They said it in 2004:
Kathy Crawford, President of Local Broadcast, Mindshare had one of the best thoughts as radio entered a New Year, "Here's the thing, radio is at a very interesting crossroads in its life as a business. And it has to decide as an industry what it wants to be when it grows up. Is this it?" Today: December 2004
* "I am grateful for the opportunity NPR gave me to bring a broader range of viewpoints on life in America to the public airwaves. It is my hope that in the future, NPR will make a greater effort to use its full resources to make this vision a reality." - - Tavis Smiley, on his split with National Public Radio (12/1 RBR #233)
* It's not as though I don't have enough on my plate as it is. But as a service, I'll go ahead and throw my hat in the ring, make it official here." - - Rush Limbaugh volunteering to take over for William Safire at the New York Times (12/1/04 RBR #233)
* "Words or actions might be acceptable as part of a news program, or as an indispensable component of a dramatic film, but be nothing more than sexual pandering in another context. That context and the specific facts of each program are reasons the government can't devise a book of rules listing all the bad stuff." - - FCC Chairman Michael Powell (12/6/04 RBR #236)
* "We are calling for a Congressional investigation of the FCC over its accounting practices. While we're pleased that the FCC has calculated that PTC members have filed an overwhelming majority of indecency complaints in the last two years, the FCC's count is utterly deceptive." - - Parents Television Council President Brent Bozell (12/9/04 RBR #239)
* "The Commission has previously ruled that 'subscription-based services do not call into play the issue of indecency'...and that 'consistent with existing case law, the Commission does not impose regulations regarding indecency on services lacking the indiscriminate access to children that characterizes broadcasting." - - FCC Media Bureau Chief Ken Ferree declining to apply broadcast indecency standards to satellite radio (12/16/04 RBR #244)
* "Look for us to fight back early next year as MLB is in for a very big surprise." - - a broadcast holder of play-by-play rights, who declined to be identified by name, after Major League Baseball re-sold all of its games to XM Satellite Radio for $650 million (12/17 RBR #245)
* "Here's the math: 65% more and we're going to use 65% less sample. I can tell you, that's going to go over like a lead balloon." - - A broadcaster, who insisted on remaining nameless, regarding Arbitron's cost estimate for PPM (12/17 RBR #245)
* "My concern is that more perfect research is only going to be another weapon for the buying services to beat down rates." - - Triad Broadcasting CEO David Benjamin regarding PPM (12/17 RBR #245)
* "Here's the thing, radio is at a very interesting crossroads in its life as a business. And it has to decide as an industry what it wants to be when it grows up. Is this it? I mean is this where radio is? Because they could do that too, and not invest in the PPM and not move ahead and just be a sleepy little media on the map there." - - Kathy Crawford, President of Local Broadcast, Mindshare, regarding radio resistance to PPM (12/20 RBR #246)
* "It's time to get back to our roots and away from the Wall Street way of doing business. If we help enough advertisers get results and ring cash registers, everyone wins." - - Jerry Zimmer of Viking Communications (12/21/04 RBR #247)
* "Consistent with my past statements, I believe we should be fining broadcasters on a 'per utterance' basis. In this instance, we could have found several violations within the broadcasts at issue and therefore could have assessed a larger fine." - - FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin (12/28/04 RBR #250)
Are you reading this from a forwarded email?
