TVBR's Daily Morning Epaper

Volume 21, Issue 221, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher

Thursday Morning November 11th, 2004

TV News®

LPMs welcomed at Granite
Other TV group owners may be grousing about lower ratings under Nielsen's Local People Meters, now deployed in five markets, but LPM is being greeted like manna from heaven at Granite Broadcasting. Granite COO

John Deushane told analysts that the company's KBWB-TV San Francisco is getting a boost from LPM measurement, due to its skew toward younger demos as a WB affiliate, while the big four affiliates with their heavy news orientation have been taking hits under LPM.

Scripps ups Q4 guidance
Political advertising finished so strong at the Scripps TV stations that E.W. Scripps Company has raised its Q4 guidance to Wall Street. The company now expects total TV ad revenues to be up 15-20% in Q4, rather than the 13% it had previously told The Street to expect. Scripps reports that TV revenues shot up 44% in October to 42.7 million bucks. That included 19.2 million in political revenue, compared to only 800K a year earlier. Total revenues for the newspaper/TV/cable network company were up 23% in October to 204 million. The fast growing cable operation, Scripps networks, saw revenues grow 25% to 65 million, with ad revenues up 21% and affiliate fee revenues up 55%. Newspaper revenues rose 8.5% to 63.3 million, with local up 2.7%, national 5.8% and classified 12%.

Preempting Private Ryan
ABC affiliate Channel 5 WOI-TV Des Moines, owned by Citadel Communications, has decided not to air a Veterans Day prime time airing of Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" for fear of earning an FCC indecency fine. A statement by station President Raymond H. Cole explains that, although his station aired the movie twice before without complaint, it has no confidence that its luck will hold, and no confidence in even-handed treatment from the current FCC. "The inconsistent manner in which the FCC is choosing to apply these rules puts TV stations like ours in a most difficult position," said Cole. He continued, "Would the FCC conclude that the movie has sufficient social, artistic, literary, historical or other kinds of value that would protect us form breaking the law?" "Adding to our frustration is the fact that a fine motion picture like "Saving Private Ryan" can be shown on cable or satellite without any government agency restriction or regulation," he concluded. WOI noted that ABC affiliate in Boston, Orlando and Atlanta have already taken similar action. The Des Moines register adds affiliate in Lincoln NE and Quad Cities IA-IL to that list.

Powell staying put
According to numerous reports, FCC Chairman Michael Powell hasn't thought any further ahead than to finish out his term at the FCC, which expires in 2007. He said he was not interested in returning to his alma mater, the College of William and Mary, to assume its presidency. Many have speculated that at the very least Powell will stay on to shepherd some pet projects toward completion. Reuters also reports that the name of lame duck Commissioner Jonathan Adewlstein is back in play. Reports of the imminent demise of the Tom Daschle protege's commission seat have been rampant, despite the fact that he enjoys bipartisan support in the Senate and is a favorite of rural advocates. Speculation is that he may be nominated by the White House for a new term. It would be his first complete term, as he has just finished off that begun by Gloria Tristani.

TVBR observation: Powell staying at the FCC? We'll believe it when we see it. The newly-announced Bush administration vacancies at the Attorney General and Secretary of Commerce desks signal the beginning of the shuffling of the deck. If you read this next sentence, remember that you read it here first. When the dust clears, we wouldn't be at all surprised to see Michael Powell sitting the big seat over at Commerce.

AAF bracing for DVR effects
The traditional televison commercial, long considered the nuke in the marketing arsenal, and priced accordingly, may be an endangered species, and like the buggy whip and the prop plane, technology is in the process of doing it in. An American Advertising Federation study shows that over 75% of leading advertising execs expect that the commercial-zapping capability of digital video recorders will significantly impact the traditional commercial. On the flip side, there is hope for that product placement will be a viable alternative among many non-traditional options.

