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Edward O. Fritts, Pres/CEO of NAB has served the radio and television business for over two decades with admirable distinction. Question to all broadcasters is -

'Should the successor to Fritts come from Inside the Beltway with political clout or Outside the Beltway with fuller knowledge of today's total media business issues?'

1. Inside the Beltway
2. Outside the Beltway

Two upped at Univision
Univision has promoted two veteran sales executives - - George Ray to Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Western Region, and Adam Wolf to the same post, Eastern Region.

New CIO for Arbitron
That's Chief Information Officer, if you're not up on tech titles. Vaughn Scott Henry joins Arbitron as Executive VP and CIO from E5 Systems and replaces Janice Giannini in the post. Henry will oversee management of all of the IT infrastructure at Arbitron and play a key role in the Portable People Meter project.

Board seats filled
A couple of heavy-hitters have been added to the boards of a couple of TV companies. Former Sen. Zell Miller, who was a director at Gray Television before he want to Washington, has returned to the Gray board of directors. At ACME Communications, John Conlin, former CEO of Robertson Stephens Inc., has joined the board.

Bressler leaving Viacom

Meredith ups dividend

Payless ShoeSource
narrows review to six

Radio picked up
a deuce in 2004
December was a bit of a drag on radio's 2004 results as reported by the Radio Advertising Bureau, but the industry was able to scrawl some black figures over ones written in red for the month. Overall, radio picked up a modest 2% on the year on over 20B in total revenue. This was double the result for 2003 over 2002, when the industry picked up only 1%. The 2% gain for 2004 was the product of a local revenue increase of 3%, flat national results, a 5% gain in network, and an 11% gain in nontraditional revenue. Total revenue was 21.411B, comprised of 15.479B local (72.3%), 3.453B national (16.1%), 1.081B network (5.0%), and 1.398 non-spot (6.5%). The lackluster month of December featured a 1% drop in local and a 5% decline in national for an overall spot drop of 2%. A 12% gain in nontraditional revenue raised the monthly total one notch, still leaving it in the red at -1%. Q4 was just as far on the other side of zero. Local was flat, national was up 3%, for a spot total of 1%. A 10% gain in non-traditional was not enough to pull the number up any further.

RBR observation: 2003 did not exactly present the radio business with tough comps. Now 2004 has followed suit. Will this be the year radio gets back to its old-fashioned pattern of upper-single-digit monthly gains?

What's with all the Spanish stations jamming American 50-kWs at night?
We in Northern Virginia are now picking up WOR-AM NY better during the day than at night. Why? unknown Spanish-speaking AMs are blocking it out when the sun goes down. Same with WLS-AM Chicago at night - - it's hard to pick the station up due to these Spanish stations. In fact, It's all over the dial at night - - the same story on many 50-kW frequencies coming from the big cities. According to the FCC staffer - it could be from Cuba and that he will find out the source within two-three weeks. Editor's note: If you've had any issues of this nature you'd like to comment on, email them to cmarcucci@rbr.com We will continue the story/investigation. | More... |

No more political money or more Olympics advertising. In '05 you're going to have to make money the old fashioned way - earn it. Keep up on trends and figuring new ways to earn ad dollars. The need is serious for a business-oriented publication. In radio or television, many of the challenges are the same -each industry can learn from the other.
No fluff. No hype. Just business.


