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Carat's Charlie Rutman moves to MPG
MPG, the buying and planning unit of Havas, announced last week that Carat NA President Charlie Rutman is its new CEO for North America. He fills the post vacated by Jim Rose, who left MPG in November.

Saginaw/Bay City/Midland FM
WSAG-FM 104.1 Mhz Class A, Pinconning, Michigan. ARB ranked #130, revenue ranked #97, 23M. Newly on the air. New owned 350' tower. 4,600 watts ERP, new 5KW solid state transmitter, ERI 3 bay antenna. No revenue yet, no sales staff, only minimal personnel. Running oldies format with BSI computer system. New studio facility will be needed for new owner. Minimal studio equipment, with EAS equipment, STL, etc. New construction project, currently
owned by an engineering company. Operating company needed to be brought in to finish project. Priced as "stick" value. Asking $950,000.00.
[email protected]

Phoenix AM Bankruptcy Sale
KFNX 1100, 50,000 Watt AM radio station in Phoenix, AZ, will be sold for the highest and best offer on March 31, 2005 at 10:00 a.m. MST
at the US Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix, AZ. An initial bid of $3.6 million has been received. The sale of the business is "as is/where is". Please go to www.1100kfnx.com for station information, and
call 602-277-1100 x.499 for details.

CNN exec exits
amid controversy
CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan has resigned to spare his network any further embarrassment caused by his recent remarks. He wanted to talk about the alarming number of journalists who have been killed or wounded in Iraq when addressing the World Economic Forum 1/27/05. What came out was significantly different, however. Jordan seemed to charge that members of the American military were deliberately targeting journalists. Jordan immediately tried to explain his remarks as misspeaking, but no amount of apologizing has been able to effectively bring an end to the situation. I didn't help that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was in the audience when Jordan's remarks were uttered, which Frank immediately challenged.

RBR observation: The days when a slip of the lip could be handled with an apology and the cleansing sands of time are slipping away. Any attempts by Jordan to douse the flames were counteracted by members of the blogosphere working just as hard to pour gasoline onto the conflagration. It is more important than ever to take care with your public utterances, especially when you're navigating in controversial waters. Ps: Sorry nobody can fire CNN founder Ted Turner after his remarks last month at the NATPE conference when he called the Fox television network a "propaganda voice" of the Bush administration and compared Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise in Germany before World War II. You fill the rest in or drop us a note at [email protected]

32M satellite radios by the end of this decade
Despite concerns that consumer demand appears to have softened in the past year (2/9/05 RBR #28), JP Morgan analyst Barton Crockett is still projecting strong subscriber growth for both XM and Sirius, with Sirius gradually improving its market share after launching second in the two-company race. The analyst is projecting that the two satcasters combined will have 8.5 million subscribers by the end of this year, 32.4 million by 2010 and 56 million by 2020.

Universal McCann's Bob Coen may think that radio is going to grow revenues 5% this year, but he overshot the mark with his forecast in 2004 and our readers think he's overly optimistic again this year. Our gurus in the trenches say revenue gains will be more modest. More than a third say they'll be up 1-2% and nearly a quarter say 3-4%. Only 17% agree with Coen.

How will radio
revenues finish 2005?

1 - Flat or down
- 20.00%
2 - Up 1-2%
- 38.18%
3 - Up 3-4%
- 24.55%
4 - Up 5% or more
- 17.27%

FCC nixes multicast must carry
The FCC took a big stand with the cable industry over broadcasters, reaffirming an earlier finding that CATV operators do not have to provide dual analog/digital carriage during the remainder of the DTV transition phase by a 5-0 vote, and reaffirming cable's responsibility to carry only one and only one broadcast programming stream, regardless of whether or not the broadcaster is multicasting.
02/11/05 RBR #30

NAB responds
NAB President/CEO Eddie Fritts wasted no time reacting to the FCC's decision on multicast must carry. "In Washington, there are no final victories and no final defeats,"
RBR observation: There is no way on this earth to call this a victory for broadcasters. However, Fritts does have a valid point. Members of both parties on Capitol Hill asked the FCC to support multicast must carry, or at a minimum, delay a vote on it. In their remarks, several of the Commissioners noted that ultimately, the FCC's job is to interpret and carry out the mandates of Congress. If the NAB can get legislators to put something in writing and vote affirmatively on it, broadcasters might yet get their way. 02/11/05 RBR #30

Another broadcaster claims it was fouled by Citadel
Ed Levine's Galaxy Communications says Citadel Broadcasting Company went out of bounds in its effort to stop Galaxy from building an FM translator in Fulton NY, which Galaxy was seeking to bolster its coverage of the Syracuse market. Similar charges have come from Red Wolf Broadcasting in the New London CT market. 02/11/05 RBR #30

Congressional indecency
effort clears first hurdle
There was twice as much opposition to the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act in 2005 as there was in 2004. That brought the opposition all the way to two votes, as an essentially clean bill sailed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee as predicted. The vote was 46-2, compared to last year's 49-1 tally. The bill, if enacted into law, will raise the FCC's maximum indecency fine from 32.5K to 500K and put in a 3rd strike rule ordering the FCC to consider license revocations for thrice-cited owners.
RBR observation: The bill sailed through the full House last year with only token opposition, but was done in by the Senate, which included amendments dealing with broadcast ownership consolidation and violent content, among other things. That will no doubt happen again, putting the ball squarely in Sen. Ted Steven's (R-AK) court. Will he be able to get an equally clean bill through his Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation? Stay tuned. 02/10/05 RBR #29

Revise and shine?
The goal of keeping government activities transparent requires that when ever more than two commissioners meet, it must be in an open forum observable by the public, a provision of the Sunshine Act. Commissioners from both parties serving at the FCC want the rules revised, saying it hampers their ability to deal with the complex issues which are regularly brought before them. The Commissioners say they still communicate, via memos, staff members, round-robin one-on-one meetings etcetera.
RBR observation: Neither Powell nor Copps has been at all shy about explaining themselves to the public. Where Powell has run into icebergs is his distaste for letting the public tell him what they think.
02/10/05 RBR #29

Spectrum tax proposal back again
In what is becoming an annual event and traces back to the Clinton White House, the administration is attempting to slip a spectrum tax on broadcasters who are running parallel stations in the pending phase of the DTV transition. The tax would apply to unreturned analog spectrum beginning in 2006, and would shoot for a government payday of a half billion dollars. The congruent annual event is the successful effort by the National Association of Broadcasters to blow the spectrum tax out of the water. RBR observation: NAB is alive and doing its job but the industry knows the leader is leaving. When can the radio and television business expect to see 'white smoke?' There are issues that need addressed and nobody in our business wants to get blind sided. NAB needs a leader that has knowledge but also has the youth to lead for the next ten years. 02/09/05 RBR #28

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