RBR's Daily Morning Epaper

Volume 21, Issue 251, Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher

Wednesday Morning December 29th, 2004

RBR Returns Monday Jan 3, 2005. Happy New Year.

Radio News®

They said it in 2004:
Special Super Bowl edition
We continue our look back at the quotes of 2004. February started with the most quote-intensive event of the year, the Super Bowl Nipplegate incident. So before we get into the broad scope of sayings for the month, we thought we'd provide a compendium of comment in the 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?
| More... |

G. Gordon Liddy moving to Radio America for 10A-1PM
With Westwood One's syndication deal with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough to host a daily 10am-1pm show, G. Gordon Liddy will exit the network and will walk across the street to DC-based Radio America for the same shift starting February 7th. Radio America's Alan Nathan then moves to 3-6PM, replacing Joseph Farah, who's shift is up in the air at the syndicator. Farah has 100+ affiliates and is very strong in the Carolinas. Those who would think that this is the G-Man's first move into retirement might want to think twice, because rumor has it Radio America is putting a star producer/top imaging guy on the show in Franklin Raff.

Local TV tops list as most popular daily source of news
According to a new Gallup poll on media usage, local TV news tops the list of sources where most people in America get their daily news, According to poll results, 51% of those surveyed said they turn to local TV news daily. 19% said they view local TV news several times a week. Local newspapers ranked second on the list, with 44% turning to papers daily. Cable news nets ranked third on the list with 39% watching daily. 36% watch the network nightly news every day. 27% watch national TV morning news shows and public TV news programming every day. The poll also found that 21% of adults turn to talk radio for news, 20% rely on Internet sites, 17% listen to NPR for news and 7% turn to national newspapers like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Consumer confidence up sharply
The Conference Board December Consumer Confidence Index reached its highest level in five months and surged almost a full 10 points above its level for November. The latest number is 102.3, up from 92.6 in November. The par 100 score is based on the confidence level measured in 1985. Related index numbers followed suit. The Expectations Index rose from 90.2 to 99.9, and the Present Situation Index jumped from 96.3 to 105.9. "The continuing economic expansion, combined with job growth, has consumers ending the year on a high note," says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board's Consumer Research Center. "The most significant contributor to the rebound in confidence has been the overall improvement in current conditions over the past twelve months. And consumers' outlook suggests that the economy will continue to expand in the first half of the new year." The employment situation seems to be turning. 19.4% now say that jobs are plentiful, compared to 17.1% expressing that sentiment in November. The flip side also improved - - the hard to get number, sitting at 28.0% in November, dropped to 26.4%.

Taking stock of the post-Enron world
The price of being a player on Wall Street is making it more and more advisable for mid- to small-size players to keep its stock off the Street and in the HQ lockbox. That's what a relatively small media player told a reporter at BusinessWeek Online. The firm in question specialized in Christian music books, music and videos. One problem was competition from big conglomerates moving into what had been a pond filled with small fish. That was followed by a large upward revision in what was considered the small-cap floor by big institutional investors, leaving many smaller public companies out of the picture. Consolidation in the brokerage houses resulted in a gradual decrease in coverage of the stock. Enron and the reactive Sarbanes-Oxley Act provided the final straw, adding a huge layer of expense for all public companies. For the smaller players, it was a struggle to bring in enough extra income to cover the added outlay of cash. The result for the company was a one-time hit to revert to private status, featuring a stock buyback in which it overpaid market value by about 80%. But the CEO considered that price well worth it. When his company is thinking about expansion, he'll be thinking about the equity and mezzanine financing markets as sources of capital.

Carlin enters rehab
George Carlin, whose 70s-era "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine has given him iconic status in the broadcasting world by defining the epicenter of the indecency wars, is entering drug rehab. He says he's taking the step on his own counsel, to cut down on his consumption of wine and the painkiller Vicodin, according to an Associated Press story. Carlin said that nobody told him he needed to do this, and that his consumption levels are not at all shocking, but he recognized the danger of continuing down the path he was on.

RBR observation: Perhaps the FCC should look into establishing a government-funded facility to aid broadcasters, entertainers and anyone else who graces the public airwaves to kick a dependence on dirty words, sexual/execretory references and wardrobe malfunctions.

