Radio News ®

Dial-Global picks up Earl Pitts show

Dial-Global has picked up sales representation for the Earl Pitts humorous, news-topical vignette effective in 1/1/03, adding to its current agreement Burbank Creations. The show was previously repped by MediaAmerica. The daily show is actually the voice of Gary Burbank. The three-minute vignette, with 150 affiliates, is mainly aired on Country stations.

TRN's Rusty Humphries welcomes Vietnam Memorial

The Reno Gazette-Journal reports Talk Radio Network's Rusty Humphries, who flags from KKOH-AM Reno, is bringing the Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall to Reno. Over 50,000 visitors are expected at the week-long event, paid for, coordinated, and hosted by Rusty and sponsored by KOH. Rusty's father's name is memorialized on the wall, a half-scale replica of the monument in DC.

KIKK-FM Houston debuts Smooth Jazz

Infinity's Country KIKK-FM Houston flipped (11/4) to KHJZ-FM (95.7 The Wave). Houston is one of only two top 10 markets without a Smooth Jazz station. A new PD and air personalities should be named in the next few weeks. Sister Infinity Jazz KOAI-FM Dallas (The Oasis) PD Maxine Todd worked on the launch of the new format.

Yet another Richmond move-in coming?

Vartv.com reports that two Culpeper, VA radio stations are involved in a complex station swap, in an effort to add an FM signal to the Richmond market. In August, North Carolina-based Joyner Radio announced it was buying nostalgic WCVA-AM and country WCUL-FM from Culpeper Broadcasting. Meanwhile, Vartv hears Piedmont Communications is buying country WLSA-FM in Louisa from Mid-Virginia Broadcasting. Piedmont already owns oldies WVCV-AM and country WJMA-FM, both in Orange. According to VARTV, the companies have worked out a deal in which Piedmont would swap WJMA to Joyner and Piedmont would take over WCVA and WCUL. Eventually, Joyner plans to move WJMA from Orange to the Richmond suburb of Midlothian.

Spirit FM/Radio Luz to broadcast historic simulcast in two languages

South Florida's Christian radio stations, English language 89.7 Spirit FM (WMCU-Miami Christian University) and Spanish language 1700AM Radio Luz (WJCC-Radio Luz) have announced plans to simultaneously broadcast from 7 to 8AM 11/13 on their respective morning shows. The two programs, 89.7's "Good Morning, South Florida', hosted by longtime anchor Steve James and 'El Show de Samuel Martinez' on Radio Luz will be conducted in both English and Spanish with translators when necessary.

National Traffic Directors' Day
Who knew? Yesterday (11/4) marked National Traffic Directors' Day, according to the Traffic Directors Guild of America. Over 1,193 General Managers, Sales Managers, Business Managers, Office Managers were reminded to take a moment and thank those hard-working, "frequently under-appreciated, people at your Stations that "bring together" all the efforts of Sales, Management, Programming onto your logs, get out the billing and co-op to insure the cash flow. Whether it's treating them to lunch, sending out for pizza, buying them a membership in TDGA, praise on the airwaves or just stopping by their office with a "Happy Traffic Directors' Day" greeting... today, Monday is the perfect opportunity."

Country stations pow-wow at MJI event for CMA Awards

In anticipation of 11/6's "36th Annual Country Music Association Awards," 50 of country radio's top stations convened 11/3 at Nashville's Gibson Bluegrass Showcase to kick off MJI Programming's live, three-day CMA Awards radio remote broadcast. Stations were treated to a special appearance by CMA Award nominee Martina McBride. McBride discussed a wide range of topics including her multiple nominations at this year's Awards ceremonies, her upcoming "The Joy of Christmas" holiday tour extravaganza and plans for her new album. McBride is nominated this year for Female Vocalist of the Year and Single of the Year ("Blessed").

MJI's remote event runs 11/4-11/6. While in Nashville, stations will be interviewing some of the biggest names in Country music, including several of this year's CMA Award nominees. Participating stations this year include KFRG/Los Angeles, WUSN/Chicago, WXTU/Philadelphia, WKLB/Boston, WKHX/Atlanta and KYGO/Denver.

Bravo goes to NBC for $1.25B

General Electric's (N:GE) NBC has a deal to buy the Bravo cable channel, "The Film & Arts Network," for $1.25B. That payment will be split 80% to Cablevision (N:CVC) and 20% to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (N:MGM).

The deal gives NBC its third cable outlet - - joining MSNBC and CNBC. It also owns minority interests in Valuevision's ShopNBC, A&E and the History Channel.

MGM will get its $250M buyout in cash, but Cablevision is taking stock. NBC will give back the 53.2M shares of Cablevision that it owns, which will reduce Cablevision's outstanding shares by 16%. The balance of the $1B ($400M+) will be paid in GE stock.

"We are always looking for smart, strategic and financially savvy ways to grow our business. Bravo is a strong fit with NBC across all functions. By sharing programming and resources, there will be tremendous opportunities for us to build on the network's success," said NBC President and COO Andrew Lack.

Baby mags jump to Meredith

Meredith Corp. (N:MDP) is increasing its publishing group with a $115M deal to buy American Baby Magazine and its related publications from PriMedia (N:PRM). The purchase also includes the "American Baby" and "Healthy Kids" TV programs which air on the FX cable channel.

"The acquisition of American Baby builds on our strategy to extend our leadership position across a culturally diverse and younger demographic spectrum of the family marketplace," said Steve Lacy, President of Meredith Publishing Group.

Meredith said American Baby, which has a circulation of 2M, has experienced a 28% increase in ad revenue for the first nine months of this year.

The acquisition also includes Childbirth magazine, First Year of Life magazine, several Hispanic titles - - including Espera, Primeros 12 Meses, and Healthy Kids en Espanol - - the Baby Faire expos and product shows, sampling programs that reach expectant and new parents and custom publications for various clients.

For PriMedia, the sale gets the company past its announced target of shedding $250M in assets to clean up its balance sheet. The sale to Meredith takes the divestiture program to $345M.

Newsweek dissects children's TV

Is television good or bad for children? The answer from experts is not as negative as one might think. This week's issue of Newsweek delves into the topic in depth - - it's the cover story.

The story is authored by Daniel McGinn, and is called "Why TV is Good For Kids." It notes that, particularly for the 2-5 age group, quality and program selection have never been better.

Too much TV still is a danger, and not all of the programming available is good. Experts stop short of recommending allowing children to have a TV in their bedroom, for example. There are also sidebar articles included which make the case for no TV at all.

The positive development, however, is the fact that there are now multiple sources for quality educational programming for small children. Pioneered by, and for the longest time only readily available on PBS, there is now a wealth of material on Nickelodeon and Disney in particular.

RBR Observation:

As the parent of two children right smack in this age group (five and three) I can attest to the fact that there is a lot of good stuff out there for kids right now.

It's certainly different from the stuff they had when I was a kid - - Popeye encouraged me to eat spinach, and I actually did it, too - - although his example had no effect whatsoever on my brothers and sisters. However, Popeye did precious little to encourage clear use of the English language, and of course, he was rather prone to violent solutions to the problems he encountered.

We happen to have a Newsweek subscription at our house - - my wife and I will read this report with interest.

It is good to see that high quality programming is making its way onto the air- and cablewaves. It's even better that it can even pay its own way with sponsor support - - its grown beyond the noncommercial model.

What is even more encouraging for the broadcast industry is the positive title Newsweek chose - - television has come a long way from Newt Minow calling it a "vast wasteland."


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