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Volume 22, Issue 98, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher

Wednesday Morning May 18th, 2005

TV News®

ABC adding five new comedies, six dramas
Stephen McPherson, President/ABC Entertainment, outlined yesterday ABC's plans for next season and announced the net's new 2005-06 fall schedule. ABC will add two new comedies and three new dramas. An additional three new comedies, three new dramas and one new alternative series were announced for midseason. McPherson spoke before ABC affiliates and representatives of the ad and media communities at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall in NYC. The new fall schedule includes new comedy series "Freddie" and "Hot Properties" and dramas "Commander-in-Chief," "Invasion" and "The Night Stalker." For midseason, the three new comedies are "Crumbs," "Emily's Reasons Why Not" and "Sons & Daughters." The three new midseason dramas are "The Evidence," "In Justice" and "What About Brian." The new midseason alternative series is "The Miracle Workers." In addition to the returning series that have already been announced, the new fall sked will also see the return of "George Lopez," "Hope & Faith," "Rodney," "Supernanny" and "Wife Swap," with "The Bachelor," "Jake in Progress" and "Less than Perfect" to return midseason. McPherson also announced that the new season episode order for "Grey's Anatomy" has been upped to 22. With four episodes unaired from this season's order, ABC will have 26 original 'sodes of "Grey's" available to air in 2005-06.
| See ABC's complete 22-hour fall primetime schedule, with descriptions: |

Editor's note: ABC is showing "The Night Stalker" as a new drama series. Well not really new because ABC first aired 'The Night Stalker' in September 1974 which stared Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak and then cancelled it 1975. New - Maybe to those not carrying an AARP card.

Moody's puts Emmis under review
With Emmis Communications taking on debt to buy back up to 39% of its own stock (before an expected sale of its TV group), Moody's Investors Service has placed the company's credit ratings under review for a possible downgrade. Moody's notes that the stock buyback will likely increase Emmis' debt leverage to more than eight times EBITDA. Moody's said it will conclude the review "when there is greater visibility into the company's future capital structure." | Moody's Investors Service observation |

TVBR observation: When Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan announced the stock buyback and potential TV sale (5/11/05 TVBR #93), several analysts on the conference call questioned why the company was doing the buyback first before it raised cash from selling TV. They never really got a definitive answer, except that Emmis had decided to do it that way. The best we can figure is that Smulyan wants to act on the stock buyback now because waiting until after the TV sale many months hence could let the company's stock price creep back up to where the buyback could not find takers below the cap of 19.75 a share. Yes, that will raise leverage temporarily, but step two will bring it way down, since the TV sale is likely to bring in about three times the 400 million that Emmis will be spending on the stock buyback.

NY Times TV revenues down in April
Like most broadcasters, the New York Times TV group is feeling the effects of not having federal elections this year. But the group's revenues were down only 1.9% in April to 13.9 million. Newspaper/Interent ad revenues were up 2.2% to 203.4 million, with retail up 9%, classified up 7.7% and national down 5.1%. While not breaking out the Internet portion separately, the company said ad sales were up 31.6%.

Media General bucks trend with up April
While most TV groups have been seeing monthly revenues lag behind last year, Media General CEO J. Stewart Bryan III was happy to report that his TV division outperformed expectations and its peers in April, reporting a 3% increase in revenues to 31.8 million, with ad sales up 4.5% and gains at both the local and national levels. Local sales increased 13.1%, "reflecting another month of strong results from the division's business development initiatives," the company said. Growth in fast food, automotive, furniture and services advertising offset declines in the department store and corporate categories. National sales rose 4.1%, due to gains in the corporate and fast food categories that offset declines in financial and drug store advertising. Although down substantially from last year, political revenues of 260,000 exceeded expectations. Media General said that political spending came from issues advertising for Social Security and educational reforms as well as several local political races. On the print side, revenues for Media General's newspapers rose 5.1% to 57.2 million. Ad revenues rose 6.6% to 47.5 million, with classified up 10.8%, retail up 4.4% and national down 0.5%.

