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Volume 22, Issue 219, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher

Tuesday Morning November 8th, 2005

TV News®

Paxson exits Paxson
as NBC Uni seeks new partner
Years of legal battling has come to an end as Paxson Communications (Pax) and NBC Universal have come to an agreement on how to end their long-troubled marriage. NBC Uni will get custody of the Paxson network and stations, but only after it finds a new partner who is able to do what it cannot - - hold the FCC licenses of the 60 stations covering some 83% of US television households. Bud Paxson departs with 25 million bucks from NBC Uni (plus another six or so when NBC Uni's new partner exercises an option to purchase his stock), although he gets the nifty title of Chairman Emeritus, which allows him to attend board meetings, but not vote. The company is now being headed by R. Brandon Burgess, who's left his former position as EVP of Business Development and International Channels at NBC Unit to become CEO and a director of Pax. Media broker/radio station owner Larry Patrick, who'd been a Pax director since March of this year, is now Chairman. Dean Goodman continues as President and a director and will work with Burgess to run the company. NBC Uni now has an 18-month window to find a strategic partner to re-launch the network and likely cash out the public shareholders. Under the deal announced yesterday, it's already taken a 100 million haircut on interest due on its preferred stock and is accepting 188.6 million worth of additional preferred stock in liu of cash. If it doesn't cash out public shareholders (other than Bud Paxson) at a price of 1.25 per share (increased annually) within the next 18 months, NBC Uni will have to deliver 105 million face value of its preferred stock, so it has quite an incentive to find a new partner before that 18-month window closes. With all of those issues resolved, management is now focused on running a lean company until a new partner comes on board. Pax will report tomorrow on how much cost-cutting improved its Q3 results. And with all the hostility resolved, don't look for Pax to sell any stations to raise cash. "Nothing is for sale," Patrick told RBR/TVBR.

TVBR observation: Long-suffering Pax shareholders finally have something to cheer about. The stock price more than doubled yesterday, although that was still well below a buck. But there are hopes that the agreement with NBC Uni will lead to a 1.25 payoff in a number of months. Although several interested parties have been in contact with NBC Uni about taking over as the managing partner and programmer for Pax, there's apparently no deal ready to be signed. NBC Uni wasn't sure it could do such a deal until it finally resolved its legal battles with Pax. We hear that NBC Uni doesn't want to sell Pax outright, but rather wants to stay in with a new partner so it can eventually get some real value out of the 415 million investment it made in 1999. Although he's not completely out of broadcasting, this effectively ends a most unusual career for Bud Paxson. He went from managing a small radio station in Florida to co-founding Home Shopping Network, which gave him a large personal fortune. With that he started buying radio stations in the early 1990s, when hardly anyone else wanted them. Then he got the idea of building a national TV network from scratch which would own its own affiliates, since UHFs counted only half as much as VHFs against the national cap. Pax sold its radio group to Clear Channel for 629 million in 1997. Back then its stock was trading in the teens.

Comcast, CBS; NBC Universal, DirecTV
strike VOD deals for hit shows
Both Comcast and CBS and NBC Universal and DirecTV struck major VOD deals for hit shows yesterday. Comcast and CBS will make four leading prime-time shows available. Beginning in January, Comcast Digital customers will be able to view episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, NCIS, Survivor and The Amazing Race on Comcast's On Demand service. The programs will be available as early as midnight following their broadcast on CBS. Each episode will cost 99 cents, and customers will be able to view the episodes anytime they want for up to 24 hours from the time they order them. Certain Comcast systems also may make CSI and NCIS available in high-def for customers with HD-enabled Comcast digital cable set-top boxes. Prior to the March debut of new episodes of Survivor and The Amazing Race, viewers will be able to order episodes of the fall 2005 editions (Survivor: Guatemala and The Amazing Race 8.) NBC Universal and DirecTV announced a VOD deal that gives consumers access to the top programs of NBC and its cable entertainment networks, USA, SCI FI and Bravo, within hours after they air, commercial free, for 99 cents. The programs will be available on demand through the new DirecTV Plus interactive DVR. This multi-year agreement will give the primetime on demand rights to NBC Universal TV programs, such as "Law & Order: SVU," "Law & Order: CI," "The Office," "Monk," "Surface" and "Battlestar Galactica." The programs will be available until the following week's episode airs. NBC Universal's movies and TV events will also be available through DirecTV Plus, and on pay-per-view. "The way people are consuming content is changing," said David Zaslav, President, NBC Universal Cable. "Through this agreement with DirecTV, consumers will be able to watch top NBC content on demand for just 0.99, when they want, without commercials. It's a huge sea change. This deal is the first of its kind and we value DirecTV 's partnership in rolling it out." The DirecTV Plus DVR will be available at retailers such as Best Buy and Circuit City this month.

