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Welcome to RBR's Daily Epaper
Volume 22, Issue 150, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher
Tuesday Morning August 2nd, 2005

Radio News®

Teens can't tune in when they're logging on
Modern teenagers have a place where they can play games, research topics of interest, shop, get news and health information, share items and generally talk to their friends. According to a new report from Pew Internet and American Life Project, the number of teens using the Internet is up 24% in just four years. 87% of all US teens spend time on line. Pew says "teens' use of the Internet has intensified and broadened as they log on more often and do more things when they are online."

RBR observation: We've all seen what the personal computer did to big music. Broadcasters must keep the PC in mind when thinking long range. It may steal the 18-49 demo before it even gets here.

WMAL puts Graham on ice
WMAL-AM Washington's President/GM Chris Berry, said that Talker Michael Graham crossed the line when he suggested all Muslims are terrorists on his show Monday 7/27/05. "We do not condone his position and believe his statements were irresponsible." This after initially backing him up in public. Muslim watchdog Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) had organized a protest against Graham's comments, and initiated a campaign directed at the station and its advertisers. "We believe the station's actions are appropriate, if long overdue," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. "It is time for WMAL to distance itself and its advertisers from bigotry by making Graham's suspension permanent." Graham himself remained unapologetic. He said the suspension coincides with a long-planned vacation, and said that he'd received 10K emails supporting him, saying "...it blew away the few hundred pro-CAIR emails and phone calls the station received." Graham hinted on his website that the action came down to the station from corporate. "My radio station, 630 WMAL, has publicly announced that I've been suspended by ABC (no doubt Ted Koppel and Peter Jennings are thrilled) and I am 'under investigation' for my discussion on Islam and the tragedy of its current links to terror. What exactly is I'm being 'investigated' over, I have no idea. After all, everything I do, I do on the air in front of thousands of people. What's to investigate?"

Analysts: LIM translating into higher ratings
Two Wall Street analysts are out with reports telling clients that Clear Channel's Less is More initiative is working, at least as far as boosting ratings for the company's stations. According to Goldman Sachs' Mark Wienkes, Arbitron ratings from the Spring 2005 survey show CCU gaining share by about 3% year-over-year in the top 20 markets and 38 of the top 50 markets. "The stronger ratings will take time to monetize but support our thesis that improving fundamentals driven by positive ratings along with shareholder friendly actions will drive CCU toward our 38-40 [bucks] implied value," said Wienkes. At Thomas Weisel Partners, Gordon Hodge comes up with a similar result - - that CCU's ratings are up 2.7% from a year ago. "We believe that time spent listening may be up even more, suggesting concerns of share loss to satellite radio may be overdone," he told clients. Hodge noted that some of the biggest year-over-year ratings improvements for CCU came in Washington DC (+20%), Seattle (+18%), Atlanta (+17%) and San Francisco (10%), while Philadelphia (-18%) and Boston (-9%) were weak.


Gatorade comes in first at MLB All-Star game
One way to get your product's image before a big audience is to put that image somewhere where there are likely to be TV cameras. Such a place was Comerica Park in Detroit, site of this year's Major League Baseball All-Star game. Counting in-stadium and superimposed images, Gatorade led all comers when it came to making a lot of impressions. These included both actual stadium signage and broadcast-only superimpositions. The sports beverage logged 212.2M impressions among viewers 18+, according to Nielsen Sports, followed by Budweiser (189.1M), Chevrolet (168.9M), Pepsi (139.8M) and SBC Communications (88.6M). Comerica Bank, which bought naming rights for the stadium, made 68.5M. As in most things, location is everything. Home place superimpositions totalled 506.1M impressions, followed by scoreboard (422.7M), on-air broadcast graphics (291.8M), home-plate non-superimposed (90.3M) and the outfield wall in right field (84.3M). Budweiser led the way in category share - - beers accounted for 13% of all impressions, and 80% of the 13% was commanded by Bud.

