Welcome to TVBR's Daily Epaper
Volume 25, Issue 42, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher
Friday Morning February 29th, 2008

TV News ®

Mixed January tallies
Whether January was an up month of not depended to a great extent on whether your television stations were in early primary states. Thus, Media General yesterday reported that TV revenues were up 3% for the month to 28.1 million. That included 2.9 million in political spending, compared to 46K a year earlier. Media General's TV group benefited from presidential primary spending in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Alabama, as well as early gubernatorial primary spending in North Carolina, congressional races in Mississippi and Kentucky, and issue spending in Florida. Meanwhile, local time sales were down 2.9% for the month, which Media General blamed on lower telecom and furniture store spending, partially offset by higher spending in the auto and fas food categories. National declined 15.9%, with auto and telecom down and services and furniture stores up. Revenues for Media General newspapers fell 14.9% to 41.3 million.

At Gannett, broadcasting revenues were down 6% for the month to 57.2 million, including Captivate. TV station revenues were down 5.9%, with local off 7.8% and national 4.2%. "Significantly higher political advertising was offset by the absence of ad demand related to the Super Bowl that benefited our CBS affiliates in 2007 and a softer economic environment," the company said. Gannett says TV pacings for Q1 are down in the mid single digits. The nation's largest newspaper company said January print ad revenues were down 9.2% on a pro forma basis in January to 371.4 million. Journal Broadcast Group reported January revenues down 0.8% to 13.9 million. Within that, TV was down 1.8% to 8.98 million, while radio gained 1.3% to 4.92 million. For all of Journal Communications, revenues were down 3.1% to 31.92 million. Publishing revenues fell 4.9%, with ad revenues down 6.5%.

Majoras heading out at FTC
As the term of George W. Bush winds through its final year, we may see variations of this story in all sectors of his administration. This time, it's FTC Chair Deborah Platt Majoras (R) who is headed for the private sector, with an exit date described by the FTC as "late March." According to the Associated Press, her destination is the legal department at Procter & Gamble. "The FTC is well-positioned to continue its strong record of acting on behalf of American consumers," Majoras said. "As technological and other marketplace advancements provide new antitrust questions and threaten consumers' confidence in our economy, the men and women of the FTC are already working to develop the best course for future enforcement, policy, and consumer outreach." Majoras touted her efforts at winning voluntary cooperation from various stakeholders, including the media, in promoting the battle against childhood obesity. Her FTC has not thrown up particularly high barriers toward media mergers, although analysts on Wall Street are still wondering where the decision on the pending XM/Sirius merger is.

TVBR observation: The exit of Majoras will leave the FTC hamstrung with two Republicans and two Democrats. While one of the sitting Republicans will likely be named acting chair, it will put the possibility of the repeated stalemate into play, a situation FCC Chairman Kevin Martin had to work through for months at the beginning of his chairmanship, leaving him to assign the 8th Floor a workload almost exclusively limited to non-controversial issues. Of course, it will literally take an act of Congress to fill the seat, a feat which may be problematical under any circumstances during the truncated legislative season of a typical election year, and which may become nearly impossible if President Bush appoints a replacement beyond the acceptable ideological boundaries of the Senate-ruling Democrats. We do expect to see an XM/Sirius decision before March, however.

Billion dollar bye-bye
It's right there in the headline of the New York Times OpEd page: "I'm Not Running for President, but..." If anybody here at TVBR wrote that headline, its importance would be less than negligible. But then, we weren't considering dumping one billion dollars of our own money into a third-party presidential run, as was New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The current incarnation of Bloomberg, who politically appends an (I) after his name to indicate party affiliation (for independent, or none), was true to his own (D) then (R) the (I) progression, saying of the possible resolutions of current issues, "Some of these solutions have traditionally been seen as Republican, while others have been seen as Democratic. As a businessman, I never believed that either party had all the answers and, as mayor, I have seen just how true that is." He reiterated his oft-state lack of presidential ambition (despite numerous reports that he was researching a run on the QT), but said the issues were too important for him to remain silent on the sidelines. "If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach -- and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy -- I'll join others in helping that candidate win the White House."