TVBR observation: Note there are no opportunities for commercials. Seems HBO has been so successful in the pay-TV network arena, the broadcast nets (also see Comcast-CBS VOD deal) are going to give this avenue a try. Wonder how this might affect regular ratings for the programs and if it should have an effect on ad dollars going to these programs. We asked Jon Mandel, Chairman/MediaCom US and Chief Global Buying Officer MediaCom Worldwide for his thoughts:

"Here's the problem - - anybody who has studied pricing theory knows to jump to 99 cents with no advertising is either a badly-written press release or they didn't do enough study in pricing theory. Because to do it right, in part of the country you do 99 cents with no ads and in another part you do 49 cents with two ads and in another place you do 29 cents with four ads. That way you figure out how to maximize your revenue. But to immediately jump to cutting yourself off from two revenue streams and leaving adverting out of it I think is either a bad business judgment or, again, a badly-written press release."

What about this affecting regular ratings for these shows?
"It's not going to affect ratings at all. What's the most TiVo-proof programming there is? Friends. You've seen it before. You're watching it because you chose to watch it. If you've never watched it before, you're not going to pay to watch it."

VNU trying to get out of IMS merger
VNU, the parent company of Nielsen Media Research, has finally confirmed what we reported several weeks ago (10/27/05 TVBR #211) - - it's seven billion bucks acquisition of IMS Health is likely not going to get to closing. VNU announced from its headquarters in Haarlem, Netherlands, that it is in "wide-ranging discussions with IMS Health to address the development that shareholders claiming to represent 48% of VNU's outstanding shares have informed VNU that they would not support the transaction under any circumstances." While VNU said its management and that of IMS Health still believe the transaction would be a good move, the announcement acknowledges that VNU's major shareholders don't agree and that the proposal will probably fail if it is put to a vote.

TVBR observation: While it's pretty clear that the transaction is on life support with no hope of recovery, the debate now is about how to pull the plug. IMS management blames VNU for the deal running into trouble and the Wall Street Journal says IMS wants VNU to reimburse it tens of millions for its expenses. On the other hand, VNU doesn't think it should have to pay anything, since its management hasn't withdrawn its support for the merger, which is what would trigger a break-up fee. But once the planned merger is officially terminated, VNU will have to deal with a remaining problem - - dissatisfied and organized shareholders. Having been stirred up by the IMS deal, those major shareholders are likely to continue their united front and demand changes at VNU - - either a big stock buyback, sale of the publishing division or even putting the entire company up for sale.

To 475B or not to 475B
The Office of Management and Budget has given thumbs up to FCC Form 475B - - the brand new "Obscene, Profane and/or Indecent Material Complaint Form." Its purpose is to help citizens put together sufficient evidence so the FCC can make an accurate determination as to the culpability of a broadcaster. It is a specialized offshoot of general complaint Form 475, which has also been revised. Both forms are designed to improve the complaint process "..by minimizing confusion on what information the Commission requires," and aspires to improve "...the overall quality of the complaints received." Both may be submitted electronically. General complaint Form 475 is available at svartifoss2.fcc.govcib/fcc475.cfm and the indecent-specific Form 475B is at svartifoss2.fcc.govcib/fcc475B.cfm. The latter solicits further evidence. "You are not required to submit a transcript of audiotape, CD/DVD or other recording in support of your complaint," the form advises. "Doing so, however, may help expedite the processing of your complaint." It goes on to provide instructions on what to send, and where. The form itself is very simple. It asks for the complainant's contact info, then asks for the date of the program in question, the time, the network, the call sign, channel or frequency of the station, the city and state where the alleged, infraction occurred, the name of the program, DJ, personality, song or film in question, and then asks for "...as many details as possible...," particularly "specific words, language, images, etc."