Upcoming FX offering draws protest
"Starved," an upcoming sitcom on cable network FX, is scheduled to kick off 8/4/05. It plans to chronicle the lives of three men and a woman, all of whom are victims of eating disorders - - anorexia, bulimia and complusive overeating are all in the mix. The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) is not happy. NEDA CEO Lynn Grefe said, "More than tasteless, 'Starved' may be dangerous, leading some sufferers to identify with the characters, justify their own behavior and resist treatment. Americans wouldn't find it acceptable to ridicule and mock people with physical disabilities or a disease like leukemia and I don't believe they'll find it tolerable to satirize mental illness. We urge both advertisers and viewers to boycott such a hurtful and damaging show and ask that it be taken off the air quickly. NEDA hopes to steer people affected toward treatment, not ridicule." According to NEDA, postings on the FX website are overwhelmingly negative.

RBR observation: A documentary on this topic is understandable, but it could easily veer into controversial territory. It would be a highly questionable topic for a reality show, but at least that forum, handled properly, could offer the possibility of serious look at the problem and the road to a cure. It's impossible to figure why anyone would want to play such a thing strictly for laughs.

When News Corp. plays the borscht belt,
it really plays borscht belt
News Corp. would have to be very careful where it buys a television station in the US - - it is very close to the national audience cap, and only gets under by a literal act of Congress which upped it from 35% to 39% last year. That won't stop it from making a purchase in Russia, though. According to the Associated Press, it's looking at acquiring a 35% stake in Moscow's REN TV network. Currently, a Russian tycoon holds 70% of the network, which has a 700 town and city footprint throughout the country. That stake came for 100M last month. A German company holds the remaining 30%. AP says that News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch was involved, along with execs from the USA and Germany, in private talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin earlier this summer.


Adbiz©

Dial-Global signs with Verance's ConfirMedia system
Further upping the ante in the accountability game, RADAR-rated Dial-Global and Verance Corporation announced the signing of a multi-year contract with its ConfirMedia system for third party airplay verification. ConfirMedia provides the means to independently verify actual airplay of designated advertising on a next-day basis across all major U.S radio stations within the top 100 markets. Employing Verance's audio watermarking technologies, proprietary monitoring network and data management systems, ConfirMedia tracks and reports broadcast airplay of encoded content. "Dial Communications-Global Media is committed to investing in services, technology and programming. Over the past three years we have added three networks to Arbitron's RADAR service and today we are expanding our capabilities with a company we believe to be the leader in electronic verification," said David Landau, Co-President Dial Communications-Global Media. Natalie Swed Stone, US Director, National Radio Investment, OMD, was instrumental in getting the Verance deal with Premiere Radio Networks done. She tells RBR/TVBR: "We have been impressed with Dial-Global's initiatives in many regards: they have shown dedication to accountability and technological advancements which will not only help them, but will help the ad community and advertisers as well. As you know, OMD has been working with the networks on improving accountability for the medium and we were delighted to hear this news."

Miller Brewing adds Studiocom
to Interactive agency roster
Studiocom, an Atlanta-based interactive agency, has been tapped by Miller Brewing to provide the online experience and online creative for brands of the Milwaukee-based brewer. This includes full product website development and digital support for guerilla campaigns and on-premise efforts. Says Keary Phillips, associate relationship marketing manager at Miller: "We understand that our target consumer demographic is spending an incredible amount of time online. As a result, we are relying more heavily on the interactive and viral strategies to help build our brands and ultimately drive sales." Studiocom will also work with Miller's other marketing agencies to incorporate and integrate interactive elements into all areas of new product launches.

Crispin Porter dumps Gateway
Crispin Porter + Bogusky has resigned its account with Gateway Computers, due to an inability to agree on the strategic direction of the brand. Said Crispin Porter in a statement: "We feel they would do better with another partner. For that reason, we have resigned the account. We wish everyone at Gateway enormous success and remain big fans of the Gateway brand." The MDC Partners agency got the account some 10 months ago. Leo Burnett also handled the account. No review has been announced yet and the client will continue work with existing agencies Carat and direct-response agency, Woo. Gateway spent 90 million in ad spend in 2004, according to TNS Media Intelligence.


Radio & Television Business Report

Radio's Important September Face Off
UpFront 2005 - will radio face the mild reception as Network TV? Top media agency buyers and network radio sellers participating so far: Kelly Cadotte, Natalie Swed Stone, ,Irene Katsnelson, Chris Fontana, Rich Russo, Matt Feinberg, Matthew Warnecke, Kim Vasey, and Lisa Opensky Greenberg.