TVBR observation: We have read that Bloomberg's MO involves silent study before action, meaning that Bloomberg observers find about what he intends to do pretty much when he actually does it. But he seems serious in aligning himself against party orthodoxy and special interests when their tenets and desires block meaningful progress on a wide range of important issues. It will be interesting to see how his philosophy and promise of involvement translates into action. However, it will likely not translate into a gigantic infusion of cash into the already gigantic warchests still being assembled. Bloomberg is limited to a four-figure donation cap just like the rest of us.


Wall Street Business Report TM
New Belo announces first dividend
Belo Corporation announced its first dividend payment since the company was split in two earlier this month, with a new newspaper company split off and the Belo Corp. name remaining with the pure-play television company. Belo's board of directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of seven and a half cents per share to be paid June 6th to shareholders of record on May 16th. The newspaper company, A.H. Belo Corp., also announced its first dividend payment, with the same payment and record dates. That quarterly payout will be 25 cents.

Saga's year up, quarter down
Both radio and television were down a bit in Q4 at Saga Communications, with combined revenues down 1.9% to 37.5 million due to the lack of political advertising. Saga had 2.4 million in political in Q4 of 2006, but only 852K in the most recent quarter. For the full year, though, Saga's revenues were up 0.8% to 114 million. Excluding political, that would have been a gain of 2.3%. For Q4, same-station radio revenues were down 1.5% to 32.7 million and operating income declined 3.5% to 9.2 million. For TV, revenues declined 9.9% to 4.5 million and operating income was off 35.1% to 931K.

Declines posted by Entravision
Even the Hispanic media sector has not been spared from the soft ad market. Entravision reported that Q4 revenues were down 2% to 62.5 million, with declines in both radio and TV. Consolidated EBITDA was down 10% to 23 million. Pro forma television revenues were off 2% to 39.4 million and radio revenues declined 1% to 23.1 million. "During the fourth quarter we continued to execute our strategy and build our audience shares in a challenging environment. We faced difficult comps due to the absence of events that occurred in the prior year period, as well as continued softness in the advertising market," said CEO Walter Ulloa. The company announced that it is selling its Outdoor division for 100 million. Ulloa says that cash will be put to work on such things as strategic acquisitions and potentially returning capital to shareholders.


Ad Business Report TM

Ads on local TV news drive greater product awareness
Not only is local TV news content the biggest audience draw for news and information on-air and on digital platforms -- it is also the most effective video ad platform, according to new research results announced by Hearst-Argyle Television. The full survey results will be released in March. In a presentation at the annual Association of National Advertisers conference in NYC, Hearst-Argyle President and CEO David Barrett discussed these findings: Viewers are more engaged with local news than most other genres; 55% of respondents cite TV as their primary source of news information, followed distantly by the Web (26%), and print newspapers (14%); Local TV news is more "DVR-proof" than other program formats; most viewers watch local news live, and even when they record these programs they are less likely to fast-forward through them; The greater loyalty audiences have toward local broadcast TV news is a factor in the effectiveness of advertising within the genre, and, in a key finding, respondents reported that ads on local TV news drive greater product/service awareness than those within any other program type. Other research findings point to a strong linkage between leading local television news brands and the Web: After search engines, local TV news websites are the most frequently used for local news and weather; Online video viewing of local TV news content is higher than that for any other genre -- 37% for local news vs. 31% each for cable news and primetime programming, 24% for reality TV video and 23% for broadcast network news; Among weather sources on the web, local TV websites are the "most important source" for weather information; Among the online population, local-news viewers are relatively affluent technology adapters: 44% have DVRs, 32% have HDTV sets.