PTC drives business away from Nip/Tuck
The Parents Television Council is claiming a victory in its ongoing battle with basic cable net FX's "Nip/Tuck," which it calls "...one of the most sexually explicit, profane, and violent television programs in the history of American television..." It hit the show where it hurts the most, in the wallet, by "driving" away a big account. "After being contacted by members of the Parents Television Council, representatives of Toyota Motor Sales, Inc. sent a letter to Founder and President Brent Bozell indicating the company is pulling their advertising from the ultra-raunchy FX show Nip/Tuck. Toyota's letter indicated that while Toyota seeks out 'edgier' programming to reach a younger demographic, a review of the content on Nip/Tuck led them to pull out of all remaining episodes. The PTC applauds Toyota for this responsible decision."

TVBR observation: The battle over electronically-transmitted indecency is being fought almost entirely on the broadcast side, and it's a tough fight for both sides, since it pits America's reverence for freedom of speech against America's desire to protect children from inappropriate material. Although attempts to escalate the battle into the MVPD arena have been made, the fact that cable and DBS are subscription services only available to those who have made the choice to allow it into their home has rendered calls for content restriction nearly impossible. However, there is nothing in the Constitution or elsewhere that dictates how citizens spend their money, and if people decide that they're going across the street to buy the other guy's widget because they don't like the kind of programming you associate your own widgets with, then more power to them. PTC can fill the ether with emails, but its most effective weapon will always be a good swift kick to the wallet.

Conference Calls 2005

Revenues (sans political) up 7% at Gray
Of course Q3 was going to be down in absolute terms without last year's mother lode of 12 million in political ads, but Gray Television President Bob Prather was celebrating his company's Q3 results because non-political business was up 7% to 41.9 million. And he noted that 885K - - nearly a third of the increase - - came from the six new UPN affiliates that Gray has introduced on digital multicast signals in the past year. He also sees a role for those new UPN stations next year when political ads return because Gray hopes to be able to use their inventory on news programming repurposed from their established big three affiliates to carry some political advertising when the main station is sold out. Back to Q3 results: Total revenues, including political, were down 13% to 75.1 million. Local sales, excluding political, were up 5%, while national was down 4%. Looking ahead, Q4 is pacing up 8%, with local up 10% and national up 5%.

Surging ABC helps Fisher
Those "Desperate Housewives" and other hit shows at ABC are translating into ad sales for Fisher Communications, which gets nearly half of its total revenues from its two big ABC affiliates in Seattle, WA and Portland, OR. Q3 gains in local sales across Fisher, but particularly at those two big stations, didn't quite overcome the loss of political revenues from a year ago, but came close. Total revenues were down 3.6% for the quarter to 38.8 million. Both local and national, excluding political, were up for the two big TV stations year-to-date, while local was up and national down for Fisher's other TV stations. Radio revenues were slightly lower in Q3 and year-to-date, with local up and national down. Yesterday was the first quarterly conference call for Colleen Brown since she signed on as President and CEO of Fisher. But after briefly saying that she was optimistic about the company's future, Brown left it to CFO Rob Bateman to run through the quarterly numbers with the Wall Street analysts.

Adbiz©

Sears launches "Wish Big" campaign for the Holidays
Sears is launching the company's first fully integrated campaign in years, "Wish Big." Sears has timed the launch to coincide with when consumers indicated they begin holiday shopping. In fact, according to Sears' proprietary market research, more than one-third of all customers (36%) begin shopping before the Thanksgiving weekend. Surprisingly, only 14% will wait to begin shopping on Black Friday. The remaining 50% of survey respondents get started in December. The campaign supports five customer mindsets: getting ready; Thanksgiving weekend shopping rituals; stress levels mounting in December; being a smart last-minute shopper (not a procrastinator); and after-Christmas shopping for oneself. The effort will use television and print, event marketing, in-store signage and cross promotion activities, in-mall advertising, direct mail, online and PR.
| Details here |

Shockwave.com launches
in-Game ad network for "casual games"
Shockwave.com launched an online casual games platform available which will soon offer advertisers more than 50 million ad impressions per month. From action games targeted at young males to puzzle games targeted at older females, the Shockwave.com Immersive Network gives advertisers the opportunity to create brand awareness with some of the most popular games on the Web. Last month Shockwave.com attracted 20 million unique visitors who played more than 25 million game sessions. Initial advertisers in the new network include SBC Communications, Intel Corporation and Microsoft Game Studios Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species and several others. Initially, the network will be able to deliver a minimum of 10-12 million impressions per month and inventory on the site will grow to 50+ million impressions a month by early 2006 as more games are added to the network Ad impressions will generally run from 3-7 seconds in action games, though they could be much longer in some games such as racing games where ads can be displayed on the hood of a car or other less static surface. Shockwave.com will also offer extensive reporting on audience impressions, day of week, time of day, geo-targeting, creative rotation and frequency caps.