Stevens getting ready to review Telecom
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) met with members of the American Cable Association, and discussed the upcoming review of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Among his expressed concerns are decent family programming and holding rein on big company clout. He told ACA that he thinks it only fair that cable programmers toe the same line broadcasters do when it comes to decent programming. "I do continue to advocate a family tier of programming. I'm learning more and more about that, that it may not be economically possible, but I think we ought to come as close to it as we can," he said, addressing one possible solution to the problem. He also said he was worried about "...the cost of programming. Just five content producers - - the four networks plus AOL/Time Warner - - own or control 57 channels now, including the most highly rated programs on the air today." He noted that large cable operators and satellite distributors were able to negotiate better retransmission deals with the big five than are small cable companies, who he said get hit with premiums of up to 30%-50%. He also noted the problem of the big five forcing operators to carry channels they don't want to secure the co-owned offerings they feel they need. Perhaps his most important comment, however, was that his committee is in the process of gathering information before taking any action.

Organization whipping up content control resistance
How far will the government try to go to prevent indecent program content from making it onto the nation's airwaves? The new network-backed organization TV Watch is trying to get concerned citizens to do their bit to assure that the government's role is minimal. "Networks are previewing their fall lineups to advertisers this week," said TV Watch, "...giving a sneak peak to the kinds of programs that capture the range of American viewing preferences. But will Congress increase their role in controlling TV content, putting new shows and your old favorites at risk?" The group is attempting to drive traffic to its website, and to counter the well-organized email campaigns of anti-indecency groups.

Upfront 2005

CBS: Prouder than a peacock
CBS has plenty to be cocky about in today's Upfront presentation. With once high-flying NBC now treading water, ad revenues will likely shift over to CBS side. The Eye net has not dumped programming, but added to it and doesn't have many fingers plugging the holes in their plumbing. "CSI" in all three incarnations is going strong. The big loss is the comedy slot left vacant as "Everyone Loves Raymond" finished its long run just this week. Comedy is the most difficult programming to attract a new audience and build content, since it has to flow on a consistent pattern and upcoming plot with one-liners - - that ain't easy. CBS has been playing close to the vest on what it has new coming for this fall. However, Les Moonves and associates are said to have high hopes for "Quantico," a crime drama featuring FBI agents. (By the way, our sources inside the FBI say the bureau wants nothing to do with this show.) CBS took in 2.3 billion at last year's Upfront and is hoping to increase that by maybe 10%, with CPMs also up in the high single digits. Like ABC, CBS will be using its multi-media platform for cross-promotion. Moonves has stated that he will use his 180 radio stations to the max to pump his fall line up.

Conference Calls Q1 2005

Both radio and TV revenues up at Liberman
Not many multi-media companies could make that claim in Q1, but Spanish-language broadcasting continues to be hot. Liberman Broadcasting's holding company, LBI Media, reports that TV revenues were up 5% to 10.9 million - - a 6% gain if you exclude previous revenues from leasing out the company's LA production facility (now used mostly for Liberman's own production). Operating income for TV, however, decreased 20% to 3.1 million. The company attributed higher TV expenses to costs associated with internally produced programming, higher sales salaries and commission and expenses related to KMPX-TV Dallas-Ft. Worth, which was acquired in January 2004. Radio revenues rose 8% to 9.6 million. "The increase in revenue can be primarily attributed to improved client results and ratings performance at our stations," Liberman said. Operating income for the radio division increased 68% to 4.4 million.

Tough quarter for Allbritton
Not only were political revenues down sharply in fiscal Q2 (January-March) at Allbritton Communications (although it did still book 60,000, compared to a million a year ago), but regular spot sales were down as well. The company says local revenues declined 1.9% and national fell 4.8%. It said national ad demand was particularly weak in the Washington, DC market. In all, net revenues fell 5.2% to 45 million for the quarter. Interestingly, Allbritton includes a separate line for its network comp, so we know that its payments from ABC (all seven of its stations are ABC affiliates) declined from nearly 1.5 million a year ago to 634,000 in Q2. The company said that was due to two factors: a reduced compensation rate and the cost of participating in ABC's broadcast rights deal with the NFL (which will end next year). Operating cash flow was down 9.9% for the quarter to 12.9 million.