Obama leads in Ohio
and Texas advertising

Democrat Barack Obama is the leading advertiser in advance of the March 4 Ohio and Texas presidential primaries, The Nielsen Company reported. According to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, between 1/1 and 2/24, Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain placed 6,499 TV spots in Ohio. During the same time period, Obama and Clinton placed a total of 11,150 spots in Texas. John McCain did not run television ads in Texas during January and February. Although his television spots ran only in February, Barack Obama's advertising far outpaced Hillary Clinton's and John McCain's in both Ohio and Texas. His spots account for 63% of the 6,499 presidential campaign ads that have aired on television in Ohio since the start of the new year. In Texas, Barack Obama ran an even larger number of spots-but because Hillary Clinton also increased her advertising, Obama's spots accounted for only 59% of the 11,150 televised presidential campaign spots that aired there during January and February.


Media Markets & Money TM
Entravision selling billboards
Entravision Communications says it has a deal to sell its Outdoor division to Lamar Advertising Company for 100 million in cash. Entravision's outdoor advertising operations operate under the name Vista Media and primarily consist of approximately 10,600 advertising faces in New York and Los Angeles.


Washington Business Report TM
Cross-ownership easement under attack
Tribune did not like the FCC's move to allow limited broadcast/newspaper cross-ownership. It opened up only the top 20 DMAs, and Tribune feels all DMAs should be open to such combinations. Now the Prometheus Radio Project is attacking from the other angle, arguing that the FCC overstepped its authority in allowing cross-ownership in the top 20 to loosen. It'll have Media Access Project helping plead its case in Philadelphia's Third Circuit, where this same Prometheus successfully blocked much of the legendary 6/2/03 Michael Powell FCC ownership rulemaking. The Prometheus legal action wound up sending the case back to the Commission on remand, to provide better justification for the proposed changes, or to change the proposals to better justified new ones.

TVBR observation: The moves may not be equal and opposite. Presumably Tribune will be better equipped to spend money on lawyers than will Prometheus, although the way the stock market has been behaving we suppose that is not a given. But the important action-inhibiting fact is that both sides are again already being heard from in the judicial system. And we still haven't heard from Capitol Hill, where Byron Dorgan (D-ND) has promised to put his posse back together to stop the FCC action, this time with much more congenial leadership in the House of Representatives than he had last time around, when now-departed leaders Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) prevented a companion to Dorgan's Resolution of Disapproval from ever seeing the light of day on the House floor. This one isn't over yet, and at this rate it by the time it is over, we'll be reading our newspapers on special signet rings provided by a company that right now is a mere germ of an idea in the mind of a 12-year-old prodigy who is two years away from early entry into a elite engineering university. Hey, it could happen.

Sports programming headed for the Hill
Sometimes we think if we scour the Bill of Rights closely enough, we will find a clause describing the inalienable right of all Americans to watch to sporting events of their choosing on whatever media is capable of carrying them. Constitutionally guaranteed or not, the topic of "Competition in the Sports Programming Marketplace" is on the docket for the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet next week. Ed Markey (D-MA) and members of his Capitol Hill bailiwick will tee it up Wednesday, 3/5/08 at 9:30AM Eastern. The witness panel has not yet been revealed.

TVBR observation: If we don't find the Constitutional clause we're looking for, we suggest putting one in there. We'll call it the First and Ten Amendment. No sports broadcast rights holder to shall deny rebroadcast rights to any other sports rights wannahave; nor shall sporting events with play-off implications be interrupted for messages concerning minor events such as terrorist attacks and/or impending tornado strikes; nor shall sports bars be allowed to close or turn off their receivers while West Coast games are continuing into overtime or extra innings, as the case may be. It'll have the necessary 67% of Congress approve it as soon as it hits the floor, and will be returned to Washington by the 75% of state legislatures needed for ratification within three business days, even if it means reconvening the legislatures in two thirds of that 75%.


