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Welcome to RBR's Daily Epaper
Volume 25, Issue 161, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher
Monday Morning August 18th, 2008
RADIO NEWS ®
www.google.com

Regent faces Nasdaq delisting
Regent Communications says it has received a notice from the Nasdaq Stock Market that its stock has closed below the minimum of $1.00 for 30 consecutive trading days and, thus, is subject to potential delisting from the Nasdaq Global Market. There is no immediate impact, since Regent now has 180 calendar days to regain compliance. Regent will retain its Nasdaq listing if, between now and February 9, 2009, the bid price for its stock closes at $1.00 or more for 10 consecutive trading days. If Regent does not achieve compliance within the required period, the Nasdaq staff will provide written notification that the company's securities will be delisted. Then, however, Regent will be able to appeal the Nasdaq staff delisting determination to a Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel.

RBR observation: Who else is in danger of delisting? The last time SBS closed at or above $1.00 was June 30th, so it has already tripped the 30 trading days and should not be surprised to receive a similar letter. Citadel had a close above a buck on August 11th, so it has a time cushion to get back up there before 30 trading days pass. The clock has been ticking for Radio One (Class D) since August 5th. Westwood One has managed to stay just above a buck of late.

City council wants PPM investigation
The Speaker and six other members of the New York City Council have introduced a resolution calling on Arbitron to hold up PPM deployment and for the FCC to investigate whether there is ethnic or racial bias in the ratings system. One problem; It's not clear that the FCC has any authority to do such an investigation. Read the resolution at RBR.com.

RBR observation: Even if you assume that the FCC does have the authority to investigate the PPM methodology, we would question whether it has the expertise. Congress urged creation of the Media Rating Council (MRC) in the 1960s specifically to ensure accuracy and reliability in ratings services for radio, television and other media. The MRC's processes may be frustratingly slow, but it does have the expertise and experience to determine whether a ratings system is up to snuff. The FCC does not.

www.andomedia.com

Honors for Soto
The Spanish Broadcasters Association has named Jesus M. Soto to receive its 2008 Profiles in Leadership Award. The ceremony and reception will be Wednesday, September 17th at the Hilton Austin Hotel during the NAB Radio Show. Soto is CEO of the Uno Radio Group in Puerto Rico.
The Profiles in Leadership Award honors an Hispanic Broadcaster for pioneer work in the broadcast industry. Soto, who is a trained communications engineer, purchased his first radio stations in 1972; WPRM-FM in San Juan and WNEL-AM in Caguas, Puerto Rico. Since then, he has built the preeminent radio group in Puerto Rico with 14 stations and a highly rated radio network that is heard throughout the island.

The battle against Airborne Oregano
A pair of marketers in the remedy/supplement space has been hit with substantial FTC punitive measures for making false claims, one much more so than the other. By far, the big loser was Airborne Health Inc., which sold pills that would supposedly protect the user from picking up diseases from germs in acquired in crowded places like airplane cabins. It's been ordered to $6.5M on top of $23.5M in refunds and attorney fees already assessed per a class action suit. Oregano Supplement Marketers said their oregano based product would boost the immune system and ward off an impressive list of diseases, and has been fined $2.5M. In both cases, claims about the products' effectiveness were advertised without any scientific backing.

RBR observation: We don't recall ever seeing a broadcaster held to account for running somebody else's false advertising. That's the good news - broadcasters are not expected to be scientific experts, nor are they expected to police the airwaves for these types of infractions. Still, you are doing your audience a disservice when running ads for bogus products, so if something doesn't quite pass the smell test, it might be a very good idea to check out the advertiser and the product before accepting the buy.

www.hippieradio.net

ONLY ON RBR.COM

Viewpoints
Response to Remerge Media Article

By Rick Snyder
I love what Remerge Media is doing for today's broadcasters (8/14/08 RBR#159)! Smart people with great ideas for radio stations. Our company, The DollarSaver Program, is finding that radio station operators are too busy to listen to great ideas that can make them money. They're stuck with traditional ways of doing business and don't have the time or the guts to make fundamental changes in order to continue to compete. They do the same things, over and over, hoping the next new sales person they hire or the next format change will be the magic bullet to make everything right. It's not going to happen when you simply repeat failure after failure. You've got to suck it up and move forward before it's too late...