Adbiz©

Newspaper circulation worst since 1996
John Strum, Executive Director, Newspaper Association of America, as reported by eMarketer, said "Two years ago search engines were not viewed as much of a threat, (but) over the past year newspapers have recognized their effect." In reporting the latest data according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, eMarketer concludes that the threat is real. Daily US newspaper circulation dropped 1.9% in the six-month period ending 3/31, which was the largest decline since 1995-1996, when circulation fell nearly 2.1%. Sunday circulation declined 2.5% over the last six months, compared with the same period a year ago. | View the Chart |

Arbitron increases
RADAR sample size to 100,000
Further upping the accuracy and consistency of RADAR-rated network ratings, Arbitron announced it will boost the sample size of its RADAR service by 25% from 80,000 to 100,000 diarykeepers. In addition, this increase in RADAR sample size will allow Arbitron to expand the new Market by Market Reporting tool, which currently reports the top 10 DMAs, to the top 25 DMAs by June. Starting with the release of RADAR 85 in June, Arbitron will add 5,000 diaries to the sample of the most current quarter of each RADAR report, going from the current sample size of 80,009 diaries to 85,000 diaries. By the release of RADAR 88 in March 2006, the RADAR service will be based on an annual sample size of 100,000 diarykeepers. As part of the ongoing quality enhancement programs for the RADAR service, Arbitron began increasing the sample size in 2002. Arbitron completed its first sample increase program, raising the sample from 12,006 respondents in RADAR 72 to 49,959 diarykeepers in RADAR 76, which was released in March 2003.

Clear Channel claims
"Less is More" success continues
Clear Channel Radio announced progress it is making with its "Less is More" initiative. Some specific points:
* CC Radio is continuing to see an increase in the utilization of shorter length commercials by advertisers of all sizes, including major national advertisers such as Verizon, Home Depot and The WB. Overall, in markets across the country advertisers are utilizing two to five times as many :30s and :15s so far this year compared to last year.
* Highlighting the early accomplishments of the Creative Services Group, Clear Channel Radio has created a new resource for advertisers on the Internet at www.betterradio.net, and has doubled its financial commitment to Creative Services Group activities for the current year.
* Recently released Arbitron ratings reflect audiences are listening more to CC Radio stations, in part because of LIM. CC Radio is experiencing in-demo ratings success and audience share gains across the board. For example, the company experienced ratings increases in 64% of the top-50 markets. In addition, CC Radio's share of listeners 12+ at any given time during the day, or quarter hour share,* increased an impressive 5.3% for the top 10 markets. (*quarter hour share for Mon.-Sun. 6:00 a.m. to Midnight)

Washington Beat

FCC to re-examine cable ownership rules
Way back in 2001, the District Circuit told the FCC that its horizontal and vertical cable ownership limits were in need of review. As the FCC puts it, a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking it is initiating "...is intended to permit the Commission to address a number of significant events that have occurred in the cable and related industries and to build an evidentiary record on which to establish sustainable cable horizontal and vertical rules.

The parameters of the review are as follows:
* "Examining the legal framework governing cable ownership"
* "Examining industry developments that may affect the development of sustainable cable ownership limits"
* "Examining the relevant product and geographic markets, the economic basis for establishing particular cable horizontal and vertical ownership limits and the potential benefits and harms of cable industry consolidation"
* "Addressing the viability of proposals for setting limits suggested in the record in response to the 2001 Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking"

Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein commented on the belatedness of the review, but indicated they were pleased that the NPRM at the very least affirmed that some limits were appropriate. They urged fast action on the matter.

