Welcome to RBR's Daily Epaper
Volume 22, Issue 1, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher
Monday Morning January 3rd, 2005

Radio News®

They said it in 2004: February
As the old year exits stage right and the New Year makes its way to center stage, we thought we'd string together a compendium of quotes which appeared in RBR during the past year. Today here's one to ponder "I'm sure in some way it was planned, because somehow it really seemed that way...." February 2004 | More... |

Viacom/SBS initiative goes into effect
Spanish Broadcasting System is now running KRZZ-FM San Francisco, the 93.3 mHz facility formerly in the portfolio of Viacom's Infinity Radio. In return, Viacom is the proud holder of an SBS stake amounting to about 10% of the Hispanic radiocaster's total worth. Viacom has an option to acquire another 5%. The deal also includes cross-promotional features, under which SBS has access to CBS Television and Viacom Outdoor. "This strategic alliance creates a unique multimedia partnership focused on targeting the U.S. Hispanic population for years to come. Together with Viacom, one of the world's largest media companies, we are positioned to capture the future of this dynamic growth market through a comprehensive platform that includes some of the country's premier radio, television and outdoor properties. I am grateful to the management teams of Infinity and Viacom for this opportunity, and look forward to a successful partnership," said SBS President/CEO Raul Alarcon.

Harris Poll's top celebs of 2004
Oprah Winfrey remained on top of the celebrity heap in 2004, marking the third time in a row that the Talk icon has been named the top TV personality in the US according to an annual Harris Poll. David Letterman repeated as #2, although this time he shares that ranking with Jon Stewart. Rounding out the top ten are #4 Ray Romano, #5 Jay Leno, #6 Bill Cosby, #7 Ellen Degeneres, #8 Bill O'Reilly and, tied at #9, Dr. Phil McGraw and Regis Philbin. William Peterson, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Anniston and Martin Sheen exited the list. O'Reilly's #8 ranking was a big change as well - - he was at #3 in 2003. Cosby was back on after a four year hiatus. He was ranked #10 in 2000 and has been off the chart since until now.


Europe sees Pilgrims in control of broadcast
The rules of the road in Europe regarding broadcast indecency are much more lax than in the United States. Some of the issues that have caused a huge commotion in America leave many in the Old World wondering what all the fuss is about. Nonetheless, many countries have safe harbor rules in place similar to those in the US. According to the Associated Press, US regulatory standards are seen as puritanical. The United Kingdom, where newspapers on a daily basis carry photographs that may be deemed pornographic in the US, was cited as an example. A racy stage version production - - "Jerry Springer: The Opera" - - is going to be aired intact on TV there, although it will be preceded by a warning to parents and will not be shown earlier than 9PM. Many European countries have safe harbors, most later than the UK time mentioned above. But once that safe harbor is reached, material far more explicit than that appearing on US broadcast, safe harbor or not, is likely to be aired. Where the line should be drawn is a topic of discussion, but the baseline is far looser than in the US. One person cited in the AP story said that the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident would barely have been noticed in Europe.

AFI cites FCC as 2004 force
Following events pertaining to the "moving image" is an ongoing pursuit of the American Film Institute (AFI), and part of that process is the compilation of a list of nine related and significant events which took place in 2004. Several of them were related to broadcasting. The issues are listed in no particular order. However, this pick: "Federal Communications Commission as cultural force," was dead on target. The FCC and Congress were both already stirring on indecency, particularly in the Opie & Anthony/St. Patrick's Cathedral incident and Bubba the Love Sponge, when the Super Bowl incident became the front and center issue in broadcasting. Since then, huge consent decree payment to the US Treasury have gone down, numerous other fines have been issued, and the year was capped off with the "Saving Private Ryan" controversy. Other significant events identified by AFI included big changes in the network news anchor chairs; the NBC/Universal merger completing the trend toward vertical integration on the entertainment industry; the ascension of John Stewart's "The Daily Show"; the gaping hole left in the world of sitcoms as several long-running shows closed down (or announced plans to close down); and TV looking at secondary markets like DVD distribution and video gaming. Other none broadcast events included movies which became cultural touchstones, specifically "The Passion of the Christ" and "Fahrenheit 9/11"; ever cheaper tools of the trade making video and movie production ever more democratic; and the death of Marlon Brando.

