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June 2002 Personalities:
Raul Alarcon - Chairman/CEO, Spanish Broadcasting System (US); Paul Allen - outgoing Executive director of the Country Radio Broadcasters(US); Sue Arnold - UK Observer radio columnist; Edward G. Atsinger III - President and CEO,Salem Communications, US; Chris Bickerton - former presenter BBC "Focus on Africa" programme (died); Arthur Black- long time Canadian Broadcasting Coprotation radio host (taking early retirement); Joe Bohannon - (2) - Jobi of "Eddie and Jobi" morning duo in Chicago; Paul Brown - Chief Executive of the Commercial Radio Companies Association, UK; Jack Buck - former voice of the St Louis Cardinals (deceased); Pat Cassidy- Chicago WBBM-AM morning co-host; Jane Christo- general manager WBUR-FM, Boston; Michael J. Copps - (2) - Democrat US FCC commissioner; Hugh Crosskill - former head of the BBC World Service Caribbean output (deceased); Dan Coughlin - interim executive director , Pacifica Radio (US); Anthony Cumia - (2) -Anthony of US Opie and Anthony afternoon and syndicated show; Daryl Denham - Breakfast host for Virgin FM, UK; Lewis W. Dickey Jr. - President and Chief Executive Officer, Cumulus Media, US; Paul Donovan- U.K. Sunday Times radio columnist; Jeffrey Dvorkin - US National Public Radio ombudsman; Lord John Eatwell - chairman UK Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA); Chris Evans -(2) - British broadcaster and former radio mogul; Liam Fay - UK Sunday Times writer; Robert Feder - (4) - Chicago Sun-Times media columnis; Sen Russell Feingold - (5) - Wisconsin Democrat who is introducing legislation concerning radio consolidation; David Field - CEO Entercom, US; Prof. David Flint -(2) - -chairman, Australian Broadcastng Authority; Gary Fries - President and CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau, US; Eddie Fritts -(2) - President and Chief Executive Officer, US National Association of Broadcasters; John Gehron -(2) - Clear Channel Chicago Regional VP/Market Manager; Eva Georgia - general manager of Pacifica network's KPFK-FM, Los Angeles; Don Geronimo - US radio host ( Don of "Don and Mike"); Ralph Guild - CEO, Interep. US; Karen Hand - former news director, and morning news anchor, WBBM-FM, Chicago; Richard Hooper-chairman UK Radio Authority; Catherine L Hughes - founder and chairwoman Lanham (Maryland, US)-based Radio 1 Inc.; Gregg Hughes - (2) -Opie of US Opie and Anthony afternoon and syndicated show; Alan Jones - Sydney 2GB breakfast host; Mel Karmazin - Viacom President & Chairman and CEO Infinity Broadcasting (US); Chris Kimber - head of BBC Radio Online; Kraig T. Kitchin - president and chief operating officer of Premiere Radio Networks, US; G. Gordon Liddy - US radio host and convicted Watergate conspirator; Tuong Quang Luu - head of SBS Radio, Australia; Kelvin MacKenzie - -chairman and chief executive of U.K. Wireless Group which owns TalkSport; David Mansfield - chief executive Capital Radio, UK; Brad March - managing director, Austereo; Kevin Martin - Republican US FCC Commissioner; L.Lowry Mays - (2) - Chairman and Chief Executive,Clear Channel, US; Mark Mays -(2) - President and Chief Operating Officer, Clear Channel Communications; Randall Mays -(3) - chief financial officer, Clear Channel (US); Gerry McCarthy - UK Sunday Times writer on Irish Radio; Felicia Middlebrooks - WBBM-AM,Chicago, morning co-host; Jim Moir -(2) - controller, BBC Radio 2; Mike O'Meara - US Host ( Mike of "Don and Mike"); Erich "Mancow" Muller -Chicago-based U.S. '"shock-jock"; Robert F. Neil - President and Chief Executive Officer, Cox Radio, US; Gary Parsons - chairman, XM Satellite Radio (US); Steve Penk -(2) -former UK Capital Radio host-joined Virgin Radio June 2001, now rejoining Capital; A. Jerrold Perenchio - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Univision (US); Jonathan Potter --(2) - Executive Director, Digital Media Association (DIMA), US; Michael K. Powell - (4) - Chairman, US Federal Communications Commission; Professor Kobus van Rooyen - chairman, South African Broadcasting Complaints Commission;Hilary Rosen - Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); Ed Salamon - Executive Director-designate, Country Radio Broadcasters(US); Mark Schubb - former General Manager, KPFK-FM, Los Angeles; Helen Shaw -RTÉ (Ireland) director of radio-( leaving); Bob Shennan - Controller, BBC Radio 5 live; Cary Sherman - (2) - president, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); Jeff Smulyan - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Emmis Communications, US; Ed Stolz - owner of Royce International Broadcasting (US); Farid Suleman - CEO Citadel Communications and special partner in Forstmann Little; McHenry Tichenor Jr - President and Chief Executive Officer, Hispanic Broadcasting, US; Walter F. Ulloa - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,Entravision(US); Jeremy Vine - BBC TV presenter, tipped to take over Jimmy Young's weekday lunchtime slot on BBC Radio 2; Ed Volkman - (2) - Eddie of "Eddie and Jobi" morning duo in Chicago; Richard Wheatly -(2) - chief executive, Jazz FM, UK : Roland White - UK Sunday Times columnist; (Sir) Jimmy Young - veteran BBC DJ; Rod Zimmerman - vice president and general manager of WBBM-AM and WSCR-AM, Chicago;
Numbers in brackets indicate the number of stories involving an individual mentioned more than once

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May 2002 July 2002
Links- internally where there are follow-up stories we try, at the end of each story, to put a pertinent link to the top of the next relevant story. Regarding external links see note at end of page.

RNW June comment considers when consolidation efficiencies cross the line into abuses of power.
RNW May comment looks at the future for Internet streaming.
RNW April comment looks at the the ways of ensuring diversity and choice in radio.

2002-06-30: The past week was mainly one for community and small station decisions in Australia and Canada but in the UK mainstream commercial stations were on the agenda and in the US, the question of equal employment opportunities brought opposing views to the Federal Communications Commission.
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has allocated three new community radio licences in northern New South Wales, decided not to proceed with the allocation of another in north eastern New South Wales, and invited applications for two community licences in South Australia.
Licences issued went to Casino's Own Wireless Association Inc for Casino, to Community Radio Coraki Association Inc for Coraki and to Nimbin Independent Media Inc. in Nimbin. All licences were for general community services and all the services had been operating under temporary licences.
In Murwillumbah, north eastern New South Wales, no applications were received for a permanent licence by the closing date and Cool FM, which has been broadcasting under temporary community broadcasting licences since 1998, said it would not be applying. Other groups did express interest but did not submit applications by the closing date; the Authority now says that it will re-advertise the license at some future time.
"The ABA will re-advertise the licence at some time in the future. The ABA hopes that during the intervening period cooperative commented said ABA Chairman Professor David Flint.
The Authority has also invited applications for two new community services in the Victor Harbor area of South Australia, one to serve Victor Harbor only and the other to serve Victor Harbor, Strathalbyn and Yankalilla.
In Canada, radio related activity by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was also related to smaller stations.
It has approved the addition of a second 40-watts FM transmitter in Grand Falls for
CKXG-FM, Grand Falls, Ontario, to improve its signal in downtown Grand Falls-Windsor and the adjacent community of Bishop's Falls.
The Commission has also issued a public notice calling for comments on an application to allow CIBM-FM Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, to add an 11.9 watts transmitter at Saint-Juste-du-Lac and by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to allow three of stations to broadcast weather and environmental information in both English and French.
The stations concerned are CBPS-FM, Bruce Peninsula National Park and CBPO-FM, Parry Sound, both in Ontario, and CIQA-FM, Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay), Nunavut.
Ireland was quiet on the radio side but in the UK, eight applications have been made to the Radio Authority for the London AM licence currently held by women-oriented Liberty Radio (See RNW June 26).
The Authority has also published its assessment of its recent award of the new East Midlands regional licence to Saga FM against competition from 14 other applications (See RNW June 13).
The Authority comments that the award decision "was closely fought between applications of impressive quality proposing to serve the youth audience in the East Midlands and those targeting an older listenership, both of which would widen choice."
"After lengthy consideration, Members concluded that Saga Radio Ltd.'s proposals would do the most to broaden choice, and would have appeal across the entire coverage area of the new licence."
It added, "Members considered that the audience research undertaken by Saga Radio provided thorough and compelling evidence of the need for a commercial radio service for the over-50s, who comprise 40% of the adult population in the area, and succeeded in demonstrating that the proposed programme content would cater for the tastes and interests of a good proportion of that target audience."
"In addition to a broad range of specialist programmes scheduled for evenings and weekends, Saga's music output during the day will also provide a broadening of choice by including tracks drawn from genres such as 'standards' and 'nostalgia' which are currently unavailable by way of ILR services in the area."
"…Members saw no reason why the group should not achieve its forecast audience figures, especially since it has already almost done so in the West Midlands region. Members noted that the proximity of the West Midlands service provided numerous operational synergies which would benefit the station and listeners in both areas."
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was again embroiled between opposing parties on the issue of Equal Opportunity rules for employment in broadcasting, discussed at en banc hearing at the start of the week.
The hearing heard FCC Chairman Michael Powell say that ensuring the presence of minorities and women in media companies was a "strategic priority for the nation and any industry that hopes to make money in a diverse future" but divisions quickly appeared amongst those present as how to achieve this aim.
On the one hand generally speaking were representatives of black broadcasters and women and on the other many of the broadcasting companies.
Cathy Hughes, the founder of Radio One Inc., the largest black-owned radio company in the US, said she was "a living example of EEO."
"My career has been the exception to the rule," she added. "Not because I'm exceptional, but because the FCC pried open the window of opportunity that afforded me an equal chance to prove my worth and value to the broadcasting community."
Charles Warfield Jr., president of ICBC Broadcast Holdings Inc. the second largest black-owned radio company in the country, said he favoured re-instating FCC equal opportunity hiring rules. "When a young minority person considering whether to pursue radio or some other career looks at the top of our profession, he doesn't see a lot of people who look like him or her, except at minority-owned stations, " he said.
Joan Gerberding, President of American Women in Radio and Television, said new EEO rules were needed and commented, "Only three percent of Media executives are women...It's taken the broadcast industry way too long to break out of the bad habits of the old boys' network and word-of-mouth recruitment that provided limited opportunities for advancement for women. Without the FCC's regulatory push that these habits cease immediately, they will continue to be perpetuated."
On the other side of the argument, Texas State Broadcasters' Association Executive Director Ann Arnold complained that the Commission's EEO rules had in effect led to shakedowns of broadcasters,
"Individual broadcasters are actually afraid to complain to you about it, but they tell me about the calls that they get asking for thousands of dollars for preparation of 'minority recruitment plans' for their stations in exchange for dropping protests of their license renewals," Arnold said about the tactics of some civil rights organisations to extract money from the broadcasters. Asked by Powell why they didn't "just not pay", he said that the reality was that it cost time and money to deal with such complaints even if no payments were made.
Mid-West Family Broadcasters VP Marilyn Kushak also told the commissioners that past EEO requirements had been costly and put an unjustified burden on broadcasters, especially smaller companies and that they had found it was often very difficult to comply with FCC rules.
Powell told the meeting he was surprised by the low representation of women and minorities in broadcasting and how "persistently stagnant" the numbers were and Democrat commissions Michael Copps commented that the old lines were "as clearly and starkly drawn as they used to be."
The FCC has also been proposed an indecency fine of USD7, 000 on Emmis and confirmed a USD10, 000 penalty on a Florida pirate operator (See RNW June 29).
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Previous Copps:
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2002-06-29: As more reactions are given to Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold's Competition in Radio and Concert Industries Act (see RNW June 28), the splits are not unexpectedly broadly along the lines of those who benefit or think they will favouring changes and opposition coming from those who fear losing.
National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) President and CEO Edward O Fritts issued a statement defending the 1996 US Telecommunications Act that it said had "strengthened the ability of radio to better serve listeners."
"…we strongly dispute claims," he continued, "that radio has grown more homogenous in recent years. Separate studies show that radio format diversity is far greater now than six years ago, and Spanish stations in the U.S. now number more than 600, up from fewer than 400 in 1996."
"Moreover, through the collective efforts of stations from Boston to Boise, local radio stations generated $7 billion in public service last year. That alone should be reason enough for Congress to let flourish a communications medium that is free, local and reliable."
The Recording Industry of America Association (RIAA) had backed Feingold in connection with "promotion" fees charges by independent promoters for airplay and its Chairman and CEO Hilary Rosen said, "We applaud Senator Feingold for introducing this important legislation. It takes the necessary first step toward ensuring diversity of programming on radio stations by preventing abuse of independent promotion through unprecedented increased radio ownership consolidation."
As well as the moves concerning consolidation and vertical integration, particularly the links between concert promotion and radio activities, Feingold's proposals also call for investigation into radio ratings companies.
It asks the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a review of their systems to check if the radio industry "utilizes practices to manipulate" companies that perform the measuring."
(RNW comment: This looks suspiciously like an attack on Clear Channel and Arbitron's deal over Florida-wide ratings (See RNW June 24 ).
Feingold would require the FCC to ensure that small and rural markets were measured and that measurement systems were consistent over time and could not be influenced.
Previous Feingold:
Previous Fritts:
Previous NAB:
Previous RIAA:
Previous Rosen:
NAB web site:
RIAA web site:

2002-06-29: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ended the week with a bang in terms of penalties -- it is proposing one of USD 7,000 for broadcasting indecent language on Emmis and has confirmed another of USD10, 000 on a Florida pirate for broadcasting without a licence.
It has also dismissed a petition to reconsider its earlier rejection of an indecency complaint against Entercom.
The proposed penalty on Emmis relates to a broadcast by WKQX-FM, Chicago, during the "Mancow's Morning Madhouse" programme in March 2001.
The complainant had in this case submitted a recording of the broadcast of the rap song "Smell My Finger" whose lyrics were said by the FCC to "contain explicit and graphic sexual references, including references to fellatio, female genitalia, ejaculation and manual stimulation of the female genitalia."
"The song's sexual import, "it continued, "is lewd, inescapable and understandable…the song, in context, has a sexual meaning that is unmistakable and is similar to other material found to have clearly understandable sexual references and to meet the definition of broadcast indecency."
The complainant had also raise the question of whether criminal charges were warranted in connection with a section of the show in which the host offered a reward for the killing of an incarcerated paedophile.
The FCC responded that this was a matter for local law enforcement authorities and was outside the FCC's jurisdiction.
The USD10, 000 penalty related to what the commission termed "wilful and repeated operation of radio transmitting equipment without a license" by James Leger of Lake Worth, Florida.
He had been issued with a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NAL) in April but had not responded.
The Entercom case involved a complaint that its WGR-AM station in Buffalo, New York, had broadcast indecent material in 2000 when morning programme co-hosts said that that they wanted to "piss on" teams, players and the Commissioner of the National Hockey League and that one had also, in response to a listener's question, said "you can say prick on the air, you can even call someone a sawed- off little prick on the air."
The FCC had dismissed the complaint in 2001 and has upheld its original dismissal.
Previous Emmis:
Previous FCC:
FCC web site :

2002-06-29: Apart from the turmoil in stock prices, which saw significant drops for radio as for US stocks in general, the past week has been moderately busy regarding station deals in the US but most were fairly small transactions.
Bigger deals may yet come, however, for Cumulus, which has filed a shelf registration with the SEC for 10M new shares of stock that it would use "in connection with our acquisition of other businesses, properties or securities."
Of the week's deals, the largest was the USD30 million Colorado sale of KXUU-FM in Estes Park by High Peak Broadcasting LLC to Superior Broadcasting.
In West Virginia, LM Communications is paying Mortenson Broadcasting USD 1.5 million for three of its four Charleston stations -- WMON-AM, WSCW-AM and WJYP-FM.
Mortenson had already agreed a USD500, 000 deal to sell its other station, WZKM-FM, to the Educational Media Foundation.
LM Communications is also buying out its partners in two other Charleston stations, WCOZ-AM & WKLC-FM. John & Barbara Linn will get USD1.9 million for their 60% stake in the stations.
Among other deals:
In Texas, Encore Broadcasting is paying USD2.5 million to ICA Media for KMCM-FM.
In Massachusetts Multicultural Radio is paying The Add Radio Group USD1.78 million for WLYN-AM, licensed to Lynn, which is North east of Boston in Essex County.
In South Carolina, Caswell Communications Inc. is involved in the purchase of two stations, WZJY-AM, for which it is paying USD450, 0000 and WPAL-FM, priced at USD850, 000.
In Arkansas, Clear Channel has now been given the go-ahead to acquire KNEA-AM, Jonesboro, and KKEY-FM, Harrisburg from the Pollack Broadcasting Company.
The deal had been red-flagged on competition grounds by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) since Clear Channel already owned three stations in Jonesboro - KBTM- AM), KFIN-FM, and KIYS-FM - and the five stations it would ultimately own would control 61.9% of the revenue in the Jonesboro metro
In addition, taken with the share of Pressly Partnership Productions Inc., two companies would control just under 90% of the revenues in the area, 95% if Pressly were allowed to go ahead with an acquisition of KJBX-FM, Trumann, from Pressly Enterprises LLC.
Despite the figures, the FCC noted that the two Pollack stations were "in extremely poor financial health" and might go off the air if the deal were barred. It concluded that the acquisition served the public interest.
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous Cumulus:
Previous FCC:

2002-06-28: Wisconsin Democrat Senator Russell Feingold has now put forward his Competition in Radio and Concert Industries Act aimed at what he alleges are anti-competitive pressures in the radio and concert promotion businesses, a move that would clearly affect Clear Channel most.
Feingold says his bill would rein in the worst practices that have arisen since the 1996 Telecommunications Act removed many of the restrictions on how many stations a single company could own in a market.
In particular he has taken up allegations by artists, concert promoters and small radio stations that Clear Channel and other industry giants use their dominance to shut out competitors, put pressure on artists who do not use their concert services and use shell corporations to exceed ownership limits.
His bill would not reintroduce caps that were dropped in 1996 but it would stop the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from easing restrictions any further and direct the FCC to revoke the licence of a station involved in anti-competitive behaviour It would also update the current payola laws that prohibit hidden payments for playing recordings to take in independent promoters.
Clear Channel has already reacted to the proposals. It issued a statement by Mark Mays, its President and chief operation officer, that said it did not think the government should regulate private business practices as proposed by Feingold.
He notes the consolidation in various industries including the recording and movie industry, with five major players controlling more than four fifths of album sales and ten major studios controlling almost all movie revenues, as companies seek economies of scale and continues,
"By contrast, the top 10 radio station owners account for 44 percent of industry revenues,|" said Mays. "Even Clear Channel, the largest owner of radio stations in the country, owns only 11 percent of the stations. So, the notion of a few large corporations controlling the majority of the radio industry is not only incorrect, but is actually less of a factor in radio than in most other media and entertainment industries."
"Radio has modernized in a number of ways in recent years, which has not always been comfortable as everyone associated with broadcasting works to adapt to new ways of doing business."
"For many of us the changes and opportunities in our business are exciting and amazing. We now have a better chance to bring great radio to the consumer than ever before in history. It's very exciting."
"As a company that operates openly, honestly and fairly, we look forward to any opportunity to join with others who care about the industry in taking a serious look at it. We particularly value any such evaluation that puts the needs and interests of consumers first."
Previous Clear Channel:
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Previous Feingold:
Previous Mark Mays:
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2002-06-28: Two complaints against British radio were upheld by British Broadcasting watchdog, the Broadcasting Standards Commission, in its June bulletin just issued.
In all the Commission lists 122 complaints compared to 138 in April, although no statements were required from broadcasters in 105 cases compared to a corresponding figure of 99 in April.
There were only two complaints detailed concerning fairness (seven in May), one against TV being upheld and the other, against a teletext service not upheld. The other complaints concerned standards and two were upheld against radio (the same as in May) and five against TV (three in May). Two complaints against TV were partly upheld.
Of the two complaints upheld against radio that were upheld, one involved GWR's The Morning Crew and a complaint concerning a wind-up call to a young boy who had lost his skateboard. The presenter purported to be an official of the 'litter police' and said that he was going to fine the boy for littering.
Although the family had given permission, the Commission held that "the use of a young child in this way in an entertainment programme and the boy's evident distress had been offensive and went beyond acceptable boundaries.
The other complaint upheld against radio involved Tony Horne on Century FM's breakfast show.
He had broadcast an item about masturbation that the panel rules as "inappropriate" for broadcast when children might be listening.
In addition to the complaints upheld, two complaints against Virgin Radio were considered as resolved.
One involved a comment by Jon Holmes that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was "a stroke-faced old harridan"; the station apologised and said that Holmes o longer worked for it (The same comment was made by Virgin concerning an earlier complaint about Holmes that was considered resolved in the Commission's May bulletin -See RNW June 1). In the other case the complaint concerned remarks about Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and again the station had apologized.
In another case involving Piccadilly Key 102, the Commission was unable to proceed because of the poor audio quality of the tapes provided in three cases and in another case the station said correspondence had gone astray and the recording had no longer been kept. The matter was taken up with the Radio Authority, which reminded the station of its obligations; Key apologized and said the recording problems as it changed from an analogue to a digital logging system. It apologized for this and its administration of paperwork and said it had taken measures to prevent recurrence.
Previous BSC/BSC Complaints Bulletin:
BSC web site (Note: This is a 'Flash' site: It links to the report in PDF format- 189 kb):

2002-06-28: Westwood One and Country Music Television have announced that they will launch h the CMT Radio Network from Monday, July 1.
The Viacom in-house arrangement is similar to that announced concerning the formation of the BET Radio Network (See RNW June 13) and is a multi-year agreement to develop a radio network tailored to country radio stations.
It will include a daily entertainment report from Nashville, live "interactives" with country artists, news, information and a minimum of four live events or concerts a year.
Previous Viacom-CBS-Infinity:
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2002-06-27: Less than a month after Infinity took WBBM-FM morning duo Ed Volkman and Joe Bohannon (Eddie & Jobo) off the Chicago airwaves (See RNW June 1), Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder reports that their main competitor, Erich "Mancow Muller, has been speaking out on behalf of his rivals and urging them to jump to Clear Channel's Kiss FM.
Both WBBM and Kiss are contemporary hit formats and John
Gehron
, who is vice president and general manager of Kiss FM and head of Clear Channel Communications' Chicago group, has said he hopes to hire Eddie & Jobo whenever they become available.
Volkman and Bohannon are under contract until the end of the year and have been barred from making statements without authorisation.
Muller, reports Feder, paid for adverts in alternative newspapers headed "Corporate Radio Sucks!" and saying amongst other things, "Mancow would like to congratulate Eddie & Jobo for fighting the suits at B-96."
He said he took the action because of the dwindling ranks of local radio personalities, hit by big corporation syndication and voice tracking.
"Chicago is a great radio city, and I want there to be big morning shows here," Muller said. "With syndication and everything else, I hate to see our legacy destroyed. It's disappearing."
He said others had not commented because they were afraid, adding, "There used to be 60 different [radio] bosses to choose from. Now there's three. The whole renegade attitude has been destroyed by corporate America. We're all under their boot."
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Chicago Sun-Times - Feder column:

2002-06-27: After 30 years with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, including 19 seasons of the Saturday morning Basic Black show on its Radio One network, Canadian radio host Arthur Black is to take early retirement aged 58.
The show's last edition was recorded last week in Thunder Bay, Ontario, where Black hosted the Radio Noon CBC radio show for nine years and where Basic Black was born in 1983; it will air on Saturday including various outtakes from over the years of the show.
The show which has a weekly audience of some 600, 000, began in 1983 when Black was hosting the local Radio Noon show in Thunder Bay and was asked if he would host a weekly poetry show. He made a pilot, which did not go down well, but he did and was asked what else he would like to do and said he'd like to interview ordinary people with extraordinary stories. The idea was accepted and the show, whose name was t=based on the title of a book he had just written, went ahead.
Black, who moved to British Columbia from Ontario six years ago, told the Toronto Globe and Mail that he had felt it was time to go. "You know when you go to a party and there's a time when you can see where the rest of the party is going to go and you don't want to be part of it?" he said. "That's how I felt."
He added that CBC executives accepted his decision with "amazing alacrity" and added, "I would have liked them to beg me to stay."
He also expressed concern about the Corporation's revamp to try and attract a younger audience, saying, "It's like watching Hugh Hefner trying to be hip. I've always said the CBC is like Scotch and olives. You'll like it when you're ready for it."
Previous CBC:
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2002-06-27: Yahoo has announced that it is closing a number of its services including Yahoo Radio, which served as an Internet outlet for hundreds of small radio stations, but it says the decision is unrelated to the ruling on webcasting royalty rates earlier this month (See RNW June 21).
It says the streams will be gone by the end of this week together with around thirty jobs, as part of cost-cutting moves that re related to a new company structure announced last year. As well as dropping Yahoo Radio, it has stopped accepting new submissions for its jukebox service that allows musicians to post MP3 versions of their songs.
Yahoo Radio's site buries the impending death of the service through a promotion for its LAUNCHcast service, saying, "The future of Yahoo! Radio is LAUNCHcast."
Yahoo has been pushing the Launch division since it acquired the online music operation last year for USD12 million and says it is to continue to run that service.
At the start of this week, Radio and Internet Newsletter, carried comments by Mark Cuban, the founder of Broadcast.com, which he sold to Yahoo in 1999 for a figure reported as close to USD 6 billion, saying that he had been negotiating a high rate for web royalties with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the hope that small stations would not be able to compete.
Hence they would have to have had to go to Broadcast.com "to use our services because with our aggregate audience, if the price per song was reasonable, we could afford to pay the royalty AND get paid by the web radio stations needing to webcast. "
He also said he opposed a percentage of revenues model because " it meant every "Tom, Dick, and Harry" webcaster could come in and undercut our pricing because we had revenue and they didn't. Broadcasters could run ads for free and try to make it up in other areas so they wouldn't have to pay royalties."
He also noted that Broadcast.com had a large multicast network that sent only a single stream from the server with the result that only that stream would be reported and liable for payments.
Cuban had left by the time the Yahoo deal was signed but says he has been told no dramatic changes were made.
Previous RAIN:
Previous RIAA:
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Yahoo Radio web site:

2002-06-26: Emmis Communications has reported first quarter earnings for this year above expectations with broadcast cash flow (BCF) up 4.5% to USD50.5 million and after tax cash flow (ATCF) up a third to USD22.9 million, or 44 cents a share, although net revenues were down 1.1% at USD136.8 million.
Radio revenues were down 5.2% from USD66.2 million to USD62.7 million but Emmis said most of this was linked to overseas operations and its US revenues were only down 1% on a same station basis; for the current quarter Emmis says domestic radio revenues will be down 14% and overseas ones down 38%, with the total down 3.7%.
Television revenues in the first quarter were up 6.1% on Q1 2001 to USD57.2 million and its publishing division showed revenues up 6.5% to just under USD17 million. Emmis is predicting that for the current quarter TV revenue will be down slightly and publishing up just over half a per cent.
Emmis Chairman and CEO Jeff Smulyan said, "As demonstrated by our ratings successes and market share growth, Emmis continues to position itself for the future by exceeding expectations in every area of the business…With the bulk of our leverage issues addressed, we look forward to being opportunistic in the near term."
During the quarter Emmis has raised USD120 million from the sale of 4.6 million shares; it used the funds to reduce debt and redeem some of its outstanding 12-1/2 percent Senior Discount Notes due 2011. It also completed the sale of Denver stations KALC-FM to Entercom for USD88 million and KXPK-FM to Entravision for USD47.5 million, using the proceeds to repay debt.
Emmis was also among the companies dropping Arthur Andersen as auditors, replacing them in its case with Ernst & Young.
Emmis also adopted SFAS 142 from March 4 and as a result recorded an impairment charge of approximately USD167 million.
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2002-06-26: Eight companies have applied for the re-advertised London AM licence currently held by Liberty Radio according to the UK Radio Authority. The mixes on offer include stations targeted at children, women, the 50 plus audience and the London Asian community.
They are:
*Radio Liberty - a full service station aimed at women mixing classic hits and speech.
*Abracadabra Broadcasting & Communications Ltd. - a music and speech offering for children under ten.
*Asian Talk Radio Ltd- A speech-led multi-cultural service for the Asian community.
*Club Asia (London) Ltd. - An Asian cum urban music offering targeting the 15-34 years old Asian audience.
*Planet AM (Hercules Productions Ltd.) - A mix of mostly Asian music plus other music formats and information targeted at the 15-34 Asian community.
*Saga Radio Ltd. - a full service format of melodic music, mixed with news and lifestyle oriented speech for the 50 plus audience.
*Takeover Radio Ltd. A children's radio station mixing pop, speech and educational programming.
*Tap Radio (London) Ltd. - an Asian and Western dance station targeted at the 15-34 year-old Asian community.
Previous UK Radio Authority:
UK Radio Authority web site:

2002-06-26: Internet listening grew by 2% in the week to June 16 according to latest figures from MeasureCast, which has also introduced Internet-only station rankings. This category was headed by sports-talk ESPN in the week with listening that kept it in fourth place in the top 25 station rankings. Second placed Internet-only station Radioio was knocked down from fifth to sixth rank in the station rankings by classical format King FM.
For the week to June 16, MeasureCast's top five stations ranked by Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) with previous week's TTSL and Cume persons (CP), a measure of the cumulative audience, in brackets, were:
1: Hot Adult Contemporary Virgin FM - TTSL 402,825 (345,394); CP 80,220 (67,663): Same position with higher listening and reach.
2: Jazz format Jazz FM - TTSL 325,688 (220,040); CP 69,836 (56,873): Same position with higher listening and reach.
3: Classical format WQXR-FM, New York - TTSL 176,861 (187,187); CP 22,020 (21,572): Same position with lower listening and reach.
4: Sports talk ESPN - TTSL 128,704 (127,491): CP 35,074 (39,864) : Same position with higher listening but lower reach.
5: Classical format King FM - TTSL121,303 (106,801); CP 23,294 (21,612): Up from fifth with higher listening and reach.
The top five networks for the week (Previous week's figures in brackets) were:
1: Clear Channel Worldwide TTSL 1,655,694 (1,522,076) ; CP 276,153 (259,227). Same position with higher listening and reach.
2: Radio Free Virgin TTSL 779,562 (785,492): CP 158,454 (151,727) - Same position with lower listening for the fourth week but with higher reach.
3: WARP Radio TTSL 733,020 (773,734) hours: CP 122,357 (118,613) - Same position with lower listening but higher reach.
4: Internet Radio Inc TTSL 556,583 (551,804) : CP 179,114 (172,210) - Same position with higher listening and reach.
5: Virgin Radio TTSL 519,510 (462,947) : CP 102,227 (88,755) - Same position with higher listening and reach
The top five Internet-only stations for the week, the first week they have been ranked , were (Previous week's TTSL and CP in brackets) were:
1:Sports talk ESPN - TTSL 128,704 (127,491): CP 35,074 (39,864). Fourth in top 25 stations.
2:Adult alternative Radioio - TTSL 114,750 (113,800 ) ; CP 30,772 (21,612). Sixth in top 25 stations.
3: Rock format KNAC.com - TTSL 85,248 (87,072); CP 14,284 (14,142). Seventh in top 25 stations.
4: Listener-formatted MediAmazing - 85,206 (83,829 ) ; CP 45,678 (43,497 ). Eighth in top 25 stations.
5: Classic Rock Radio Margaritaville -TTSL 74,998 (71,010); CP 13,429 (12,921 ) . Ninth in top 25 stations.
Previous MeasureCast ratings:
MeasureCast web site:

2002-06-25: US radio revenues were up 4% in April this year compared to April 2001 according to latest figures from the US Radio Advertising Bureau.
Local revenues, which have been less hard hit by the economic downturn, were up 2% and national ones were up 6%.
RAB's Sales Index, based on 100 for 1998, was 132.1 overall for April and 125 for national and 134.2 for local sales.
For the year to date it was flat overall at 132.3,up 2% at 131.5 for national and flat at 132.7 for local sales.
Gary Fries, RAB President and Chief Executive Officer, said radio was "in a slow, steady but strong recovery phase… Categories are up across the board, reflecting the growth of the business. Looking ahead, we see signs of inventory tightening and anticipate continued growth similar to April over the next few months."
Previous Fries:
Previous RAB:
RAB web site:

2002-06-25: Arbitron's RADAR (Radio's All Dimension Audience Research) report for the period from April 2001 to March 2002 just released shows most networks either static or losing audience although four ABC radio networks did well, mainly because of their Urban Advantage increases.
Top network in the latest ratings, RADAR 73, was Westwood One's CNN Max but its 12plus audience was a little down from its RADAR 72 figures. Second ranked was Premiere Morning Drive AM Network and third was Premiere Focus Network
RADAR 73 was based on 12.500 diaries for the final quarter of the year but the earlier quarters were each based on 9,000 telephone surveys, the system operated by Statistical Research, Inc from whom Arbitron purchased RADAR for USD 25 million (See RNW July 3, 2001).
By the release of RADAR 76 in March 2003,says Arbitron, RADAR reports will be based on an annual sample of 50,000 radio diaries.
The report also notes that, for the 31 networks rated by RADAR, around three quarters of the US 12 plus heard one or more radio network commercials during each week; for the 12-17 demographic the figures was 79%, for adults 18-49 it was 78% and for males 25-54 it was 81%.
Arbitron also says that the medium did better with upper income groups, garnering 81%of the 18+ adults in households with an annual income of USD75, 000 or more and 76% of adults with a college degree.
Previous Arbitron:
Arbitron web site:

2002-06-25: UK commercial radio stations will argue this week before a Parliamentary committee set up to look at the British government's Communications Bill for a relaxation of proposed radio ownership regulations saying the restrictions on radio are unfair compared to those proposed for television owners.
Under the bill, the governments wants three media owners plus the BBC in any region but leading radio executives and the Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA) will argue before a Parliamentary committee set up to look at the legislation that this too restrictive.
CRCA chairman Lord John Eatwell argues that consolidation will actually enhance diversity because larger operators are better placed to take risks and develop local services.
Paul Brown, chief executive of the CRCA, says the Bill was partial in its deregulation, leaving radio subject to tight ownership restrictions on ownership but relaxing the regulations on television.
The bill also proposes to drop rules barring foreign ownership of terrestrial broadcasters and there is some dissent about this. Capital Radio, seen as a potential target for a large US group such as Clear Channel, Disney or Viacom, takes the view that such restrictions should be removed only where there are reciprocal arrangements and is urging increased efforts for such arrangements. This would apply particularly to the US, where foreign ownership of broadcasters is prohibited.
Previous Brown:
Previous Capital:
Previous CRCA:
CRCA web site:

2002-06-25: According to the Australian Financial Review, Austereo is now thought to have made an indicative bid for the New Zealand radio stations of Canwest Global Communications. Winnipeg-based Canwest has put its New Zealand broadcasting interests that include the MoreFM and RadioWorks radio networks and television interests up for sale in attempts to reduce its debts (See RNW June 18).
Previous Austereo:
Previous Canwest:

2002-06-25: A Baltimore court has started yet another hearing of the USD5 million law suit against Watergate conspirator and current radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy over his comments that the real reason for the break in was to get evidence to link Democratic Party leaders with a call-girl operation that included the Maureen Biner who became the wife of White House Counsel John Dean.
Dean's testimony before the US Senate was a significant factor in the events that lead to the 1984 resignation of US President Richard Nixon.
The current case involves Ida Maxwell "Maxie" Wells, who was working as a secretary at the Democratic National Committee at the time of the break-in. It is the third time the case has been heard.
The previous one ended with a dismissal of her lawsuit in February last year after a jury had split 7-2 in favour of Liddy. (See RNW Feb 3, 2001).
That dismissal was by Judge J. Frederick Motz who had previously thrown out Wells' case in 1999, terming an "involuntary public figure" and saying she had failed to show that Liddy acted with malice in talking about the call-girl theory during a speech at James Madison University in 1996 and on board a cruise ship in 1997.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, overruled him and the case was sent to the trial that ended with the split jury.
Wells appealed again and the appeals court reversed Motz's decision, commenting, "A reasonable jury, relying on the evidence, could find that Liddy was at least negligent in making the allegedly defamatory statements."
RNW note-- Motz in his judgement had commented that no rational jury would find it unreasonable for US radio host and convicted Watergate conspirator G Gordon Liddy to tell audiences that he now believes the burglars who broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters during Nixon's presidency were looking for photographs of prostitutes.
The current hearing is before Chief U.S. District Judge Frederic N. Smalkin.
Previous Liddy:

2002-06-24: For this week's look at print comment on radio, we have concentrated on the big boys, starting with last week's New York Times article on Clear Channel by Lynnley Browning entitled, "Making Waves on Air: Big Radio's Bad Boy", a heading that in itself provides a fair clue to its tone.
Describing Clear Channel as a giant admired by Wall Street and then says, "Among its competitors and some cultural critics, however, Clear Channel is referred to as "the evil empire" - or worse."
Browning then goes on to note of complaints that it fills its broadcasts with "prefabricated non local programming or with tasteless fare that hit bottom last year when one of its disc jockeys in Tampa, Florida, had a wild boar castrated and killed in the parking lot of his station while he described the scene and added recorded pig squeals on the air."
But, says the article, many of its competitors, whatever they may say about Clear Channel, are increasingly copying it and scrambling to acquire more stations and notes that according to Inside Radio Clear Channel has an audience larger then the next four radio broadcasters combined.
Reed Bunzel, chief editor of Radio Ink, commented, "There is a very strong sentiment that they have done a disservice to broadcasting, by using their clout in a way that makes it difficult for smaller companies to compete. A lot of people in the business really hate Clear Channel."
Mirroring his comments but without venom, Lewis Dickey, chairman and chief executive of Cumulus, told the paper, "Being up against those guys is forcing us to become more resourceful,".
"They are very aggressive, so now we're more aggressive. They've set the standard that we're responding to."
Among the practices Clear Channel has pioneered are cost cutting through replacing local hosts with recorded programmes "spiked with local colour for individual stations" or with syndicated talk hosts such as Rush Limbaugh.
It has also taken advantage of its size to aggressively cross-promote its activities such as radio, outdoor and concert promotions and undercut on prices.
It has also used its size to promote "cluster" sales of ads, some across geographic areas, some involving formats and also recently Arbitron to lump its eight Florida stations into a single "trading zone" with a rating for the entire group, thus potentially giving it a competitive advantage over small competitors by allowing it to swell on the basis of ratings across Florida.
These activities and its size, notes the report, have led to complaints that Clear Channel resembles a monopoly and has been a factor that led to Wisconsin Democrat Russell Feingold to say he would propose legislation to curb some activities (See RNW June 15).
The article also gives a short potted history of the company, which began with a single San Antonio FM in 1972 when L. Lowry Mays, a former investment banker, was stuck with the station after a partner backed out of a deal to buy it. The company then grew slowly reach to 36 stations when the l federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 loosened station ownership restrictions and allowed the consolidation rush, enabling Clear Channel to grow to its current size aided by a massive USD24 billion leap when it took over AMFM, then the largest US radio broadcaster, a deal finally cleared in July 2000 (See RNW July 22, 2000).
On to a more positive report on the actions of a big broadcaster, this time the BBC which garnered praise in the UK Guardian for its use of on-demand audio in an article by Owen Gibson titled, "Web radio is finally getting its act together."
Gibson starts, "Whether it be Andy Kershaw's eclectic mix of world music late on a Friday night, a Book at Bedtime on Radio 4 that is well past your bedtime, or Jon Carter mixing on Radio 1's Breezeblock after midnight, it's far easier to miss out on your favourite radio show than it is a TV programme."
"After all, radio shows don't have countless magazines and newspaper supplements devoted to telling you when they're on, and you're unlikely to tape them to listen to later in the same way as you would with a TV and video recorder."
"Add in the fact that people tend to be tuned into their station of choice rather than making "appointments to listen" to specific shows and an awful lot of enjoyable and relevant radio content passes most of us by. "
Gibson then goes on to say, "…for those prepared to listen to the radio on the web (and put up with the attendant loss of quality that this entails), that could all soon change, thanks to a new radio player developed by the BBC's interactive arm, BBCi. It allows web users to listen to any specialist show from across the BBC's national stations over the past seven days, picking and choosing from hundreds of hours of content."
He then quotes Chris Kimber, head of BBC Radio Online: "Radio brands work both ways - they probably turn as many people off as they attract."
"A lot of people still think that Radio 3 is wall-to-wall classical music, for example. But it's changed beyond all recognition in the last couple of years. Using the player, someone who would never usually tune into Radio 3 might stumble across something they love on Mixing It or the Andy Kershaw show, which they wouldn't otherwise have found."
The innovation is to use on-demand for specialist music shows-some Radio 4 and World service has been on-demand for a while as RNW has reported - but it is not used for most of its routine shows.
"There's not much value in repeating Sara Cox's breakfast show or other topical shows," says Kimber, "but if there's a programme that's on once a week or late at night then there's going to be a lot more interest."
The sticking point in reaching this stage has been something that is very topical at the moment, the difficulty of agreement with the record companies who control the copyright of records.
Here the BBC has had to strike a compromise. Shows will only be archived for a week and will be made available only as "live" streaming cover that con only be skipped through in 15 minute chunks and cannot rewind to keep playing the same track.
"We managed to persuade them that it is streaming and not downloading," said Kimber. " We're not saying, 'Listen to the new Eminem track over and over again, '" adding that the move was a "bit of an experiment" for the recording companies.
Finally a look across the oceans, courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald, at SBS Radio in Australia, termed by Jacqui Taffel in her report, "the most diverse multicultural broadcaster in the world."
According to the report, the service, which started in 1975 with 2EA in Sydney broadcasting in seven languages and 3EA in Melbourne, broadcasting in eight, is described by its head, Tuong Quang Luu, as now representing more cultural voices than any other international broadcaster including the BBC World Service and Voice of America.
SBS Radio broadcasts 15,000 hours of programs each year to Australia's major cities, allocating time to languages depending on the number of speakers of it in Australia and other factors such as unemployment in a community and its ability to speak in English.
The report itself was prepared on a day when a Mandarin programme in Sydney was being followed by others in French, Armenian, Polish, Hebrew, Indonesian and Dari, Italian, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Spanish and Aboriginal and African languages.
Part of its charter is to "maintain culture through language" but, says the paper, it also plays an important social welfare role. Its most recent major revamp was in the early 90's and was based upon information from the 1991 census; currently figures from Australia's 2001 census are being examined to aid decisions on other changes that may be needed.
The paper quotes Luu, who escaped from Vietnam in 1975, on the challenges the station faces,
He says airtime is tight and sometimes people think not enough has been done for them but then adds that the criticism is a side of love.
"Because they love us, they would like us to do more for them, " he says, and adds, "Everyone working here is Australian. You may be an Australian of Arabic background or Vietnamese or Mandarin or Greek, but first and foremost this is an Australian institution so we work within that parameter. We make allowances for cultural diversity but at the end of the day what we bring is harmony."
RNW comment: The accountants would probably have a different view, but culturally we tend to rate Clear Channel in a category well below the other two broadcasters mentioned. We await evidence of a commercial broadcasting system that does match them in variety of output.
Previous Arbitron:
Previous BBC:
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous Columnists:
Previous Cumulus:
Previous Dickey:
Previous Feingold:
Previous Lowry Mays:
New York Times - Browning on Clear Channel:
Sydney Morning Herald - Taffel on SBS:
UK Guardian - Gibson on BBC on-demand audio:

2002-06-23: Last week was quite busy in Australia and the UK but quiet elsewhere for the regulators.
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) is inviting applications for two new commercial FM licences in Queensland, one to serve the Gold Coast and the other to serve the Nambour area, and has proposed additional commercial radio frequencies for the Mount Tamborine region of Queensland.
It has also invited applications for a new community licence for the Yass area of New South Wales; it has also extended until June 27 the original deadline of May 16 for applications for new community licence in the Latrobe Valley area of south eastern Victoria.
The Mount Tamborine commercial licence changes will add a medium power service and additional low power in-fill frequencies for 4-SUN and also for 4SUN's additional commercial service 4RBL.
In the case of the Yass licence, the ABA had previously sought applications in 1999 but decided not to allocate the licence at the time.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), had a quiet week generally; on the radio side its only published decision was to approve the CAD725, 000 acquisition by Pellpropco Inc. of CHSC, St Catherines, Ontario, from Coultis Broadcasting Limited.
Ireland was also quiet but the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland has now extended the County Clare licence of Clare FM for ten years.
The licence was one of a group advertised at the end of April and only Clare FM had applied for the licence (See RNW May 1).
In the JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research) ratings for the end of last year Clare FM's music and talk format had a 36% market share and 55% listenership.
In the UK, the Radio Authority has received two applications for the Yorkshire Digital Multiplex Licence.
They are from the MXR Consortium, whose members include Chrysalis Radio, Capital Radio, Guardian Media Group (GMG) and Jazz FM (currently being acquired by GMG), and Yorkshire & Humberside Digital Radio, whose members include GWR Group, SCORE Digital, Emap and Saga Regional Digital Radio Ltd.
MXR is proposing a total of nine services, one of which will initially only be broadcast from 0600 to 1900, and Yorkshire Digital Radio is proposing eight plus a ninth to be shared between four providers.
The MXR offering is:
*Kids and teens - Capital Disney (provider: Capital Radio plc):
*Urban music - Urban Choice (provider: Soul Media Ltd.):
*Melodic adult contemporary - Heart (provider: Chrysalis Radio Ltd.):
*Jazz, soul and blues - Jazz FM (provider: Jazz FM plc):
*Adult rock - The Arrow (provider: Chrysalis Radio Ltd.):
*Easy listening - Smooth (provider: Guardian Media Group plc):
*Rolling regional news - Digital News Network (provider: DNN Ltd.). This will initially only be broadcast from 0600-1900.
*Dance and r'n'b - Galaxy (provider: Chrysalis Radio Ltd.):
*Speech and music - Real Radio (provider: Guardian Media Group plc):
The Yorkshire & Humberside Digital Radio offering is:
*Dance/rhythmic hits - Galaxy 105 (provider: Chrysalis Radio Ltd. Subject to confirmation):
*Personality radio, music and speech - Real Radio (provider: Guardian Media Group plc. Subject to confirmation):
*Easy listening for 50 pluses - Saga Radio (provider: Saga Group Ltd.):
*Popular country -3C (provider: SCORE Digital Ltd.):
*Non-stop hits - Smash Hits (provider: Emap Performance Ltd.):
*Modern rock - The Storm (provider: GWR Group plc):
*Adult contemporary - Passion (provider: Passion for the Planet Ltd.):
*Asian - Sunrise Radio (provider: Sunrise Radio Ltd.):
In addition a ninth channel, Your Yorkshire, would be shared by four services broadcasting at different times. They are:
*Children's radio - Abracadabra (provider: Soundstart Ltd.):
*Student broadcasting - SBN (provider: Campus Media plc):
*Gay and lesbian radio - Purple Radio (provider: Clubmend Ltd.):
*Sport - Radio First (provider: Radio First plc):
The Authority has also announced that it has received only one declaration of intent to apply for each of the Hereford/Worcester AM and FM licences currently held by Murfin Music International Ltd., broadcasting as Classic Gold and Radio Wyvern plc (GWR Group plc), broadcasting as Wyvern FM.
These came from the current licence holders who are now being invited to apply for renewal under the authority's fast-track procedure.
On other matters, the Authority has called for comments on the suggestion that it ease its requirements that local news broadcasts have to come from a studio within a licence area and permit the use of news hubs (See RNW June 21 ).
The Authority also published its Restricted Service Licence (RSL) Annual Report for 2001. In all during the year, it handled 527 applications and issued 423 short-term services. In addition at the end of the year there were 97 long term RSL's in issue to a total of 85 separate stations.
Among the short term licences involved were a number in connection with the Queen's Golden Jubilee and others coinciding with the Commonwealth Games taking place in Manchester next month
The US was fairly quiet but the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issue of Low Power FM (LPFM) construction permits has continued.
A total f 311 have now been now issued. They include 21 full licence awards.
Previous ABA:

Previous BCI:
Previous CRTC:
Previous FCC:
Previous Licence News:
Previous UK Radio Authority:
ABA web site:

BCI web site:
CBSC web site:
CRTC web site:
FCC web site :

UK Radio Authority web site:

2002-06-23: The South African Broadcasting Complaints Commission has banned the airing of a song that it ruled promoted "hate speech" and demeaned the country's Indian community.
In the ruling the Commission chairman Professor Kobus van Rooyen said the song by Mbongeni Ngema demeaned the Indian community by sweeping general accusations of the oppression of blacks in Kwazulu-Natal province.
Its lyrics included such phrases as "We need strong and brave men to face/confront Indians" but Ngema defended the song by arguing that African tradition termed it love to tell your angry brother the truth and that the song confronted the plight of his people directly.
South African Broadcasting Complaints Commission web site:

2002-06-22: As the implications of the Internet streaming royalties decision by the US Librarian of Congress (See RNW June 21) sink in, the ruling seems to be upsetting almost all those involved in the business.
In essence the side that stands to gain from higher charges wants to be paid more and the side that will lose from wants to pay less.
On the one hand, many radio stations and webcasters say they're likely to stop streaming or go out of business and on the other the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is still insisting that higher charges should have been levied.
In a statement its President Cary Sherman said, "The import of this decision is that artists and record labels will subsidize the webcasting businesses of multi-billion dollar companies like Yahoo, AOL, Real Networks and Viacom."
"The rate, which cannot be squared with the decision of the arbitration panel, simply does not reflect the fair market value of the music as promised by the law. This decision will certainly reinforce the steadfast opposition of copyright owners to compulsory licensing."
He was backed by John L. Simson, Executive Director of SoundExchange, who said that the decision disregarded massive evidence supporting a higher rate and meant that artists and record companies once again would not be paid fairly. He added that copyright owners should not be forced to subsidize webcasting as it had been forced to=o subsidise the radio industry for the past 70 years.
Similar comments saying that artists were not receiving enough came from the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
For the broadcasters, who are to pay the amounts recommended by the Copyright Arbitration Panel, Edward O. Fritts, President and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) said in his statement, "The Librarian's decision places a prohibitive financial burden on radio station streaming, and will likely result in the termination of this fledgling service to listeners. "
"It perpetuates the hoax that the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel process reflects marketplace reality."
From the webcasters, the comments reflected the halving of charges originally proposed and was a little more emollient than NAB's.
Jonathan Potter, executive director of the Digital Media Association (DIMA) amplified the comments we reported yesterday a little.
He said the decision was a move in the right direction but urged Congress to focus on the flaws in the CARP standards and process to ensure that future payments were "more equitable" to all parties.
Susan Pickering, Executive Director of the International Webcasting Association (IWA) said webcasters recognised the costs of conducting business but could not accept charges that restricted their ability to remain in business.
Arguing for a percentage of revenue structure, she said that without it there was a barrier to entry by any but the largest webcasters, adding that this would result in an Internet broadcasting industry dominated by large media companies that might simply mirror terrestrial broadcasting and limit the numbers of outlets.
RNW comment: As we said yesterday, either those streaming signals have been crying wolf far too loudly or the charges cannot be borne by most webcasters, irrespective of the effect of back payments.
If the webcasters have been telling the truth, there will be certainly be a major reduction in the diversity of material available on the Internet for some time.
As regards much chart material, we frankly remain fairly unconcerned since, if it's in the charts, there will be plenty of sources.
For less popular genres and new artists, however, there will be a downside in not having outlets unless, of course, there is a concerted effort to create an alternative to the recording companies.
Ultimately it is up to artistes as to whether they would prefer an environment in which they can be creative and still make a living or whether they would rather that most fall by the wayside whilst a few make massive amounts.
The Internet can still be a significant promotional and distribution tool at fairly low cost for artists should they choose to dump the big recording companies and strike out on their own.
For them to organise this would be very difficult but it should be much easier for the webcasters to put together a suitable package for new talent that would not demand the full fees.
This would certainly meet the "willing buyer and seller" requirement that Congress put into its original legislation and be to the benefit of both the webcasting industry and artists in the long run and would be an intriguing development with much potential.
Certainly it would hit the current recording giants but some new labels more committed to music than profit would be a development we would favour and we can't get too excited if the top artists merely become millionaires instead of raking in tens of millions a year.

Previous DIMA:
Previous Fritts:
Previous NAB:
Previous Potter:
Previous RIAA:
Previous Sherman:
DIMA web site:
NAB web site:
RIAA web site:

2002-06-22: Last week was a quiet one for radio deals in the US and ended on a weak note for stocks in general with radio amongst the harder-hit sectors.
On the deals side, the largest was the UD30 million purchase by Superior Broadcasting from High Peak Broadcasting of KXDC-FM in Estes Park, Colorado.
There was also a USD500, 000 sale in New Mexico, where Simmons Media Group disposed of one of its seven Albuquerque stations, KIVA-AM, to local buyer Argon Broadcasting.
On the stocks front, the rot came on Thursday and continued on Friday for most stations, both English and Spanish language.
Clear Channel, which had dropped around a tenth on Thursday to end $4.38 down at $44.08; on Friday it dropped another 3% and was down to USD38.43 by late afternoon, having started the week at around USD44 and touched USD 46 ON Tuesday.
Viacom, which began the week around USD45.50 and peaked around USD47.50 on Tuesday also dropped heavily on Thursday to just under USD45 and was down to USD43.86 in the late afternoon.
There were similar falls for Cox, which began the week around USD27, wad down Thursday to end at USD25.26 and slid again on Friday to USD23.52 in late afternoon; Cumulus, which began the week around USD 19.00, dropped on Thursday to USD17.75 and then slid further on Friday to just under USD17; Emmis, which began the week around USD26, ended Thursday at USD24.15 and slid on Friday to around USD 22.55; Entercom, which started the week around USD50, ended Thursday at USD47.20 and slid on Friday to around 45.80; Hispanic, which from a start of just over USD28, ended Thursday at USD26.58 and slid a little more on Friday to around USD26.20; and Radio One, which began the week at just under USD21, ended Thursday at USD19.39 and slipped a little more on Friday to just over USD19.
One station that bucked the trend was Christian-oriented Salem, which began the week around USD29.50 and, after a steep fall early on Thursday to below 28.50, recovered most of the losses to end Thursday at 28.85 and then rose a little more on Friday to move above USD29 in late afternoon.