Growth detailed at Fisher
When Fisher Communications reported 11.1% revenue growth for Q3, it didn't provide any breakdown among its units. However, that detail has now been filed with the SEC. Television revenues were up 14.4% to 23.9 million, radio was up 7.3% to 15.4 million and the Fisher Plaza real estate complex saw revenues drop 2.2% to just over one million. Net income from operations was 3.6 million for television, up dramatically from only 412K a year ago, and radio reversed a loss with income from operations of 364K, compared to a 10K loss a year earlier. | More... |

Conference Calls Q3 2004

Granite hit its target in Q3
If you look at a map of this year's political "battleground states" and compare it to a map of Granite Broadcasting's station portfolio, you'll find almost no overlap. So, Granite missed out on the political ad buying that was such a revenue booster to many other TV groups. Granite says it booked only 1.1 million in political revenues for Q3, virtually all at KBJR-TV Duluth, MN, its smallest market. The company did, however, get two million in Olympics-related revenue from its three NBC affiliates. Granite was able to report revenue growth of 5.2% to 27 million for the quarter. More importantly, broadcast cash flow increased 32% to four million. In the company's

Wall Street conference call , COO John Deushane noted that several ad categories were up double digits for Q3, with some of the same categories also pacing up strongly for Q4. "We expect to report growth in both revenue and Broadcast Cash Flow in the fourth quarter powered by political advertising at our Big Three affiliates, cost controls at all stations and substantially better results at our Syracuse CBS and Buffalo ABC stations," said Chairman and CEO Don Cornwell. Specifically, Granite is projecting that Q4 revenues will be up 3-6%.

Paxson reports...at last
After delaying its Q3 report for two days, Paxson Communications issued its numbers today and its loss per share was two cents better than expected. The company's Q3 net loss attributable to common shareholders was 58 million, or 85 cents per share, beating the Thomson First Call target of 87 cents. Of course, very few analysts even follow Paxson these days, so only one analyst had submitted an estimate to First Call. In any case, the company's stock was up Wednesday after falling for two days after the Q3 report was postponed. Looking on the brighter side, Paxson reported that Q3 revenues were up 2.6% to 65.9 million. EBITDA rose 17% to 15.1 million. The company is projecting that Q4 revenues will be up in the low to mid single digits. "We continue to generate stable revenues and EBITDA and are looking to improve our top-line with our new programs that are targeted to a viewing audience that is more appealing to advertisers. In the meantime, we continue to operate as efficiently as possible, while working through alternatives with our advisors, Bear Stearns and Citigroup, toward unlocking the value of our national distribution platform," said CEO Bud Paxson, who continues to work on a way to either cash out unhappy partner NBC Universal or sell the entire company to someone else.

Adbiz©

BCFM: Summer Olympics vault Q3 ad revenue
Combined advertising revenues for the ABC, CBS and NBC TV networks were up by 32.61% for Q3, a gain of nearly 694 million compared to Q3 revenues for 2003, according to the Broadcast Cable Financial Management Association's (BCFM) report on figures compiled by Ernst & Young. Total net revenues for the first nine months of 2004 were up by 15.78% when compared with 2003. Advertising in the sports category totaled nearly 1.030 billion for the quarter, a 214% gain over the same period in 2003 and close to the 1.066 billion realized by sports advertising in the third quarter of 2000, reflecting the significant impact of the Summer Olympics on the networks' third quarter advertising results. The news category also showed a strong gain, up by 21.2% in the third quarter and by more than five% year-to-date when compared to quarterly and year-to-date results for the 2003 non-election year. "As expected, the combination of Summer Olympics and a Presidential election year are playing a significant role in this year's advertising revenues," commented Mary Collins, President/CEO of BCFM. "Moreover, results for Q3, which represents the lion's share of the summer period, are up for the third consecutive year." While prime time advertising declined by 3.65% during the quarter that witnessed more sports during that day-part, it is up by more than 274 million for the year when compared with 2003 results. The A.M. day-part showed a gain of more than 10% for the quarter while the Daytime and Children's categories reflected modest declines of 3.24% and 2.12% respectively.

Sporting News Radio hit with potential audience shortfalls
There are rumblings in the marketplace about RADAR-rated Sporting News Radio potentially experiencing audience shortfalls over bad records. Sporting News CEO Rick Allen, working with recently-appointed Sporting News Radio President Clancy Woods, first found the potential problem. Allen tells TVBR: "Sporting News recently became aware of possible inaccuracies in our list of network affiliates, and the resulting audience delivery information that we've provided to advertisers. So, as a result we took immediate action, retaining independent experts to investigate. That investigation is still underway. We are incredibly anxious to learn its findings, but we realize the fact that a thorough investigation of this nature is going to take some time. When that is completed, we will make good on all of our commitments. And we're already reaching out to impacted advertisers and will determine the appropriate course of action to meet our responsibilities to them. At the end of this process, we're going to have a thoroughly transparent and open network on which advertisers can depend. In addition to instituting Arbitron-audited RADAR audience numbers, which is something that we've just recently become subscribers to, our contracts and our relationships will be examined by these independent experts. So we'll have really an unusually transparent and thorough review of our audience information. So while we regret that we are having to undertake these actions, they are the appropriate thing to do under the circumstances and we look forward to the cleanest of bills of health at the concluwsion."