Mediaedge:cia integrates Cambell's into "7th Heaven"
Campbell Soup will partner with The WB's "7th Heaven" for a product integration opportunity, via Mediaege:cia in three of the show's episodes during the November sweeps. The show's storyline will feature Campbell's Labels for Education program and Campbell's products, including the company's condensed Tomato and Chicken Noodle soups and its new microwaveable bowl versions of these favorites. The episodes began yesterday at 8 pm. In the storyline featuring Campbell's, Ruthie Camden (Mackenzie Rosman) will enlist the help of her family and friends to collect numerous labels from Campbell products for a Labels for Education drive being conducted to benefit the school newspaper. The newspaper is collecting labels towards the goal of getting a new computer, while Ruthie has hopes of getting noticed by the newspaper's editor, Jack (guest star Garrett Strommen). The integration into the story line will be just one element of the promotion, as it will be highlighted across multiple channels. It will also be featured on specially labeled family size cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup and in print advertising, promoted on cable, and will be included features on both Campbell's and the WB's websites. The promotion was supported through a full page free standing insert on 11/6. There will also be public service announcements from the series' stars encouraging fans to help their schools by participating in the Campbell's Labels for Education program.

Media Business Report

Moody's upbeat on Spanish language media
Spanish language media companies have been outpacing their general market peers for several years now and Moody's Investors Service is out with a report saying that trend is likely to continue. "Over the next several years, most incremental growth will likely accrue to media targeting growing populations like Hispanics, or to digital and online platforms, leaving traditional print and broadcast media with diminished growth prospects," said Moody's Senior Vice President Glenn Eckert (pictured). "Moody's remains concerned that generally targeted media companies' credit risk may increase as they seek to offset slower organic growth expectations with debt financed acquisitions in higher growth segments, and/or increasing share repurchases," he said. But he also noted that some mainstream media companies are venturing into the Spanish arena to "at least partially mitigate stagnation" in their English language media businesses. Even so, Eckert says companies who are already leaders in the Spanish media market, such as Univision, Entravision, and SBS, however, will likely enjoy above average organic growth over the next decade. Over the last decade, advertisers have increased Spanish language advertising spending from 1.2 billion to 3.2 billion, Moody's notes. Even so, that 3.2 billion represents only 5% of all advertising spending in the US, suggesting higher spending levels would be likely, since Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the US.

Cable companies looking forward to franchising review
The FCC is exploring the relationship between local franchising authorities and the MVPDs they franchise, with an eye toward ensuring that unnecessary barriers to new competitive entrants are not part of the process. The cable industry says it welcomes the review. "We are pleased that the FCC's examination of local cable franchising will include existing operators as well as new entrants, which is consistent with our philosophy that communications regulation should treat everybody alike," said NCTA's Kyle McSlarrow. "We welcome the opportunity that this notice provides to comment on issues regarding the franchising process that are important to cable operators."

MBR observation: The entry of telcos into video program distribution should be quite a show, with both sides angling for whatever advantage they can get. At least one company, Hearst-Argyle, has already tested the situation for broadcast leverage. Noting that cable is fighting multicast must-carry tooth and nail, H-A'd David J. Barrett suggested that perhaps broadcasters and telcos should unite. If telcos offer a full range of digital broadcast programming and cable does not, it could provide telcos with a competitive edge as they move into to the territory. Stay tuned on this one.

Washington Beat

A dive for 'DAV
This time the dive is a good one - - the plunging item is the size of the penalty a licensee owes the FCC for a public file violation. Davidson College, in Davidson NC is the licensee of noncommercial WDAV-FM, and was the not-so-proud recipient of a 9K notice of apparent liability for a file violation. It seems that issue/program lists for three years - - 1996 through 1998 - - were missing, and could not be reconstructed. The college asked for forgiveness or a reduction on two grounds. First, the lists weren't simply ignored - - they were assembled and filed as required. However, the station moved to a new studio in 2002, and somehow or other the three lists failed to make it to the new location. And therein lies the second part of the argument - - even though three years worth of material was missing, it was not a three-year running violation. It was a matter of only eight months before the absence of the lists was discovered and reported. The FCC agreed that these were matters of fact and warranted a lesser fine. Davidson College is now liable for only 1K.

