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Volume 22, Issue 252, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher

Thursday Morning December 29th, 2005

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TV News®

TVBR returns on Tuesday, January 3rd.
The RBR/TVBR offices will close at noon today and reopen on 1/3/2006.
Enjoy the New Year's holiday weekend!

CAB: It's ratings,
not ADS that count
The Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) likes to crow about how cable can't deliver all local households, because a growing percentage subscribe to alternate delivery systems (ADS), predominately satellite TV (12/9/05 TVBR #240). But at TVB's cable counterpart, the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (CAB), Ira Sussman, Vice President of Research & Insights, says that's not the point. Advertisers buy advertising based on ratings, and he notes that cable ratings continue to grow. "We talk to advertisers and agencies all the time and what they're looking at is audience - - and audience continues to grow.

More and more viewers are viewing cable TV week after week, year after year, down at the local level, up at the national level, however you look at it. That's what they have their eye on when they're trying to reach their consumers today. Most brands are spending upward of 60% of their dollars on cable these days. That's because from the consumers' perspective, the viewers have really moved on and to reach consumers today really takes a good mix of all television," he told TVBR. While satellite continues to grow, Sussman says the churn away from wired cable is primarily among lower tier and basic subscribers looking for a deal. But the primo consumers, those whom advertisers most want to reach, are upgrading to digital cable. Sussman notes that the number of digital cable subscribers is expected to grow annually by 8% for the next five years.

Redstone's twins both get S&P 500 slots
Come this weekend, Sumner Redstone will be Chairman of not one, but two companies in the prestigious Standard & Poor's 500 Index. With Viacom set to split after Friday's market closing into CBS Corporation and New Viacom, S&P announced that both are being added to the index. They'll take the slots currently held by (old) Viacom and auto parts maker Visteon. The latter is being removed due to low market capitalization. At the same time, Whole Foods will join the S&P 500, replacing MBNA Corp., which is being acquired by Bank of America Corp. The surprise for many market watchers was not that those three companies are being added to the S&P 500, but rather that S&P isn't adding Google, which is easily one of the nation's 500 largest corporations by market capitalization. Maybe next time. Within the S&P 500, CBS will become part of the Broadcasting & Cable TV Sub-Industry Index and New Viacom will be in the Movies & Entertainment Sub-Industry Index. The old Viacom had been in the Movies & Entertainment Sub-Industry Index.

TVBR observation: Some investors try to figure out ahead of time which new stocks are going to be added to the S&P 500 and buy them, expecting a price bump up when they are actually added. That's because mutual funds based on the S&P 500 Index have to buy shares of new adds to balance their portfolios. There wasn't much way to make that play on CBS and New Viacom, since they were being split off from an existing S&P 500 stock and their inclusion - - now, or within the next few months - - was virtually assured.

TV could be next: Local politician threatens advertisers
Cleveland, Tennessee is the base of Republican State Senator Jeff Miller - - he's conducted the town's business in the state senate for some 11 years, according to the Associated Press. He is also going through a divorce. According to a local newspaper, the Bradley News Weekly, some of his actions in that situation are not consistent with Miller's espousal of family values, an opinion it put into print. According to AP, Miller's reaction was to send a letter to many of the paper's advertisers, warning them to steer clear of buying space in it, and which some found threatening. The newspaper says it has had no cancellations - - rather, some advertisers have actually upped their use of the paper in protest of result of Miller's action.

TVBR observation: It is one thing for a public interest group to go after advertisers when it does not like the programming or stated opinions of a given media outlet. In fact, that is usually the best avenue available, much more effective than the frequently-tried and rarely successful attempt to get a regulatory agency to do something - - usually there is no legal recourse for an agency to pursue even if it wanted to. However, when an elected official, who is by definition newsworthy, starts threatening a business because he/she doesn't like what it's putting in the news, that is another thing entirely. We would surmise that Miller is treading on extremely thin ice here, and he may in fact be lucky that a free market push-back may put an end to this before it winds up in the courts.

