Welcome to RBR's Daily Epaper
Volume 24, Issue 213, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher
Wednesday Morning October 31st, 2007

Radio News ®

LPFM clears Committee
The Senate Commerce Committee yesterday considered S.1675 Local Community Radio Act of 2007 in a mark-up session. We use the term "considered" loosely, since on an agenda that also included action on four other bills, a resolution and a number of nominations, the amount of extra time devoted to this bill was: zippy. A major thrust of the bill is to eliminate third-adjacency protections for full-power FM stations. This effort has been percolating for years and was considered in this Committee at least three years ago. The basis for allowing the loosened interference protection is a report from Mitre that has been criticized by the NAB as flawed and incomplete, but which has nonetheless been embraced by both Congress and the FCC. The entire slate of business passed, so presumably the next stop for S.1675 is the Senate floor.

RBR observation: Just as allowing unlicensed devices into TV white spaces is a questionable move during the high-stakes conversion to digital broadcast, playing around with minimum separations in the FM band while HD radio is trying to develop legs may also be a questionable idea. There is also the possibility that a flood of new LPFM grants will make it that much more difficult for signal-challenged AM stations to fill coverage holes with FM translators. If you have concerns about this bill on any count, the time to bring them to the attention of your Senators is now.
| Read the text of the bill here |

CBS Radio reshuffles L.A.
CBS Radio has made additional changes to its management structure, under CEO Dan Mason. This time in its L.A. Market: In addition to his position as Market Manager and General Manager of KROQ-FM and KCBS/Jack-FM, Jeff Federman will take on the additional responsibility of managing KNX-AM. Los Angeles Director of Sales and General Manager of KTWV-FM/The Wave, Dan Weiner will take over managerial responsibilities of KFWB-AM and K-Earth 101 KRTH-FM. KFWB-AM and KNX-AM VP/GM Pat Duffy and KRTH VP/GM Maureen Lesourd will be leaving the company.

This vehicle may be hazardous to your health
Cars. They emit noxious vapors and consume massive quantities of energy derived from fossil fuels. They force massive amounts of land to be paved over for roads and parking lots. And the European Parliament is thinking about forcing their manufacturers to stick a warning into commercials for them. According to PR trade Daily Dog, as much as 20% of space and time may be required for auto ads, if the EP body gets its wish. However, DD notes that the EP really doesn't have all that much power. It has been known to attempt to shame European community entities which do have power into following a certain path, but whether or not it will have an effect on the 8.6B spent there to market cars is unclear. At the very least, EP may try to steer manufacturers away from touting speed and power (attributes associated with gas-guzzling) and toward emphasizing fuel efficiency and other environmentally-friendly attributes.


Sirius hoping for holiday joy
Wall Street is concerned about soft retail sales of satellite radio receivers, but Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin says his retail partners say they're expecting a good holiday sales season - "and we hope that they're right." Sirius reported that its Q3 net loss fell to 120.1 million from 162.9 million a year ago. On the surface the quarterly numbers looked OK, with net subscriber additions better than expected, but the company's stock price fell as analysts found figures under the surface worrisome. "The high ramp of OEM over the last two quarters will catch up on the churn rate over time - as the higher OEM net adds for the quarter are understating churn as those subs are subject to around a six contract month period where, by default, no churn can occur," warned Jonathan Jacoby at Bank of America. He has also been less optimistic than many of his peers about the likelihood of the proposed merger with XM winning regulatory approval. "The Street remains solely focused on the merger while ignoring the fundamentals," he said. And he found some real negatives in the fundamentals, with subscriber acquisition costs and cash EBITDA (a negative number, of course) worse than expected.

In his conference call, Karmazin remained optimistic about winning merger approval for a closing before the end of the year. How long will it take to close the merger once the approval comes, one analyst asked? Karmazin said if the approval comes on Monday, the closing will be on Tuesday.

RBR observation: Here are some numbers we found really interesting in the report from Sirius. In Q3 the company had 999,284 gross subscriber additions, but it deactivated 474,346 previous subscribers. They are almost to the point of losing one subscriber for every two new ones added.

Disaster torches the competition
It was essentially a battle for second place among the ongoing journalistic narratives of 2007 as the California wildfires dominated coverage, claiming 38% of the total newshole, besting 30% for all media categories except newspapers and topping the 50% mark on television and cable. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism coverage chart for the week of 10/21/07-10/26/07, the 2008 campaign received a bit more attention than the situation in Iraq, taking second place by a 9%-7% margin. No other story was able to break through for more than 3% of available space and time, and reporting on the US economy made it onto the top ten list with a miniscule 1% share. Coverage of a dangerous staph infection and AG nominee Michael Mukasey were the biggest to fall completely off the chart, but they were only at 3% and 2% anyway, so it wasn't that big of a drop.
| Top ten lists here |


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Wall Street Business Report TM
Lincoln Financial earnings decline
Lincoln Financial Group reported that Q3 net earnings declined 9% to 329.6 million, or 1.21 per share. Lincoln Financial Media saw revenues decline 0.2% to 59.7 million and station operating income was down 7.7% to 26.3 million. Income from operations fell 6.8% to 13.6 million. But the data put out after the market closed yesterday did not include the answer to the question on everyone's mind. Almost certainly someone will ask in this morning's quarterly conference call if the insurance company has decided whether or not to accept any of the bids to buy its radio and TV stations.