2002-06-22: A survey of US radio listeners released this week by the Future of Music Coalition, a lobby group that wants industry changes and whose report was conducted in conjunction with the Media Access Project and the Rockefeller Foundation, makes grim reading.
Echoing comments made on June 14 at the R&R Convention by Jimmy de Castro, former AMFM Inc CEO and radio group President, now President of America Online, that consolidation had hurt US radio by putting too much focus on cash flow and leading to too many advertisements, the report said listeners surveyed were unhappy about the effects of consolidation.
Based on 500 random phone interviews, the report said:
*Eight of ten favour congressional action to protect or expand the number of independently owned local stations
*By a better than ten to one ratio - 76 percent to 7 percent - radio listeners believe that DJs should be given more air time for songs they think will be of interest to their audiences rather than be required to mostly play songs of artists backed by recording companies
*If it can be substantiated that radio stations are paid to give air time preference to the music artists supported by record companies, the public approves by a 68 to 24 percent ratio consideration of new laws to ensure that all artists have a more reasonable chance of having their songs heard
Three quarters also said they would like to see low power FM stations (LPFM) expanded in their communities, especially if they offer the music of local bands and artists, talk shows on issues of local interest, and on local issues and health, science or fitness programming.
Around the same fraction also favoured legislation to expand the number of LPFM stations in the United States.
Commenting on the study results, Earl de Berge, Research Director of the Behaviour Research Center, the opinion survey firm that conducted it, said: " Since its inception, radio has been a vanguard technology that Americans have relied on to deliver information and music. Today, half of listeners say radio no longer delivers well on the music side of the equation and another fifth of the public (17 percent) does not listen to radio at all."
"This seems to reflect their desire for a menu of music that is both more varied and more reflective of cultural change as measured by themselves, and not by folks in media boardrooms."
Wisconsin Democrat Sen. Russell Feingold, who last week said he would introduce legislation calling for broadcasting industry reforms (See RNW June 15), said that the survey confirmed what he had been hearing about people's concerns over the concentration of ownership in the radio, concert and promotion industries.
Previous de Castro:
Previous Feingold:
Future of Music web site:
Future of Music news release on survey:

2002-06-22: Unsurprisingly new coverage of the September 11 attacks dominated the 2002 Edward R Murrow Awards, named after the CBS news correspondent and run by the US Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA).
In the radio Overall Excellence awards, CBS Radio News, which took the same honour last year (See RNW June 19, 2001), won the network radio award for its September 11-related cover.
WMAL-AM Washington took the large market award; and WATD-FM Marshfield, Maine, took the small market award.
Other radio awards were:
Network awards:
Newscast: ABC News Radio, 10 a.m. Information Network Newscast
Spot News Coverage: AP Broadcast, 9/11: A New War
Continuing Coverage: CBS Radio News, America Fights Back
Investigative Reporting: Latino USA, Brewster Packing
Feature Reporting: CBS Radio News, The Weakest Link
Sports Reporting: ABC News Radio, From High School to High Stakes: The 2001 NBA Draft
News Series: CBS Radio News, One Month Later: The Change in Us
News Documentary: DC Productions, Learning To Live: James' Story
Use of Sound: Great Lakes Radio Consortium, Mallard Ducks on the Decline
Writing: ABC News Radio, Keith Olbermann Commentary
Large market:
Newscast: KMOX-AM St. Louis, 7:05 News
Spot News Coverage: WINS-AM New York, 9/11
Continuing Coverage: KCBS-AM San Francisco, Energy Watch
Investigative Reporting: KOA-AM Denver, A DIA Security Report Card: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Feature Reporting: WNYC-AM/FM New York, Cracker Jack
Sports Reporting: KGO-AM San Francisco, Fairway to Heaven
News Series: KSL-AM Salt Lake City, Violent Voices, or Just Music?
News Documentary: WNYC-AM New York, The Execution Tapes Use of Sound: WMAL-AM Washington, Cal's Last Game
Writing: KYW-AM Philadelphia, John Ostapkovich Stories
Web Site: WTOP-AM/FM Washington, www.wtopnews.com
Small market:
Newscast: WJBC-AM Bloomington, IL
Spot News Coverage: WGY-AM Albany, NY, 9/11
Continuing Coverage: WGY-AM Albany, NY, Rensselaer Police Scandal
Investigative Reporting: WNOX-AM/FM Knoxville, TN, Oak Ridge Asbestos
Feature Reporting: KOSU-FM Stillwater, OK, The Whistler
Sports Reporting: KOSU-FM Stillwater, OK, Michelle Takes Aim
News Series: KSMU-FM Springfield, MO, Women Behind Bars: Incarceration and the Family
News Documentary: KUSD-FM Vermillion, SD, Dakota Heroes
Use of Sound: WNOX-AM/FM Knoxville, TN, Pearl Harbor Survivor
Writing: WKSU-FM Kent, OH, Xtreme Bowling
Web Site: WSJM-AM Benton Harbor, MI, www.wsjm.com
Previous Murrow awards:
Previous RTNDA:
RTNDA site (links to award details):

2002-06-21: The Librarian of Congress, James Billington, has halved the fees proposed by the US Copyright Arbitration Panel (CARP) for Internet-only webcasts, putting them at the same 0.07 cents per listener per song rate as that to be charged for streaming a broadcast radio station signal.
For non-commercial broadcasters, he has accepted the 0.02 cents per listener per song charge but reduced the proposed 0.05 cent charge for Archived programming subsequently transmitted over the Internet, substituted programming and up to 2 side channels; the charges for transmissions on any other side channels will be halved from 0.14 cents to 0.07 cents.
In addition the fee webcasters and broadcasters must pay for the making of ephemeral recordings has been reduced from 9% of the performance fees to 8.8% (the effective rate in a Yahoo-RIAA) agreement) but the minimum payment for business establishment services was increased from USD400 to $10,000.
In making the decision, the Librarian commented, "On the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, the Librarian rejected the CARP's determination because significant portions of it were arbitrary or contrary to law. Where the Librarian could not accept the CARP's recommendations, he has adopted rates and terms that are justified based on the evidence presented in the CARP proceeding and the requirements of the law. Otherwise, he has adopted the CARP's reasoning and recommendations."
The CARP rates were based on an agreement between Yahoo and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) but the librarian rejected CARP's view that a lower rate was justified for streaming radio station signals because of their promotional value. He accepted its rejection of a percentage of profits arrangement and conclusion that business-to-business webcasters should pay the same rate as business-to-consumer webcasters. He also accepted the recommendation that, because not all webcasters have kept detailed records of their transmissions, they should be allowed to estimate the number of performances at 15 per hour (1 per hour in the case of radio retransmissions of news, business, talk or sports stations, and 12 performances per hour in the case of other radio retransmissions) but said this should apply until the end of this year rather than have CARP's suggested 30-day cut-off period apply.
The rates will take effect from September 1, although webcasters will still be liable for royalties for streaming since October 28,1998; Full payment for this earlier period will have to be made by October 20.
The ruling received a cautious welcome from the Digital Media Association (DIMA), which represents webcasters.
Its executive director Jonathan Potter, said in a statement, "When Congress enacted the Internet radio statutory license it intended to promote a new medium and promote artists' welfare. Today's decision by the Librarian offers hope that the final royalty will be more in line with marketplace economics than was the arbitrators' proposal. If so, then the result will accomplish Congress's goals. "
RNW comment: The decision will speedily show who was correct about streaming-related income and whether too many wabcasters and stations were "crying wolf" as a bargaining tactic..
Based on these rates many radio stations have said they will cut their streams and if many webcasters were being accurate in their warnings they will be shutting down since the rates will mean all their income, or more, has to be paid out in royalties (See
RNW March 27) .
Expect also, a rush of bankruptcies as webcasters find they cannot find the back-payments owed since 1998,
There may also be significant problems for some broadcasters who did not make enough provision for back-payments.

Previous CARP:
Previous DIMA:
Previous Potter:
Previous RIAA:
Librarian's ruling:

2002-06-21: Canadian CHUM Group Radio has fired most of the senior staff associated with its all-sports radio network, The TEAM, including vice-president of programming Ross Davies; vice-president of sales Tim Steele; vice-president and general manager of The Team sports radio network Paul Williams; and Williams' deputy, Gerald McGroarty, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.
The paper says that Bill Bodnarchuk, who is now vice-president and general manager of CHUM's Team 1050 in Toronto as well as CHUM-FM, said that, despite its problems, the sports radio network was alive and reasonably well, but will become more decentralized, with an increased emphasis on local content.
"We're committed to sports," he said, "but we want to turn the focus to compelling local radio content."
The paper comments that CHUM is sticking with its all-sports concept in part because it is locked into long-term contract with sports talent. It suggests a number of reasons why the network failed including the problems of competing with The FAN sports station in Toronto, the fact that radio sports is strongest for local cover, plus weak hires and poor marketing.
Previous CHUM:
Globe and Mail report:

2002-06-21: The UK Radio Authority has launched a consultation exercise on the issue of "centralizing" local news operations for local commercial stations in the UK.
Currently local news has to be read and primarily produced from a location within each station's transmission area but a number of licensees are pressing to be allowed to create "news hubs" that would allow transmissions to be made from another location.
Stations have argued that this could reduce duplication of some tasks, and might also allow a better career structure and more specialized skills, thus improving output.
Among objections are that, were news hubs to be allowed, their existence might be regarded as allowing cost cutting and lead to cutbacks in individual newsrooms and a decline in the amount and quality of "truly local" news because hubs would be more likely to record material in advance and allocate stories to staff without local knowledge of an area.
Comments have to be submitted by August 2 and will be posted on the Authority's web site unless the author requests otherwise.
The Authority recently sanctioned an experimental 'Local News Hub' operation in the south-west involving the GWR stations Plymouth Sound, Gemini FM, Orchard FM, South Hams Radio and Lantern FM.
It was felt the stations formed a natural news area that might benefit from a pooling of resources and, therefore, permission was granted for a six-month period, conditional on the number of news staff employed remaining the same.
Previous UK Radio Authority:
UK Radio Authority Consultation Paper:
UK Radio Authority web site:


2002-06-21: Eastlan Resources , the second largest radio ratings company in the US, has added four new Hawaiian markets to its service.
It is now to measure Kauai, Maui and two markets on the Big Island: Kona and Hilo.
Kauai and Maui are Summer markets while Kona and Hilo will be Fall markets. Contracts for the markets run through 2004.
Previous Eastlan:
Eastlan web site

2002-06-20: A number of major US broadcasters have been urging caution over the speedy introduction of Arbitron's Portable People Meter (PPM), calling in particular for tests other than just the Philadelphia tests it has so far conducted (See RNW June 18).
The group, which includes Clear Channel, Infinity, ABC, Emmis and Entercom, issued their call following a meting with Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) President and CEO Gary Fries to discuss the system.
As well as additional tests they also want additional data comparing diary and PPM results before the rollout. There is particular concern over the results that show less listening during the morning drive time with speculation as to the reasons including a call for a check on when people have activated the meter.
Previous Arbitron:
Previous Fries:
Previous PPM:
Previous RAB:

2002-06-20: Latest Australian ratings from the AC Nielsen McNair survey show Sydney talk host Alan Jones not only keeping Macquarie's 2GB at the top of the breakfast time ratings but actually increasing his lead over Southern Cross's 2UE, his former station.
2UE remained fourth for the time slot with an 8.2 share (the same as the previous survey) compared to Jones's 16.1 share, up from 15.8.
Overall in Sydney, 2DAY held on to the top spot for Austereo but its share was down again, from 12.6% to 11.7; 2GB remained second with a share of 10.2%, down from 10.4%; and 2UE remained third with its share down from 9% to 8.7%;
Below them, Austereo's Triple M stayed fourth but increased its share from 8.3% to 8.5% and Nova FM stayed fifth with an increase in share from 8.3% to 8.5%.
Elsewhere DMG's new Nova station in Melbourne dropped back, falling from first to fourth rank.
City by city, the top three were (previous % share in brackets):
*Adelaide: SAFM with 25.8 (25.6); 5AA with 15.7 (14.9); 5MM with 12.8(12.5) - no change in rankings:
*Brisbane - B105FM with 17.9 (18.4); NEW97.3 FM with 14.2 (14.2); Triple M with13 (12.6)- no change in rankings:
*Melbourne -3AW 14 (12.2) - up from second equal; Fox FM 12.1(12.1) - previously second equal: ABC774 11.4 (10.7) -up from fourth.
*Perth - MIX 94.5FM with 22.8 (22.0); All New 92.9 with 14.7 (16.5); 96FM with 14.5 (13.6) - no change in rankings:
*Sydney - 2-Day with 11.7 (12.6); 2GB 10.2 (10.4); 2UE 8.7(9.0) - no change in rankings:
Previous Austereo:
Previous Australian ratings:
Previous DMG:
Previous Jones:
Previous Macquarie:
Previous Southern Cross:

2002-06-20: According to the UK Guardian, Richard Wheatly, the chief executive of Jazz FM, is to leave the company upon completion of its GBP44.5 million takeover by the Guardian Media Group (GMG).
The paper says that Wheatly, who turned the station from one near collapse into the world's most listened to Jazz broadcaster, is understood to have received a number of job offers and is likely to remain in the media business.
As well as running the company, he was also a presenter on the weekly programme, 1am-5am Monda Smooth Jazz In The Night.
Previous GMG:
Previous Jazz FM:
Previous Wheatly:
UK Guardian report:

2002-06-20: Jack Buck, one of the longest lasting sports voices in American broadcasting has died aged 77 after nearly five decades as the voice of the St Louis Cardinals.
He joined the team in 1954 after calling minor league baseball and took over as lead announcer after Harry Caray was fired in 1969.
He had not called games during the current season and his last main public outing was to recite his own patriotic poem at the Busch stadium after the September 11 attacks last year.
Chicago Tribune/AP obituary:

2002-06-19: The long running battle by Ed Stolz to keep hold of KWOD-FM, Sacramento, for which he signed in 1996 letters of intent to sell to Entercom for USD 25 million in cash, has moved a stage further.
He and Entercom have now signed the FCC form to transfer the station to Entercom.
Stolz was ordered in April to sign the forms by May 2 (See RNW April 20) but is still continuing to fight the sale.
He had argued that the four-page document he signed was a letter of intent to sell, not an enforceable contract, an argument rejected by the California Court. The document was attached to the FCC filing for the transfer form as the sales contract, complete with scribbled amendments.
Previous Entercom:
Previous Stolz:

2002-06-19: Former Capital Radio DJ Steve Penk is rejoining the company.
In January Penk, who had replaced the sacked Chris Evans as breakfast host on Scottish Media Group (SMG) owned Virgin Radio (See RNW June 29,2001), walked out on Virgin after a row with the station management over exchanging time slots with Virgin newcomer and then drive time presenter Daryl Denham (See RNW January 26).
Pnk will present a new late evening show from Monday (June 24) with co-presenter Bethan Davis, who rejoins Capital from Heart FM.
Penk said he had "decided I would only return to radio if it was absolutely right ... I am absolutely thrilled and am champing at the bit to get home to the home of great radio. I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms after six months away from a studio.
"I think the show will add a new dynamic to the programming mix and really excite listeners."
The new show will initially be broadcast on Capital FM in London, BRMB in Birmingham and Power FM in southern England from 10 pm to 1 am local time, Sunday through Thursday.
Previous Capital:
Previous Denham:
Previous Evans:
Previous Penk:
Previous SMG:

2002-06-19: The Country Radio Broadcasters' has named veteran programmer Ed Salamon, former President, Programming, with Westwood One, as its new Executive Director.
He takes over from Paul Allen who resigned after seven years in the post and is to leave in August.
Salamon has been on the CRB Board of Directors for more than 30 years and acting as President since 1993. He will retire from the board to officially take his seat as Executive Director from July 1.
Previous Paul Allen:
Previous CRB:
CRB web site:

2002-06-19: The former Head of the BBC World Service Caribbean output Hugh Crosskill has been shot dead during a struggle with a security guard at a Kingston medical centre in Jamaica.
Crosskill, who was 47, was born in Scarborough in Northern England of a Jamaican father and Scottish mother and began his broadcasting career as a trainee reporter with the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation when he was 18.
He became well known as a sports commentator in Jamaica before moving to Barbados in 1983 to establish the Caribbean News Agency (Cana) ,staying with it for five years before moving to the BBC in 1998.
There he headed its Caribbean output until 1996 when he returned to Jamaica to run the island's largest commercial radio station, Radio Jamaica.
He later spoke publicly about his drug addiction.
UK Guardian obituary:

2002-06-19: Internet listening in the week to June 9 was up 12% on the previous week's figures, which were hit by the effects of the Memorial Day holiday, according to MeasureCast.
It says that 22 of the top 25 stations streamed more hours compared to the week before.
At the top of the station rankings, there is now only one Classical station in the top five; King FM streamed 106,801 hours compared to 109,034 a week earlier and was pushed down to sixth place by adult alternative Radioio. In the network rankings, StreamAudio continued its fall and dropped to sixth position; Virgin Radio came back up and took the fifth spot.
For the week to June 9, MeasureCast's top five stations ranked by Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) with previous week's TTSL and Cume persons (CP), a measure of the cumulative audience, in brackets, were:
1: Hot Adult Contemporary Virgin FM - TTSL 345,394 (339, 333); CP 67,663 (67,005): Same position with higher listening, albeit still well down on two weeks earlier, and reach.
2: Jazz format Jazz FM - TTSL 188,765 (220,040); CP 56,873 (60,288): Same position with lower listening and reach .
3: Classical format WQXR-FM, New York - TTSL187,187 (175,825); CP 21,572 (22,933): Same position with higher listening but lower reach.
4: Sports talk ESPN - TTSL 127,491 (117,573): CP 39,864 (32,245) : Same position with higher listening and reach.
5: Internet-only Adult Alternative Radioio TTSL 113,800 (96,415) ; CP 32,365 (31,007 ): Up from sixth with significant rise in listening and smaller increase in reach.
The top five networks for the week (Previous week's figures in brackets) were:
1: Clear Channel Worldwide TTSL 1,522,076 (1,328,180) ; CP 259,227 (260,422). Same position with higher listening but lower reach.
2: Radio Free Virgin TTSL 785,492 (788,392): CP 151,727 (165,306) - Same position with lower listening and reach for the third week.
3: WARP Radio TTSL 773,734 (650,950) hours: CP 118,613 (120,535) - Same position with higher listening but lower reach.
4: Internet Radio Inc TTSL 551,804 (464,314) : CP 172,210 (172,054) - Same position with higher listening and slightly higher reach.
5: Virgin Radio TTSL 462,947 (449,479) : CP 88,755 (88,800) - Up from sixth with higher listening but lower reach
Previous MeasureCast ratings:
MeasureCast web site:

2002-06-18: Figures from Arbitron's Philadelphia test of its Portable People Meter show a larger cumulative audiences for all that those shown from diary entries with some stations reaching three times as many listeners.
The data covers 46 stations that participated in the trial full time from March 28 to April 24 and compares audiences with those shown for the Winter survey running from January 3 to March 2.
In a similar manner to the results from a test of the Swiss Radiocontrol system conducted by the Wireless Group in the UK (See RNW March 22) cumulative audience figures are increased more for lower-ranked stations than for market leaders.
The figures show some anomalies in the comparisons -diary figures for a whole day are higher for age groups above 55 and also for blacks but lower or the same for all other groups.
In terms of specific periods, the meter shows that for morning drive the total audience is lower for the meter than for diaries although those above 55 account for most of this difference and the meter figures are higher for the 18-34 demographic and much the same for the 25-54 demographic.
The meter also seems to be tracking changes in the audience more closely than the diary system.
RNW comment: Much of the picture from the figures released is in line with what we would have expected although the differences in some cases are much higher.
It would seem reasonable to expect that diary keepers would not note fully those times when they hopped briefly from one station to another, thus giving the stations that were only listened to for a short period a lower diary rating than those produced by metering methods.
Equally, although we would have only given limited weight to its effects, we might have expected younger diary keepers to be less meticulous than older ones, particularly those diary keepers who are no longer in full-time employment.
It is dangerous to generalise from a limited area survey but when PPM figures show audiences as significantly higher than the diary system as the Philadelphia ones do, we think there will soon be massive pressures to switch to the meter and these results will provide a major impetus for wider trials.
Apart from specific surveys for qualitative reasons, we think the day of diary surveys is now numbered although the competing Swiss system may do well outside the US and provide some competition for Arbitron in those areas.
In the US, the market position of Arbitron is likely to lead to domination by its system irrespective of which is technological better.
Indeed, since the Swiss system does not require the encoded that has to be put in the signal for the People Meter information (it works by picking up all the audio that meter-wearers listen to and then matches it up to a radio station's output), a competitor could yet have an off-chance in the US of challenging the PPM.
The question, we suppose boils down to whether Eastlan Resources has (forgive the pun) the resources and will to give the Swiss system a whirl.