Media figures in four of ten PR gaffes of 2004
Fineman Public Relations of San Francisco has put together a top ten list of PR blunders for 2004. Media companies were at the center of three, and were more than peripherally involved in a fourth. Fineman's #3 pick was Rathergate, when CBS anchor Dan Rather ill-advisedly tied his reputation to what turned out to be bogus documents regarding the National Guard career of George W. Bush. The Jackson Super Bowl incident came in at #5, and the Terrell Owens/Nicollette Sheridan Monday Night Football/Desperate Housewives incident registered at #6. On the peripheral side, #9 was the dumping of sportscaster Marv Albert by Cablevision - - Albert was basically fired by the NBA's New York Knicks for being critical of the team. Other incidents on the list included: #1 Donald Rumsfeld/Abu Ghraib scandal; #2 Ron Artest's NBA/fan brawl; #4 Target evicting the Salvation Army at holiday time; #7 Silicon Valley firms outsourcing jobs; #8 the baseball steroid scandal; and #10 Northwest Airlines sharing customer info with NASA, then blame-shifting.


Adbiz©

Fox selling Super Bowl ads for record 2.4 million
Fox is charging a record average of 2.4 million for Super Bowl ads, 6.7% more than last season's game. Anheuser-Busch alone is buying 10 of the game's 58 30-second spots at that price. Doing the math, the 2/6 game may generate 139 million in revenue for Fox. So far, Fox reportedly has sold about 90%+ of its ads for the big game. Advertisers in the game so far also include Pepsi, Visa, Internet domain registration site GoDaddy.com, video-game rental site Gameznflix.com, GM, Ford, Honda, Volvo, Careerbuilder.com, Disney's Buena Vista, Viacom's Paramount and Sony, FedEx, McDonald's and Novartis.

Super Bowl ad rates
2002: $2-million (down 4.8% from 2001)
2003: $2.1-million (up 5% from 2002)
2004: $2.25-million (up 7% from 2003)
2005: $2.4-million (up 6.7% from 2004)

Chevy airs three spots on New Year's Eve
Chevrolet ran three :30 second TV spots on New Year's Eve, in its "An American Revolution" theme supporting the Cobalt, Malibu and Uplander. Spots ran on network and cable including title sponsorship for Fox's America's Party with Ryan Seacrest and on ABC's New Year's Rockin' Eve, MTV's New Year's Eve special and NBC's Carson Daly's New Year's Eve Special, The Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Support included animated billboards in Times Square and Chevy messaging on the Las Vegas Cloud, a visual electronic canopy stretching 600 feet in front of the Vegas' Fashion Show Mall. Internet ads appeared on the Yahoo!'s homepage and Launch front-page. Campbell-Ewald Detroit handled creative.

Hi-C candy tattoo campaign effort detailed
In order to promote its new Hi-C Sour Blast juice box, which comes with a candy-coated straw, Coca-Cola placed 2 million candy-flavored edible tattoos in a magazine ad and was soon flooded with requests for more, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer. The tattoo now comes in 16 flavors and is available at grocery stores and other retailers. These weren't just any old juice boxes, but the lunchbox drink of choice for millions of schoolchildren each day. The Sour Blast has a sour candy-coated straw that gives a burst of pucker-up flavor before that sweet Hi-C finally hits the mouth. "Now, I'd like to hand everyone one of these juice drinks with the coated straw," explained Dan Walsh, a Houston-based senior brand manager for Coca-Cola. "But that, my budget does not allow." Instead, he hired POP Marketing Group of Covington, KY to produce its Tongue Tickling Tattoo candy in Hi-C's sour green-apple flavor. Then Coca-Cola placed 2 million edible tattoos on a Hi-C ad in a double Teen People magazine issue this year. The candy product insertion was an ad industry breakthrough, according to Walsh. More than 10,000 Teen People readers subsequently logged on to a Web site to request more free samples, he says. Jeanie Morgan-Castleberry, co-owner of POP Marketing Group, takes the successful advertising campaign in stride. This sort of product branding has been her thing for many years. In fact, inventing and producing the nationally distributed Tongue Tickling Tattoo candy was, well, sort of a fluke. "We are a marketing/think-tank organization," explains Morgan-Castleberry. "Companies like P&G work with us to move their product off their shelves. We come up with promotional ideas, display, rebate ideas. We built nothing up until the tattoos."