Programming

The WB adds three dramas, one comedy for fall
The WB's Entertainment President David Janollari and network Chairman Garth Ancier unveiled the network's 2005-2006 primetime schedule yesterday at Madison Square Garden. The new sked includes three new dramas and a new comedy directly targeted at young adults. Janollari also announced two comedies and two dramas for midseason. The WB will use established hit shows on all six nights of the week to lead off the 8:00 hour and provide strong lead-ins for the new series. "7th Heaven, " "Gilmore Girls, " "One Tree Hill, " "Smallville," "What I Like About You" and "Charmed" will serve as 8:00 anchors across the schedule.
| The new programs, and the entire WB primetime sked here: |

Ratings & Research

Scripted series win the week
Once again, Fox's "American Idol" has been beaten by scripted series. This time, both CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and ABC's "Desperate Housewives" beat Idol. CBS also won the 18-49 demo, although Fox maintained a slight edge for the season-to-date. In the Household numbers, CBS scored a 9.3 rating and 16 share, well ahead of NBC at 6.2/11, ABC 6.0/10, Fox 5.8/10, UPN 2.4/4, WB 2.2/4 and Pax 0.4/1. | View the Chart |

Stock Talk

Tough talk boosts stocks
It was just talk, but Wall Street liked it when the Bush Administration warned China about its manipulation of exchange rates, which may be an important factor in rising US trade deficits. The Dow Industrials rose 80 points, or 0.8%, to 10,332.

There was no particular news to affect TV stocks, so they moved up with the market. Saga gained 2.1% as the best performer.

Stocks

**Here's how stocks fared on Tuesday**
Company	Symbol	Close		Change	Company	Symbol	Close		Change
Acme	ACME		4.00	-0.03	McGraw-Hill	MHP		87.25	-0.48
Belo	BLC		23.96	+0.16	Media General	MEG		59.59	+0.30
Clear Channel	CCU		30.18	+0.16	Meredith	MDP		47.87	-0.11
Disney	DIS		27.28	+0.21	News Corp.	NWS		15.85	-0.13
Emmis	EMMS		17.99	+0.03	Nexstar	NXST		4.92	-0.06
Entravision	EVC		7.50	+0.09	NY Times	NYT		33.53	+0.61
Fisher	FSCI		49.80	+0.55	Paxson	PAX		0.70	-0.01
Gannett	GCI		76.00	-0.20	Saga Commun.	SGA		13.99	+0.29
Gen. Electric	GE		36.46	+0.22	Scripps	SSP		51.70	+0.31
Granite	GBTVK		0.20	-0.01	Sinclair	SBGI		8.15	+0.13
Gray	GTN		12.29	+0.04	Time Warner	TWX		17.07	+0.12
Gray, C1. A	GTNa		11.58	unch	Tribune	TRB		37.03	-0.11
Hearst-Argyle	HTV		24.86	+0.23	Univision	UVN		26.17	-0.12
Jeff-Pilot	JP		50.65	+0.88	Viacom, Cl. A	VIA		34.50	+0.15
Journal Comm.	JRN		16.38	-0.05	Viacom, Cl. B	VIAb		34.34	+0.12
Liberty Corp	LC		36.88	+0.38	Wash. Post	WPO		821.60	+3.90
LIN TV	TVL		14.50	-0.68	Young	YBTVA		5.31	-0.17

Bounceback

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

This reader wonders whether our priorities are in order - - fining broadcasters for the slightest indecency, while a major news magazine suffers no penalty for causing multiple deaths.

After hearing the effects of the recent Newsweek article, I'm just wondering when the fines will be issued? The broadcast industry was turned upside down over what the long effects might be of showing a portion of the female body. People were fined and/or fired from New York to LA. Now we even have senators who believe that conservative decency should be required of XM, Sirius, and cable television. They'd even get their mitts into regulating Internet programming if they could find a way. How about at least a charitable donation from the folks at Newsweek? Let's include everyone from the publisher to the fellow manning the newsstand downtown - - after all, he should have known better than to sell the darn thing in the first place. We're not talking about some photographer who sneaked his proofs past the proofreaders. No, the "delay" system at most magazines is many times longer than the seven seconds adopted by the broadcast industry. Maybe an apology, followed by a retraction, and a few minutes of remorsefulness will be enough to restore lives, mend relations, and keep the peace. Maybe it works that way in the print industry. Maybe it's just ok to see people die because of bad journalism. But the next person who exposes a breast, or drops the f-bomb on radio or television is in big, big trouble.