TVBR observation: The FCC values candor, and that is what Davidson College displayed in this instance. The FCC did not discover the absence of the files, the college reported them missing. And the college didn't get wrapped up in the semantics of the FCC's use of terminology like "willful violation." It simply stated its case - - and having already established its honesty, found that its argument was accepted. Words to the wise.

Programming

Gray wants a piece of the iPod pie
"We can't hold back technology," Gray Television President Bob Prather told analysts when asked about his view of ABC offering iPod downloads of some of its most popular TV shows (10/13/05 TVBR #201). Echoing the view of Hearst-Argyle's David Barrett (10/28/05 TVBR #212) that ABC's affiliates should get a cut of the iPod revenues, Prather noted that the affiliates council is currently pressing that issue with Disney/ABC. But all in all, he says it will be good for the business. "Some of these shows like 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost' that have a real buzz about them, I don't think it hurts for people to be walking around in their home, in their office, in their car, wherever they are, pointing out to friends, 'hey look at this' - - I think it just builds up more interest in watching the show when its on the air the next week," Prather said.

Martha to select her "Apprentice" on December 21st
NBC announced that "Apprentice: Martha Stewart" will wrap up with a live, two hour finale on Wednesday, December 21st (8-10 pm ET). The two-hour finale will feature the culmination of the final two tasks, a cast reunion and the live conference room hiring where the newest Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia employee will receive a 250K "apprenticeship" working alongside Stewart and her executives. The competition is currently down to eight candidates. "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" is produced by Mark Burnett Productions. Mark Burnett, Jay Bienstock and Donald J. Trump are executive producers. Conrad Riggs and Kevin Harris are co-executive producers.

Chung, Povich launching MSNBC show
Connie Chung, who has almost dropped off the face of the earth CNN canceled her prime-time program in early 2003, is returning in January as the host of a weekly show on MSNBC with her husband of 20 years, talker Maury Povich. The still-untitled, half-hour show is a review of the week's news that will fuse elements of "Meet the Press," the defunct "Crossfire" and "The Daily Show" - - will appear on Saturday mornings and be rerun on Sundays reports The New York Times. The executive producer is Lizz Winstead, a co-creator of "The Daily Show" who, was the host of her own program on Air America until earlier this year.

Stock Talk

Modest gains for Monday
News that Microsoft might buy a stake in AOL from Time Warner and a drop in oil prices helped push stock prices up a bit on Monday. The Dow Industrials rose 56 points, or 0.5%, to 10,586.

TV stocks were little changed, the notable exception being Paxson, which surged 112% on news of its settlement with NBC Universal. Even so, the company's stock price only made it to 87 cents a share.

Stocks

**Here's how stocks fared on Monday**
Company	Symbol	Close		Change	Company	Symbol	Close		Change
Acme	ACME		4.01	+0.01	Media General	MEG		55.50	+0.80
Belo	BLC		23.12	+0.09	Meredith	MDP		50.51	-0.30
Clear Channel	CCU		31.12	+0.47	News Corp.	NWS		15.20	+0.21
Disney	DIS		25.16	+0.35	Nexstar	NXST		4.54	+0.39
Emmis	EMMS		19.86	+0.01	NY Times	NYT		28.65	+0.22
Entravision	EVC		8.01	+0.07	Paxson	PAX		0.87	+0.46
Fisher	FSCI		48.99	-0.24	Saga Commun.	SGA		13.24	-0.08
Gannett	GCI		65.71	+0.85	SBS	SBSA		6.46	-0.08
Gen. Electric	GE		34.02	unch	Scripps	SSP		46.95	+0.52
Granite	GBTVK		0.24	unch	Sinclair	SBGI		9.05	+0.07
Gray	GTN		9.70	+0.12	Time Warner	TWX		17.61	unch
Gray, C1. A	GTNa		9.50	+0.38	Tribune	TRB		33.68	+1.17
Hearst-Argyle	HTV		24.19	+0.03	Univision	UVN		28.76	+0.34
Jeff-Pilot	JP		54.39	+0.05	Viacom, Cl. A	VIA		32.30	+0.52
Journal Comm.	JRN		14.19	+0.09	Viacom, Cl. B	VIAb		32.29	+0.65
Liberty Corp	LC		46.54	unch	Wash. Post	WPO		745.00	-14.36
LIN TV	TVL		13.18	+0.02	Young	YBTVA		2.63	+0.11
McGraw-Hill	MHP		50.77	-0.13	-	-	-	-	-