Entertainment Business Report TM
Billy Ray Cyrus to host "Nashville Star"
NBC played this announcement for all it was worth. While appearing Wednesday on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" Country singer and "Hannah Montana" star Billy Ray Cyrus announced that he will be the new host of the music-competition series "Nashville Star" that moves to NBC this summer. "This year it is all about the dream, about the music, about persistence and never giving up faith. Putting the music first. You know I've been to the fair and I've seen the bear and I am really excited," said Cyrus, referring to his own move from obscurity to stardom in 1992. Meanwhile, "Nashville Star" continues its national casting search on March 8 with stops in the Los Angeles area, Washington, DC, Austin and Nashville.

CBS in for the fight
CBS announced a multi-year deal with ProElite Inc. to bring mixed martial arts events to a major broadcast network for the first time. CBS will broadcast four mixed martial arts events per year, produced by ProElite's EliteXC fight division, as two-hour live primetime specials targeted for Saturday nights. The agreement augments an existing relationship between CBS Corporation and ProElite, which began broadcasting its EliteXC live events on CBS's Showtime premium cable network in 2007. EliteXC events will continue to air on Showtime. Additionally, CBS Interactive and ProElite's new media division, ProElite.com, will collaborate on generating interactive content for both companies' platforms, including CBSSports.com.


Ratings & Research
TDGA salary survey shows
5.9% jump for TV; 2.7% for radio

The Traffic Directors Guild of America released its 6th and most extensive annual salary study of Traffic and Continuity Department personnel. Radio Traffic Department personnel showed a salary of 41,774.87 when all markets were combined and averaged, an increase of 2.7%; and Television Traffic jumped nearly 6% to 52,773.97. The in-depth study included a sampling response from 3,146 usable station participants, 2,124 of which were affiliated with Radio Traffic Operations, and 1,022 from Television-related Traffic occupations. "The breakouts and analysis held far more interesting statistics," said Larry Keene, CEO of the non-union membership association. "Between consolidation, the increase in centralized traffic hubs, multi-log demands from HDTV, HD Radio, streaming and web revenues, we found Traffic staff sizes and seniority at the same station on a roller coaster of change. Overall Traffic staffs increased slightly over 15.4% (TV has surged to an average of 7.7 persons per Traffic Department), and the workload as measured in number of logs and accounts handled was also sharply up."

Survey of TV and online viewing
reveals surprising behavior

blinkx, a major video search engine, announced the results of a new survey on television and online video viewing habits conducted by Harris Interactive. The survey, designed to shed light into the interplay between television viewing and Internet usage, revealed some startling results. When it comes to television viewing, the survey showed that more than three in four adults are doing the two-screen tango. Viewers aren't necessarily abandoning their TV in favor of the Web; many are using the Web as an accompaniment to their TV viewing. In fact, 78% U.S. adults go online while watching TV, and more than a third of them do so always or often.
| Learn More |

CRE to fund study on out-of-home video consumption
Speaking of online viewing (see above), The Council for Research Excellence (CRE), an independent forum of media industry research experts created by The Nielsen Company, announced it will commission a year-long study by Ball State University's Center for Media Design (CMD) to observe how individuals consume traditional and emerging video platforms inside and outside the home. The Video Consumer Mapping Study, to be conducted jointly by CMD and Sequent Partners, a brand and media metrics consultancy, is intended to establish how media-especially television and video-are consumed across multiple platforms, in order to develop best practices in the area of video media measurement.


Stock Talk
A down day all around
Unemployment claims were up and Fed chief Ben Bernanke was talking about small bank failures. It was enough to make Wall Street traders sell stocks. The Dow Industrials fell 112 points, or 0.9%, to 12,582.

TV stocks were not spared. The TVBR Television Index dropped 1.101, or 1.2%, to 90.712. LIN was down 5.3%, as was SBS, which has only one TV station included in its portfolio of radio properties. Media General and McGraw-Hill each declined 4%.


Stocks

Here's how stocks fared on Thursday

Company Symbol Close Change Company Symbol Close Change

Acme*

ACME

2.95

-0.03

Journal Comm.

JRN

7.17

-0.18

Belo*

BLC

12.29

-0.25

Lincoln Natl.