Disney launches its
50th Anniversary campaign

Disney launched a new global campaign for its theme parks around the world, the Wall Street Journal reported. The effort, expected to last for much of the year, goes beyond the usual national and regional efforts and is linked to the 50th anniversary of the opening of Disneyland, the company's first theme park, in California in 1955, according to the paper. The first ads were seen on New Year's Day during the Tournament of Roses Parade, with ads appearing, interestingly, nearly simultaneously on ABC, CBS and NBC at the first commercial break, according to the Journal. It also reported that more ads -- which try to make the Disney characters more hip by depicting them with computer-generated animation against live-action backgrounds -- will make their appearance in Europe and Asia in the spring. Other ads will appear on Yahoo, MSN and Weather.com, the paper said.


February Radio & Television Business Report

"The Pros and Cons of Nielsen's Local People Meter and Arbitron's proposed Portable People Meter service"
After a rocky start, it's roll-out time of LPM & PPM. Will there be cooperation or more talk?

Engineered for Profit: "New tower standards coming: are you ready?" Did you know existing standards is currently in the midst of the biggest revision in years?

GM talkback: "How has LPM ratings changed selling in your market?" TV GMs say what they think-the good, bad and the ugly.

Media, Markets, and Money: Only one place tells it like it is with a run-down and overview of the biggest quarterly Radio and TV deals and outlook to 2005.


Media Markets & MoneyTM
Small deal moves into Atlanta
Once a Small deal in a small market, this is now a Small deal in a big city and the shifting case of the S in Small is no accident. Figuring into the deal are two Smalls, in fact - - James and Annie, as well as a pair of Bakers - - Craig and Debra. The Smalls' Central Georgia Broadcasting is selling WYTH-AM Madison GA to Craig and Debra Baker. The deal is small in the value sense as well, amounting to 63K, to be paid in 120 easy 525 dollar installments. The contract was signed way back in 1/23/04, and we ran an item on it over the summer. Since then, two things have happened. In the first place, it looks like the deal got caught in the FCC's deal freeze upon adoption of the Arbitron-geographical definition for radio markets. The second is that it upgraded WYTH from a small community station to a member of the Atlanta market. The Bakers also own the similarly upgraded WKVQ-AM in Eatonton GA, turning this, by definition, into a large market AM-AM duopoly. Despite this upgrade in status, neither station is a factor in the Atlanta's Arbitron ratings race.

Going from renter to owner
Univision is exercising purchase options on a pair of Puerto Rico television stations for about 190M, ending an LMA with television group owner Raycom, according to documents filed with the SEC. The stations, WLII-TV and WSUR-TV, cover two of the island's three major population centers, San Juan and Ponce. Univision also operates a pair of AM-FM combos on in Puerto Rico.


Washington Beat
Senate Dems look to assert themselves in 2005
Democrats in the Senate are faced with breaking in a new leader in the wake of the election defeat of Tom Daschle (D-SD), and they'll be doing so with the smallest contingent in decades. Only 44 Democratic senators will be facing 55 Republicans. One independent, Jim Jeffords, is a former Republican who often sides with the Dems. Harry Reid (D-NV) is taking over for Daschle. But there's more. Dissatisfied with Republican oversight of the Bush administration, the Dems have vowed to conduct oversight hearings of their own as they feel the need. Here is where it gets interesting for broadcasters. One of the go-to senators on this project is the very active Byron Dorgan (D-ND). "The Congressional watchdog remains fast asleep, and we intend to wake it up," he told reporters in December, according to the New York Times. As every broadcaster who has been paying any attention at all to Washington knows, Dorgan has taken a leading role in opposing the FCC 6/2/03 rulemaking on media ownership. He was the driving force behind the Resolution of Disapproval which would have restored the rules to their state as of 6/1/03, a measure which passed in the Senate 55-40 but stalled in the House, where Republican leadership kept it off the floor. The bottom line is this: With Dorgan helping to drive the itinerary do not be surprised to see the focus turn on broadcasters as the events of 2005 unfold.


Programming
ABCRN's Sirius Trucking Network airs live wedding
Love is in the airwaves as wedding vows were broadcast live on ABC Radio Networks' Sirius Trucking Network on 12/28 at 10:00 a.m. ET. Karen Kirby and trucker "Showtime," a.k.a. Doug Love, a long-time listener, tied the knot on the Sirius Trucking Network's "Open Road Cafe," a news and information morning program for the trucking community. The ceremony was performed by Phillip Fritz, a minister who is also a driver for Prime Trucking, Inc. Show host Mark Willis provided play-by-play coverage of the big event. The wedding reception was held in the conference room at ABC Radio Studios in Dallas. The bride and groom met on eHarmony.com.