And we go One on One with
Charles Courtier, Executive Chairman of Mediaedge:cia

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Reserve your Ad Marketing Space today for NAB & UpFront 2006.
Advertising space is limited, contact:
June Barnes [email protected] -- or -- Jim Carnegie [email protected]


Media Markets & MoneyTM
Not today: KDAY/KDAI closing delay
Styles Media has been granted an extension to pay for its 120M acquisition, from Spanish Broadcasting System, of Los Angeles FM twins KDAY and KDAI. Styles has made two payments totally 20M so far, and is adding another 15M into the kitty. Another nonrefundable payment of 20M will be due in November, with closing scheduled for 1/31/06. That payment is tied to the stations' license renewals. SBS will have a guaranteed 55M even if the deal never gets to closing. Styles is also paying 200K per month to LMA the stations during the extension. The stations both operate on 93.5 mHz. One is licensed to Redondo Beach, the other further inland in Ontario. Styles' backers, Russ Oasis and the Potamkin brothers, are no longer involved in the deal. Oasis told RBR that they wish Styles principal Tom DiBacco the best, but cited "differences in operation philosophies" as the reason for the separation. He said the settlement was equitable.

EMF corners into Ohio
That'd be the northeast corner, according to broker John Pierce, who handled the latest deal for noncom Contemporary Christian specialist Educational Media Foundation and its K-LOVE network. EMF, which often forages for sticks in the unreserved band, has on on the left side of the dial this time, at 90.9 mHz. The group is picking up WCVJ-FM from Agape School Inc. The station is licensed to Jefferson OH in the far northeastern part of the state. Pierce says it covers Ashtabula and gets into some of the northeast Cleveland suburbs. The price is 650K.


Washington Beat
Fee filer fo fum
The FCC has initiated a new electronic form which will make it easier for multi-station licensees, or groups using multiple licensee names to file and submit regulatory fees. FCC Form 159 how has the companion FCC Form 159-E. The FCC says it "now offers to populate more information for certain fees, reducing the collection burden on the public." The new system allows filers to combine payments for both billed and unbilled regulatory fees. The online Form 159-E can be used to facilitate and ease filing, then printed out to accompany mailed or faxed payments. Or payment can be done online via secure credit or debit card. Both broadcast and cable operations have access to the form.


Transactions
2.4M KSNO-FM Snowmass Village CO and KBCR AM & FM Steamboat Springs CO from Cool Radio LLC (Thomas Dobrez) to Radio America Ltd. (William D. Merriam, Michael Norris). 100K escrow, balance in cash at closing. [File date 6/27/05.]

750K WRZZ-FM Parkersburg WV-Marietta OH (Elizabeth WV) from Clear Channel Broadcasting Licenses Inc., a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications (Mark May et al) to Burbach of DE LLC (Nicholas A. Galli, Kerby E. Confer, Donald J. Alt). Cash. Superduopoly with WADC-AM, WGGE-FM, WHBR-FM, WVNT-AM & WXIL-FM. [File date 6/24/05.]


Stock Talk
Radio up in mixed market
There wasn't any news to account for it, but radio stocks outperformed a lackluster market on Monday. The Dow Industrials ended the day down 18 points at 10,623, while the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 were up slightly.

The Radio Index gained 2.592, or 1.3%, to 209.316. Emmis led the way, up 4.4% as it continues to seek a buyer for its TV group. Saga rose 4.1% and Citadel gained 3.5%. going the other way was Beasley, down 4%.


Radio Stocks

Here's how stocks fared on Monday

Company Symbol Close Change Company Symbol Close Change

Arbitron

ARB

41.66

+0.16

Jeff-Pilot

JP

50.19

+0.02

Beasley

BBGI

13.72

-0.57

Journal Comm.

JRN

16.02

+0.02

Citadel CDL
12.71 +0.43

Radio One, Cl. A

ROIA

13.35

+0.17

Clear Channel

CCU

32.67

+0.03

Radio One, Cl. D

ROIAK

13.41

+0.20

Cox Radio

CXR

15.83

+0.08

Regent

RGCI

5.94

+0.07

Cumulus

CMLS

12.94

+0.32

Saga Commun.

SGA

14.89

+0.59

Disney

DIS

25.61

-0.03

Salem Comm.

SALM

20.50

+0.41

Emmis

EMMS

21.43

+0.90

Sirius Sat. Radio

SIRI

6.95

+0.13

Entercom

ETM

31.76

+0.04

Spanish Bcg.

