XM, Sirius place banners
on Howard Stern's website
While Howard Stern has a counter on his website (www.howardstern.com) that goes from 16 months down to the seconds left in his current contract with Infinity, XM and Sirius Satellite Radio have decided to take advantage of his recent rants against the FCC's indecency crackdown on traditional radio. Both have banner ad campaigns on the website. The Sirius ad hypes that it is uncensored and invites listeners receive a free trial offer. Stern has been touting the benefits of the satellite radio, threatening to move over as soon as his contract with Infinity expires.

ERA and NARC pact against deceptive ads
The Electronic Retailing Association (ERA) and the National Advertising Review Council (NARC) have joined forces to offer consumers a program to help put an end to the dissemination of unsubstantiated and false advertising claims. The new program, "Protecting America's Consumers -- the ERA Self-Regulatory Program," is supported by the Federal Trade Commission and offers consumers a process for filing a complaint about misleading or false information in infomercials or other direct response ads. "We established this program to offer protection to consumers and help the industry remove fraudulent advertisers from the airwaves," said Barbara Tulipane, ERA CEO. "We asked the National Advertising Review Council, an investigative arm aligned with the Better Business Bureau, to run the program because we needed it to be independent of the industry, as well as effective. We're pleased to offer America's consumers a way to help us keep to our high standards and remove false advertisers from this business." Consumers with a complaint about a false or unsubstantiated ad can simply log onto www.savvyshopper.org, fill out the form and ask for a review of the questionable ad.

GLAAD unveils "I Do" TV spot
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has unveiled the winner of its "I Do" contest, a national advertising competition designed to promote equal marriage rights and protections for gay and lesbian families. GLAAD also announced a partnership with Rock the Vote to take the ad and its message of marriage equality to young voters in key states. "I Believe in Love" was created by Kyle Grote of West Jefferson, OH, with the help of his siblings Katie Stephenson and Tom Grote and producing partner Frank Koch. GLAAD will place the 30-second ad in select markets this fall. Nearly 100 "I Do" contest entries were submitted by filmmakers from more than 20 states. The winner was selected by a panel of celebrity judges, among them comedian Margaret Cho, writer/director Kevin Williamson ("Scream") and producer Craig Zadan ("Chicago").

This market ain't big enough for the two of us...
Great Falls indeed is not big enough for two television stations, at least not in the same portfolio. And that pretty much will be the case even if the FCC's 6/2/03 ownership rules ever become the law of the land. As a result, the ranks of African American television owners is growing by one. Darnell Washington's Destiny Communications LLC will be the beneficiary of Max Media's pressing need to sell a station in the market. They recently bought ABC affiliate KFBB-TV in a 12.5M dollar deal which also brought in KULR-TV in Billings (10/24/03 TVBR Daily Epaper #209). For 3M dollars, Washington is getting Max's previously-owned KTGF-TV, the local NBC affiliate. He'll pay a little over 2M in cash, with a 950K promissory filling out the compensation package. Max Media's Eugene Loving has been making a practice of giving minority owners an opportunity to break into broadcasting, according to Garvey Schubert Barer attorney Erwin Krasnow, who told TVBR he has also helped install minority owners into Portland ME and St. Croix VI. In this case, Max used the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council to find a buyer. This will be the first owned station for Washington, who Krasnow said has worked the sales side of the TV industry up to now. An LMA option is built into the deal, but it will not be one in which Max installs a new licensee, only to take the programming and/or sales reins back itself. If the option is exercised, it will be to give Washington the option of taking the reins in advance of closing. Krasnow emphasized that the sale constitutes a clean break, and there will be no further relationship between Max and KTGF. The deal cancels Max's earlier filing to put the station under the care and feeding of trustee Paul T. Lucci (4/6/04 RBR Daily Epaper #67).

To sell, or not to sell?
Is that your question? Part 10
We wrap up this series today by attempting to answer the question: How do you pick a broker? Earlier installments in this series dealt with figuring out whether this is the right time for you to sell and how to price your station. So, if you're still not certain whether you want to sell, you might want to go back and re-read those portions of this 10-part series. | More... |

Television stocks joined the parade, with 27 of the 35 stocks in our daily list posting an up day. Young rose 3.2% and The Washington Post Company 2.3% to lead the advance.

09/03 - Get the feel of what you are scrolling down and reading... Listen to this morning's AudioCast and
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Lawhead returns
to Cincinnati
One-time WXIX-TV (Ch. 19, Fox) VP/GM Jon Lawhead is returning to Cincinnati - - this time as GM of Sinclair's WSTR-TV (Ch. 64, WB). He was most recently President and GM of WTVH-TV (Ch. 5, CBS) Syracuse.