Adbiz©

Royal Caribbean campaign
aims at bad weather areas
Cruise line Royal Caribbean International is introducing a multimedia campaign that will run in certain markets only when the weather is cold or snowy. This is similar to the strategy offered to advertisers by the Weather Channel. Campbell Soup, LG Electronics and Pinnacle Foods were among the advertisers that responded. Visit Florida, the state's tourism marketing organization, will run a weather-triggered campaign on the Weather Channel from 1/10 through 3/13 in markets where it is snowing or the temperature dips to 32 degrees or below, according to the NY Times. Royal Caribbean is using a similar approach for its campaign, which begins Saturday on local TV stations in New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia. According to Dan Hanrahan, SVP/Marketing and Sales, these four cities generate one-fourth of the unit's total annual bookings. The ads are part of a larger national campaign by Royal Caribbean that began 12/27 and runs through 3/20. Royal Caribbean's AOR is Arnold Worldwide Boston. The national spot, running programs like "The Today Show," "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Alias," and on Discovery, Animal Planet and BBC America, will also run during local stations' weather forecasts in the four cities when there is a major snow or ice storm. Royal Caribbean has instructed the local stations to broadcast the ads when special storm coverage begins. It has reserved time with the stations in advance and will pay as needed, said the NY Times article. The spot shows people bundled up and standing outside in snow and sleet, then switches to pictures of people on a cruise vacation participating in outdoor sports. A v/o says, "Wouldn't it be nice to actually see your friends this winter? What are you waiting for? Check out royalcaribbean.com and get out there!"

Volvo to air Super Bowl ad
Volvo will reportedly advertise in the Super Bowl, its first effort in the big game. The ad will introduce the V-8 version of its Volvo XC90 SUV. AOR Euro RSCG Worldwide handled creative.

Media Markets & MoneyTM

Nassau expands in Maryland
We didn't think Louis Mercatanti would be satisfied with a single station in the Frederick MD area. Brokers Glenn Serafin of Serafin Bros. and Larry Patrick of Patrick Communications have helped engineer a deal which will bring in a combo stretching to the west toward and into Hagerstown. In the new deal, Mercatanti's Nassau Broadcasting is picking up WARK-AM and WARX-FM from Manning Broadcasting. The price was not disclosed. Earlier, Mercatanti picked up WAFY-FM in the Frederick market from members of the Marmet family. Nassau will celebrate the new year by taking over all three stations in an LMA pending the FCC approval and closing on the two deals. "Several seeks ago we planted the Nassau flag in Maryland with WAFY in Frederick," said Mercatanti. "Now we are delighted to be adding two more stations to serve the fast growing suburbs north of Washington and west of Baltimore."

Arkansas CP gets a big sister
Usually, the first kid in the family is the furthest along in developmental maturity, but in the case of this Fayetteville, Arkansas deal, the holders of an AM CP are picking up an already up-and-running big sister to go with it. John Brown University, under licensee name KUOA Inc., is the seller, and will enjoy a modest 150K payday when it parts with KUOA-AM, a commercially-operated Talker licensed to Siloam Springs. Buyer Cherokee Broadcasting Co. already has a CP for a 1340 kHz AM station which will serve Northwest Arkansas (Arbitron's other name for the market) from its perch in Bethel Heights. Cherokee is owned by Mitchell and Dewey Johnson. An LMA on KUOA is slated to begin 2/1/05.

Washington Beat

Noncom crosses the commercial line
A 10K fine against Minority Television Project Inc., which runs noncommercial KMTP-TV in San Francisco, has been affirmed by the FCC in the face of the licensee's protests. At issue were announcements from underwriters which the FCC found to stray over the line into the realm of commercial speech. The following script is a translation (original language was Asian, probably Korean) provided to the FCC by Minority Television Project Inc. | More... |

WPWC-AM fined 14K for violations
The FCC fined JMK Communications' WPWC-AM Dumfries-Triangle, VA 14,000 for operating at unauthorized power levels and failing to place a current ownership report and a program list in the public inspection file. Originally the Commission recommended a 22,000 fine against the Spanish-language brokered station. WPWC said in its station logs that it operated with its daytime power of 1,080 watts at night. The authorized nighttime power is 540 watts. The FCC claimed the station wasn't powering down until 8:30, instead of its authorized 8:15 switchover. During an inspection in 2003, the agent found the EAS receiver wasn't tuned to the correct station. It was installed at the station's unattended transmitter and its monitoring and transmitting functions were not available to the station's operators either at the main studio or secondary studio in nearby Woodbridge, VA. JMK asked the fine to be cancelled/reduced, claiming its EAS gear is installed at the transmitter site and operates automatically with a remote override-that's within FCC rules that allow automatic operation of the EAS system by stations that use remote ops. The commission agreed and reduced the fine by 8,000. WPWC's CE told the Commission the station did power down at its authorized time and that the logs were wrong. Initially, the station said the logs were accurate. The FCC didn't agree, and let stand this portion of the fine.

