.05

Entravision

EVC

7.25

+0.10

Univision

UVN

30.88

+0.38

Fisher

FSCI

45.23

+0.10

Viacom, Cl. A

VIA

34.64

-0.14

Gaylord

GET

44.75

-0.05

Viacom, Cl. B

VIAb

34.58

-0.22

Hearst-Argyle

HTV

24.05

-0.21

Westwood One

WON

16.53

+0.17

Interep

IREP

0.40

unch

XM Sat. Radio

XMSR

30.00

+0.05



Bounceback

Send Us Your OpinionsWe want to
hear from you.

This is your column, so send your comments and
a photo to [email protected]

I wanted to respond personally to some questions you raised in your article about the HD Radio Display options (12/13/05 RBR #242).

RBR: "Were they asking the right questions? It looks to us like people were offered two bad choices and they chose the one they found least objectionable. Can't we find something more consumer friendly than perpetuating the existing one-oh-whatever-point-thingamajig system?"

I look at it this way. We were asking the first of what are sure to be many more questions concerning HD Radio and the way listeners will use the new technology. One thing you learn very quickly when you open the HD Radio box: there are many unresolved issues so it is very easy to be pulled off track and into a deep technical and theoretical ditch...
| Read More |

Bob Harper




Below the Fold

Ad Biz
What increases are being paid
For the 2006 radio upfront ...

Washington Beat
NC politician cleared
In FEC complaint...

Media Markets & Money
EMF spins off
A superfluous AM, struck a 900K deal for KBNF-FM...


Arbitrends

Arbitron
Market Results
| Bakersfield |
| Detroit |
| Philadelphia |


Stations for Sale

NEast CapCity FM
Suburban FM, strong revenue history-less than 8.5x BCF - 2M.
[email protected] or
781-848-4201


More News Headlines

Another good station bites the dust: WDET
Here we go again: yet another creative college radio station gobbled up by NPR News/Talk. Wayne State University's WDET-FM Detroit has dropped its heritage Adult Alternative music programming from its weekday daytime schedule in favor of using NPR talk and news programming. Says AllAccess: "PD Judy Adams and Chuck Horn's daily shows have been cancelled (Horn remains with the station for Sunday overnights) and Martin Bandyke exited last week; Adams is exiting the station, replaced by Allen Mazurek as interim PD."

RBR observation: While the station still keeps music shows on the weekends, what a blow to Detroit radio. Here in DC, as we've complained before, WAMU and WETA basically simulcast each other daily with NPR. So now the Detroit area has two full-power NPR affiliates talking all day long as well. Go figure.




RBR Radar 2005
Radio News you won't read any where else. RBR--First, Accurate, and Independently Owned.

Clear Channel's spin-out
of CC Entertainment
Renamed to "Live Nation" "LYV" (the ticker symbol) NYSE. Bear Stearns analyst Victor Miller is expecting LYV to trade around 10 bucks - - he gives a range of 8-12. He says the knee-jerk reaction is likely to be to drive Clear Channel's stock price down a buck or so, but he calculates that the real impact should be much less. RBR observation: Miller has been critical of CCU management in the past - - in fact, he urged an outright sale of CC Entertainment as a better course - - so he's not one to look at the company through rose-colored glasses. As we indicated, his 11-step analysis is too complicated to review in-depth here, so you'll have to contact him if you want to see for yourself.
12/14/05 RBR #243

Cox study says expanded band
better than HD designation

Found that members of the public would rather see HD Radio multicasts numbered like existing FM stations (108.1 and beyond), rather than HD-2, HD-3, and etc. Offered only those two choices, the national study found that people overwhelmingly preferred the "expanded band" over the "layered approach."
RBR observation: Were they asking the right questions? It looks to us like people were offered two bad choices and they chose the one they found least objectionable. Can't we find something more consumer friendly than perpetuating the existing one-oh-whatever-point-thingamajig system? We think the radio industry needs to hire branding experts to try to come up with a more consumer-friendly way of numbering HD Radio channels.
12/13/05 TVBR #242

Entercom cuts Q4 guidance
Stock price fell 1% on Friday, 12/09/05, after the company said its Q4 revenues would come in about four million bucks below its previous guidance. Entercom's announcement cited "the deterioration of national sales conditions," so we asked the head of its national rep, Interep President George Pine, about current conditions. "The 4th quarter pacing obviously looks down slightly at this point," RBR observation: Are other shoes about to fall? Pine doesn't think many other radio companies will have to cut their Q4 guidance because of national sales shortfalls, since no other company is so dependent on one soft market, as Entercom is in Boston.
12/12/05 RBR #241

Four caught in public file dragnet
The FCC will be defraying the national debt to the tune of 40K if the latest quartet of notices of apparent liability on the public file rap stick. All four 10K fine proposals had a children's programming element.
RBR observation: Anyone else notice that if you have one file omission - - worth 10K - - you can have two or even three more at no extra charge. Publisher note: Look for RBR's Special Report on what you need to know about your Public File and not cost your station a 10K fine. Written for RBR by FCC leading lawyer Gregg Skall, it will be emailed in a PDF printable format as our Christmas present to you. Only daily members of RBR will receive this special report. Have it or it could cost you 10K in a fine. To say the least, this report alone is worth the price of a 1 year gold subscription.
12/12/05 RBR #241

Agencies chime in on
HD Digital Radio Alliance
RBR asked a few agency folks about the recently announced HD Digital Radio Alliance, a coordinated industry effort to compete with the format variety of satellite radio. Rich Russo, JL Media's SVP/Director of Broadcast Services -".. I'm not comfortable with the word HD, because.." RBR observation: Indeed, it may take a while to get HD-2 in the hearts, minds and then hands, of listeners. Another issue, they've marketed a whole generation of HD receivers that didn't have the HD-2 capability. It's going to take a whole new cycle of manufacturing, retailing and purchases. It's almost like starting all over again. Thankfully, some HD receivers can be updated to HD-2 by a software download.
12/09/05 RBR #240


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