Bounceback

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TV Media Moves

Campbell upped
at NBC Uni
As Brandon Burgess leaves NBC Universal to run Paxson Communications, Bruce Campbell has been promoted to Executive VP of Business Development and International Channels. He had been Sr. VP of Business Development.

Below the Fold

Media Business Report
Moody's upbeat on
Spanish language media
Companies have been outpacing their general market peers for several years now...

Cable companies looking
forward to franchising review
The FCC is exploring the relationship between local franchising
MBR observation: entry of telcos into video program distribution should be quite a show...

Ad Biz
Sears launches "Wish Big" campaign for the Holidays
The company's first fully integrated campaign in years...

Programming
Kaiser takes another look at TV sex
The Kaiser Family Foundation is offering its fourth installment of its study...

Chung, Povich
launching MSNBC show
Connie Chung, who has almost dropped off the face of the earth...

More News Headlines

VOD Urban and
Hip-Hop channel
DoD launching
DoD, a new VOD channel targeting the hip-hop and urban market, will launch as a free service on Comcast's On Demand service 11/11. DoD is the new brand and VOD subsidiary of Simmons Lathan Media Group, founded by Media Entrepreneur Will Griffin, in partnership with Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons and Television Pioneer Stan Lathan. The ad-supported lifestyle channel, featuring original and acquired content, will be available in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia/New Jersey, San Francisco/Oakland, Seattle and Washington, DC, plus suburban metros. Comcast Digital Cable customers will be able to select the "Urban Beat" option on the On Demand main menu and then choose DoD. DoD will feature content with themes that change monthly hosted by their own VJ personalities. Programming will include mix tapes and video mix shows; music- and sports-celebrity-driven documentary series; local market content; short- and feature-length films; "old school" classics; fashion and comedy specials; DoD video personals and more.

TiVo and Yahoo!
pact for online
DVR scheduling
TiVo and Yahoo! will join forces to offer TiVo's online scheduling features on Yahoo! TV. The offering enables Yahoo! TV users to request, via TiVo's scheduling technology, recordings of their favorite TV shows on their TiVo Series2 devices from anywhere they access Yahoo!. Subscribers with a TiVo Series2 box and a standard Yahoo! user ID may use the service immediately. Yahoo! TV offers show times, program descriptions and cast photographs, as well as exclusive content. In the coming months, TiVo and Yahoo! will also make some Yahoo! services, including photos, traffic, and weather available as part of the TiVo offering.

ABC TV Sales
adds some Magic
ABC National Television Sales is now handling broadcast ad sales for 35 Orlando Magic basketball games televised annually by the Magic Television Network. As the regional network's exclusive national sales rep, ABC National Television Sales is also responsible for various other sponsorships including radio and in-arena signage in the five-year deal. Florida stations broadcasting Magic Television Network basketball games include local flagship WRBW, UPN 65, in Orlando; WXPX, PAX 66, in Tampa, WTCN, WB 15, in Fort Pierce, and WYPN, UPN 45, in Gainesville. In addition, a weekly half-hour highlights and recap television series, "Midnight Magic," airs on WKMG, CBS 6.

November RBR/TVBR Digital Magazine

Hurricane Katrina - New Orleans
Interviews with WWL-TV GM Bud Brown and WWL-AM GM/Entercom Market Manager Phil Hoover. Great interviews with touching stories about heroes and saving lives and helping those in need with information....and the importance of being two of the only stations that continued broadcasting throughout this tragedy.

Read RBR/TVBR in 2 simple steps:
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November Issue of RBR/TVBR

TVBR Radar 2005

Television News you won't read any where else. TVBR--First, Accurate, and Independently Owned.