Previous Arbitron:
Previous Eastlan:
Previous PPM:
Previous Radiocontrol system:

2002-06-18: London AM news station LBC is now expected to be sold to the American financial news service Bloomberg's following a decision by the Daily Mail and General Trust to drop plans to re-launch the station as Metro Radio in conjunction with its Metro free newspaper( See RNW Feb 23).
LBC and its sister FM station News Direct were put up for sale by owners London News Radio (LNR) at the end of last year (See RNW Dec 21 2001) with a price tag of around GBP20 million but Bloomberg expressed interest only in the LBC.
It submitted a GBP10 million bid to turn it into a 24-hour business news station similar to that of its New York flagship station WBBR-FM (see RNW Feb 13).
Previous LNR:

2002-06-18: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is to opt to combine reform of broadcasting and newspaper ownership regulations instead of retaining separate rules, although cable ownership will be looked at separately. It says it will conduct a comprehensive review of current media ownership regulations with the intention of settling the fate of current rules by the spring of next year.
Amongst the rules that will come under review are those affecting newspaper-broadcaster cross ownership, caps on TV rules that prohibit owning stations with more than 35% of the national audience of more than one station in a market, and current radio ownership rules.
Current FCC chairman Michael Powell has said current rules are outdated and proclaimed himself in favour of more deregulation but so far the US courts have effect more changes than the commission.
They have already struck down a rule prohibiting cable companies from owning TV broadcast stations and said that the 35% national TV cap is "arbitrary and capricious" making it likely that the cap will have to be less restrictive or eliminated.
Previous FCC:
Previous Powell:
FCC web site :


2002-06-18: CanWest Global Communications is reported to have received indicative bids from Ten Network, Australia, and Prime, New Zealand, for its New Zealand media assets that it put on the market earlier this year as part of efforts to cut its debt of some USD 3 billion (See RNW April 17).
CanWest, which is Ten's parent company, wants around USD150 million for its New Zealand radio and TV assets, around two thirds of that for the radio stations in its MoreFM and RadioWorks radio networks.
Prime is interested in only the TV business whilst Ten is bidding for both the radio and TV assets. Australian radio operators Austereo and RG Capital were also suggested as likely buyers for the radio business.
Indicative bids were due in last week with final bids to be tabled at the end of July.
Previous CanWest:

2002-06-18: Clear Channel has named its West Coast SVP Don Howe as President of its recently announced cross-media sales effort, the Clear Channel Advantage. The "advantage" will allow advertisers a one-stop way into Clear Channel's entertainment, outdoor, radio and TV outlets (See RNW May 23).
Previous Clear Channel:

2002-06-17: From a European perspective it has been difficult to avoid the soccer World Cup over the past two weeks, so for this week's look at print on radio, it was equally difficult to avoid the subject.
The options in doing so are limited as Gerry McCarthy notes in his RadioWaves column on Irish radio in the UK Sunday Times.
"You're an individual, he begins. "You want to escape from the mass hysteria. You desperately need to avoid being sucked into the flag-waving, beer-drinking, match-dissecting, nail-biting madness of it all. What are your options? "
"You could try joining in. These national convulsions don't come up very often, and you might even find yourself enjoying it. You can retreat to your shell afterwards, individuality intact, maybe even enhanced by a new sense of human togetherness."
"Still unconvinced? Then the sad truth is your options are fairly limited."
"A new crop of government ministers is taking their tentative first forays into radio, yet even top political pundits such as Vincent Browne are leading with football stories."
"Even if you turn to a music station you'll find somebody doing a hideous "Arrigato, leprechaun-san" World Cup singalong.
Comedy, too, has been hijacked. Like journalism, it thrives on currency, which is why the nation is apparently in stitches at the Après Match gang."
In London, his colleague Paul Donovan brought a different perspective to the fore, as he looked at the use of the term "exclusive" in his RadioWaves column.
"Tabloid clichés have not, in general, infected radio, he began. "Battling grannies are conspicuous by their absence. Those fighting back the tears do so in print, not on the air. Pint-sized heroes being rushed to hospital with gunshot wounds, people going walkabout and mounting last-ditch bids are, though not yet extinct, mercifully much rarer than a decade ago."
Then came the Donovan punch: "One cliché, however, remains ubiquitous - the word "exclusive"."
"Thus it is that Richard Allinson can tell us, on his Radio 2 show: "This is a true exclusive, folks - David Bowie is not talking about his new album to anyone else," when the great man had been talking about it, only the night before, to Front Row on Radio 4. Later that day, the network broadcast an hour-long concert officially called Ronan Keating - Live and Exclusive, when it was recorded a month ago and exclusive only in the sense that he was not doing other concerts on the radio."
"Sport can always be relied upon to give the word a good kicking. Kelvin MacKenzie's station, TalkSport, has just been ticked off by the Radio Authority, though not actually given the harsher penalty of a yellow card, for saying in January that it was providing "exclusive commentary" on the FA Cup when it was not.
(RNW note: As regards the World Cup. For which the BBC has the live rights, TalkSport is using commentary from watching TV cover, complete with fake audio effects and plenty of cliché some of which presumably is exclusive on the basis that no other station could come up with quite the same level of dross…no that's unfair, that level of dross is not exclusive to TalkSport!)
Donovan also notes that BBC Radio Five Live has genuinely "exclusive" live rights to many sporting events, including the Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson fight, Premiership football, Formula One, the Ryder Cup, much athletics, Wimbledon and, of course, World Cup football.
On a positive note, he concludes, "Thankfully, an outbreak of common sense may now be emerging. Adam Bridge, programme controller of Capital Gold Birmingham, says that "the word 'exclusive' is abused industry-wide", a judgment likely to find an echo of widespread agreement."
" TalkSport has announced that it has now changed its terminology, making further protests unlikely. If a presenter is in any doubt as to whether an interview or outside-broadcast coverage is exclusive or not, they should err on the side of caution and not claim it is. There is quite enough confusion in the world for radio not to add to it. "
Donovan's approach would not go down well for many listeners across the Atlantic however if comment by the San Francisco Chronicle Arts and Culture critic, Steven Winn, on Talk Radio is anything to go by.
After giving some examples of comment on a show, Winn writes, "I adore talk radio. I love its intimacy and inanity. I love its earnestness and contrivance, its improvisations and soothing predictability, its time- conscious management of wasting time. "
"I love nervous first-time callers and those preening prime-time wannabes who have KNBR and KGO programmed on speed-dial. Rush's rants and Bob Blinker's becalmed counsel to the already wealthy, radio shrinks and Tom Likes' leering locker-room talk for a national audience, Helen in Walnut Creek and Johnny the Gout Man: They're all part of the most absorbing mobile diversion in the traffic-bound Bay Area. "
"By packaging insolvably huge issues together with the minutiae of daily life in neatly themed segments and commercial-rich "hours," talk radio does something fundamental. It reminds us how we really think."
"Discordant, disproportionate things are all jumbled together in our minds, far more chaotically than we consciously acknowledge. Talk radio puts it out there in a ceaseless, faux-orderly flow -- the Middle East and Jose Casco's steroid stink, sunblock and bond funds, orgasms and the NBA draft, cloning and Mendocino coast inns. It's audible confirmation of our fluttering mental confetti."
"Best of all, it allows us to step in or out of the shower as we choose. We can listen forever and not ever dream of calling in. Obtuseness, embarrassing ignorance, hot-headed disputes and balky agreements to disagree occur at a safe, vicarious distance."
"We can talk back, scream back at the car radio and not get involved. And of course, we can always punch another button and move on."
Later, having he comments on the pluses of the medium: "Talk radio does two things exceptionally well -- rhythm and community. At certain moments it captures a collective temperament and feeling like nothing else can. That's most apparent during emergencies -- earthquakes, the Oakland fire, the cathartic weeks following Sept. 11. The exchange of unmediated, ground-level information fills some need to elevate and discharge anxieties by airing them."
He then goes on to some of its limitations: "What talk radio doesn't do well, at least to my possibly philistine tastes, is the weighty issues pondered on those programs. The PBS crowd, hosts and callers alike, tend to speak in complete, self-contained paragraphs that sound rehearsed even if they're not."
"This is speech radio to my ears, with all the tentative, provisional, on- the-spot quality of talk radio refined away."
RNW comment: Or, in other words, its more entertaining to talk the lightweight or nonsensical off the top of your head than to think a moment about the serious and express yourself clearly.
The problem comes, as said by one physicist during work on the Manhattan Project (the Second World War project to develop the atom bomb), when the opinion of two ignoramuses is given more weight than that of someone who knows the subject.
Democracy, we suggest, might be better served were the Rush Limbaugh audience to be forced to listen to only PBS for one week a month and vice versa for the PBS audience.

Previous Donovan:
Previous McCarthy:
Previous Columnists:
San Francisco Chronicle - Winn:
UK Sunday Times - Donovan:
UK Sunday Times - McCarthy:

2002-06-17: The Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago has marked 15 years of life with an "All Star Salute to the MBC" over the weekend with names including the Paul Harveys -Senior and Junior - the Chicago-based talk show hosts for ABC radio.
The Museum, one of only two organisations of its kind in the US, was founded in June 1987 by veteran broadcaster and producer Bruce DuMont, its current president.
He had got the idea five years earlierin 1982s on eeing the state in which old tapes were being stored at WBBM-TV.
The museum now has some 50,000 hours of radio programming and 10,000 TV shows in its archives as well as various memorabilia; it also published the Encyclopaedia of Television in 1997 and is to publish a further volume this year and wants to make its archives available online.
The Chicago Museum exists on a small budget of around USD 1 million a year, several times less than that of its rival, the Museum of Television & Radio, which has centres in Los Angeles and New York
Museum of Broadcast Communications web site:
Museum of Television and Radio web site:

2002-06-17: One of the largest US radio mergers of recent times, the Clear Channel takeover of the Ackerley Group has now closed. In addition, Clear Channel has announced that it now has enough consents from bondholders to change or waive some provisions relating to Ackerley's 9% senior subordinated notes due in 2009. Holders of the notes who have not already tendered them can now do so until 17:00 ET (12:00GMT) on June 28.
Previous Clear Channel:
Clear Channel web site:

2002-06-16: Last week was fairly quiet on the licence front although a clash between those who feel consolidation has gone too far and those who would remove further restrictions now seems to be on the way in the US thus pushing the Federal Communications Authority (FCC) up the general news agenda.
In Australia, activity was on the community broadcasting front; the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has invited applications for a new community radio service for the Monaro area of New South Wales.
A licence for the area was advertised in 1999 but after considering the two applications then made the Authority had decided not to allocate it.
ABA Chairman Professor David Flint commented, "As two years have passed since that decision, the ABA feels both groups should be given another opportunity to apply for the licence and demonstrate that they now have the capacity to satisfy the criteria …of the Broadcasting Services Act."
The ABA has also invited applications for five new community radio licences in the Perth area. They are for a Perth-wide licence and one licence each for the Armadale, Fremantle, Kalamunda and Wanneroo areas.
In Canada, activity was again limited to non-commercial activities with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) allowing 10 low power FM radio licences for the Toronto area during the World Youth Day celebrations to be held from 22 July to 28 July.
It had originally received an application for 18 such licences but eight were withdrawn and the frequencies for the remaining ten were judged acceptable.
The licences will be used for broadcasting information concerning the events in Arabic, Croatian, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovene, Slovak, Spanish, Ukrainian as well as in Aboriginal and Chinese languages.
In Ireland, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has re-activated the licensing process for radio services for counties Carlow/Kilkenny and County Kildare.
It had received three applications for the first area and five for the second when applications closed in April last year but agreed not to consider these applications pending the conclusion of High Court proceedings brought by CKR Limited that challenged modifications to the franchise areas of counties Carlow/Kilkenny and County Kildare.
The case has now been withdrawn and the BCI expects to award the licences in October.
In the UK, the main licence activity by the Radio Authority was the award of the new East Midlands FM licence, which went to Saga (See RNW June 13)
In addition, the Radio Authority gave automatic renewals to Capital's London FM and Capital Gold licences because the company provides channels on the first London digital multiplex (See RNW June 12)
The Authority has also announced that it is to pre-advertise the Darlington FM licence currently held by Alpha Radio.
Should there be no opposing applications, Alpha will be invited to apply for renewal through the Authority's fast track procedure.
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is likely to come under conflicting pressures in the near future. On one side, Wisconsin Democrat Senator Russell Feingold has detailed some of his reasons for calling for reform and said he will introduce legislation concerning over-concentration of ownership (See RNW June 15 ) and on the other a number of lawmakers are calling for action to reduce cross ownership restrictions.
South Carolina Democrat Ernest Hollings has also complained that deregulation has already gone too far.
In the middle and from an overtly neutral position, South Dakota Democrat Senator Tom Daschle and Nevada Democrat Harry Reid have written to FCC chairman Michael Powell asking for a speedy decision on revision of newspaper and broadcast cross-ownership rules, saying that whatever the outcome business needs regulatory certainty.
Their letter follows an earlier one from Louisiana Republican Congressman Billy Tauzin and Michigan Republican Fred Upton, asking Powell to move speedily to repeal newspaper-broadcast cross ownership rules that they said had outlived their usefulness.
Meanwhile the FCC has continued to red flag some deals, the latest being Cumulus's USD34 million acquisition of U. S. Broadcasting's eight station cluster in Macon, Georgia (See RNW May 29).
The stations involved are WDDO, WMAC, WDEN-AM & FM, WAYS, WMGB, WMKS and WPEZ and would be Cumulus's first stations in the market although it owns eight stations nearby in Albany, Georgia, and seven in Savannah, Georgia.
The Commission also red-flagged a Cumulus purchase of WAVH-FM in Mobile, Alabama, where it already has seven stations.
On the enforcement front, the FCC has proposed a USD 3200 fine on Results Radio over a broadcast by its KHRD-FM, Weaverville, California station of a phone recording without obtaining prior permission to record or broadcast the call.
The call in question was a hoax carried out on announcer James T. Davison at WRRX-FM in Redding, California, by KHRD on-air personality "Adamic" who sent a visitor to the announcer's office with a cell phone that was handed to Davison.
When Davison picked it up he was immediately involved in a conversation with Adamic that was recorded and later broadcast. Results Radio admitted both that the broadcast was made and that no notice was given of the intent to make it.
The FCC has also published its list of Notices of Apparent Liability issued during the month of May for technical violations including unauthorised operation, and Emergency Alert System offences. In all 21 notices were issued with penalties totalling USD171, 000
Previous ABA:

Previous BCI:
Previous CRTC:
Previous Cumulus:
Previous FCC:
Previous Flint:
Previous Licence News:
Previous Powell:
Previous UK Radio Authority:
ABA web site:

BCI web site:
CBSC web site:
CRTC web site:
FCC web site :

FCC Violations list for May:
UK Radio Authority web site:

2002-06-15: Wisconsin Democrat Senator Russell Feingold on Friday detailed some of his reasons for calling for reform on broadcasting industry practices, saying the 1996 Telecommunications Act had led to an over-concentration of ownership and anti-competitive practices on the radio and concert industry.
Saying that he would be introducing legislation, Feingold said that during the debate on the act he and a number of colleagues had opposed the deregulation of radio because of concerns about the move's impact on consumers, artists and local radio stations, terming the passage of the act an "unfortunate example of the influence of soft money in the political process.
"As my colleagues will recall," he wrote to President Bush, "I have consistently said that this Act was bought and paid for by soft money. Everyone was at the table, except for the consumers."
He then said that the effects of the act had been far worse than imagined, adding that he had opposed it because of its effect on consumers but had not predicted that the elimination of national ownership caps on radio and relaxation of caps on local ownership would have "triggered a wave of consolidation and caused harm to consumers, artists, concert goers, local radio station owners and promoters."
As a result of the act, said Feingold, four groups "for the Contemporary Hit Radio/Top 40 Formats, four radio station groups - Chancellor, Clear Channel, Infinity, and Capstar - control access to 63 percent of the format's 41 million listeners nationwide. For the country music format, the same four groups control access to 56 percent of the format's 28 million listeners." (RNW note -Chancellor and Capstar have, of course, already been gobbled up themselves).
"The concentration of radio station ownership by a few companies is mind boggling," he continued, "and its effect on consumers, artists and others in the music industry is cause for great concern."
"Many of the same corporations that own multiple radio stations in a given market wield their power through their ownership of a number of businesses related to the music industry."
"For example, the Clear Channel Corporation owns over 1200 radio companies, more than 700,000 billboards, various promotion companies, and venues across the United States."
"Also, just three years ago, in 1999, Clear Channel bought SFX productions, the nation's largest promotion company…. Concertgoers have told me about higher ticket prices. Broadcasters, artists, and others in Wisconsin and across the country have told me about reduced diversity and local input in the music industry. And local businesses have spoken about anti-competitive behaviours that have put them on an unfair playing field."
Feingold then spoke of what he termed the "alleged tendency of some owners of multiple radio stations to shake down the music industry" through "establishing exclusive agreements with independent promoters that collect a fee in exchange for access to the airwaves."
"Radio," he said, "is a public medium and we must ensure that it serves the public good. The concentration of ownership, both in radio and the other facets of the concert industry, has caused great harm to people and businesses that have been involved and concerned about the radio and concert industry for generations… Radio is one of the most important mediums we have for exchanging ideas and expressing our creativity. But that free exchange of ideas often isn't free anymore - if you want to get played, often it's going to cost you."
"And if you can't afford it, then you might not get heard at all. Being able to hear a variety of voices is fundamental to a free society. Concentration in the radio industry is diminishing the number of voices that get heard. And that risks diminishing our freedom."
Previous Feingold:

Next column:

2002-06-15: The Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) system has now been endorsed by the International Electrotechnical Committee, taking it a step further along its schedule for a 2002 launch.
The system, which is the world s only non-proprietary, digital AM system for short-wave, medium-wave and long-wave with the ability to use existing frequencies and bandwidth across the globe, has already received certification from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.
DRM will be on display at IBC 2002 in Amsterdam, and at the ITU s next World Radio Congress.
Previous DRM:
DRM web site:

2002-06-15: More changes are due at Infinity's WBBM-FM in Chicago according to Robert Feder in his Chicago Sun-Times column.
Following the station's decision to pull the plug on morning duo Eddie & Job (Ed Volkman and Joe Bohannon) when they resisted signing early contract renewals (See RNW June 1), the station has now pulled the plug on Karen Hand.
Feeder says that they decided not to renew her contract as news director, morning news anchor and host of the top-rated weekly talk show "Private Lives."
The latter show, the top-rated Sunday night talk show on sex and personal relationships, has been co-hosted by Hand and Dr. Kelly Johnson for more than a decade and Hand said she hoped to continue her talk show with Johnson, possibly under a different title and perhaps expand it to national syndication.
Previous Feder:
Previous Viacom-CBS-Infinity:
Chicago Sun-Times -- Feder column:

2002-06-15: Spanish language radio personality Firmo Martin Rossetti, the morning host Hector Rocksetti on Century City-based KLYY-FM, has been sentenced to just under four years in jail after pleading guilty to charges of committing lewd acts on two 14-year old girls he met through his show.
Bolivian-born Rossetti is almost certain to be deported at the end of the sentence according to the Los Angeles Times, which notes that he could have faces up to 30 years in prison on the original charges of child molestation, rape and oral copulation.
Rossetti, had been at the station for five years and according to authorities the girls were frequent callers. They said he promised to help the girls get into the radio business and instead lured them into an inappropriate relationship.
Los Angeles Times report:

2002-06-14: US radio shares have had a bit of a roller coaster time following the announcement of Univision's takeover of Hispanic Broadcasting and the launch of Spanish Broadcasting's lawsuit against Hispanic and Clear Channel (See RNW June 13) but by the end of Thursday trading had steadied.
Clear Channel was down 1.72% over Thursday following a fall of nearly 8% on Wednesday (not that far adrift from Viacom's fall of 1.74% on Thursday) but Hispanic was up 6.46% after gaining a similar among on Wednesday.
Univision was up 5.62% and SBS, which dropped nearly 8% on Wednesday, was up 3.04%. Entravision was down 0.42%.
As well as getting involved in the big deal, Hispanic has also been doing some of its own acquiring; it has now filed to buy majority holder Roy Henderson's stake (51%) of Rawhide Radio LLC, which owns Texas stations KVCQ-FM, Cuero and KBAE-FM Llano, Texas. The price is USD 5 million, USD 3 million on closing and another two million should KVCQ-FM either be sold for USD16 million or more or be able to move to the Tower of the Americas transmitter site in San Antonio as a Class C1 or above. Hispanic already has six stations in the San Antonio market.
At the top of the radio companies, some stockholders either need money or think it's a good time to get some cash.
At Clear Channel President and Chief Operating Office Mark Mays and CFO brother Randall, the have each reported selling some 18,500 shares for just under USD1 million.
Cox President and CEO Bob Neil was also selling; his filing was for just under 170,000 shares.
Previous Mark Mays:
Previous Randall Mays:
Previous Neil:

2002-06-14:US consumers are going to be faced with several years of competing incompatible digital radio systems according to an Allied Business Intelligence report, "Satellite Radio: Global Markets for In-Vehicle Satellite and Terrestrial Digital Radio."
It says that the differing modulation schemes of Sirius and XM satellite radio and iBiquity's IBOC AM and FM systems, mean that they cannot use the same chips, thus meaning that prices will remain higher because production runs will be lower.
The report also notes that chipmakers will also have to cater to global standards such as DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) and DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale).
The US market is expected to take around 650,000 digital audio receivers this year increasing to some 33 million over the next five years.
Most initial sales will for in-vehicle listening and the latest announcement from Sirius Satellite Radios is that its receivers to be offered as original equipment from this fall in a number of Chrysler models including its PT Cruiser and various Dodge and Jeep models for a price of around USD300.
Previous Digital Radio Mondiale:
Previous iBiquity:
Previous Sirius:
Previous XM:

2002-06-14: London's Heart FM will have a new drive time line-up from Monday headed by Erica North and Greg Burns.
North joined the station on the production side in 1995 and later became the co-host on the Jono and the Morning Crew breakfast show. Burns, who has been on the UK comedy circuit for four years, joined Heart in 1998.