SBSA

8.64

+0.04

Entravision

EVC

8.79

+0.24

Univision

UVN

28.41

+0.13

Fisher

FSCI

46.22

+0.94

Viacom, Cl. A

VIA

33.41

-0.22

Gaylord

GET

47.75

-0.19

Viacom, Cl. B

VIAb

33.16

-0.33

Hearst-Argyle

HTV

24.88

-0.19

Westwood One

WON

20.23

-0.14

Interep

IREP

0.68

unch

XM Sat. Radio

XMSR

35.41

-0.22

International Bcg.

IBCS

0.01

unch

-

-

-

-

-



Bounceback

Send Us Your OpinionsWe want to
hear from you.

This is your column, so send your comments to [email protected]

On "Radio Buyer Gets Into Creative" (7/20 RBR #141)

It was interesting to read how enthusiastic
Kim Vasey has become about the power of good Radio creative. She, and most other media buyers, have been so steeped in buying "bodies by the pound" over the years that the true purpose of meaningful advertising has been lost to media buyers. She is finally finding out what local broadcasters have known forever: that outstanding Radio creative has been the cause of thousands of entrepreneurial successes at the local advertiser level. This same success can be transferred to regional and national advertisers but few agencies spend much time on creating excellent Radio ads. They spend much more time and effort trying to beat stations up for a better rate. Most local advertisers know how to market their products or services on the Radio and it starts with solid creative. 99% of successful local businesses couldn't care less about cost per point. Their success is measured by the increased traffic, sales & profits that are generated by a strong Radio schedule. So, it's nice to see Kim going to seminars, touring some Radio stations to get an idea of how effective Radio creative works and maybe listening to some of the classic radio ads done by people like Stan Freeberg et al. Perhaps we can get her to spread the word to her agency colleagues that it's creative, not CPP, that sells products and services on the Radio!

Rick Guest, Market Manager
EAST TEXAS RADIO GROUP
KOOI, KKUS, La Invasora,
KYKX & KFRO-A
Tyler-Longview-Marshall, TX


Arbitrends

Arbitron
Market Results
| Austin |
| Baton Rouge |
| Jacksonville |
| Louisville |
| New Orleans |
| Norfolk |
| Richmond |
| San Antonio |
| Tulsa |



Upped & Tapped

Arbitron financial department stirs in Creamer
There will have to be a generous supply of printing space on the new business card of Sean R. Creamer, who has been named the new Executive Vice President, Finance and Planning and Chief Financial Officer for Arbitron. He will take over in September, replacing the exiting Bill Walsh, who will retire at year's end.

ABCRN names Griffin to Urban Sales post
ABC Radio Networks announced the appointment of Carla Griffin as Account Manager of Urban Sales for the Southwest region, based in Atlanta. Previously, Griffin was an AE at WJZW-FM DC.


Stations for Sale

Santa Fe Market #237
New market FM entrant ready to go! Santa Fe is a unique and rich market with a great opportunity for an aggressive, innovative operator!
Cliff at Clifton Gardiner & Co
(303)758-6900
[email protected]

Top 100 Market FM,
NEast CapCity

6kw Class A @ 8.5x trailing BCF, good upside 1.95M 781-848-4201 or [email protected]


More News Headlines





July Digital Magazine
Now Available

AdBiz:
Carat Americas CEO
David Verklin: "Mastering a digital future" from advertising in a digital convergence world to improving metrics to the TV upfront and more.


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

RBR Observation
Readers reject Burns bill
The NAB may be supporting federal regulation of TV ratings, but RBR didn't find much support for the idea among rank-and-file broadcasters. Lots of words tossed around and name calling but in short the business of audience measurement and both commercial mediums must move forward. The phone calls and emails RBR received would never pass FCC guidelines as mother is only one-half of a word. So our observation and advice is for Nielsen chiefs and Broadcasting chiefs including NAB -TV Executive committee members, sit down and talk face to face. Break out the ham salad sandwiches and cream sodas. RBR will supply the ice packs for cooler heads or to position any place you like. Just start talking face to face. 08/01/05 RBR #149


Visit MediaHeadHunters.com
General Manager
Saga Communications Brad Eure retires and we seek his replacement with a radio professional that has passion and commitment to the radio business to take the leadership at WWWV / WQMZ & WINA Charlottesville, VA. Saga, we believe in our people. Interested then tell us about yourself.

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