Editor's Note: February issue of Radio & Television Business Report - The Real Media Business Magazine - a key focus on 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

Cutting inventory:
Are you reducing inventory in your market? If you reduce inventory, are you going to raise rates? What are the effects?

Tom Bender, GM, Greater Media/Detroit
We've always kept our inventory levels within strict limits, and we've always kept to our supply and demand pricing. All three of our properties are known as premium properties. I don't expect to have to change anything about the way we operate. There will be a marketplace effect when salespeople are asking for rate premiums that have no real benefit for advertisers. They're going to have to prove that they are worth more

Chad Brown, VP/GM of WCBS-FM New York
Commercial inventory management is something we evaluate on a continual basis. Recent adjustments to our spot loads have allowed us to play more music creating better flow and continuity and the early feedback from listeners and advertisers has been positive.

Mike Mazursky, GM, 4M Communications/Richmond
We don't plan on cutting inventory because we never went up to more than 12 minutes per hour on any of our formats. We are in for formats News/Talk, Spanish, Adult Standards, Urban Gospel. We don't subscribe to Arbitron, but we do subscribe to Scarborough. We know we can't compete with fm music stations and the big public companies that operate here in Richmond can outspend us in marketing and do! We are happy to provide excellent programming to smaller niche audiences and we operate under the radar screen shall we say. Our loyal audiences will stay with us even if we did add some inventory I believe. We don't have the inventory problems the big public companies have and our advertisers feel like we are a good buy to begin with. Our average rates are in the $40 range, we try to increase 10-15% on renewals and we have a strong retention rate. We also sell block programming and even though it's not great for ratings, our audiences don't change the dial because of loyalty to the format. I do think it's great for the industry for the big players to cut inventory and raise rates. I have always lived by the philosophy that better programming will win so that's we focus on. I believe we looked at Richmond and then put on programming that would make us successful. We continue to have record months in sales and our audiences love us, we must be doing something right.

Transactions

KZBN-AM Santa Barbara CA from Rotijefco Inc. to Santa Barbara Broadcasting.

KLUH-FM Poplar Bluff MO from Word of Victory Outreach Center Inc. to David Craig Ministries Inc.

WWIC-AM Scottsboro AL. 50% of Scottsboro Broadcasting Company Inc.

| More... |

Stock Talk

Confidence scheme
The big jump in consumer confidence reported by the Conference Board sent all three major stock indexes to three-year highs. Most broadcast issues were more than happy to partake of the bounty. A few more days like this and a piece of the Washington Post will run you 1K per share.

Radio Stocks

**Here's how stocks fared on Tuesday**
Company	Symbol	Close		Change	Company	Symbol	Close		Change
Arbitron	ARB		39.77	+0.60	Jeff-Pilot	JP		51.92	+0.59
Beasley	BBGI		17.00	+0.22	Journal Comm.	JRN		18.10	+0.05
Citadel	CDL		16.15	-0.09	Radio One, Cl. A	ROIA		16.06	+0.02
Clear Channel	CCU		33.57	-0.11	Radio One, Cl. D	ROIAK		16.08	-0.05
Cox Radio	CXR		16.05	+0.30	Regent	RGCI		5.30	-0.05
Cumulus	CMLS		15.12	+0.42	Saga Commun.	SGA		17.00	+0.10
Disney	DIS		27.99	+0.24	Salem Comm.	SALM		24.52	+0.32
Emmis	EMMS		19.05	+0.16	Sirius Sat. Radio	SIRI		7.81	-0.29
Entercom	ETM		35.58	+0.23	Spanish Bcg.	SBSA		10.56	-0.12
Entravision	EVC		8.40	+0.15	Univision	UVN		28.34	-0.24
Fisher	FSCI		49.70	+0.75	Viacom, Cl. A	VIA		37.17	+0.04
Gaylord	GET		41.99	+0.88	Viacom, Cl. B	VIAb		36.57	+0.02
Hearst-Argyle	HTV		26.05	+0.02	Westwood One	WON		26.67	+0.14
Interep	IREP		0.75	-0.01	XM Sat. Radio	XMSR		38.89	-0.84
International Bcg.	IBCS		0.02	unch	-	-	-	-	-

__UNSUB__ to this email service.

Bounceback

Send Us Your Opinions We want to
hear from you.
This is your column, so send your comments to [email protected]

Arbitrends

Upped & Tapped

KZON-FM taps
Chris Patyk as PD
Infinity's Alternative KZON-FM Phoenix announced Chris Patyk as its new PD effective 1/10. Patyk joins KZON after five and a half years as APD and MD at KYSR-FM in Los Angeles. Prior to that, Patyk was APD, MD and on-air personality at KEDJ-FM in Phoenix. In 1995 while working at KKND-AM in Tucson, AZ he was involved in the start-up of Tucson's first alternative radio station.