Monday Morning Makers & Shakers

Transactions: 11/22/04-11/26/04
The number of stations picked up this week over last, but when you're dealing mostly in AM stations and smaller markets, and when the only TV deal is for a CP which hasn't even gotten around to getting call letters, you can expect a smaller bottom line. No single deal even made it to the 9M level. Still, not bad considering almost everyone took time off for Thanksgiving.

11/22/04-11/26/04

Total

Total Deals

14

AMs

13

FMs

8

TVs

1
Value
22.828M
| Complete Charts |
Radio Transactions of the Week
New rules force AM resale
| More...
|
TV Transactions of the Week
Competitors split a payday
| More...
|


Transactions
KOVR-TV Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto (Stockton CA) from Sinclair Broadcast Group to Viacom Inc.

WSOS-FM Jacksonville (St. Augustine FL) from 3 Point Media-Florida LLC to Renda Broadcasting Corporation.

WLTN AM & FM Littleton NH (Littleton, Lisbon NH) from Profile Broadcasting Co. Inc. to Barry P. Lunderville LLC.

| More... |


Stock Talk
Year ended on a down note
Stock prices were modestly higher for 2004, but closed out the year's final session with declines for the day. The Dow Industrials were down 17 points on Friday to 10,873, but for the year the Dow gained 3.2%.

Not so for radio stocks, which tumbled in 2004 as investors lost confidence in ever seeing a return to historic growth levels. The Radio Index, which was down Friday by 1.688, or 0.7%, to 229.853, was down 19.9% for the year. Friday's biggest mover was Spanish Broadcasting system, down 2.9%.


Radio Stocks

Here's how stocks fared on Friday

Company Symbol Close Change Company Symbol Close Change

Arbitron

ARB

39.18

-0.12

Jeff-Pilot

JP

51.96

+0.04

Beasley

BBGI

17.53

+0.27

Journal Comm.

JRN

18.07

+0.01

Citadel CDL
16.18 -0.12

Radio One, Cl. A

ROIA

16.10

-0.18

Clear Channel

CCU

33.49

-0.34

Radio One, Cl. D

ROIAK

16.12

-0.17

Cox Radio

CXR

16.48

+0.02

Regent

RGCI

5.30

+0.03

Cumulus

CMLS

15.08

-0.01

Saga Commun.

SGA

16.85

-0.05

Disney

DIS

27.80

-0.08

Salem Comm.

SALM

24.95

-0.05

Emmis

EMMS

19.19

-0.18

Sirius Sat. Radio

SIRI

7.62

+0.14

Entercom

ETM

35.89

-0.22

Spanish Bcg.

SBSA

10.56

-0.25

Entravision

EVC

8.35

-0.15

Univision

UVN

29.27

-0.07

Fisher

FSCI

48.88

-0.53

Viacom, Cl. A

VIA

37.08

-0.15

Gaylord

GET

41.53

-0.17

Viacom, Cl. B

VIAb

36.39

-0.21

Hearst-Argyle

HTV

26.38

+0.09

Westwood One

WON

26.93

-0.02

Interep

IREP

0.75

-0.04

XM Sat. Radio

XMSR

37.62

+0.34

International Bcg.

IBCS

0.02

unch

-

-

-

-

-



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Send Us Your OpinionsWe want to
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This is your column, so send your comments to [email protected]

Satellite radio has proven to be a topic of interest to our readers

The same "...not a serious threat..." was what I heard in the 70's when I worked at FM stations. Today, here's the test, listen to any FM station in any city and see how long it takes to hear something that clearly establishes the geographic location of the station. (Other than the legal ID!) You've done a great job in evolving RBR and I wish you a great new year.

Walter Sabo, SABOmedia
New York City

Satellite radio not fit for marketplace
For some time now I have emailed about the one weak link in satellite radio that is being overlooked: according to an instructor in an RF Safety course this year, he told the class that the biggest radio frequency radiation contributor currently are the satellite radio guys who operate on experimental licenses which presently pre-empt them from the ANSI RFR limits, especially on the many building tops around the big cities of the USA... | More... |

Jerry Smith, broadcast technical consultant, Jacksonville, FL


Arbitrends

Arbitron
Market Results
| Chattanooga |
| Columbia |
| Des Moines |
| Grand Rapids |
| Huntsville |
| Johnson City |
| Knoxville |
| Lansing |
| Nashville |
| Oklahoma City |
| Omaha |


Upped & Tapped

Smyth named Vice Chair of RAB Board
Greater Media CEO Peter Smyth has been elected Vice Chairman of the RAB Board of Directors. He has served on the RAB board for the past five years. He began his newly elected duties on 1/1.