TVBR observation: What Sporting News Radio is doing is all they can do, and it's the right thing. They're dealing with their own issue in a way that everybody in the industry and all of their mutual clients feel very comfortable that they've done the right thing. This kind of thing can sometimes happen in any media. Acknowledging there is a possible problem, coming clean with it, going through the proper due diligence to get it fixed is the best course. To prove Allen's up front words correct, we remind the few that may remember what happened in the '80s with the old RKO Radio Network when their chief executive Thomas F. Burchill forgot the word shortfall. We'll keep you updated as the story progresses.

Fathers protest Verizon DSL ad
The AP reports a TV ad showing a computer-illiterate father getting chided for trying to help his Internet-savvy daughter with her homework has roused the anger of fatherhood activists, who are calling on Verizon to take it off the air. "Leave her alone," says the wife/mother in the Verizon DSL ad, ordering her befuddled husband to go wash the dog as the daughter, doing research on the computer, conveys a look of exasperation with her father. "It's really outrageous," said Joe Kelly, executive director of the national advocacy group Dads and Daughters. "It's reflective of some deeply entrenched cultural attitudes--that fathers are second-class parents, that they're not really necessary," Kelly said. "To operate from the assumption that dad is a dolt is harmful to fathers, harmful to children, and harmful to mothers." John Bonomo, a Verizon Communications Inc. spokesman, told the AP the ad has been running for several months. But only a few days ago did it come to the attention of Glenn Sacks, a commentator who hosts a weekly radio show aired in Los Angeles, Boston and New York that is sympathetic to the fathers' rights movement. After watching the ad, Sacks began urging listeners of "His Side" to protest to Verizon -- contending that the company would not have commissioned a comparable ad with the parents' genders reversed. He said more than 1,100 protest e-mails had been sent through his show's website to Verizon within the first two days of the campaign. "By denigrating that guy, not simply with his wife but to show him to be useless with his little daughter, I know that made a lot of people see red," said Sacks, who has a school-age daughter of his own. Bonomo said Verizon had received numerous calls and e-mails in the past couplwe of days about the ad, but had not yet decided on what sort of response might be made. Kelly, who has engaged Dads and Daughters in several campaigns protesting ads, said corporate executives should try to imagine their own families being portrayed in their company's commercials.

Major radio advertiser Bernard Curry Jr. passes
Bernard Curry Jr., the mega car dealer who died a few days ago at his Westchester NY home (he was 84) was another in a long line of moguls who built their empires on radio. "Bernie" Curry was an early advertiser on radio in the New York area. Commercials for the Curry auto dealerships ran for years on many New York stations. Mary Margaret McBride, Tex McCreary and Jinx, the early Don Imus, Klavan and Finch, Martin Block and William B. Williams all broadcast commercials featuring a mythical character called "Colonel Curry" who, over the years, sold millions of cars. Another company built on Radio was the tiny Good Humor Ice Cream Company, headed by ad legend David Mahoney. And there was Chock Full O' Nuts, featuring a jingle by Page Morton Black, a cocktail singer who married the chairman of the coffee company - William Black. Curry will be buried on Friday following a Mass at St. Pius X, Scarsdale, New York.

2005: Year of Local Muscle

January 2005 Debut!
Radio & Television
Business Report

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Washington Beat

Auction No. 37 hits Round 17
Over 110M dollars are on the table as the auction of 288 FM CPs makes its merry way to round 17 as of this writing. That takes the price of the average stick up near 400K. Top bidder is now Bigglesworth Broadcasting, with 10 high bids totaling over 15M. Supplanted #1 bidder Cherry Creek Broadcasting has nonetheless increased its number of high standing bids, and has over 13M on the table. The top two sticks remain the same as before, but the price tags are way up. Bigglesworth is in the drivers seat in #1 Pacific Junction IA, with a bid of 4.621M, and GBH Telecommunications is in the driver's seat in Brewster MA with a 3.927M bid.