2002-06-14: Arbitron has extended the reach of its Personal People Meter (PPM) through an agreement with IBOPE Media Information, the largest research company in the region, to cooperate in testing the system in Latin America. The initial tests will be in four countries and the two companies are to co-operate over a wider introduction.
Ana Lúcia Lima, chief executive officer, IBOPE Media Information commented, "This agreement offers IBOPE an excellent opportunity to embrace a new concept of television and radio audience measurement… Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico are amongst our priorities. We are sure that our clients will be enthusiastic about this project and will be watching its evolution with great expectation."
Arbitron's PPM is already well on with market testing in Philadelphia and is already under evaluation in a number of other countries as is a rival the Swiss-developed Radiocontrol system (See RNW June 8).
Previous Arbitron:
Previous PPM:

2002-06-13: In a major US media deal, Univision, the largest Spanish-language TV company in the US, and Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation (HBC) , its leading Spanish-language radio company, have announced a USD3.5 billion merger.
Under the deal, Univision will acquire Hispanic through a stock swap of 0.85 shares of Univision Class A common stock for each share of HBC common stock.
On the past 30-day average this represents a 26% premium for Hispanic's stockholders who will end up with around 26.5% of the combined company.
Univision operates the Univision and TeleFutura television networks, the Galavision cable operation and some 50 TV stations as well as record labels and Internet operations and Hispanic operates 55 radio stations.
The companies say that the combined operation will have combined pro-forma net revenues for 2002 of some USD 1.39 to USD 1.44 billion and 2002 EBITDA of USD433 to USD469 million before benefits from potential synergies.
A. Jerrold Perenchio, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Univision said the merger represented "represents a tremendous opportunity for shareholders, advertisers and the many talented employees of both companies… Spanish-language radio is rapidly growing with attractive free cash flow and operating leverage. Univision's entrance into this business will provide us with revenue enhancement and earnings diversification as well as significant growth opportunities through coordinated sales and promotional efforts. In addition, Hispanic Broadcasting has essentially no debt, which will strengthen Univision's balance sheet."
McHenry T. Tichenor, Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hispanic Broadcasting, commented, "We are thrilled to be part of creating the unquestioned leader in Hispanic media in the U.S. through this strategic and logical transaction. Univision has a tremendous track record of success, and we believe that its powerful platform will create new opportunities for our employees and advertisers. Spanish-language media is still in the early stage of its growth in the U.S., and by combining with Univision, we will create a unique, multi-faceted company ideally positioned to take advantage of the vast opportunities that lie ahead to better serve our listeners and communities and well as those seeking to market to the U.S. Hispanic audience."
Under the deal, Hispanic Broadcasting will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Univision but retain its Dallas base and its executives. Tichenor will serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of the new Univision radio group and he and another Hispanic designee will join Univision's Board of Directors, increasing it to 10.
The boards of both companies have approved the deal and Hispanic's two largest shareholders, the Tichenor family and Clear Channel have agreed to vote for the deal as has Perenchio, Univision's controlling shareholder. It is expected to close by the end of the year, subject to regulatory approval.
On that issue, Univision told analysts there are no major hurdles and it only expected to have to make disposals in Dallas and possibly Houston to stay within Federal Communications Commission ownership limits. It was not clear as to the situation concerning Clear Channel's 32% holding in another Spanish-language group, Entravision, nor about other markets where the combined group would exceed the four radio-stations limit.
One Spanish-language rival, Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS), has already acted and is taking anti-trust legal action against Hispanic and Clear Channel.
In a lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court by David Boies of the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, it alleges that:
*In the summer of 1999, when SBS's initial public offering was being readied for market, Randall Mays, Clear Channel's Chief Financial Officer, called two of SBS's lead underwriters to attempt to get them to withdraw from the offering.
*After the initial public offering, Clear Channel and HBC sought to depress the SBS stock price by limiting or eliminating coverage by leading securities analysts through similar, continuing threats to withhold Clear Channel and/or HBC business from the analysts' employers.
*Clear Channel and HBC improperly induced significant institutional investors to divest their positions in SBS, depressing SBS's stock price.
*Clear Channel and HBC attempted to keep SBS from acquiring radio stations, engaged in bidding wars solely for the purpose of increasing SBS's costs in acquiring those stations and tortiously interfered with transactions under contract.
*Clear Channel and HBC attempted to injure SBS by inducing employees under contract to SBS to breach their contracts and work for Clear Channel and/or HBC.
*Clear Channel injured SBS by inducing Katz Hispanic Media to breach its long-term contract as SBS's national sales representative in order to become HBC's national sales representative.
*Clear Channel has "parked" stations that it owns with other companies in order to circumvent Federal Communications Commission ownership limitations. This practice recently led Congressman Howard Berman to seek Department of Justice and FCC investigations and House Judiciary Committee hearings on this subject.
*The involvement of Clear Channel in the foregoing demonstrates that it has acted and continues to act for, and has controlled and is controlling, HBC in a manner that is inconsistent with representations made by it to the FCC concerning its ownership interest in HBC.
*Clear Channel has leveraged its market power in radio and other areas of commerce (including venue promotion, advertising and outdoor displays) to benefit Clear Channel and HBC and to harm SBS.
Clear Channel says it will vigorously contest the lawsuit, which it termed "frivolous".
In a statement said it had "has always operated its businesses - - and continues to operate them - - fairly, honestly, legally and with the highest standards of ethics."
RNW comment: it will be up to the courts to decide the merit or otherwise of the SBS claims.
Our feeling, as always, is that where there are abuses of power by the big corporations, the only effective way of dealing with them is massive sanctions.
In this case, we feel that, should it be shown that there was an abuse of its power by Clear Channel to harm SBS as a competitor, a fine of around USD3.5 billion and, should there have been parking of stations, a removal of the licences from Clear Channel, would be about right.

Previous Berman:
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous Entravision:
Previous HBC:
Previous Randall Mays:
Previous SBS:
Previous Tichenor:
HBC web site (links to statement regarding deal):

2002-06-13: Saga Radio has been awarded the new East Midlands regional FM licence as forecast yesterday (See RNW June 12) and, it would appear, was in a close contest with Capital Disney judging by comments from UK Radio Authority chairman Richard Hooper, who said, "This was a very closely fought decision between applications proposing to serve the youth audience in the East Midlands and those targeting an older listenership, both of which would widen choice."
The decision has led to further speculation in the UK Guardian about Saga's potential elsewhere; the paper notes that it is bidding for the London AM licence currently held by Liberty Radio, owned by The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. The licence was re-advertised in March this year..
Commenting on the East Midlands award and London bid, Saga's director of radio Ron Coles commented, "There are many older listeners who feel disenfranchised by radio, not only in terms of the music the stations play, but the editorial content. We believe we are in the best position to offer this audience a meaningful alternative to what is currently available."
At Capital Radio, staff have been told that the company is to concentrate on four "brands" -- Xfm, Capital Gold, Capital FM and Century-each with its own top manager.
Individual stations will no longer have their own managing directors but most of the individuals involved have already taken new posts within the company. Capital says the changes will not affect local programming but will reduce duplication and increase resource sharing.
Previous Capital:
Previous Hooper:
Previous Saga:
Previous UK Radio Authority:
UK Guardian on Saga and Liberty:

2002-06-13: Viacom's radio syndication company Westwood One and Black Entertainment Television (BET) have announced the launch of the BET Radio Network that is to tailor its products and services to contemporary urban radio stations.
Under the agreement, BET, which was taken over by Viacom last year, will allow BET Radio Network exclusive access to its talent, audio and news and information services.
The radio network is also to offer programming including BET Music News Minute, BET Weekly Movie Spotlight and BET News Minute hosted by BET news anchor Jacque Reid.
Previous Viacom-CBS-Infinity:
Previous Westwood One:

2002-06-13: Journalists at Teamtalk, which operates a sports news website and the TeamTalk252 sports radio station, are threatening to strike, probably on June 21 when the soccer World Cup quarter-finals start, in protest over job-cut plans announced by the company.
In all Teamtalk plans to cut around 75 staff from its work force of 280 following a strategic review of the company; it lost around GBP15 million in 2001 and is being taken over by online bookmaker UKBetting (See RNW June 1). The journalists union says it knows the company is in trouble but finds the redundancy terms offered to be unacceptable. The union has already held a strike ballot.
Previous TeamTalk:

2002-06-13: Latest weekly Internet listening figures from MeasureCast show listening on Memorial Day only 40% of that on the previous Monday --574,067 hours compared to 1,419,404 hours. The reduction took MeasureCast's Internet Listening Index down by 14% after five consecutive weeks of increases.
The drops were fairly even all over and did not have any significant effect n rankings with no changes in the stations in the top five, although there was one shift in position; among the networks, Virgin was edged down to sixth place in a swap with Internet Radio Inc, which moved up from sixth to fifth.
For the week to June 2, MeasureCast's top five stations ranked by Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) with previous week's TTSL and Cume persons (CP), a measure of the cumulative audience, in brackets, were:
1: Hot Adult Contemporary Virgin FM - TTSL339, 333 (403,061); CP 67,005 (74,379): Same position with lower listening and reach.
2: Jazz format Jazz FM - TTSL220,040 (236,862); CP 60,288 (61,414): Same position with lower listening and reach.
3: Classical format WQXR-FM, New York - TTSL 175,825 (222,470); CP 22,933 (29,304): Same position with lower listening and reach.
4: Sports talk ESPN - TTSL 117,573 (92,150): CP 32,245 (15,733) : Up from fifth with higher listening and reach.
5: Classical format King FM - TTSL 109,034 (129,355); CP 22,237 (22,307): Down from fourth with lower listening and reach
The top five networks for the week (Previous week's figures in brackets) were:
1: Clear Channel Worldwide TTSL 1,328,180 (1,378,299) ; CP 260,422 (264,462). Same position with lower listening and reach for the third week running.
2: Radio Free Virgin TTSL 788,392 (801,501): CP 165,306 (166,282) - Same position with lower listening and reach for the second week.
3: WARP Radio TTSL 650,950 (735,767) hours: CP 120,535 (123,091) - Same position with lower listening and reach for the second week.
4: Internet Radio Inc TTSL 464,314 (468,887) : CP 172,054 (175,149) - Up from sixth with slightly lower listening but higher reach.
5: StreamAudio network TTSL 450,072 (541,981) : CP 81,494 (90,779) - down from fourth with lower listening and reach
Previous MeasureCast ratings:
Previous MeasureCast weekly ratings:
MeasureCast web site:

2002-06-12: US National Public Radio (NPR), which has come under attack from both sides over its cover of the Middle East( See RNW June 6 regarding funding shortfall at Boston affiliate WBUF-FM from an anti-sponsorship campaign by pro-Israeli groups), but particularly from pro-Israeli groups, has now set up a new section of its web site to provide both audio and transcripts of its coverage from the area.
So far it offers material from May 6 and is updated each weekday with weekend and holiday programming being updated during the next week.
The site only offers programming for which transcripts, provided by an independent contractor, are available, and it carries a disclaimer concerning the transcripts saying that the audio should be considered the authoritative version.
RNW comment: It also carries a somewhat ill thought out note saying," No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission."
What, we wonder, can they do if someone listens to the audio, finds it matches the transcript and then quotes that?
Or if they find the two differ and proceed to quote both?

Previous NPR:
NPR Middle East web site:

2002-06-12: US radio advertising sales and marketing company Interep, which last month raised USD 5 million in a private placing of shares (See RNW May 9) has now sold raised an additional USD 5 million.
The funds are coming through a private placement of warrants and convertible shares of preferred stock.
Chairman and CEO Ralph Guild said the latest move now meant that Interep had raised a total of USD 11 million of new capital.
Previous Guild:
Previous Interep:

2002-06-12: The UK Radio Authority is expected to announce today which of 15 bidders has been awarded the new East Midlands regional analogue FM licence with the UK Radio Magazine saying that the decision has been made in favour of Saga, which is targeting the over-50s and the UK Guardian singing the praises of the Capital-Disney bid for a teenager and children's channel.
Looking at the Capital Radio/Disney bid, the Guardian notes that research conducted for them has shown that not only is there no analogue channel for children compared to 17 children's TV channels in the UK, but very little for them at all. The planned format would combine Capital's music output with Disney's speech and feature output and aim to provide advertisers with a route to potential spending of some GBP5 billion a year on nonessential items, a fifth of it from children's pocket money.
There was some good news for Capital, which has had its London licences for Capital FM and Capital Gold renewed.
Both gained an automatic renewal because Capital is providing two digital services on the first London digital multiplex.
RNW comment: Noting that Saga was awarded the West Midlands licence in January last year (Licence News RNW Jan 28, 2001) when comments were made upon the degree to which the under 50's were under-served and that they formed 40% of the population, logic would have indicated to us that Saga had a good chance in the neighbouring area.
We suspect that the Radio Magazine has a good tip and, although we would like to see more radio for children, are not enamoured of advertising targeted at the young in the absence of some countervailing forces.
This is one area where we think public service broadcasting has much more to offer than the economics of an advertising-led service would make possible, whatever the successes may be of Disney in the US.

Previous Capital:
Previous Saga (UK):
Previous UK Radio Authority:
UK Guardian report:
UK Radio Authority web site:

UK Radio Magazine - news section:

2002-06-12: There is broad agreement about the top-ranking stations but less about networks in the Internet audio ratings for May just released by Arbitron and Measurecast.
Both had the same top three stations - Virgin, Jazz FM and WQXR-FM - but whereas Arbitron lists Live 365 as the top network with Clear Channel second, Measurecast, which does not list Live 365, has Clear Channel top and Radio Free Virgin second..
MeasureCast in its report headlines having fewer stations online but nevertheless recording a listening increase. For the month MeasureCast measured 1,294 stations in May, down from 1,351 in April, and 1,414 stations in March but it recorded 4.3 million listeners compared to 3.9 million in April. Those listeners combined to take a total of 38,086,043 hours of streamed audio in May, up from 34,104,851 hours of radio programming streamed during April, and 27,783,465 hours streamed in March.
MeasureCast's May top five channels ranked by TTSL - total time spent listening - with last month's TTSL and Cume (Cumulative Audience) in brackets were:
1): Adult Alternative Virgin Radio TTSL 1,589,396 (1,269,079); CP 201,240 (158,858). Same position with increased listening and reach.
2): Jazz format Jazz FM TTSL 1,226,769 (1,164,308); CP 229,363 (224,451) - Same position with increased listening and reach, the latter higher than for Virgin Radio.
3): Classical format WQXR-FM TTSL 915,629 (738,208); CP 89,668 (93,373): Same position with higher listening but lower reach.
4): Classical King FM (Seattle) TTSL 585,532 (581,495); CP 69,689 (66,260) - Same position with higher listening and reach.
5): Internet-only Pure Rock KNAC.COM TTSL 401,684 (294,270); CP 49,870 (44,462). Up from eighth in April with a large increase in listening and a smaller one in reach.
Listener-formatted Internet-only MEDIAmazing, which was fifth in April, dropped to 13th with TTSL of 254,259, down from 345,446
MeasureCast's May top five networks were (Previous rank and hours in brackets where applicable):
1: Clear Channel Worldwide TTSL 7,310,581 (6,941,043); CP 853,872 (826,087)- Same position with higher listening but lower reach.
2: Radio Free Virgin TTSL 3,714,258 (3,263,211); CP 560,027 (505,251) - Same position with higher listening and reach.
3: WARP Radio TTSL 3,180,325 (2,861,706); CP 391,089 (395,940) - Same position with higher listening but lower reach.
4: StreamAudio network TTSL 2,425,773 (2,404,397); CP 282,016 (307,754) - same position with higher listening but lower reach.
5: Virgin Radio TTSL 2,150,722 (1,861,150); CP 285,730 (270,968) - Same position with higher listening and reach.
For Arbitron, whose May report has also just been released, there were no changes at the top end of the rankings, although it again showed higher listening figures at the top end; Arbitron ranks by ATH (aggregate tuning hours), the equivalent of MeasureCast's TTSL (Total Time Spent Listening).
Arbitron's May top five channels, ranked by ATH with previous month's figures in brackets were:
1:Adult contemporary Virgin FM with ATH 1,321,500. Same position in April with lower ATH 1,080,600
2: Jazz FM with ATH 927,800. Same position in April with ATH 861,600.
3: Classical WQXR-FM with ATH 819,400. Same position in April when ATH was 692,500.
4: Classical King FM with ATH 593,800. Same position in April when ATH was higher at 611,600.
5: Jazz format KPLU with ATH413,500. Same position in April when ATH was 399,100.
Arbitron's May top five networks were, ranked by ATH with previous month's figures in brackets where applicable were:
1:Live 365 with ATH 8,420,800. Position unchanged but up from April ATH 8,374,400.
2: Clear Channel Worldwide with ATH 7,582,500. Position unchanged but up from April ATH 7,364,400.
3: ChainCast Networks/StreamAudio with ATH 2,605,100. Position unchanged but down from April ATH 2,889,400.
4: SMG PLC (Virgin radio owners) with ATH 1,774,500. Position unchanged but up from April ATH 1,624,200.
5: MLB.com Network with ATH1,121,200 . Position unchanged but down from April ATH 1,229,700.
Previous Arbitron:
Previous Arbitron webcast ratings:
Previous MeasureCast ratings:
Arbitron web site:
MeasureCast web site:

2002-06-11: Entravision is to strengthen its Dallas radio cluster through a USD35 million cash purchase of KTCY -FM from Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS), which described the station as a non-core asset.
KTCY is SBS's only station in Dallas where Entravision owns and/or operates four FMs (KRVA-FM, KRVF-FM, KXGM-FM, and KZMP-FM) and two AMs (KRVA-AM and KZMP-AM).
Raul Alarcon, Chairman, President and CEO of Spanish Broadcasting System, commented, "This transaction reflects our strategy of focusing on our core markets and opportunistically redeploying certain non-strategic stations as we strengthen our clusters in the nation's largest Hispanic markets. The cash proceeds from this sale will enhance our financial flexibility."
Entravision Chairman and CEO Walter Ulloa said, "With the acquisition of KTCY-FM we have significantly strengthened our position in Dallas. Our strong, unified sales team and established operating structure in the Dallas market, coupled with the opportunity to reformat the station to our advertiser-attractive Super Estrella programming format, made KTCY-FM a perfect addition to our station group."
Entravision has started managing KTCY under an interim local marketing agreement and is to convert the full-market station to its music-driven, pop and alternative Spanish rock Super Estrella format, currently broadcast on KRVA-FM and KRVF-FM. It expects the deal to close in the third quarter of this year.
SBS has to fund a USD250 million Los Angeles cash purchase of former KFSG-FM from The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel; it has re-launched the station as launched "El Sol 96.3" (See RNW May 1).
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2002-06-11: A former sales administrator at leading London Black station Choice FM has told an employment tribunal that the atmosphere at the station was "sleazy and disrespectful to women".
Audrey Atkinson, who with former production assistant Wendy Browne-Osibo alleges that the station forced them out of their jobs through sexual harassment (See RNW April 4), said that the actions were condoned and encouraged by senior staff, thus making it impossible for her to complain formally.
She said her line manager Tina Amin was unconcerned about indecency and would send lewd images by e-mail to senior staff that had included pictures of women having sex with animals, that station director Patrick Berry was " as keen on pornography" as the people she worked with and that women at the station were regularly subjected to sexual harassment by male employees including DJs, sales staff and other employees.
In her case she said she had been subjected to comments about the size of her breasts and the underwear she wore and that one director had also taunted her about her weight.
She also accused the sales team of making inappropriate comments both to and about work experience students who were around 15-years old.
Atkinson is claiming sex discrimination and unfair dismissal and is suing the radio station for injury to feelings and loss of earnings.
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2002-06-11: A Wall Street Journal report on this week's Los Angeles meeting of pop-radio programmers from Clear Channel carried in various US newspapers, takes up the issue of charge of around USD40, 000 that the company wants music companies to pay to be sponsors at the event.
In return for the money, they will be able to showcase their music and get feedback from the programmers.
The event is getting extra publicity because of the current call by the record companies for an investigation into radio consolidation and promotional payments to get radio play (See RNW May 25).
The report notes that a number of radio companies have now signed exclusive deals with promoters, agreements that can bring substantial fees to the companies and also notes that Clear Channel has gone at least one better in this case.
It offers other services that allow record companies to exploit its giant reach, one of which, called "PD Perceptual," for a fee gives labels feedback about songs from station programmers. Clear Channel also has been doing the label-sponsored programmer gatherings for about a year, and plans more.
Kraig T. Kitchin, president of the company's Premiere Radio Networks syndication arm, says music companies are under no pressure to accept such deals and also adds that programmer gatherings are much more efficient than sending artists round individual stations.
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2002-06-11: Former radio DJ Chris Evans is reported by the UK Guardian to be in talks with the BBC about a return to UK television. Evans, who was fired as Virgin's breakfast host in June last year (See RNW June 29, 2001), has not been on the air since then although recently he was reported to be trying to set up a deal to take back Virgin from Scottish Media Group (SMG))(See RNW May 25).
SMG bought his radio and TV production company for GBP 225 million in -- (See RNW Jan 13, 2000) under a deal in which he remained with Virgin as breakfast host and continued TV work but his last TV show was dropped at the end of 2000.
Also in the UK, staff for Capital Radio all over the country have been asked to attend meetings today to inform them of organisational changes being planned. No details have been given in the note from chief executive David Mansfield.
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2002-06-10: For our look at print comment on radio this week, we start with articles about the heads of three radio stations or channels, one in Britain, one in Ireland and one in the US.
The UK candidate is the most successful: Jim Moir controller of BBC Radio 2, which under his direction has become the most listened to station in Great Britain, and the subject of a column in the UK Daily Telegraph by Gillian Reynolds.
However he is already over the BBC retirement age of 60 and his contract is due to end this year, leading to widespread speculation about whether a way will be found to keep him on for an eighth year in the post.
Moir writes Reynolds, in his 39th year with the BBC is Old BBC, a time when "when differences of opinion at director-general level were discussed either in a senior common-room sort of way or over many foaming glasses at a favoured hostelry."
"He drinks (except during Lent, which, as a devout Catholic, he keeps strictly.)," she continues. "He eats big lunches, tells jokes and remains sexist in a jovial sort of way. (see Helen Fielding's BBC novel Cause Celeb for a thumbnail sketch of a television executive not a million miles removed.)"
"Every year, he treats his producers and presenters to a slap-up, sit-down Christmas dinner at the Reform Club, complete with toasts, rousing speeches, heckles, crackers, japes and general merriment of the kind familiar to any reader of Pickwick Papers or old comics such as Beano and Dandy."
Reynolds notes that in the "Birt BBC" (RNW note - John, now Lord, Birt, a former BBC director General) Moir was prised out of his job as head of television light entertainment and offered a post in corporate affairs and subsequently offered the Radio 2 post as successor to Frances Lines with a brief to attract a younger audience. He achieved his results, writes Reynolds, by stealth, transforming the channel "bit by bit, programme by programme, tune by tune" into the nation's favourite network.
Moir, she adds, is honoured by being asked to stay and, she says, "If I were his boss, I would start each day by telling him he can't go yet."
As for the qualities required of his successor, she list the following: "a brilliant team manager, a strong programme person (with a grasp of current affairs as well as music, of religion as well as the price of a loaf,) an astute talent scout, an effective advocate for the BBC, a diplomat, an agony aunt, an architect of change as well as an educated conservationist. Simple, eh?
Over the Irish Channel, the radio head concerned is Helen Shaw, who is due to leave state broadcaster RTÉ after five years as head of radio to take up a fellowship at Harvard University (See RNW May 22) .
Commenting on her performance, Liam Fay in the UK Sunday Times is less complimentary about her performance than Reynolds is of Jim Moir's.
"She was supposed to have changed the course of RTÉ radio," writes Fay," but Helen Shaw just rearranged the deckchairs."
"There are no ball-breakers, only breakable balls. This, ultimately, is the salutary lesson of Helen Shaw's tenure as RTÉ's director of radio, which is about to end after five stormy years," he continues.
"According to the quasi-legend that grew up during her time at Montrose," he writes, "Shaw was the Midget from Hell, a fearsome autocrat for whom the boot, the axe and the hissy fit were the management tools of choice."
He then goes on to counter the legend. Noting her "spectacular bust-ups" with presenters and a complaint by one journalist about bullying that led to a substantial settlement, Fay says that "despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, it now seems Shaw was never the ruthless hatchet woman she was cracked up to be."
"If she was, she might have initiated and pursued the radical overhaul of the national radio service that's so badly needed."
"The fear she is said to have engendered among staff has been grossly exaggerated. There are numerous people in the radio centre who have ably exchanged wrathful fire with her, and plenty more who were capable of stoically withstanding her fury."
"RTÉ radio in only marginally better shape than when she took over in August 1997," he concludes. "The deckchairs have been rearranged, to the obvious annoyance of some dozing passengers, but the ship is still heading for the iceberg."
He says that Shaw's strengths were also her weaknesses: changing the aging profile of RTÉ Radio 1 presenters but allowing things to mutate into "blind reverence for the cult of youth"; allowing giving the audience what they wanted to develop into over reliance on focus groups and spouting "survey findings"; allowing 2FM to "atrophy at an alarming rate".
The third station we look at, courtesy of Steve Carney of the Los Angeles Times, is Pacifica network's KPFK-FM where 34-years-old Eva Georgia, is the new general manager (She starts in her post today) and faces an uphill task given the recent upheavals at the network (see RNW Feb 17 and earlier).
Georgia, notes Carney, in one sense well prepared for challenges, noting that she "was a pioneer in community radio in South Africa during the apartheid era, when she was harassed, threatened at gunpoint, and had colleagues killed and kidnapped while they all sought to expose police corruption, the AIDS epidemic and violence against women and children.
"I'm extremely excited about the prospect. There's a lot to do," said Georgia. "It will take time, and I hope that people will allow us the time. It's important that the process of democracy and transparency continue."
" We have to keep chiselling away at this big iceberg," she said. "Pacifica has a rich history and it has so much potential. It's electrifying."
Georgia is taking over following spells by two interim general managers and the firing of former KPFK-FM general manager Mark Schubb in January.
"We thought her selection sends an important signal. We're serious about building a democratic organization," said Dan Coughlin, the Pacifica Foundation's interim executive director. "…"We're not engaged in cronyism or purges. We're really trying to select the person who is best for the network. Just because you were a reform activist doesn't mean you're going to get a job now."
"She stood out, both with her experience in community radio and her commitment to Pacifica and KPFK."
That background, writes Carney, started with writing for newspapers in her Cape Town hometown, starting her own community paper in Atlantis north of the city after she noticed censorship of her copy, and eventually founding Radio Atlantis that went on air in 1995 with support from community groups and the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union.
The station got into hot water with some groups through investigating the backgrounds of local politicians and finding leads to drugs and prostitution, giving a man accused on what Georgia thought was flimsy evidence airtime to put his side.
She left Atlantis in 1997 and moved to Cape Talk, a commercial talk-radio station in Cape Town .
Eventually she fled South Africa in 1999 after a number of deaths including those of a police commissioner in a mysterious car crash and the murder of a journalist who had been subpoenaed to testify about what he had uncovered.
She was granted asylum and moved to Long Beach. While there she was unable even to get interviews for the posts of news director and program director at KPFK, posts for which she'll now be deciding the incumbents.
Finally a couple of quirky notes from UK radio reviews, both dealing with the week's events..
One courtesy of Sue Arnold in the UK Observer, deals with the Queen's Jubilee and the starts, "I'm sure some anorak has already worked out how many times 'God Save the Queen' has been played throughout the jubilee celebrations."
"Far be it from me to pour cold water over such enthusiasm but it may well be that the national anthem, far from being a celebration of British monarchy, is, in fact, a revolutionary marching song. Pray, Mr Nicholson, be so good as to pass me that Spottiswood Amen glass and state your case."
The Spottiswood Amen glasses are in the Drambuie liquer company collection and are inscribed with two verses of the Jacobite anthem and Arnold notes that the Thomas Arne melody to the British National Anthem had its first public performance in 1745 when Bonnie Prince Charlie and his highland army were heading towards Derby.
The second is courtesy of Roland White in the UK Sunday Times RadioWaves column. He devotes it to the World Cup soccer and notes, quite reasonably, some of the statements of the obvious from "experts", writing at one stage that "I think that even I could have told the Radio Five audience that England didn't want to give a goal away in the first half…"
It was his ending, however, that attracted us most: "Incidentally, I was watching the game on television and listening to the commentary on Radio Five. Green, on the radio, was celebrating England's first goal before the televised ball had even reached Sol Campbell's head. "
A perfect illustration of the delay in television going via the roundabout route (satellite) and radio more directly (via terrestrial circuits), we presume!
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2002-06-10: Beginning with the Summer 2002 survey, Arbitron is to simplify its rules concerning simulcast stations that are in different Arbitron metros.
Formerly broadcasters had to choose between having one station listed "below-the-line" as a non-Metro station in its home Metro or both being treated as non-simulcast stations.
Under the new rules combinations that meet Arbitron's simulcast criteria can choose to be listed "above-the-line" as home in both Metros; combos that are fully simulcast will receive a total line in addition to individual station ratings.
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2002-06-10: Infinity station WBBM-AM in Chicago has renewed the contract of 51-years-old morning news co-anchor Pat Cassidy a year before his contract is due to expire.
According to Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times the timing resulted from the clash with Felicia Middlebrooks over her contract earlier this year (See RNW Mar 18).
Feder says that Cassidy's deal, although details have not been made public, is thought to cover six years and to substantially lessen the differential between his pay and that of Middlebrooks who was earning some USD 350, 000 a year, around twice the amount Cassidy was paid.
WBBM vice president and general manager Rod Zimmerman commented, "Given the market conditions today, it's an acknowledgement of our confidence in Pat Cassidy and the long-term role we want him to play, He's obviously a key franchise in the format, and we're excited to have him with the strongest news team in Chicago radio."
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2002-06-09: Last week was a fairly busy one in North America, with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) cracking the whip over a number of issues and also getting stuck in the middle of pressures to ease and tighten regulations and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issuing details of its new streamlined radio licence renewals process as well as conducting routine business.
Australia was quiet on the radio front as was Ireland and the UK was fairly quit.
In Canada, the new licence renewal process announced by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) introduces a simplified system for those stations whose past performance has raised no causes for concern, some 80% of the 125 to 150 renewals each year.
For these stations where licences expire in 2003 or later any such station that is asking for a renewal on existing terms and conditions will be asked to file an abridged application after which the Commission will issue a notice seeking public comment on a full seven-year licence renewal.
Where there are issues raised by the CRTC a station will have to fill in the existing long form initially and if the public notice raises unresolved issues a station will be asked to re-file a long form application.
In licence terms the CRT has announced receipt of a number of applications and approved others.
In Ottawa, Ontario, it says Radio Nord Communications has now proposed a 16, 600 watts service on the 97.1 MHz frequency for a planned French-language classical music station to serve Ottawa/Hull and Gatineau, Quebec, that the CRTC approved last October subject to the applicant coming up with a suitable alternative frequency to that it had originally proposed (See RNW Oct 6, 2001).
Radio Nord had originally suggested a frequency that was awarded to one of the other three successful applicants for specialty licences for the area.
The CRTC has also approved a new 18 watt transmitter at Armor Mountain (Hill) for CJSE-FM Shediac, New Brunswick; a low-power (47 watts) English language tourist FM for Foam Lake, Saskatchewan and has given administrative one-year renewals for a number of transitional digital radio undertakings.
These include Licences for digital undertakings associated with a number of
Quebec stations CBF-FM, CKGM, CITE-FM, CKAC, CKMF-FM, CJAD, and CFGL-FM, all in Montreal;
Ontario stations CJBC, CJBC-FM, CBL-FM, CBLA-FM, CHUM, CFYI, CFNY-FM, CIRV-FM, CIAO, CJRT-FM, CHIN, CHIN-FM, CFTR, CHFI-FM, CISS-FM, CKFM-FM, CJCL, CJEZ-FM, CFRB, and CFMX-FM, all in Toronto;
CHUM-FM, CKWW, CIMX-FM, CKLW, CIDR-FM all in Windsor.
CILQ-FM in North York;
CJMR in Mississauga;
CHWO in Oakville;
British Columbia stations CBU, CBU-FM, CBUF-FM, CFOX-FM, CKNW, CFMI-FM, CKWX, and CKKS-FM, all in Vancouver;
La Chaîne culturelle, CFUN, CHQM-FM and CFSR-FM-1 all in Mount Seymour
The Commission has also received an application for a commercial FM in Edmonton, Alberta, and has now invited applications from any others interested in such a licence.
In the UK, the Radio Authority has pre-advertised local licences for Ipswich/Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk where the existing AM licence is held by Classic Gold Amber and the FM licence is held by SGR-FM whose licences expire in November of next year.
It has also announced that another Access Pilot Radio station has gone on air, this time ALL FM that will serve Ardwick, Levenshulme and Longsight in south-central Manchester. The community station is the 12th Access Radio station to launch and is sister project to Wythenshawe FM in Manchester, which started its broadcasts in May.
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been busy on the enforcement front, issuing a number of fines against pirates, upholding other penalties, and in one case dropping a USD10,000 penalty.
The largest penalty levied was one on Infinity concerning indecency offences relating to the Opie and Anthony Show (See RNW June 8).
The Commission also levied fines of USD 10, 000 each on two pirate operators.
One was the Rev Dr. Philius Nicholas, who had operated a station in New York without a licence and had not responded to an FCC notice in January.
The other was on a Detroit pirate operator Thomas A. Brothers Berkley, Michigan, who had also not responded to the Commission concerning his operation of the station.
The penalty that was cancelled involved Networx Corporation that in January was issued with a Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) for USD10,000 for allegedly operating an unlicensed radio station. After receiving Networx' response, it cancelled the entire penalty.
There was no such escape for MAPA Broadcasting over a USD2,500 fine in December (See RNW Dec 20, 2001) for not installing EAS equipment and enclosing its tower for WSLA-AM, Sidell, Louisiana. The fine had already been reduced from USD15,000 in view of the company's inability to pay but the commission dismissed a petition from MAPA that it should only be admonished because the gate to its fence had only been left open for maintenance and that the EAS violation was only a minor one.
The FCC has also been involved in an internal wrangle over an announcement by FCC chairman Michael Powell concerning his appointment of a Spectrum Policy Task to assist the Commission in identifying and evaluating changes in spectrum policy.
Republican Commissioner Kevin Martin and Democrat Michael Copps, complained that they had not been consulted about the questions to be asked to guide the new task force on its mission and also asked for a Notice of Inquiry approved by a vote of all four FCC commissioners. The task force, comprised of FCC staff, is to be headed by Dr. Paul Kolodzy, Senior Spectrum Policy Advisor, at the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology.
On a more public front, the Commission is at the centre of another wrangle, this time between politicians led by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) who wants further media de-regulation and others, notably Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC), who think deregulation has already gone too far.
Tauzin has written to Powell asking him to start moving on repeal of newspaper-broadcaster cross ownership rules.
RNW note : Coincidentally, or otherwise, BIA Financial Network (BIAfn) has just issued a study "Has Format Diversity Continued to Increase?" that says format diversity in Arbitron rated radio markets has increased over the past three years and concludes that there is a "statistically significant positive relationship" between local ownership concentration and format diversity.