Ideas Working Now
Play Misty for Me
By Bob Harper
This is the second in a series of four Monday articles in Radio Business Report in which I'll be helping you with your own 'jungle,' 'bathtub,' 'roll-your-own,' home-brewed,' 'do-it-yourself' Research. This week, I walk down the long hall of Music Testing; from interns playing songs over the phones to a full blown service industry of hook companies, software programs, Mom-and-Pop field outfits, and both full service and boutique music research companies. Read it at RBR.com

www.talkradionetworks.com

AD BUSINESS REPORT
PPM: White Sox vs. Cubs a big winner for Chicago stations
The Associated Press called the three-game series on June 27-28 between the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs as "Sweep revenge for the White Sox" against the Cubs." The White Sox won three straight at their home park, one week after the Cubs took three in a row across town at Wrigley Field. Arbitron's PPM ratings service indicates that the real winners could be the two Chicago radio stations that carried the contest live. According to pre-currency data from the PPM radio ratings service in Chicago, 1.1 million listeners tuned into the Saturday, June 28 afternoon game which was carried by WGN-AM and WSCR-AM.
 

MEDIA MARKETS & MONEY
Follet meets Follett at the trading table
A five pack of AM stations is going from Starboard Media Foundation to Sovereign City Radio Services, which not so coincidentally is a subsidiary of Starboard Media Foundation, with Mark C. Follett having a large role at each entity. The transaction involves potential value of $8.57M or so, in the form of transferred and/or forgiven promissory notes, expenses and minor litigation costs. Three of the stations are in the Fort Myers-Naples-Marco Island FL Arbitron market. However, WMYR-AM Fort Myers does not overlap WCNZ-AM & WVOI-AM, both licensed further south on Marco Island. Also involved in the transfer is WZUM-AM, serving Pittsburgh PA from Carnegie PA, and WZRK-AM, licensed to Lake Geneva WI, southwest of Milwaukee.
__FIRST__ __SECOND__,
here is another transaction brokered by Kalil & Co., Inc.
BAS BROADCASTING
has acquired
WPFX-FM      WTTF-AM
Findlay-Tiffin, Ohio
WCPZ-FM   WLEC-AM;   
WMJK-FM
Sandusky, Ohio
from
CLEAR CHANNEL
for
$5,200,000
 
 
b
Kalil & Co., Inc.
6363 North Swan Road
Tucson, AZ 85718
(520) 795-1050

TRANSACTIONS

$1M WPFX-FM Toledo OH (North Baltimore OH) from BAS Broadcasting Inc. (James A. Lorenzen) to Toledo Radio LLC (Daniel Dudley, Phil Dombey). $50K escrow, balance in cash at closing. [File date 7-2-08]

$814K KBMV-FM Birch Tree MO & KHOM-FM Salem AR from Mountain Lakes Broadcasting Corporation (Bob Knight) to Three Rivers Communications LLC (Paul Coates, Fred White, Elizabeth Contes, Barbara White). $5K escrow, $609K cash at closing, $200K note. LMA 7/1/08. Existing duopoly. [File date 7-2-08]

 

WASHINGTON BUSINESS REPORT
Americans split on Fairness
Rasmussen Reports has taken the pulse of average citizens,and 47% believe that the government should take steps to assure that conservative and liberal viewpoints are given equal time on television and radio. Only 39% think TV and radio ideological speech should remain unregulated.

RBR observation: It's nice but relatively pointless to hear the uneducated poll-driven speculations on the fairness topic from the lay public. But here's our take on why conservatives own radio. More at rbr.com.

Media ownership parties arm wrestling over venue
Around, around the wheel it goes, where it stops, nobody knows. That could be how a court in Las Vegas or Atlantic City might decide where the many and various challenges to the latest FCC ownership rulemakings will go, but in this case, the deciding court is in San Francisco, and it has a stack of briefs to contend with, rather than a roulette wheel.