Dessert for Desert: EAS fine reduced
Desert Television, licensee of KPSP-LP in Thousand Palms CA, was hit with a fine of 8K for having inoperable EAS equipment when the station was visited by an FCC agent back on 11/13/02. At that time, the station's chief engineer said that replacement parts to repair the EAS equipment were on order and due to be received within days. The station had recently completed a move to the new facility. The move had taken place at least 11 weeks prior to the inspection, however, and that lapse is what led to the fine. KPSP attempted to duck the fine on grounds of its efforts to get the equipment up and running subsequent to the inspection, but the FCC said that did not excuse the prior 11 week lapse. However, it agreed that the company showed good faith in that it had ordered repair parts prior to the FCC inspection, and awarded it a discount on that basis. Final find: 6.4K.

Programming

Two get UPN pickups
Viacom's UPN network has given full season pickups to two new dramas - - "Veronica Mars" and "Kevin Hill." In its Tuesday 9-10 pm time slot, UPN says Veronica Mars, starring Kristen Bell, has been growing its audience, with the 18-49 demo up 17% and 18-49 up 40%. Kevin Hill, starring Taye Diggs, is doing dramatically better than whatever it was that UPN was running its Wednesday 9-10 timeslot a year ago - - 89% better in adults 18-34 and 18-49. Meanwhile, UPN is adding "Cuts," a spin-off from the sitcom "One on One," as a mid-season replacement, day and time yet unknown.

Branson ain't no Trump
It looks like Fox has its second reality TV failure of the new season. "The Rebel Billionaire: Branson's Quest for the Best" debuted to dismal ratings on Tuesday. It was fifth in the 18-49 demo for the 8-9 pm hour, bested not only by ABC, CBS and NBC, but also by the WB's "The Gilmore Girls." So, rather than emulating the success NBC had with Donald Trump and "The Apprentice," it appears that Sir Richard Branson's attempt at TV stardom is more likely to go the route of Mark Cuban and his already-cancelled ABC series. Fox has already cancelled one reality series this season due to poor ratings - - "The Next Great Champ."

HD channel gets rebranding
In a move that appears to ramp-up its commitment to high definition television, NBC Universal has decided to rebrand its existing Bravo HD+ as Universal HD, tapping into the large NBC Universal library to present much more programming in high-def. "The acquisition of Universal provided us with an opportunity to offer an even more compelling HD service. The launch of Universal HD is a testament to our commitment to offer more meaningful content that meets the needs of our distributors and viewers. It is the first of many ways that NBC Universal will deliver high-quality programming on a new platform such as HD and VOD," said David Zaslav, president of NBC Universal Cable. At launch in Q4, Universal HD will be available to more than 25 million cable/satellite subscribers.

TVBR Ratings

ABC nipping at Peacock's heels
The tide has turned for ABC, which placed three regular series in Nielsen's top 20 for the past week - - "Desperate Housewives," "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and "Lost" - - with all three even outdrawing "Monday Night Football," which a year ago was about the only thing on ABC that drew a big audience. While ABC was still in third place overall, those new hits gave it the lead in the key 18-49 demo for the week. CBS again won the ratings race, scoring an 8.5 rating and 13 share, with NBC at 7.4/12, ABC 7.1/11, Fox 4.1/6, WB 2.7/4, UPN 2.5/4 and Pax 0.4/1. Here are the top 20 primetime shows for the week of 11/1-7: | More... |

Stock Talk

Wall Street spins its wheels
An expected rate hike by the Fed didn't unnerve stock traders, but there was some profit taking as oil prices moved up a bit. Other than a drop in tech issues, based on a poor report from Cisco Systems, stock prices were little changed. The Dow Industrials slipped one point to 10,385.

Most TV stocks were little changed. Granite, however, rose 13.6% after delivering its Q3 results. Paxson, whose stock had fallen for two days after delaying its Q3 report, was up 17.6% after delivering its results. Both Granite and Paxson are volatile penny stocks.