Noncom political group is the envy of its opponents
Move America Forward (MAF) does not use tons of money when it does a media buy. The conservative non-profit runs modest television and radio flights using ads which it hopes are provocative enough to get local news coverage which in turn blossoms into wide national exposure. According to the Wall Street Journal, its most recent campaign involves ads which support the idea that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and ties with Al Qaeda even while the Bush administration has long since backed off the very same claims. The group started during the California Gray Davis recall election and has been involved in other issues. It is drawing complaints from a similar organization on the other side, MoveOn.org. MoveOn is similar in that it addresses hot political issues, albeit from the other side of the political spectrum. What is dissimilar is MoveOn's tax status - - the IRS considers it to be a political action committee, which must disclose the identity of contributors who in turn cannot deduct the donations from their taxes. Since MAF in considered non-profit, it faces no such hurdles. The IRS refuses to comment on such matters. Stay tuned - - there's sure to be much more on this front as the 2006 election campaigns get going.

FCC hits up Cox Orlando for 20K
WFTV-TV Holdings, a subsidiary of Cox which owns and operates a pair of television stations in the Orlando DMA, has been found apparently liable for a variety of offenses at one of them. ABC WFTV-TV 9 is not mentioned in the FCC's laundry list, but indy WRDQ-TV 27 is. It was acquired by Cox in February 2001, and since has gone over the children's commercial limit 59 times, mostly by 30 seconds but on occasion by as much as three minutes. The FCC considered the frequency of the violations and bumped a base fine of 8K all the way up to 20K. It could have kept on going, but decided to limit the punishment to an admonishment for two other problems - - failure to provide children's programming info to viewer guide publishers and a limited failure to put issues/programs lists in the public file. With all this, the FCC determined that the station still adequately served the public interest and granted a license renewal.

TVBR observation: Cox met one of the FCC's most basic requirements in this case: reporting with absolute candor and honesty. But look at its explanation of the lapses: "...attributes...overages to human error by the station's staff..." and "...an apparent misunderstanding by this former employee..." and "...station staff had misread Question 4 of the Children's Television Programming Act..." and "...during the transition, there was an oversight in preparing TV issues/program lists..." It is clear that station staff must be clued in to the importance of regulatory compliance in order to avoid a surcharge on operating expenses and a big or little black mark in your Washington FCC file.

PTC slams Comcast family tier
As predicted, decency watchdog Parents Television Council found no more to like in the Comcast family tier than it did in the Time Warner family tier (12/27/05 TVBR #250). It has simply renewed its call for full a la carte channel selection. For starters, PTC thinks some objectionable programming may sneak through in some markets where it expects that TBS and USA may be included in the lineup, bringing certain questionable reruns with them. But the bigger problem it expects is that its limitations may limit its effectiveness. "This offering is designed with the idea that most families would continue to opt for the expanded basic cable tier for just a few dollars more a month, not because they still want the raunchy programming, but because the family tier is so limited," said PTC's Brent Bozell. "This is more foolishness from the cable industry, another example of a major cable operator which owns the cable networks clearly working to undermine cable choice. We urge cable operators to give families real choice when it comes to cable television. The only option is to give consumers the ability to pick and choose the channels that they want, and pay for only what they want."

Adbiz©

TNT explodes ad-supported cable charts
In the battle of the basic cable networks, Nielsen Media Research is calling TNT the clear 2005 viewership winner. It led all all comers in total viewers, won the 18-49 and 25-54 battles outright and was second only to sister TBS on the 18-34 chart. USA was in second place in the three categories won by TNT while lagging a bit in 18-34, where it was in 4th place (though only 30K away from the top slot). TNT, TBS and USA were three of only six channels to hit the top ten in all four categories, joined by ESPN, Lifetime and Spike TV.
| Top ten lists here |

Car ads lead to 75K fine
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard announced a 75K settlement with Holmes Tuttle Ford of Tucson over allegations of false advertising claims. Although the car dealer admitted no wrongdoing, it has agreed to abide by advertising guidelines to avoid misleading potential customers. The dispute arose from advertising the Ford dealer ran last January offering cars for 29 bucks down and 50% off the manufacturer's suggested retail price. The dealer offered only two vehicles at that price, but the AG's office claimed the ads implied that all cars were being offered under those terms. According to KVOA-TV, the Ford dealer is now under new management and the new general manager says he will personally scrutinize all ads to make sure they are truthful and not misleading.