TVBR - TV News

Nielsen changes DC, Philadelphia LPM
intro dates
Nielsen Media Research announced it will launch its local people meter service in Philadelphia and DC on 4/7/05, operating in conjunction with the current meter/diary service until 6/2/05 when the LPM will take over in both markets. That's months before it previously announced the dual service would begin (see chart, below), and weeks before a subsequent announcement said the dual service would commence. Says Nielsen spokesperson Karen Gyimesi: "Philadelphia and Washington were originally set to launch April 28th, which is the beginning of the May sweep. What we've decided to do in those two markets is to give our clients a two-month preliminary period where they will have the people meter sample side-by-side with the set meter diary sample to compare the two and get themselves ready to adjust to the new people meter sample." Preliminary overnights are released 7 days after the date and preliminary VIP's mail 10 days after the Set-meter / diary VIP to avoid any confusion. Nielsen has plans to bring LPM's continuous, overnight demographic ratings into the top 10 television markets in the U.S. by 2006. LPMs are up and running in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. The schedule now calls for Dallas and Detroit to be switched in November 2005; and the last market, Atlanta, in May 2006. Also see related story on Nielsen's Local Timeshifting Measurement Plan.
Local People Meter Rollout Schedule

RBR Radar 2004

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

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 as this series continues 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: Given the national scope of the pond XM and Sirius are playing in, these subscriber numbers are not yet a serious threat to terrestrial broadcasters. 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 superserving 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

Two Commissioners think
Entercom got off light
Michael Copps (D) and Kevin Martin (R) feel that way - Copps "..I believe the Commission could have found multiple violations and assessed a larger fine." RBR observation: Anybody want to play George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" routine? Let's say you are going to do a public affairs discussion of the indecency debate, scheduled to begin right at the onset of safe harbor, 10:00 PM. You run the Carlin piece to frame the issue. But your engineer's watch is fast and it actually airs at 9:59. Under a per-utterance regime, would that cost 130K, the product of seven dirty words at 32.5K a pop? This is really going to be fun if and when Congress jacks up the fines. And for those have never heard Carlin's skit then listen in on the Seven Dirty Words 12/28/04 RBR #250

Before Time Runs Out
A Look For and Must Do list
As the year draws to a close, we remind you of a few issues to be aware of in 2005 like Accountability, EDI, PPM and LPM, FCC's rulemaking and influence on consolidation, Spot load/clutter, Capital Expenditures, Shedding of assets, Branding & Marketing of your company, Public groups got hammered Go private, 5 C's - with the key C of Common sense be applied in 2005. RBR observation: Best regroup around the camp fire and smoke the pipe and prepare for a new year which will bring a number of surprises for people that are not of Common Sense. 12/27/04 RBR #249

It's a twister, Auntie En!
A 220K twister
Entercom has been hit with a 220K dollar FCC fine over alleged indecency over a pair of Midwest stations. Dating back to spring 2002, the first incident in question was a game of "Naked Twister" on the "Dare and Murphy Show," heard on KQRC-FM in Kansas City and KFH-AM in Wichita. e ball is now in Entercom's court. It can either pay up; argue for a reduction of the fine, or its complete cancellation.
RBR observation: Or Entercom can do nothing and see if the FCC will take it to court. The indecency wars continue to heat up, and figure to get much, much hotter, especially with the threat of supercharged fines coming into the mix courtesy of Congress. Somewhere, someday, somehow, somebody is going to take this to court. Welcome to 2005. 12/27/04 RBR #249

VP/Programming for The Dr. Laura Show
Take On The Day, Inc., by Geoff Rich and Dr. Laura Schlessinger looking for an experienced PD to manage and market The Dr. Laura Show. Experience in talk radio programming, marketing and media relations. Based in L.A. Confidentiality respected. EOE

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

See Radio Careers for more info.

Other Links

State Associations
Contact Us