Ad Business Report TM

Mediaedge:cia launches MEC Access
Mediaedge:cia has combined the resources of all of its sport, entertainment and cause marketing businesses and staff to form a new specialist division, MEC Access. MEC Access consists of existing Mediaedge:cia units including MEC Sponsorship, The Leverage Group and Sponsorcom. This unified offer is the first to be fully integrated into a media communications agency. With 30 locations globally, the new division will offer clients a one-stop shop for the creation and delivery of strategic partnerships and sponsorships across nine different platforms: arts, brand-to-brand, broadcast, cause, celebrity, film, gaming, music and sport. The Americas will be headed by Richard Yaffa, based in New York. Clients include Citi, Colgate Palmolive, DHL, Energizer, Sony Ericsson, TomTom, Visa and Xerox.


Media Markets & Money TM
Texas FM turns over a new leaf
In fact, the station is going to Turning Leaf Media LLC, headed by Vance Barbee. The company is getting KLSN-FM, serving the Lufkin-Nacogdoches TX market from city-of-license Hudson TX. Peggy Sue Marsh, administrator of the Estate of Hal Haley is the seller. According to Sandi Bergman of MyMediaBroker.com, who handled the sale, the price is 400K, comprised of a 25K escrow deposit, 25K cash at closing, 50K more within 90 days and a 300K promissory note.


Media Business Report TM
Purina chooses SMS advertising
to reach pet owners

Nestlé Purina PetCare has tapped Limbo, a mobile entertainment company, to sponsor daily, free text message alerts for pet lovers. Through Limbo's advertising-supported text message alert service, called Limbo Lowdown, advertisers like Purina can tap into the significant SMS inventory-more than 6 million monthly text messages-and content options now available from Limbo. Limbo Lowdowns include dynamic content offerings such as the ability to immediately receive celebrity gossip, sports scores, movie and music news, Bible quotes, jokes and horoscopes.


Washington Business Report TM
Panel named for House Commerce DTV session
Hearst-Argyle's David Barrett; Dennis Swanson from Fox Television Stations; and Univision CEO Joe Uva will be joining other stakeholders in yet another Congressional oversight hearing on the status of the DTV transition. The session is being hosted by Ed Markey's (D-MA) Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. They'll need a wide table to seat this set of witnesses. Joining the aforementioned trio on the first panel will be Michael S. Willner of Insight Communications; Ron Bruno of the Community Broadcasters Association/Bruno Goodworth Network; John Taylor of LG Electronics; Jonathan Abbott of WGBH-TV Boston (PBS); Michael Vitelli of Best Buy; and Patrick Knorr of Sunflower Broadband.


HD RADIO 2007
New series of HD Radio modules
available for auto market

iBiquity Digital announced LG Innotek, a leading Korean consumer electronics manufacturer, is now offering a series of HD Radio modules for the automotive market. The modules are on display at LG Innotek's suite at the Wynn Hotel in connection with this year's Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show, Oct. 30 through Nov. 2 , 2007 in Las Vegas.


TVBR TV News
PTC rates the #20 TV shows
Parents Television Council is concerned about appropriate content for children ages 2-17, and they just came out with their first take on the 2007-2008 season. They come in three categories: most suitable (1-8); questionably suitable (9-14); and not suitable (15-20). Rated first to worst, here's the PTC kid-friendliness chart. Most Suitable: (1) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC); (2) Sunday Night Football (NBC); (3) Deal or No Deal (NBC); (4) Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (Fox); (5) The Singing Bee (NBC); (6) Don't Forget the Lyrics (Fox); (7) American Idol (Fox); (8) Supernanny (ABC). Questionably suitable: (9) America's Funniest Home Videos (ABC); (10) Dancing with the Stars (ABC); (11) So You Think You Can Dance (Fox); (12) Amazing Race (CBS); (13) Survivor (CBS); (14) The Simpsons (Fox). Not suitable: (15) House (Fox); (16) Grey's Anatomy (ABC); (17) Heroes (NBC); (18) C.S.I. (CBS); (19) American Dad (Fox); (20) Family Guy (Fox).

TVBR observation: We often disagree with PTC. When it comes to imposing massive indecency fines, imposing an a la carte business model on cable systems or generally bumping up against the First Amendment, we tend to oppose the organization with all due vigor. However, we have no problem whatsoever with PTC when it uses its resources to rate programming for its members and any others who choose to pay attention. This is an example of PTC's exercise of its own First Amendment rights, and that is a right we will always defend.


Transactions
250K KKHI-FM CP Laramie WY (Rock River WY) from Kona Coast Radio LLC (Victor A. Michael Jr.) to Greeley Broadcasting Corporation (Ricardo Salazar). 50K earnest money, balance in cash at closing. CP is for Class C2 on 95.9 MHz with 50 kw @ 171'. [File date 10/15/07.]


