Dial Global announced a response to the email circulated by Mark Masters, President of Talk Radio Networks. Said Spencer Brown, co-Chief Executive Officer: “Despite the comments in Mr. Masters’ email to the press distributed yesterday in which he announced his company Talk Radio Networks (TRN) is suing Dial Global, at this time, Dial Global has not been served a complaint. We have provided outstanding service to TRN for over ten years and continue to represent several of TRN’s programs today. Based on the information contained in the complaint distributed by Mr. Masters to the press, which complaint was filed by a law firm run by Ron Severaid, TRN’s own internal legal counsel, we believe the complaint is entirely frivolous. We are confident we will defeat these spurious claims, assuming they are ever heard in a court of law.”
See the story and complaint here
RBR-TVBR observation: If it makes it to trial, Dial Global will need to prove that their programming partners, i.e. Compass Media Networks and WYD Media Management operate as independent entities, which may not be very difficult. There is competition out there, in the way of Premiere, Cumulus Media Networks, United Stations, etc., so at face value it may be tough to prove a monopoly. However, Cumulus Media Networks and Premiere are owned by radio groups–not independent syndicators and not named in the suit. TRN claims DG controls 95% of the independent spoken word syndicator ad dollars in the rep biz. If that is proven, it could get interesting. Also it’s surprising DG hasn’t yet received a copy of the complaint.
