Are you reading this from a forwarded email?
New readers can receive our RBR Morning Epaper FREE for the next 60 Business days! SIGN UP HERE
Welcome to RBR's Daily Epaper
Jim Carnegie, Editor & Publisher

Click on the banner to learn more...


They said it in 2004: September

As the old year exits stage right and the new year makes its way to center stage, we thought we'd string together a compendium of quotes which appeared in RBR during the past year. Today: September 2004

* "[XM CEO] Hugh Panero, a master media manipulator, has struck again. This time at my beloved Forbes. Scott Woolley's cover story was grossly unfair to the thousands of hometown- community broadcasters who provide invaluable service to local listeners all over the nation." - - Whitney Radio President Bill O'Shaughnessy, responding to a Forbes article which depicted broadcasters as "bullies" who've used their Capitol Hill clout to erect unfair barriers to hold back competition from satellite radio operators (9/1/04 RBR #171)

* "I know I'm biased from the thousands of email I get. I'm just a little cloudy about what my biases are." - - Brooks Jackson of Factcheck.org on criticism received from the left, right and center of the political spectrum (9/10/04 RBR #177)

* "NAB recognizes that providing children's educational programming is one of many ways that a television broadcaster fulfills its public interest obligation. However, it is unfortunate the FCC would adopt new digital television mandates before completing its reconsideration of whether cable operators are required to actually pass through that programming to viewers." - - NAB President/CEO Eddie Fritts on proposed split stream kidvid requirements (9/13/04 RBR #178)

* "...hard deadline for the end of the DTV transition would benefit everyone." - - FCC Chairman Michael Powell (9/13/04 RBR #178)

* "I'm going to Disneyland!" - - Michael Eisner, concluding his letter to fellow director announcing his intention to retire as CEO of Disney in September 2006 (9/13/04 RBR #178)

* You're going to miss the strike zone by a country mile." - - Joel Hartstone of Stonegate Capital on at NABOB the need to thoroughly understand all aspects of a prospective broadcast deal before going to the money people (9/15/04 RBR #180)

* "The fact that Emmis allowed the broadcast of sexually graphic and allegedly indecent material for four years cannot and should not be ignored for any price. Granting Emmis immunity for 300K only makes a mockery of the indecency law and the FCC's license renewal process." - - anti-indecency vigilante David Smith on the Emmis/FCC Consent Decree which he had initially applauded (9/16/04 RBR #181)

* "KFAR is being raided by the FCC & federal marshals." - - from website of a Knoxville TN pirate station (9/17/04 RBR #182)

* "After extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers." - - CBS anchor Dan Rather, apologizing on-air for a "60 Minutes Wednesday" report which accused President George W. Bush of shirking his Texas Air National Guard duties during the Vietnam War era (9/21/04 TVBR #184)

* "They're removing inventory, which can only be a good thing. Whether or not we need to follow their lead is still open for debate, so we'll watch and see what happens with regards to their leadership." - - Radio One CFO Scott Royster, on Clear Channel's Less is More initiative (9/22/04 RBR #185)

* "The two-person review panel will commence its work this week and will have full access and complete cooperation from CBS News and CBS, as well as all of the resources necessary to complete the task. The panel will report its findings to CBS News and CBS. The findings also will be made public." - - CBS, announcing that former US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and retired Associated Press President and CEO Lou Boccardi would investigate mistakes in the preparation and broadcast of a "60 Minutes Wednesday" segment about President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard (9/23/04 TVBR #186)

* "It proposed the statutory maximum amount against each of the Viacom-owned CBS licensees of the 20 television stations that aired the show due to the involvement of Viacom/CBS in the planning and approval of the telecast and the history of indecency violations committed by Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting Corporation subsidiaries. - - FCC upon fining Viacom 550K for Super Bowl incident (9/23/04 RBR #186)

* "While we regret that the incident occurred and have apologized to our viewers, we continue to believe that nothing in the Super Bowl broadcast violated indecency laws" - - Viacom reacting to 550K Super Bowl fine (9/23/04 RBR #186)

* "The reaction at the moment of course is embarrassment for everyone who is connected to CBS, and that embarrassment I hope will be squashed in time as we know what happened." - - retired CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, on the scandal at "60 Minutes Wednesday" (9/27/04 TVBR #188)

* "None of us are immune from the economy and I think a lot of the correlation between this medium and the general performance of the economy has sort of been lost. There's no question radio has struggled this year and every CEO and everybody else knows it. I think the real question is - - and we won't really get color for a couple of years - - was did radio really lose a lot or was it just a reflection of a softer economy?" - - Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan (9/29/04 RBR #190)


Radio Business Report
First... Fast... Factual and Independently Owned

Sign up here!
New readers can receive our RBR Morning Epaper
FREE for the next 60 Business days!

Have a news story you'd like to share? [email protected]

Advertise with RBR | Contact RBR

©2005 Radio Business Report/Television Business Report, Inc. All rights reserved.
Radio Business Report -- 2050 Old Bridge Road, Suite B-01, Lake Ridge, VA 22192 -- Phone: 703-492-8191