Nexstar settles with another MSO
Just a few weeks after settling its 10-month stand-off with Cox Communications, Nexstar has announced the signing of another multi-year retransmission consent agreement with another MSO - - Insight Communications.
TVBR observation: Clearly Nexstar is finding new ways to come to terms with the cable MSOs, but hasn't succeeded in its original objective of being paid a fee of a penny a day per subscriber by the cable companies. We wonder now whether CBS Corp. CEO-to-be Les Moonves is really going to lead the charge to make cable companies pay straight up for broadcast TV retransmission consent.
11/07/05 TVBR #218

Take me out to the ballgame
Our guess is that if Al Liggins is heading to the ballpark, it's going to be to make business contacts rather than stare at the field with anxious anticipation. TVBR observation: Not only does Liggins have his head on straight he has a straight vision and focus. This is a lesson to all in the broadcast medium of radio, TV, or cable. Vision with focus is a major advantage when you know where you have come from and know where you are going.
11/07/05 TVBR #218

Entercom has his eye on ABC Radio
CEO David Field is making no bones about wanting ABC Radio and spelled out in his quarterly conference call...but only if the terms and conditions of the deal make sense for our shareholders. Kicker: if there's no ABC deal, would he look at taking Entercom private? Field said management is looking at all options. RBR observation: Come on this barn door has been swinging so long and so hard it is about to fall off the frame. For the life of us, we can't see any reason for Iger to even consider selling or merging ABC Radio in such a soft market.
11/07/05 RBR #218

VNU sale or get some Street Smarts
The unpopular move by VNU management has motivated the big investors to demand change at the company, so pressure is on - either buy back stock, sell off assets or sell the entire company to the highest bidder. TVBR observation: In either an asset sale or breakup scenario, it appears the piece of VNU most likely to be in play. Big investors don't see the division as a major growth vehicle and would be happy to see it sold off. Publisher observation: Big investors do not see it because they only see the color of money and do not plan a business model that brings synergy to a gorilla size companies. It takes street smarts to fix and improve valuable brands not a calculator
10/27/05 TVBR #211

UMC's Jean Pool
discusses clutter, PI problem
EVP/Director of North American Operations, Universal McCann and Chairman of Media Policy at the AAAAs. Most everyone realizes clutter is a big problem. While broadcasters have said they would take steps to reduce it, some have and some have not. What some may not realize, however, in the days of iPods, video iPods, satellite radio and Internet streaming and downloads, clutter reduction is more important than ever.
11/04/05 TVBR #217

CBS eying cable buy
Done Deal, Rumor to reality.
TVBR observation: As we said a great brand extension. Interesting to see what other cable ventures Moonves finds attractive for the new CBS Corp. Don't underestimate the value of the personnel being acquired in this deal - - Brian Bedol and partner Chris Bevilacqua. Bedol previously co-founded what's now ESPN Classic and sold it to Disney/ABC for a substantial profit. No doubt he has a few more ideas about how to make money off of sports content on cable and the Internet. This buy is pro-active. Still see very little pro-active in radio.
11/04/05 TVBR #217

Moonves:
Stern loss is "slight concern"
future CBS CEO Les Moonves on the impact of losing 5% of Infinity's revenues, but Moonves insisted there was only "slight concern" about Stern's departure. Noting that Infinity recently announced 10 different replacements for Stern on various stations, Moonves said some will work and some won't. But he also noted that Stern's contract had gotten so expensive that Infinity wasn't making much profit on his show anyway. TVBR observation: Stop and Please listen to Moonves audio clip above and you will not believe your radio ears. It is clear why some higher ups inside Infinity are not concerned - the new boss is not concerned as Radio to Moonves is just margins game. Not programming, content, branding, marketing, people - Just Margins - swell just swell.
11/02/05 TVBR #215

Barrett to Iger:
We're in this together
Says Disney's ABC was pretty smart to sign up first with Apple to provide programming for its new video iPods but he has a bone to pick and feels the affiliates should be participants in that business. Barrett's beef - Affiliates are the ones who are airing the shows in 75% of the country that ABC does not own [the local stations] and doing the marketing and promotion.
Publisher observation: Barrett has a point but the word is business and ABC and iPod are doing business to move ABC content in a faster line on how the consumer if they want it get it and will to pay for it. IT will be in demand from now until IT freezes over so get used to IT. Financial details view.
10/28/05 TVBR #212

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