Dave Dennis
Senior Branding Manager
Midwest Family Broadcasting
Springfield, Illinois

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More News Headlines

BBC building TV download store

Wireless industry adding
Amber Alerts

Smut finds its way to financial management confab

Radio & Television
Business Report
The First Real Monthly
Business Media Magazine

'05 Clock is Ticking -
Heading for Closure

June Magazine
National Sales:
EDI - Electronic Data Interchange, sometimes synonymous with Electronic Invoicing
Kathy Crawford, MindShare President, Local Broadcast, speaks her mind on EDI, specifically stating what solutions she needs from the software and keying entries to get stations faster payment in an exclusive column. States straight up, "Lest you should all think that our work is done in the world of EDI. Think again!" EDI- the focus of the future of national spot dollar. Who is and who isn't involved. From the rep firms to the software companies, we get answers. The Clock is ticking on EDI. Closure in '05?

Reserve your Ad Marketing
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TVBR Radar 2005

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

TVBR observation:
What's at stake at Univision
If you're wondering what's up with Televisa suing Univision for 1.5 million bucks rest assured it's not about the greenbacks. The legal bills alone will probably run well over that for both companies. Univision last year paid 170 million in royalties to its two big foreign program providers, Mexico's Televisa and Venezuela's Venevision, both of which are major shareholders of Univision as well. RBR/TVBR estimates that about two-thirds of that went to Televisa, which provided 36% of the programming on the Univision network and 23% of the programming on its younger sibling, TeleFutura. 05/17/05 TVBR #97

What's "The Deal"
with Kevin Martin?
The Deal.com has taken a look at new FCC Chairman Kevin Martin - - actually, it has tried to bring him into focus in the old crystal ball. It basically sees a new version of free marketer Michael Powell, albeit armed, in all probability, with a new strategy for pushing Powell's agenda. TVBR observation: Think The Deal is on to something? Michael Copps does he predicted exactly this strategy. That means if Martin is counting use of the element of surprise to come in under the radar, he may as well forget it. Copps and Adelstein are prepared to go on their national tour again, be it over one issue at a time or the whole grab bag at once. 05/17/05 TVBR #97

Scripps launching broadband nets to "super serve" consumers
Building on the success of its fast-growing consumer-oriented cable networks, Scripps networks is preparing to launch several niched broadband channels which will build on its existing brands, including HGTV (Home & Garden Television) and DIY (Do It Yourself). Like recently launched HGTVpro.com the niche channels will offer content on demand - - except that the new offerings will be aimed at consumers, rather than professional builders. TVBR observation: This is sort of like the magazine business, where the publishers of well-known consumer titles also issue undated specialty magazines focusing on a narrow niche. To the consumer looking for that specific type of information, the content is fresh and up-to-date, even if the publication has been on the store shelf for several months. 05/17/05 TVBR #97

XM hits 4M subscriber mark
Someone bought and activated the four millionth XM Satellite Radio receiver now in operation. CEO Hugh Panero noted that it took 23 months from launch for XM to reach one million subs. The move from three million to four million took less than five months. XM says it remains committed to hitting its target of 5.5 million by the end of 2005. Meanwhile, rival Sirius was at 1.1 million subscribers at the end of Q1 and projecting that it would hit 2.7 million by year's end.
RBR observation: Time to put up or shut up. Since XM reached the mark in mid-quarter, it's not obligated to end the flow of red ink from operations in Q2, but it had better show a positive number in Q3 - - and in every quarter thereafter.
05/17/05 TVBR #97

NBC claims breech by Paxson
You had to see this coming. Although Paxson Communications President Dean Goodman has told TVBR that the company has no intention of going all-infomercial, NBC Universal has now filed an arbitration claim accusing Paxson of breeching its contracts with NBC Uni, which owns about a third of Paxson. TVBR observation: We won't try to predict how the arbitrator will rule, but it's clear that both companies would be much happier if they could find a way to get out of their long-troubled relationship. The problem, though, is finding someone with two billion plus to cash out both NBC Uni and Bud Paxson so this valuable collection of FCC licenses and cable carriage agreements can be put to a better use than scoring a 0.4 average Nielsen rating. But until that buyer shows up, Goodman is going to have to focus on cutting costs and stemming the flow of red ink - - whether NBC Uni likes it or not. 05/16/05 TVBR #96

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