Stock Talk
Waiting for the Fed
Stock prices pulled back Tuesday as traders waited to see if the Fed will deliver another rate cut today. The Dow Industrials fell 78 points, or 0.6%, to 13,792.

Almost all radio stocks joined in the retreat. The Radio Index declined 1.608, or 1.3%, to 118.245. Salem took the biggest hit, down 5.9%. Westwood One declined 4.9%.

Both satellite radio stocks fell after Sirius reported its quarterly results. Sirius was down 6.7% and XM 7.9%.


Radio Stocks

Here's how stocks fared on Tuesday

Company Symbol Close Change Company Symbol Close Change

Arbitron

ARB

50.00

-0.14

Google

GOOG

695.99

+16.76

Beasley

BBGI

7.65

-0.06

Hearst-Argyle

HTV

22.76

-0.31

CBS CI. B CBS

28.38

-0.50

Journal Comm.

JRN

8.79

-0.13

CBS CI. A CBSa

28.42

-0.42

Lincoln Natl.

LNC

66.26

-0.61

Citadel CDL
4.35 -0.03

Radio One, Cl. A

ROIA

3.47

unch

Clear Channel

CCU

37.71

-0.10

Radio One, Cl. D

ROIAK

3.47

-0.02

Cox Radio

CXR

12.10

-0.22

Regent

RGCI

2.29

+0.01

Cumulus

CMLS

10.40

-0.01

Saga Commun.

SGA

7.14

+0.03

Debut Bcg.

DBTB

0.75

-0.14

Salem Comm.

SALM

8.05

-0.50

Disney

DIS

34.29

-0.39

Sirius Sat. Radio

SIRI

3.37

-0.24

Emmis

EMMS

5.08

-0.05

Spanish Bcg.

SBSA

2.62

-0.03

Entercom

ETM

18.55

-0.11

SWMX

SMWX

0.03

+0.01

Entravision

EVC

8.96

-0.15

Westwood One

WON

2.13

-0.11

Fisher

FSCI

48.37

-0.52

XM Sat. Radio

XMSR

13.97

-1.20


Bounceback

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Below the Fold
Wall Street Business Report
Lincoln Financial
Beside the for sale sign out earnings declined 9% so Conf. Call today...

Media, Markets & Money
Texas FM turns over
A new leaf, in fact, the station is going to Turning Leaf Media LLC...

Washington Business Report
Big time Execs on Panel
Named for House Commerce DTV session Barrett; Swanson and Uva will be there...




Stations for Sale

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More News Headlines

Dial Global signs Syndication Networks
Syndication Networks Corporation and Dial Global announced Dial Global's sales representation of SNC programming, beginning in January. SNC offers imaging services and programming, including SPLAT Imaging, The Success Journal, National Geographic Minute, Country Music Greats, Pro Football Weekly, and 25 Years of Hits. SNC inventory will be incorporated into DG's RADAR-rated networks.


RBR Radar 2007
Radio News you won't read any where else. RBR--First, Accurate, and Independently Owned.

Senators request new
hearing on net neutrality
Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) have reached across the aisle in the past to promote the concept of network neutrality. Concerns about cable and telephone companies playing an active gatekeeper role when providing internet access have prompted the duo to call for a new hearing on the topic.

RBR observation: Put us down for net neutrality. You are reading this right now because you - and RBR - both have access to a free and open internet. We occasionally are critical of companies that may be carrying us into the homes and businesses of our subscribers. The notion that this relationship between the press and citizens can be disrupted by the carrier runs counter to the founding principles of the United States and absolutely must be protected.
10/30/07 RBR #212

Publisher Perspective
At the stroke of midnight
Right now, RBR goes completely electronic. We cease printing SmartMedia mag but the content goes electronic. We have stated numerous times, "Technology Waits for No One." LPM and PPM are rolling, gathering real time data. Therefore, I am not waiting for the New Year's baby to arrive to bring forth our electronic improvements. This is the 2nd time in 25 years I have had to make this hard decision. The first time was 07/08/02 RBR Epaper #1 and my radio friends and colleagues thought I was friggen nuts. When we wish all a Happy New Year 2008, RBR/TVBR will turn 25 years young, our Silver Anniversary. (Reason and looking ahead worth a read see RBR)
10/29/07 RBR #211




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Imagine Media Ad Sales Without - Long Commutes, 8:30 Sales Meetings, Bonus Spots, or selling Print in an Electronic medium. More Reasons to consider Selling Advertising with RBR. Honestly, we are so busy we can not service all the accounts. Can you help us? Our Budgets Are Realistic. Compensation plan is good. If you are good, our Compensation plan is Great. If you are Great, our Compensation plan is Unbelievable! In confidence, contact Publisher Jim Carnegie at [email protected].

New Listing
Associate Web Editor
Ideal candidate will work with our News Team developing / delivering quality web & e-paper content on a daily basis requiring a tremendous amount of creativity, flexibility and an ability to work on a deadline. Skills: Intermediate understanding of how websites, web pages are constructed and ability to write "News" ready copy. Plus, important, must be a strong communicator both Verbal / Written and able to manage multiple tasks. See Radio Careers

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