Stocks

**Here's how stocks fared on Wednesday**
Company	Symbol	Close		Change	Company	Symbol	Close		Change
Acme	ACME		6.12	+0.01	McGraw-Hill	MHP		86.42	-1.23
Belo	BLC		24.23	+0.08	Media General	MEG		58.75	+0.10
Clear Channel	CCU		33.89	+0.15	Meredith	MDP		52.08	+0.09
Disney	DIS		26.66	+0.39	News Corp.	NWS		17.86	+0.07
Emmis	EMMS		19.84	+0.27	Nexstar	NXST		8.00	+0.25
Entravision	EVC		8.31	-0.04	NY Times	NYT		40.76	-0.16
Fisher	FSCI		48.25	+0.25	Paxson	PAX		1.20	+0.18
Fox	FOX		29.36	-0.11	Saga Commun.	SGA		18.40	+0.40
Gannett	GCI		83.33	-0.62	Scripps	SSP		48.49	+0.81
Gen. Electric	GE		35.32	-0.10	Sinclair	SBGI		6.75	-0.06
Granite	GBTVK		0.50	+0.06	Time Warner	TWX		17.03	-0.01
Gray	GTN		12.92	-0.18	Tribune	TRB		43.63	-0.25
Gray, C1. A	GTNa		12.15	+0.01	Univision	UVN		30.00	+0.40
Hearst-Argyle	HTV		25.74	-0.03	Viacom, Cl. A	VIA		36.33	-0.31
Jeff-Pilot	JP		49.40	+0.37	Viacom, Cl. B	VIAb		35.58	-0.43
Journal Comm.	JRN		17.00	+0.09	Wash. Post	WPO		951.90	+7.91
Liberty Corp	LC		42.00	+0.90	Young	YBTVA		11.81	-0.02
LIN TV	TVL		17.99	-0.04	-	-	-	-	-

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Bounceback

Send Us Your Opinions We want to
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This is your column, so send your comments to tvnews@rbr.com

The NAB may be fighting satellite radio's incursions into local, but this broker sees the move as inevitable.

To anyone who had followed the growth of DBS and the reversal of public policy regarding what is now known as "local-into-local", it will come as no surprise that local content on satellite radio is going to happen. At first, DirecTV said they'd never do it because it used up too much transponder space. Then EchoStar said it had to be done in order to remain competitive with cable TV. Then DirecTV said it might have to do it to remain competitive with EchoStar. Then DirecTV touted it as a very valuable alternative to cable TV.

History repeats itself again. Today it's just a simple weather/sports report. Tomorrow it will be local stations beamed back into their own areas so satellite listeners can tune into regional powerhouses. Just wait and see. The models already exist.

Brett E. Miller
MCH Enterprises, Inc.

October Digital
Solutions Magazine

Who Will Sit on the Throne?
The election -What is in it
for Broacasters?

One On One
with PHD's Patrick McNew -
The man that over sees spot
for Chrysler Group.

Engineered For Profit
'05 budgets and capital expenditures, our close up look at who's planning to buy what next year.

October Zinio Solutions Magazine
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TVBR Radar 2004

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

NFL: One TV deal to go
New six-year contracts worth about 25% more to the NFL will keep pro football on Fox and CBS on Sunday afternoons through the 2011 season, but negotiations are still continuing with Disney's ABC and ESPN for their primetime packages. Those negotiations could drag on for a while. Fox paying approximately 712 million per year for the NFC's Sunday afternoon games and Viacom's CBS paying approximately 622 million annually for the AFC's Sunday afternoon games. The NFL gets 3.5 billion bucks, five-year extension of its contract with DirecTV for exclusive subscription TV rights extending the satellite company's NFL Sunday Ticket through 2010. TVBR observation: The NFL is the marquee sports product for television, but deals still have to make some business sense. CBS claims it is making money Fox may be closer to break even, or maybe a slight loss, but it was the NFL contract it snatched from CBS in 1994 which catapulted Fox into TV's big leagues. (CBS got back into football by taking the AFC from NBC in '98.) "Monday Night Football" continues to be a big ratings draw for ABC, the network is reportedly losing as much as 170 million a year under the current contract, so it's not going to easily agree to the 25% increases that Fox and CBS signed for. Although Disney says its intention is to retain the primetime NFL packages for ABC and ESPN, there could be some tough negotiations ahead. And there's always NBC waiting in the wings. 11/11/04 TVBR #220

20th Television, CC Entertainment, XM partner for major Malcolm promo
To promote the off-net syndication of its award-winning sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle," 20th Television has entered into a major relationship with Clear Channel Entertainment and XM Satellite Radio on the "Malcolm in the Middle 'With You' Sweepstakes." The promo is built around the production and distribution of a dedicated song and promo music video to differentiate the series and its five days a week run in syndication from other programs in the marketplace. TVBR observation: This may be one of the first large-scale cooperative ventures where traditional radio and satellite radio have been used together for a major promotion, each helping the other-and syndicated television as well in the process. Lesson for the day: Radio, satellite radio and television all may be competitors, but as we move forward in this ever-complicated, changing media environment, these different media are facing more similar challenges. The sooner they can effectively learn to use each others' assets to their advantages in a cooperative manner, the better. The above story is a prime example of why one media shouldn't always consider another as its competitor. Learn more along these lines in the January debut issue of Radio and Television Business Report - The Real Business Magazine or call April McLynn here to get your free copy: 703-492-8191. 11/11/04 TVBR #220