LNC

53.50

-1.56

CBS CI. B* CBS

23.96

-0.03

LIN TV*

TVL

10.41

-0.58

CBS CI. A CBSa

24.01

-0.01

McGraw-Hill

MHP

42.04

-1.42

Clear Channel

CCU

32.49

-0.93

Media General

MEG

16.43

-0.69

Disney

DIS

32.54

-0.56

Meredith

MDP

44.72

-1.87

Emmis

EMMS

3.01

+0.04

News Corp.

NWS

19.85

-0.38

Entravision*

EVC

5.93

-0.19

Nexstar*

NXST

7.71

-0.10

Equity Media* EMDA 2.94 -0.06

Saga Commun.

SGA

5.89

-0.06

Fisher*

FSCI

32.88

-0.07

SBS

SBSA

1.60

-0.09

Gannett

GCI

30.23

-1.52

Scripps

SSP

43.00

-0.35

Gen. Electric

GE

33.85

-0.17

Sinclair*

SBGI

9.52

-0.06

Google GOOG

475.39

+2.53

Time Warner

TWX

16.02

-0.51

Gray*

GTN

6.00

-0.04

Wash. Post

WPO

735.80

12.43

Gray, C1. A

GTNa

7.19

unch

Young*

YBTVA

0.81

+0.02

Hearst-Argyle*

HTV

22.43

-0.18

-

-

-

-

-

*Component of the TVBR Television Index
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Below the Fold

Ad Business Report
Ads on local TV news
Drive greater most product awareness not only is local news content biggest draw but...

Entertainment Business Report
Host of "Nashville Star"
Billy Ray Cyrus and NBC played this for all it was worth...

CBS in for the fight
Multi-year deal with ProElite Inc. to bring mixed martial arts...

Ratings & Research
TDGA salary survey shows
5.9% jump for TV; 2.7% for radio...

Survey of TV and
Online viewing reveals surprising results...


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the Hot List on...

TV Media Moves

New GM in San Diego
NBC Local Media has named Jackie Bradford President and General Manager of O&O KNSD-TV (Ch. 39) San Diego. She had been Finance Director for fellow O&O WRC-TV (Ch. 4) Washington, DC.

Internal move
Entravision Communications announced the appointment of Christopher Young as Executive Vice President and CFO, effective approximately April 15th. He will replace John DeLorenzo, who is returning to the East Coast to pursue other interests and who will remain with the company until that date. Young has been President of Entravision's Outdoor division, which is being sold.


More News Headlines

Nielsen reorganizes business media operations
Two of what had been six groups have been combined at Nielsen Business Media, with industry veteran Gerry Byrne joining the company as Sr. Vice President, Entertainment Group. Byrne, who had already been consulting Nielsen, will report to Greg Farrar, President of Nielsen Business Media. The new Entertainment Group under Byrne will include Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Back Stage, Kirkus Reviews, The Bookseller, Film Journal International, and the film industry expositions ShoWest, ShowEast, Cinema Expo International and CineAsia Exposition. Those had been split among the Film & Performing Arts and Music & Literary groups, although both were headed by John Kilcullen, who is leaving Nielsen to pursue entrepreneurial interests. "Forming a single entertainment unit and strategic vision allows us to maximize our efforts across all platforms. It provides us with broader and more cohesive insight into what our clients need and helps us to better coordinate our approach toward the growing market and revenue opportunities. Going forward, our entertainment brands will work much more closely together to pursue new opportunities across the division and throughout The Nielsen Company," said Byrne.



TVBR observation: We can tell you it ain't easy to make a buck in the trade publishing world these days. Reed Elsevier has already put its business pubs on the auction block, but buyers don't appear to be jockeying for position. Like the beleaguered daily newspaper business, anyone who is dependent on killing trees and paying postage is finding it hard to survive in a world increasingly dominated by online media. How does Nielsen Business Media fit into the long-term plan at The Nielsen Company? Well, it wouldn't be the highlight when CEO David Calhoun puts together an IPO road show.

