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The man whose nickname is the 'Zen Master'
Mel Karmazin has returned and crossed the commercial fence to get real serious by taking the CEO position of Sirius Satellite Radio and has filed the purchase of 1.5M shares for 7.08M dollars of personal cash to get into the Sirius game. Now do you really think for a minute we got suckered into writing this? Wrong-O but listen for Zen Master's first live interview and comments from his mouth on the real details. Courtesy and in conjunction with our colleagues at Fox News Channel and Neil Cavuto.

Listen to the Karmazin interview.

Details on he who laughs last...
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This is your column, so send your comments to [email protected]

A reader is less than pleased with the FCC's recent blanket dismissal of unamended 301s, 314s and 315s.

Dear Editor:
One again, common sense suffers a blow at the hands of bureaucracy. One of the dismissed applications was mine. We filed, as the owner of a standalone AM station with no other broadcast interests in the market, to buy an FM in the same market. No amendment to our application should have been necessary as AM/FM combos have ALWAYS been permissible, even in the tiniest markets. Furthermore, we did not receive notification that an amendment was required. I guess the Commission thinks that everybody reads every word in the Daily Digest on an everyday basis. A quick look at the application would have revealed that it was perfectly acceptable as-is, but I guess that's too much to ask of government employees. This is asinine!

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Two upped in Philly
Greater Media has named Michael Sommers Program Director of WPEN-AM Philadelphia, in addition to being PD of WMWX-FM. Also, Bob DeBlois has been named General Sales Manager of WPEN, coming from co-owned WMMR-FM, where he was Local Sales Manager.

Matt Johnson
heads south
The former Clear Channel Program Director at WDKF-FM Dayton has jumped to Beasley, where he'll be PD of WXKB-FM Ft. Myers, FL.

Tennessee/Alabama AM
Great AM opportunity in excellent Tennessee/Alabama border market. Adjacent rated market coverage.
Cliff at Clifton Gardiner & Co (303)758-6900
[email protected]

New Homeland Security PSAs

Gorman leaving Arbitron board

TKO Radio Networks taps
McVay Media

Pulitzer on the block
Another big newspaper sale appears to be in the offing. Pulitzer Inc. announced that it has retained Goldman, Sachs & Co. to advise it on "strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value, including a possible sale of the company. It's expected the company could bring one and a half billion or more. Its biggest dailies are the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star. Pulitzer spun-off its broadcasting division in 1998 for a 1.85 billion merger with Hearst-Argyle. The later divested the radio properties, but still owns the former Pulitzer TV stations. Members of the Pulitzer family still own several million shares of Hearst-Argyle stock.

New news boss for CNN
Former CBS News executive Jonathan Klein is coming back to television as President of the US news operation at CNN. He replaces Princell Hair, who had only been heading the news operation (and with the lesser title of Exec. VP) for 14 months. Hair has been named Sr. VP of program and talent development for CNN News Group. Klein, who once oversaw "60 Minutes" at CBS, is the founder and CEO of The FeedRoom Inc., an Internet broadband news streaming site. He says that experience will help him in his return to television. "Six years steeped in the digital information industry have helped me understand today's news consumers in ways never before available to media executives," he said.

Who Will Sit on the Throne?
The election -What is in it
for Broacasters?

One On One
with PHD's Patrick McNew -
The man that over sees spot
for Chrysler Group.

Engineered For Profit
'05 budgets and capital expenditures, our close up look at who's planning to buy what next year.


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Clear Channel does not
blame Letterman
For what we don't know but during Howard Stern's appearance 11/18/04 on CBS's "The Late Show with David Letterman," Letterman himself referred to a "Rolling Stone" article on Clear Channel which was less than flattering. In a statement, the radio giant said, "Clear Channel does not blame David Letterman for being duped by poor journalism." Appended to the CCU statement was a refutation of the article, which was sent to Rolling Stone as a letter to the editor which it says went unpublished. RBR observation: Like it or not, Clear Channel is light years bigger than the next-largest radio group. In its letter to the Rolling Stone, it claims 9% of all US stations and 18% of US radio revenue. "Neither come close to satisfying any accurate definition of dominance," it wrote. Nonetheless, it is so big that whenever anyone takes a shot at radio in general, Clear Channel cannot help but get hit. Publisher note: Stern's vertical smile went horizontal. 11/22/04 RBR #228

TV, Where are multiples these days? Still high - - Part 7
If radio prices are too rich for your blood, you may want to look at TV - - but you won't find any bargains there, either. "We've got a lot of television deals to judge by." Just as in radio, multiples in a couple of Top 10 market TV deals in recent years have been through the roof. "Sometimes in large markets, people just kill to own them," he noted. "Despite all this bad press about radio lately, TV is still trading at a significant discount to radio just because people perceive more issues in the industry." So TV multiples outside the Top 20 markets are in the 10-12 range, which is less than you'd have to pay for a cash-flowing radio station in the same market.
11/22/04 RBR #228

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