Hello DC - We have a Problem
NAB postpones battle
with satellite radio
The National Association of Broadcasters has dropped an attempt to head off the inclusion of local content on satellite radio services XM and Sirius. The content in question is primarily traffic and weather reports at this time.
RBR observation: XM is jumping for joy while the NAB has decided to punt and says it wants to "...assess new information demonstrating the growing trend towards transforming what was intended to be a national radio service complementary to local broadcasting into one that will have a highly detrimental impact on local broadcasters' ability to serve the needs of their listeners." Problems? We got them. 11/11/04 RBR #220

News Corporation adopts
a poison pill
Apparently alarmed by Liberty Media's move to expand its voting stake in News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch is making sure that Liberty's John Malone won't be able to threaten a takeover.
RBR observation: It doesn't look like John Malone has any takeover designs on News Corporation - - at least not yet. But Rupert Murdoch isn't taking any chances. Of course, his move to protect his kingdom is purely self-serving and doesn't serve his shareholders in the least. What we don't understand is why boards of directors routinely vote for such anti-shareholder measures - - and why government regulators don't move to outlaw such abuses.
11/09/04 RBR #219

Burlington buy ushers in
new era of oversight
By switching from contour overlaps, the FCC's new rules have changed how radio combinations can be created. While the intent was to cut back on consolidation, that won't always be the case. One example is the proposed purchase of WVAA-AM Burlington, VT by White Northeast Broadcasting Company. TVBR observation: This must-read story shows how the new Arbitron-market radio cluster rules, supposedly designed to clamp down on further radio ownership consolidation, could in fact lead to more. 11/09/04 RBR #219

Tribune Broadcasting isn't buying the claims of critics
President Pat Mullen feels today's media environment is more robust and competitive than ever. Tribune has been one of the leading advocates for deregulation and now has the most of any company to lose with no final decision on whether the crossownership rule will be scrapped - - and several of its TV stations coming up for renewal in markets where it has daily newspapers (with either temporary waivers or no waiver at all because the newspapers were acquired during the cuwrrent TV license period). "Scale has become absolutely essential to maintaining competitiveness," Mullen insisted! . "It's a tough environment for media companies." The Tribune Broadcasting chief scoffed at the idea that a few giant companies are tightening their grip on the media landscape. Rather, he noted, the Big Three TV networks have seen their market share go from 92% in 1978 to about a third of that, with cable networks now claiming almost 50% of primetime viewing.
11/08/04 TVBR #218

Murdoch eyes new business cable channel and could it mean a format spin into Radio
CNNfn is about to become history, but that doesn't mean that NBC Universal's CNBC is going to have the business news network business all to itself for long. Rupert Murdoch confirmed that he is looking at starting a financial news channel under the Fox brand.
TVBR observation: Hello world hit me over the head and say you did not see this coming. Rupert will push the button and go after that financial opening and will probably be the consistent line up of talent now on Fox News Channel (FNC) that will pull it off. TVBR outlook - Don't stretch the Content or the talent like the Neil Cavuto's too far off of FNC or what you built could crumble. Remember what has happened to radio with various spins on Formats and Voice Tracking. And we put money that there will be a Fox Financial News Radio format form this spin. Called Cross Platforming and Marketing. TV's goal in 2005- Time for Local to Muscle Up. See our January Solutions Magazine - Make sure you receive your copy - get it - Solutions Magazine.
11/05/04 TVBR #217

TVBR observation: Is there an election indecency factor?
There has been speculation in the press, notably up to and including the Wall Street Journal, that the tenor and enforcement of indecency regulations may hang in the balance, depending on who won the presidency. We now know who won, but we don't know the fallout. But we don't think anything was hanging in the balance at all. Truth told, FCC Commissioner Copps wants a license revocation in his scalp belt. The legislative process has continually saddled anti-indecency measures with excess baggage throughout 2004. That is the only thing which has kept a fine increase up to 500K per egregious offense from becoming the law of the land. Look for Congress to make it the law in 2005, if not sooner in its upcoming lame duck session. 11/05/04 TVBR #217

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