Washington Beat

When is a fence not a barrier?
Butterfield Broadcasting's KULE-AM in Ephrata WA had both a perimeter and a base fence, but according to an FCC field agent out of Seattle, neither was an effective barrier capable of keeping general public away from the station's tower. The outer fence had a broken gate, which Butterfield admitted. The FCC's problem with the outer gate was a bit more subtle. Its north and west faces were OK, but sloping ground on the east and south was not compensated for, leaving 12-18 inch gaps under the fence. Butterfield claimed that at worst the gap was only 11 inches, which could be breached only through extraordinary effort. The FCC, however, said that the only way Butterfield could claim 11 inches was by not considering the slope and, further, that the FCC agent himself was able to scoot under the fence. Result: Busted for a 7K fine.

TVBR observation: As is often the case, Butterfield tried to get the fine reduced or, even better, tossed out entirely based on its record of overall compliance. Do not try this if your record is not clean. The FCC found a prior - - a 2K fine (which on quick inspection we believe was related to its public file) and used that piece of evidence to demand full payment.

Ratings & Research

14-0 for CBS this season
The Eye net's winning ways continue. In the 14th week of the TV season - - the week that included Christmas - - CBS won it's 14th straight victory in household ratings and also added another 18-49 demo win, creeping a bit further ahead of ABC season-to-date in the big money demo. CBS also had all of the top five shows as it recorded an HH rating of 6.5 and 12 share. NBC followed at 5.0/9, with ABC 4.8/9, Fox 4.0/7, UPN 1.9/3, WB 1.4/2 and i 0.3/0.
| View the Chart |

Stock Talk

Oil and bond worries hold down stocks
Even so, the Dow Industrials managed to gain 18 points to 10,796. The day's bad news was two-fold: Iran's oil minister suggested that OPEC cut production to push up prices and traders worried that an upside-down bond market might signal an economic pull-back.

TV stocks were mixed. The worst performers were LIN, off 2.2%, and Gray (common), down 1.8%.

Stocks

**Here's how stocks fared on Wednesday**
Company	Symbol	Close		Change	Company	Symbol	Close		Change
Acme	ACME		3.72	-0.01	Media General	MEG		51.29	+0.09
Belo	BLC		21.52	+0.07	Meredith	MDP		52.01	+0.01
Clear Channel	CCU		31.49	-0.31	News Corp.	NWS		16.51	-0.03
Disney	DIS		24.13	-0.01	Nexstar	NXST		4.46	-0.25
Emmis	EMMS		19.85	+0.26	NY Times	NYT		26.56	+0.38
Entravision	EVC		7.03	-0.11	Paxson	PAX		0.87	-0.02
Fisher	FSCI		42.59	-0.44	Saga Commun.	SGA		10.80	+0.01
Gannett	GCI		61.04	+0.04	SBS	SBSA		5.13	-0.05
Gen. Electric	GE		35.11	+0.05	Scripps	SSP		48.12	+0.27
Granite	GBTVK		0.20	+0.01	Sinclair	SBGI		9.21	-0.15
Gray	GTN		9.50	-0.17	Time Warner	TWX		17.46	-0.07
Gray, C1. A	GTNa		8.86	-0.14	Tribune	TRB		30.40	unch
Hearst-Argyle	HTV		23.95	+0.02	Univision	UVN		29.59	-0.27
Jeff-Pilot	JP		57.46	+0.20	Viacom, Cl. A	VIA		32.55	-0.30
Journal Comm.	JRN		13.96	+0.06	Viacom, Cl. B	VIAb		32.50	-0.31
Liberty Corp	LC		46.83	unch	Wash. Post	WPO		765.63	-1.37
LIN TV	TVL		11.34	-0.25	Young	YBTVA		2.76	+0.12
McGraw-Hill	MHP		52.36	-0.09	-	-	-	-	-

Bounceback

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Just a note to wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. Whatever the new year brings in the way of news, events and or people in the Television and Radio industries, we know you will report it vigorously and with an opinion. Always a source of good information and thought, it is great to read and be able to offer our own opinions.
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Below the Fold

Ad Biz
Only on TNT explodes
In ad-supported cable charts...