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Eddie Fritts on the launching pad
Intends to step down as President and CEO not in 2006 as previously announced, but in just a couple of months. Rather than hang on to the end of his current contract, Fritts has been getting a handle on what he wants to do for the next stage of his life - - and he's ready to get on with it. TVBR observation: It's time for the NAB Executive Board to kick into high gear and get the search going for a new leader and public front man (or woman). NAB has already missed out on competing for some of the top candidates who recently became available - - most notably, former Rep. Billy Tauzin. What the Board must be held accountable for is securing the executive who has an overall full observation of issues facing broadcasters - - not just doing as the Board dictates, but setting a course of objectives to accomplish, with leadership playing the key role. 02/01/05 TVBR #22

Supreme challenge:
NAB, nets pick up the flag
Just because the FCC/DOJ have abandoned any thought of a Supreme Court challenge of the Third Circuit's decision on media ownership rules does not necessarily mean there will be no challenge. The NAB, the big networks and at least two group owners are planning to petition for a hearing. TVBR observation: Sooner or later, the US Supreme Court is going to have to decide the ownership concentration issue. The FCC's attempt at justifying its rules didn't make sense - - and the Philadelphia appeals court didn't really seem to understand the issues, so it punted most of them back to the FCC for another try. Unless the US Congress steps in, as it did in 1996 for radio, and writes new rules into law, we don't see any end to the current mess short of a Supreme Court ruling. Better sooner than later. 01/31/05 TVBR #21

Tribune feels LPM impact
in big 3 markets
The WB network may be a little soft right now anyway, but Tribune Co. told Wall Street analysts that its WB affiliates in New York, LA and Chicago are seeing even greater ratings declines, which the company blames on Local People Meters. With its portfolio of WB stations which got very little political spending, Tribune Company didn't experience the Q4 revenue boost enjoyed by so many other TV groups. Rather, its Broadcasting & Entertainment division revenues were essentially flat, falling a million bucks to 385 million. But expenses were up, so operating profits fell 4% to 149 million. Radio/entertainment revenues were down 0.8% to 32.8 million and operating cash flow plunged 60.3% to 3.5%, which the company said reflected the impact of fewer programs at Tribune Entertainment. 01/31/05 TVBR #21

Bush back-down bad
for broadcast stocks
The decision by the Bush Administration not to take the FCC ownership rules case to the Supreme Court is mostly negative for TV and newspaper stocks, according to Harris Nesbitt analyst Lee Westerfield. However, he sees a silver lining for Univision, whose Hispanic market domination is protected from competition.
01/31/05 TVBR #21

LeAnn Rimes is Sirius
about her love for radio
If your Country radio station is running the spot from LeAnn Rimes as part of the new campaign by NAB and major broadcasters to promote terrestrial radio, this next spot may give you pause. She also has a spot running on Sirius Satellite Radio. RBR observation: No surprise here. Like so many of the other artists featured in the new campaign that's supposed to promote terrestrial radio, Rimes is out taking advantage of every opportunity possible to promote her career. We repeat our previous points that the PR campaign isn't promoting anything or anyone that's unique to terrestrial radio and delivers no message telling consumers why they should listen to terrestrial radio.01/31/05 RBR #21

FCC/DOJ skip the Supremes
The FCC and its legal representatives at the Department of Justice have decided against a Supreme Court challenge of the Third Circuit order remanding much of the 6/2/03 ownership rulemaking back to the Commission for restructuring or rejustifying. The decision was hailed as a qualified victory by opponents of the rulemaking, including Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. They immediately called for more public hearings and independent research into the effects of consolidation. TVBR observation: This strikes us as neither a win nor a loss for anybody. The Third Circuit did not strike down anything. All it said is it wanted new rules or the old rules - - in either case, it wanted better justification. One thing is for sure: The new FCC chair and Media Bureau chief are going to land right smack in the middle of a hornet's nest. 01/28/05 TVBR #20

Eddie Fritts: The year ahead, Part 5
Wrap up - Q: What are the biggest issues on Capitol Hill facing TV this year? A: I think it's safe to say that the digital television transition and issues related to broadcasters' return of analog TV spectrum will be a priority in the next session of Congress. The fact is that broadcasters have done our part. The vast majority of TV stations are on air in digital, and there is an enormous amount of HDTV entertainment and sports programming on the air. Now it's up to consumers to go out and buy the DTV sets, which is something we can't control.
01/28/05 TVBR #20

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