RBR observation: The Deal notes that even if the case goes back to the Third, it may well uphold Kevin Martin's modest 12/18/07 loosening of the rules. Martin's change would allow newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership in the top 20 DMAs, and makes no other changes - ignoring a raft of deregulatory moves attempted 6/2/03 by his predecessor Michael Powell, much of which was remanded to the FCC by the same court.
www.johnpierceco.com

RATINGS & RESEARCH
Olympics on track to be largest multiplatform sporting event
After just five days, the Beijing Olympics is shaping up to become the biggest multi-platform sports event of all time. To date, NBCOlympics.com on MSN has set records for unique, page views and streams, with nearly 25 million unique users having visited the site, viewing 456 million pages watching close to 22 million video streams. In addition, nearly 3 million visits have been made to Games through NBCOlympics.com's mobile WAP and other VODofferings. All of this combined with the unprecedented television ratings on both the Network and cable properties, means that the Beijing Olympics on track to be a historic, multi-platform Sports programming event.
See the Additional digital highlights at RBR.com
 

INTERNET BUSINESS REPORT
Univision Radio
partners with Hip Cricket

Univision Communications announced that as part of its digital strategy it plansto expand the delivery of mobile solutions to the local marketplace through UnivisionRadio. The Company has partnered with HipCricket, a pioneering mobile marketing company, for this local initiative. RBR spoke with Hip Cricket CEO Ivan Braiker (left) and Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Hasen (right) about the partnership. Read it at RBR.com
www.oasispreview.com

MONDAY MAKERS & SHAKERS
Transactions: 6/30/08-7/4/08
Things picked up a bit as June segued into July, and the sale of a small television group carried a not-so-small price tag and drove the week into triple-digit millions in station value. There were four television deals filed during the week, the second in a row in which television drove the action after experiencing somewhat of a drought. Radio trading easily passed the $11M mark.

- Total Mkts 1-50 Mkts 51-100 Mkts >100 Unrated
AMs 3 0 0 2 1
FMs 12 1 2 3 6
TVs 8 1 1 6 0
Total 23 2 3 11 7

-Type Trans Stations Value
Radio, 1 mkt 10 15 11.623M
TV, 1 mkt 3 3 9.638M
Rad-TV, 1 mkt - - -
Radio, multimkt - - -
TV, multimkt 1 5 115M
Rad-TV, multimkt - - -
Totals 16 23 136.261M
©2008 Radio Business Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

Radio Trans. of the Week: First's vector is to Victor
Gary Lawrence, Dex Allen and the crew at First Broadcasting will have four new station to play with in the Victor Valley CA market. They're getting KSZL-AM, KXXZ-FM, KDUC-FM & KDUQ-FM from Dos Costas Communications Corporation for $4.3M.


TV Trans. of the Week: London expands in the Southwest
Terry London is entering the ranks of television groups in a big way, grabbing five stations in four small Texas and Oklahoma DMAs from Drewry Communications for $115M. The stations, all major network affiliates, are in Waco TX Lawton OK-Wichita Falls TX, Amarillo TX, and Midland Odessa TX, and come with low power/translators, many of which have Telemundo affiliations.

www.capitalsource.com

RADIO STOCKS
Lower oil boosts stocks again
Stock prices advanced again on Friday as oil prices slipped further. The Dow Industrials were up 44 points, or 0.4%, to 11,660.

Radio stocks were right in line with that advance. The RBR Radio Index rose 0.285, or 0.4%, to 67.675. Beasley had a good day, up 8.3%. Salem rose 5.4%.

Here's how stocks fared on Friday

Company
Symbol
Close
Chng
Company
Symbol
Close
Chng

Arbitron*

ARB

50.00

-0.07

Fisher

FSCI

38.17

+0.29

Beasley*

BBGI

4.20

+0.32

Google

GOOG

510.15

+4.66

CBS CI. B
CBS

18.04

-0.01

Hearst-Argyle

HTV

22.33

+0.79

CBS CI. A
CBSa

18.01

-0.06

Journal Comm.

JRN

5.75

+0.03

Citadel*
CDL
0.99
0.00

Lincoln Natl.

LNC

50.37

+0.98

CC Media

CCMO

10.25

+2.25

Radio One, Cl. A

ROIA

1.37

-0.11

Cox Radio*

CXR

11.17

-0.08

Radio One, Cl. D*

ROIAK

0.97

+0.04

Cumulus*

CMLS

4.20

-0.10

Regent*

RGCI

0.77

+0.01

Debut Bcg.