Ratings & Research
14-0 for CBS this season
The Eye net's winning ways continue...

Washington Beat
When is a fence not a barrier?
As is often the case, Butterfield tried to get the fine reduced...

More News Headlines

Letterman freed from restraining order
CBS "Late Show" host David Letterman is no longer under a restraining order which bars him from sending coded messages on his show to a New Mexico woman who claims he is out make her his wife and co-host (12/22/05 TVBR #249). The local judge quashed his previous order after Letterman's lawyer argued that "Celebrities deserve protection of their reputation and legal rights when the occasional fan becomes dangerous or deluded." For her part, the woman told the judge "I will break their legs" if Letterman or anyone he sends shows up in New Mexico.

TVBR Radar 2005

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

2005: The year of penny stocks
No, we're not saying that 2005 was a year to make a killing playing the penny stock market. We have no idea whether it was or not. What we do know is that three public TV companies who began the year in the reputable part of the stock market, where stocks of five bucks or more per share can be readily traded and even bought on margin, are ending the year in penny stock hell - - being traded by the market's scavengers. TVBR observation: How many group heads have we heard from this year who'd been bitten by the Wall Street bug a few years back, but didn't get their IPO preparations together in time? They're breathing a sigh of relief that they didn't get caught up in the rat race of having to answer to The Street's expectations quarter after quarter - - and seeing their stock price fall for reasons beyond their control. Now it's the guys who did make it through the IPO window who are trying to figure out how to go private - - and that ain't easy in the current market.
12/28/05 TVBR #251

Next retransmission
showdown: Wyoming
Now that Nexstar has resolved that battles that pulled its TV signals off systems owned by two cable MSOs, the retransmission payment battleground is shifting to Wyoming, where New Year's Day could see CBS affiliate KGWC-TV Casper and its KGWL-TV Lander, WY satellite removed from systems owned by Bresnan Communications. At that's just the beginning.
TVBR observation: Following the Nexstar battles with Cox and Cable One which began almost a year ago, we had expected to see several other broadcasters in showdowns with cable systems for January 1, 2006. Have the MSOs become more accommodating, or are there other threats to pull signals off cable that jut haven't been made public yet?
12/27/05 TVBR #250

Publisher Perspective
Where's the media going, TV,
the blogs, Internet, cable?
This is not my question but one that was asked this past Christmas morning by NBC's Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert to former NBC 'Nightly News' anchor Tom Brokaw and former ABC 'Nightline' host Ted Koppel. Brokaw summed it up by stating it is a new universe in the media or a new frontier like the Oklahoma land rush as it is a new landscape where they (we all in the changing media) are hoping to find land with a pot of oil somewhere. The internet was unknown five years ago and today it is a powerful tool to deliver news or propaganda and as I see it there is a very thin line between the two. There is a new universe of media and media business like planets but only the brightest are gonna survive or support life. I can only say for the record that if you do not have a strong stomach for combat then it is time for a career change as 2006 is going be a wild ride.
12/27/05 TVBR #250

Eight more nabbed
in public file dragnet
FCC veteran Roy Stewart warned those assembled at the NAB Radio Show 2005 in Philadelphia that a lot of the upcoming fining action would be in the public file area. Eight more licensees, all on television side, will be contributing between 3K-10K to Uncle Sam because they inadequately contributed documents to the file for public inspection.
12/21/05 TVBR #248

Moody's downgrades VNU
There's more financial pressure on the management of Nielsen parent VNU. Moody's Investors Service has downgraded its long-term debt and that of its Nielsen Media Ratings Inc. subsidiary - - and kept them under review for a possible further downgrade. Unless VNU is sold (and the company has acknowledged getting takeover bids), Moody's says VNU is likely to focus on its core assets, particularly! its media ratings and data businesses, while suggesting that divestitures are likely in its B-to-B businesses (trade publications and trade shows). Publisher Courtesy: Any reader to a VNU trade such as Billboard, Ad or Media Week are welcome here at RBR, TVBR, Media Mix and our monthly Solutions Magazine - Independently owned for 23 years and dependable. We are going to grow again in 2006. Start this morning to receive
12/21/05 TVBR #248

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