RTNDF awards gathering in the offing
The Radio-Television News Directors Foundation is set to hand out awards. CNN's John Roberts will emcee the 3/17/08 event at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington. Among the presenters will be Jim Lehrer (PBS), John Sturm (NAA), David Westin (ABC) and Jeff Zucker (NBC). The recipients include Bob Schieffer (CBS), Richard Wiley (Wiley Rein/ex-FCC Chair), Tom Curley (AP) and Paula Madison (NBC).

Sheraton signs partnership with CBS Sports, NCAA
Sheraton Hotels & Resorts is teaming up with CBS Sports and the NCAA as an Official NCAA Corporate Partner. Sheraton is launching the sponsorship with a campaign that includes TV, online and on-property activation, as well as an effort to engage fans by bringing back an all-time fan favorite - the "wave." With 190 hotels located in the U.S., Sheraton will become the hotel of choice for loyal NCAA sports fans who follow and support their favorite college team while they travel. The Sheraton brand's NCAA partnership provides the global hotel brand with category exclusivity in 23 sports, including basketball and football, and marketing rights to all 88 NCAA Championship events and integrated media, including the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. Sheraton hotels have unveiled a new :30 TV spot, "Belong," that airs during CBS Sports' regular-season coverage of NCAA basketball, the 2008 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship -- including the Men's Final Four semifinal games -- and the National Championship game, through April 8. Online media includes placements on CBSSports.com and NCAA.com. Additionally, Sheraton will sponsor NCAA March Madness on Demand, the online video player that provides live streaming video of all 64 games of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship, March 6-April 14. The sponsorship also includes in-game billboards, on-air sponsorships, in-game programming and a NCAA-themed national promotion.


RBR - Radio News

Univision Music Group sold to Universal
Universal Music Group is the winning bidder to acquire Univision Music Group, which has been for sale since Univision Communications was taken private. The price was not disclosed, but the Hispanic record label group was expected to account for most of the planned divestitures of about a half billion in non-core assets, with the rest from radio station sales. Univision Music Group, the largest Latin music company in the US, includes Univision Records, Fonovisa Records, Disa Records, Univision Music Mexico and Univision Music Publishing. Since the inception of Univision Music Group in 2001, Universal Music Group has been its distributor in the US, Puerto Rico and Mexico, so it is not surprising that Universal won the bidding to acquire the company.

As part of the transaction, Universal Music Group will continue Univision Music Group's established relationship with the Univision television networks, Univision and TeleFutura, under a long-term agreement. "Univision Music Group's artists, labels and catalog are among the finest in Latin music. This acquisition expands UMG's presence in one of the most dynamic and vital genres of music today," said Universal Music Group President and COO Zach Horowitz. "The sale of Univision Music Group is an important step in the execution of our strategic plan to divest certain non-core assets in order to focus exclusively on our television, radio and online businesses," said Univision Communications CEO Joe Uva.


TVBR Radar 2008
Television News you won't read any where else. TVBR--First, Accurate, and Independently Owned.

Comcast taken to task
for meeting seating
The purpose of the FCC's en banc hearing in Massachusetts Monday was a look at policies of broadband suppliers, and a big part of that was a look at Comcast's role in inhibiting public access to a particular internet service. Now activists are charging the cable giant with inhibit public access to the FCC in the form of paid seat-warmers who claimed seats at the forum and turned them over later to Comcast employees. Comcast admitted it did this, although it did not say how it hired seat-warmers nor how many there were.
02/28/08 TVBR #41

Legal eagle-eye view
of "Married by America"
Our good friends at Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice PLLC are back; in particular, attorney Peter Gutmann is back, with a legal look at the FCC's brand new fine. We note that the FCC has a form of buyer's remorse -- we guess you'd call it finer's or levier's remorse, that it only charged affiliates 7K a pop for the pixilated nudity aired on "Married by America." As usual, WCSR advises not to use these remarks for the purposes of actual litigation.
02/28/08 TVBR #41


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