No more Fine Living
for Solomon
This is neither upped nor tapped, but bye-bye for Ken Solomon, who is leaving Scripps Networks as head of the Fine Living channel to pursue an entrepreneurial venture of his own. John MacDonald, Sr. VP of Business Operations and Acquisitions at Scripps Networks, has been named acting GM of Fine Living.

Charter taps
interim co-CFOs
Charter Communications has tapped two executives to temporarily share CFO responsibilities, a vacancy created when the cable company's CFO Michael Huseby left to take a similar job at rival Cablevision Systems. Derek Chang and Paul Martin will serve until Charter, controlled by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, hires a permanent successor. Charter agreed to pay 144 million in cash and stock a month ago to settle shareholder lawsuits that accused the company of inflating its financial results and customer numbers.

Broadcasters' foundation
honoring Norman Knight

New officers for BCFM

Radio revenues
fell 3% in July
The latest monthly figures are in from the Radio Advertising Bureau - - and they aren't pretty. Radio revenues were down 3% in July, with local up 1%, but national spot plunging 15%. It had been well known that the month wouldn't be a strong one, but now the figures are in and the word on the street is that things have improved since them. But, through the first seven months of 2004, total radio revenues were up only a modest 2%, with local up 4% and national off 2%.

Another broadcaster fires back at Forbes
Another angry broadcaster has checked in, telling us he's canceling his subscription to Forbes magazine after reading its latest cover story. Rick Cavagnaro, Vice President of Sales at Columbia Gorge Broadcasters in The Dalles/Hood River, OR, tell us he's not concerned about the article's critical view of radio, but rather the "ambush approach" of the article, which portrayed terrestrial broadcasters as bullies using their political clout to unfairly hold back competition from satellite radio. Here's what he had to say. Publisher observation: It doesn't take the winds of Naples for me to agree with Cavagnaro in saying "Broadcasters who aren't serving their local communities are only inviting satellite to challenge their markets..." The ones that broke it better fix it fast because here comes da satellite with the likes of the cult following of Opie & Anthony. Certain people will pay just as certain people plug in their Ipods instead of listening to local. Keep scrolling down this issue to Ad Biz. - Next!
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Complimentary Report
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We have the economic, political, and close up look at your 4th quarter of business and what must be done to hit budget by year's end.

GM of Cadillac, Mark LaNeve
tells it like it is on where he
spends ad dollars.

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Study sees digital growth
for flat cable universe
Cable MSOs have their best days of basic subscriber growth behind them, but a new report from JupiterResearch says the MSOs are heading into a growth spurt - - thanks to digital television. While basic cable growth is projected to stay about where it is, forecasts that digital penetration will grow at a compound rate of 11% from the current 23 million households to 43 million in 2009. TVBR observation: Not mentioned by JupiterResearch is that the most-watched programming being put on those digital tiers is coming from terrestrial broadcasters via their new DTV channels. Despite their opposition to digital must-carry, the truth is that the MSOs need the broadcasters and their DTV channels to have any chance of achieving the double digit growth.
09/02/04 TVBR #172

FCC bluster over a cluster
The last time we checked, Arbitron had Grand Junction CO pegged as its 258th-largest market. It is also the scene of the FCC's latest red-flag tossing, although the Commission no longer calls the act of subjecting an otherwise legal station transaction to further scrutiny red-flagging. The deal in question is the 900K dollar sale of KSTR-FM from Leggett Broadcasting to MBC Grand Broadcasting. RBR observation: The law is the law. Maybe there should always be at least three strong radio competitors in a market. But when Congress decided that a radio cluster could go as high as six stations in a market with as few as 15 total stations, it should have considered the obvious: A lot of small markets would wind up with two strong groups and, at best, weak competition from a third owner, or even more fragmented competition from several even weaker owners. And so it goes....Period!
09/02/04 RBR #172

Toyota and NBC cut commercial-free deal for Pride debut
"Father of the Pride" on NBC, you may have noticed a distinct lack of commercials. That wasn't because NBC couldn't sell the spots, but rather because Toyota agreed to buy sole sponsorship of the debut of the animated series and have it run commercial-free - - with Toyota spots only before the beginning and after the end. TVBR observation: We said it before so lets say it again - Content is King and clients will pay for it but the price is big. That is how network TV will compete against Cable. 09/01/04 TVBR #171