Infinity ups Keith Cornwell in Charlotte
Named VP/GM of the two music stations, WNKS-FM and WKQC-FM, with the appointment effective today. Cornwell joined WNKS in 1997 as GSM and was promoted to DOS for the Infinity Charlotte stations in 2003.


TVBR - TV News

Carriage war still raging in Joplin, Texarkana
The battle over fees charged to cable operator Cable ONE by Nexstar for rights to carry NBC KSNF-TV and ABC KODE-TV in the Joplin MO-Pittsburg KS DMA and NBC KTAL-TV in Texarkana is still percolating. According to The Joplin Globe, Nexstar has upped the ante, asking for 30 cents per subscriber in year one of a three-year deal, with five cent increased each of the next two years. The cable company is balking. Instead, it is providing subscribers with antennae and A/B switches which allow easy shifts from cable to over-the-air broadcast, preferring a one-time expense over continued payment to Nexstar. The current carriage agreement expired at year's end 2004.

Last week's TiVo Top 25 Network Primetime Ratings Report
The report contains the top 25 programs watched on TiVo that were aired during prime time on the six commercial broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, UPN, and WB. The Total TiVo Rating is calculated as the per-second average percent of subscribers tuned in to the given program. The Primary Viewing Mode is how the majority of the viewing audience watched the show, in recorded playback or live TV. TiVo records a 30 minute 'cache' of what viewers are watching at all times so they can rewind and instant replay programming. People watching within the live cache are considered 'Live' viewers. The aggregate ratings are based on an anonymous random sample of 20,000 TiVo units in subscriber households across the United States. | More... |


More News Headlines

Competing Media

Newspapers sweating national in 2005
Publishers in the daily news business are confident that revenues streams based on local retail and classified advertising will be steady and reliable in 2005, according to a Reuters report. However, the same confidence is not present when it comes to national revenue. Uncertainty about the plans of major players in several key categories, including cell phones, movie studios, airlines, computers manufacturers and consumer products, are producing reciprocal uncertainty among the predictors in the newspaper industry.
RBR observation: Broadcasters can only say welcome to the club. Volatility in national business is as old as Marconi. Add to this increased competition on the ground from local cable systems, plus the added distractions of satellite radio and TiVo. That's why we're advising everyone to muscle up their local operations in 2005. That's where broadcasters most control their own destiny, and where they have the best story to sell to advertisers.






RBR Radar 2005
Radio News you won't read any where else. RBR--First, Accurate, and Independently Owned.

They said it in 2004:
Special Super Bowl edition
Nipplegate incident immediate aftermath of Janet Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction.
RBR observation: TA DUM with words of wisdom pour from mouths like - "I am outraged - I am shocked - We were extremely disappointed - CBS deeply regrets", and RBR loves this one - "If you sleep with dogs you'll get fleas." Wow, see what we have to look forward to in a few weeks with Super Bowl 39. Hey, who won Super Bowl 38? DA?
12/29/04 RBR #251

They said it in 2004: January
Joel Hollander, David Kantor, Natalie Swed Stone, Gary Fries, Mark Mays and Michael Powell had interesting quotes in January 2004. They spoke their peace and we shall see the pattern evolve into what is faced in 2005 as this quote is one of many - "I just don't see it as a significant threat to what we do." - - Emmis Communications CEO Jeff Smulyan discussing satellite radio.
12/28/04 RBR #250

Satcasters continue to add subs
Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio hit their year end marks. And back in January (above) the quote of - "I just don't see it as a significant threat to what we do." Hello.
RBR observation: These subscriber numbers are not yet a serious threat to terrestrial broadcasters yet. However, they are enough to create a few ripples, and they are certainly an indication that the two Satcasters are going to easily make it out of infancy. Terrestrial radio still has the advantage of a local presence - - but any broadcaster who is not super serving its local audience is leaving the back door unlocked - - and a few years down the road, Satcaster mice may just come in a clean out the pantry while the terrestrial cat is off at the regional studio programming from research reports. 2005 Year for Local to Muscle Up and use Common Sense. 12/28/04 RBR #250


Visit MediaHeadHunters.com
VP/Programming for The Dr. Laura Show
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Major Market
Affiliate Director
Take On The Day, Inc. newly formed radio network producing and distribution of The Dr. Laura Show beginning 01/ 1/05. Candidate must have major market affiliate sales experience with Talk format. Cover letter, resume and salary requirements - Confidentiality respected. EOE

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