DBTB

0.26

0.00

Saga Commun.*

SGA

5.52

+0.02

Disney

DIS

32.50

+0.17

Salem Comm.*

SALM

1.94

+0.10

Emmis*

EMMS

2.13

-0.08

Sirius XM

SIRI

1.49

+0.06

Entercom*

ETM

6.78

-0.09

Spanish Bcg.*

SBSA

0.53

-0.02

Entravision

EVC

3.56

-0.06

Westwood One*

WON

1.00

-0.03

*Component of the RBR Radio Index
 
Bouncebacks

Send Us Your OpinionsWe want to
hear from you
Send your comments and a photo to [email protected]

www.interep.com


Below the Fold

Only on RBR.com
Response to

Remerge Media Article
Operators are too busy to listen

Ad Business Report
PPM: White Sox vs. Cubs

A big winner for Chicago stations

Media, Markets & Money
Follet meets Follett

At the trading table
5 pack of AM stations is going

Ratings & Research
Olympics on track

To be largest multiplatform
sporting event

www.kellymusic.com


www.patcomm.com

More News Headlines

Billion dollar man?
That's what George W. Bush may shortly become. He is said to have raised $968M for himself and for other candidates since he took office in 2001, $70M of which has come so far this election year. That puts him a scant $32M away from eclipsing the Billion dollar mark, if you can call $32M scant.

Savage drops suit
against CAIR

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Michael Savage will not re-file his lawsuit against the Washington-based Islamic civil rights and advocacy group. Savage's attorney filed a "Notice of Plaintiff Michael Savage's Decision Not to File an Amended Complaint as to Rico Cause of Action" with the U.S. District Court - Northern District of California. Last year, Savage sued CAIR after the group posted audio clips without permission from his October 29, 2007, program on its website.

Another pirate collared
An FM band buccaneer plying the noncommercial zone in Brooklyn NY has been apprehended by the FCC. Jean Idalbert was working 90.9 MHz without a license, and has been hit with the standard $10K fine. Idalbert did not respond to the FCC's notice of apparent liability.
RBR observation: It's one thing to fire up an unauthorized FM station. We're still waiting to see the Blackbeard of broadcast buccaneerdom come along and put a pirate television station on the air. Then we'd really be impressed.

Buffalo legends to be enshrined
The Buffalo Broadcasters Association has named six inductees for the 12th year of the Buffalo Broadcasting Hall of Fame. ESPN Football Analyst Ron Jaworski heads this year's class, along with former WGRZ-TV weatherman Barry Lillis, radio news/sportscaster Art Wander, WKBW-TV Program Director John Disciullo, broadcast engineer Bill Stachowiak and sportscasting pioneer Roger Baker.

"Mike& The
Mad Dog" split

On Thursday WFAN-AM NY's "Mike and the Mad Dog" became just Mike, when Chris Russo left the station, ending a 19-year duo with Mike Francesa that had made them perhaps one the most popular sports-talk radio shows in history. Russo told the NY Times his decision to leave had nothing to do with on and off friction with Franceca.


fusiondigital.net


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www.eastlanratings.com

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

Contrarian investor
likes CC Media

Marathon Asset Management has made a filing with the SEC that funds it manages have acquired slightly over 2.8 million shares of CC Media Holdings, the new parent company of Clear Channel Communications.

RBR observation: Marathon would have had to have gotten at least part of its stake by converting shares of the previous public stock of Clear Channel Communications, since the thin trading volume for CC Media Holdings has not yet totaled 2.8 million...The folks who believe in the value of this company, and the radio business in general, are holding the shares for the long-haul.
08/15/08 RBR #160

"What the users say"
Brad Wilcox, Market Traffic Manager, CBS Radio - Charlotte, NC: The optimum system needs to be accessible from anywhere and at any time. A web-based system....
08/15/08 RBR #160

Master the Critical Skills
If you're going to sell more every year, you need to get better every year. Let's look at this a different way. If what you are currently doing would produce the results you are looking for, the results should have already shown up. So what skills should you focus on improving? Start by honestly answering a few questions-see them.
08/15/08 RBR #160

www.radioamericanetwork.com


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