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2002-06-09: Chris Bickerton, who for 30 years presented the BBC World Service "Focus on Africa" programme had died of cancer, aged 61. As the UK Guardian obituary notes the programme was often the only sound news source for Africans, "even on their own countries" and Bickerton, as the "voice of Africa" was probably the most recognisable voice on the continent.
The Guardian notes that, "Those who covered the Liberian civil war in the 1990s tell the story of the daily phenomenon at 1705 GMT when hostilities were suspended by both sides of the conflict "to stop to listen to Chris Bickerton".
Bickerton, whose father was a vicar in Lancashire, had a degree in Hausa from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and taught in Africa before returning the UK in 1968 and joining the BBC. He began presenting "Focus on Africa" two years later.
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2002-06-08: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which this week had handed out a number of USD10,000 penalties on pirate operators (Details will be in Licence News on Sunday), has ended the week by topping the figure with a total of USD21, 000 in fines on Infinity's WNEW-FM relating to items it considered indecent that were broadcast on the Opie and Anthony ( Gregg Hughes and Anthony Cumia) show.
In all there were three penalties imposed, each of USD 7,000 relating to broadcasts in November 2000 and January 2001.
Infinity had argued that the November broadcasts were not indecent and that in the case of the January one the complaint should be dismissed because the listener had provided neither a tape nor a transcript and the station had no records of the broadcast.
As it did at the end of last month in levying a fine on Infinity's KROQ- FM, Pasadena, California (See RNW May 29), the Commission still upheld the complaint.
It said that, " the complainant provided the date of the broadcast, the call sign of the station, and sufficient detail and context about what was broadcast to determine that Infinity apparently broadcast prohibited indecent material. .. Infinity does not deny that the material at issue was broadcast or that the "Opie and Anthony Show" aired during the time period between 6 a. m. and 10 p. m. We therefore reject Infinity's contention that the record is inadequate."
The first November complaint related to a song called "Teen Week" in which a young girl is portrayed as performing oral sex on her father and finding his penis too large to fit in her mouth.
The second related to a phone conversation with a listener, who said she was 17 and who was asked to remove her panties and rub the telephone on her pubic hair in a game "Teen Guess What's In My Pants?" The station broadcast the sounds resulting from her moving the phone according to the hosts' instructions.
Infinity had argued that the Opie and Anthony show "when judged by contemporary community standards is not offensive to the average listener" and in support of its argument cited its high ratings amongst men 25- 44.
The January 2001 complaint related to another song allegedly broadcast in which a man sings of his liking for sex with little girls aged between two and three years old.
RNW comment: We invite readers to check the FCC link and decide for themselves what the show's popularity says about US males between 25 and 44; as far as the fines are concerned, the relationship between the fines levied on a small pirate station and a large profitable broadcaster also say much about the US.
If the argument is accepted that during much of the day, when children may well be listening, some things may not be broadcast (current US law) the fines are derisory as we have commented previously.
If the idea is to stop repeat offences they should be much larger - they can, after all, be reduced in case of financial hardship as has happened with a number of recent penalties
(For example in December last year a fine in MAPA Broadcasting was cut from USD 15,000 to USD 2, 500 because of the company's financial situation- see
RNW Dec 20, 2001).
To protect free speech we would suggest a maximum penalty limited to a station's profit thus enabling any organisation to fight the fight but not do so profitably!
To us the current minimum base forfeiture of USD 7,000 cannot be taken seriously, particularly if an individual pirate is to be fined USD 10, 000.
Iindeed if the intent is to stop a calculated repetition of such offences because of ratings-related profits, it should probably be an initial USD 100, 000 with doubling for every subsequent offence by a station for offences with less than a year between them (at a fine of USD1.6 million for the fifth offence the ratings would have to be mighty good for a station to gain a benefit should it offend five times in a year; in the case of syndicated shows the fine would obviously be that sum for each station carrying the show).
If, of course, the offences are not considered serious, the answer is to scrap the rules. What exists at the moment simply brings the whole edifice into disrepute.

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FCC on Infinity fine (includes partial transcript of songs)

2002-06-08: Kelvin MacKenzie, chief executive of the Wireless Group whose holdings include TalkSport, had formed a "Little Guys Radio Association" to lobby for the interests of smaller radio stations according to the UK Guardian.
The paper says MacKenzie termed the existing commercial radio body, the Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA) a "club for the big boys."
"It's a fat cat organisation for fat cats by fat cats - which is why it chooses to base itself in plush penthouse offices in Shaftesbury Avenue. It does nothing for the little guy, which is why we're getting together," added MacKenzie.
One particular aim of the group according to the paper is to lobby for a change to a radio metering system for UK radio ratings in place of the diary system currently used by RAJAR (Radio Joint Audio Research); small stations say the system favours big names because diary keepers are more likely to remember them.
MacKenzie has already released results of a test of a local test of the Swiss Radiocontrol radio audience measuring system and is also conducting a national test for TalkSport (See RNW April 26).
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2002-06-08: Kelvin MacKenzie, chief executive of the Wireless Group whose holdings include TalkSport, had formed a "Little Guys Radio Association" to lobby for the interests of smaller radio stations according to the UK Guardian.
The paper says MacKenzie termed the existing commercial radio body, the Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA) a "club for the big boys."
"It's a fat cat organisation for fat cats by fat cats - which is why it chooses to base itself in plush penthouse offices in Shaftesbury Avenue. It does nothing for the little guy, which is why we're getting together," added MacKenzie.
One particular aim of the group according to the paper is to lobby for a change to a radio metering system for UK radio ratings in place of the diary system currently used by RAJAR (Radio Joint Audio Research); small stations say the system favours big names because diary keepers are more likely to remember them.
MacKenzie has already released results of a test of a local test of the Swiss Radiocontrol radio audience measuring system and is also conducting a national test for TalkSport (See RNW April 26).
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2002-06-08: Sirius and XM Satellite Radio have withdrawn their request for the US Federal Communications Commission to introduce regulations on wireless networks using the 802.11 standards for computer networks in homes and offices.
Neither company has commented on the decision to withdraw the request, made last year because they said they feared that a large increase in numbers of Wi-Fi users would cause interference to their signals.
The frequencies used for Wi-Fi and the satellite radio broadcasts are only separated by a small buffer and the two sides had differed on the likelihood of interference; Wi-Fi companies argued that interference, similar to that caused by a mobile phone near a radio, would not develop so they should not have to face additional costs or regulations to do anything about a non-existent problem.
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2002-06-08: BBC Radio Five Live has agreed a deal with the Football League for the next two seasons that includes live commentary rights to the League, League play-offs and Worthington Cup both via terrestrial broadcast and on its web site. Radio Five already has a similar deal with the Premier League until the end of the 2003-4 season.
Football League Commercial Director Richard Masters commented that they were delighted to continue dealing with the BBC, adding, "No-one else comes close to offering the same quality of coverage or size of audience, and fans of clubs throughout the League will welcome this news."
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2002-06-07: As forecast last month (RNW May 21) only a year after buying Citadel Communications for USD 2 billion (See RNW June 26, 2001), Forstmann Little and Company has filed an Initial Public Offering with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to take it public again and sell shares worth up to USD575 million.
It has not listed details of the number of shares to be sold but the offering is to be underwritten by Goldman Sachs & Co., Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank Securities, Merrill Lynch & Co., Bear Stearns & Co., J.P. Morgan and Wachovia Securities. The company says the proceeds will be used to pay down debts which were around USD1.05 billion at the end of March this year. Citadel currently owns and operates 138 FM and 61 AM stations in 41 US markets.
The filing also referred to the company's perceived gain from hiring its Chairman and CEO Farid Suleman from Infinity Broadcasting/Westwood One (See RNW Feb 22) speaking of a "unique combination of skills and experience" that would be difficult to replace.
The filing revealed that Suleman is being paid USD 1 million a year plus a bonus of up to USD 1 million in stock warrants.
Suleman, who invested around USD 4 million in the company when he took the post, has filed details of a sale of 100,000 Westwood One shares worth USD 4 million around May 15.
Suleman remains a director of Westwood One and was President/CEO of Infinity before he moved to Citadel.
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2002-06-07: Guardian Media Group (GMG) has increased its bid for Jazz FM by GBP3.5 million, or 195 p a share, after a number of institutional shareholders had indicated that would fight the initial offer of 180 p a share.
GMG already had the support shareholders owning a majority of Jazz FM shares (see RNW May 23) but, according to the Guardian newspaper, increased its offer to secure a recommendation of the bid from Jazz FM's board.
The paper says Herald Investments and Aberforth Partners, who both hold over 8% of Jazz FM, were understood to be holding out for more cash than the initial offer.
It also notes that the deal is a success story for Jazz FM chief executive Richard Wheatly who took over the company four years ago when it was valued at GBP 7 million. He said he had already received a number of job offers from other media companies but hoped he could find a place in GMG.
Also in the UK, the Independent newspaper says that EMAP is thought to be considering spinning off its radio assets to create a pure radio company with its own stock market quotation.
It says the value of the business would be around GBP600 million and adds that EMAP is adamant that it will not sell off the radio business.
EMAP holdings include the Kiss and Magic stations in London and Big City an Magic stations in northern England.
A spin-off would benefit Emap because the majority of its business is magazine publishing, which has a slower growth rate than radio.
The separate listing would ease EMAP's problems in acquiring other radio groups under the expected consolidation of British radio when the Communications Bill, which eases ownership restrictions, becomes law.
Previous EMAP:
Previous GMG:
Previous Jazz FM:
Previous Wheatly:
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UK Independent report:

2002-06-07: Rhythm and blues star R Kelly has been taken off the air by WBBM-FM in Chicago following his arrest on child pornography charges although WGCI-FM says it plans to continue to play his music.
Kelly was arrested after a tape was alleged to show him having sex with an under-age girl.
The Chicago Sun-Times, which received a copy of the tape in February and handed it to police, published a poll that had asked if stations should continue to air the music of the star; 56% said no, 36% yes and 8% were undecided.

2002-06-07: Greek former BBC journalist Perry Grambas has told an employment tribunal that, had he not been foreign he would have been given a permanent contract with the Corporation.
Grambas, whose case is the latest to be launched against the corporation (See RNW April 30) is alleging racial discrimination and unfair dismissal .
He had worked for the BBC World Service for seven years when he was told he had to take an exam to get a permanent contract although the Corporation had a policy of automatically giving staff jobs to Britons who had worked for it for five years.
He failed the exam and moved to BBC News and Current Affairs, being fired after two years at a time when his son was being treated for cancer.
Mary Hockaday, editor of the World Service news and current affairs, said they had been sympathetic about his son's health but that editors had felt that he was not someone they could fully depend upon.
The case is continuing.
Previous BBC:

2002-06-06: Boston news/talk public station and US National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate WBUR-FM has lost at least USD1 million in funding and may lose twice as much by the end of its fiscal year on June 30 because of a boycott launched by donors and underwriters who say NPR coverage of the Middle East is biased against Israel according to the latest issue of Current Magazine.
The magazine notes that news media - it cites threatened boycotts of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post but an organised lobby, particularly a pro-Israeli one, is active in most Western countries - are being accused increasingly of biased reporting by "partisans of both sides".
NPR it says has been under attack for months with roughly equal volume from each side until recently when accusations of Anti-Israel bias started to dominate its correspondence but WBUR is the only station known to have suffered a significant financial loss.
The underwriting boycott against WBUR began in October last year by WordsWorth Books in Cambridge, a long time client, and Cognex Corp. in nearby Natick (See RNW Oct 27, 2001).
Hillel Stavis, president of WordsWorth Books, told Current he "took issue with what he saw as a history of factual errors and blind spots in NPR's coverage."
He alleged that reporters quoted Palestinian claims without independent verification but held Israeli claims to a higher standard.
Current notes that Stavis is on the board of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a persistent critic of NPR's coverage for almost a decade.
CAMERA is also urging readers of its web site to put pressure on underwriters to withdraw support of WBUR.
WBUR General Manager Jane Christo told the magazine that over the last month, two underwriters pulled out not because they thought NPR was biased but because clients threatened to withdraw their business if they kept supporting WBUR.
"Underwriters who call me might get a pile of things from a pressure group, with cover letters saying, 'This is documented proof of NPR's bias against Israel.'"
" Lots of times the C.E.O.'s will look at this and go, 'Oh my God!'" Christo said. "If they don't accept it wholeheartedly, they're at least concerned."
She responds by asking listeners where they heard bias, then listening to the story in question with a team of four staffers. If appropriate, the staffers write back with their own critique, sometimes with letters as long as four pages and possibly with a tape or transcript of the story to support their analysis.
"I feel as if I have to do that because I have to be able to stand behind what goes out over my air," Christo said, conceding, "I don't have people that suddenly agree with me."
NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin said he detected no "overwhelming" bias but said critics sometimes hit the mark and that at times NPR's reports should give more context. "We have to be very careful to make sure that we're attentive to these criticisms, and not just dismiss them out of hand because they come from lobby groups," he said.
RNW comment: Without being able to see the whole picture, we cannot reasonably comment on how often NPR gets things wrong. We would, however, suggest to any listeners to NPR and those in Boston in particular that they substitute the words "IRA" for "PLO" and "Britain" for "Israel" in a few recent stories on the Middle East and vice-versa for stories from Northern Ireland from around a decade ago.
Then step back a little and think!.
We would suggest the obvious solution for any reasonable human would be to express support to WBUR and also boycott not only Wordsworth Books and Cognex but also any others who have withdrawn support from WBUR.
From a wider US perspective we would suggest that the political system, which favours the most fanatical and well-financed and organised lobbies, is likely to cause significant long-term damage to the country's interests and that there is no democracy worthy of the name without honest reporting.
We would back WBUR and major news organisations all the way on this one against CAMERA and other pro-Israeli lobbies; Indeed in as far as there is bias, we woudl suggest that in the US is it pro and not anti-Israel.

Previous Christo:
Previous Dvorkin:
Previous NPR:
Previous WBUR-FM:
Current Magazine article:

2002-06-06: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has selected three women as its teamleaders to oversee the revamp of its weekday morning broadcasts on Radio 1; it has also set the date for the changes, originally to have started on September 2.
This has now been amended so that weekday morning shows will run from 0600 to 0900 from September 2 until November 18 and the This Morning show will run as at present from 0900 to noon until October 11.
From October 14 until November 15, This Morning will air from 0900 to 1000; on November 18 weekday morning shows will end half an hour earlier at 0830.
Previous CBC:

2002-06-06: The two US satellite radio companies showed different faces to investors at the Deutsche Bank Securities Media Conference in New York this week.
XM Satellite Radio Chairman Gary Parsons, whose presentation was first, emphasised the broad demographic spread of its subscribers. He said that to the surprise of all there was a fairly even distribution from teenagers through to the middle aged contrary to their expectations that the initial take up would be from affluent early-adopters amongst males 18-34, who have been the big buyers in automobile stereo systems. In fact they found that customers were subscribing for the content and the demographics were consistent from 18 to 55, but then dropped by almost a third in older age groups. The main obstacles to overcome, XM had found, said Parsons was not the subscription fee but the initial cost and hassle of installation.
Some of his message was probably good news for rival Sirius Satellite Radio whose CEO Joe Clayton concentrated on the differences between the Sirius service and that of XM, the absence of commercials on its music channels. He contended that many listeners were sick of commercials and willing to pay for a service without them.
Previous Clayton:
Previous Sirius:
Previous XM:

2002-06-06: BBC Radio 5 Live has bought live radio rights for the Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis world heavyweight fight in Memphis for an undisclosed sum; it says there was no competition for the rights to the bout, which will also be aired on pay TV.
The fight broadcast will start at midnight GMT and the channel will broadcast its breakfast show live from Memphis the next morning (Sunday, May 9) with a highlights programme at 0700 GMT.
Radio Five Live controller Bob Shennan said they were "very happy that we're able to offer listeners free access to the fight, so that they can hear the historic outcome live on air."
Previous BBC:
Previous Shennan:

2002-06-06: Arbitron has released an updated schedule for the development of its Portable People Meter (PPM) plus updated details on its talks with Nielsen Media Research on a joint venture to deploy the new audience measurement system.
Arbitron says its path to commercial deployment is now much clearer following significant progress in development and evaluation of the PPM this year.
It says it will release key TV results for March and radio results for April on June 17 and then, after a July 2 release of May radio and TV estimates, will release reports for July through November each month from early September to early January.
Arbitron also says it hopes to have a joint venture deal with Nielsen completed by the final quarter of this year.
Previous Arbitron:
Previous Arbitron PPM:
Arbitron web site:

2002-06-05: The Deutsche Bank Securities Media Conference this week is providing some interesting reports on plans by the big US radio groups; in particular Clear Channel seems to be considering holding back on acquisitions for the moment, Viacom will go for them in radio and television if the price is right but is not interested in print or cable, and Entercom expects to be on the acquisition trail.
Clear Channel Chief Financial Office Randall Mays told investors at the conference that they weren't contemplating further acquisitions at the moment and added that they hoped that the 12-month waiver given by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on dispositions needed from the Ackerley Group acquisition (See RNW May 31) would mean they wouldn't have to divest after all. He's hoping the rules will be loosened before the 12 months is up but indicated that for tax reasons TV divestments were more likely than radio ones.
Clear Channel Chief Executive Office Lowry Mays raised the question of "payola" and other issues related to the growth of media conglomerates, saying he expected the independent record promotion business to come to an end and welcoming potential legislation. He also commented that actual airtime given to artists by Clear Channel disproved contentions that the company punished them for using competing concert companies.
Mel Karmazin, President and Chief Operations Officer of rival Viacom said he hoped his company would be able to take advantage of further broadcast deregulation and said that it would be interested in broadcast acquisitions if the right opportunities arose.
Entercom Chief Executive Officer David Field confirmed that the company was considering a bid for the concert company of The House of Blues but not other parts of the business but said that many "ifs" and "buts" applied.
He also said he expected further consolidations amongst radio groups and would be disappointed if during the next couple of years Entercom did not end up acquiring at lease one other sizeable radio group.
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2002-06-05: An Arbitron report on Puerto Rican radio listening just published provides not only a look at how the island's population used the medium but possible pointers for other Spanish speaking markets - of the island's population of just over 3.3 million, some three quarters are Spanish speakers.
Nearly 97% of the population above 12 listen to radio, a figures ranging from a low of 90% in women over 65 to a high of 99.2% amongst women 25-34. For men the range is a low of 94.5% amongst men over 65 to a high of 98.3% amongst men 25-34.
The time spent listening figures differed significantly with men aged 45-49 listening most (31 hours 30 mins a week) and males 12-17 least ( 16 hours 30 mins a week); for women the highest figures was 28 hours 45 mins per week for women 55-64 and the lowest 21 hours for the 12-17 group.
For all age groups more time was spent listening amongst those who worked than those who did not and more listening was done at home than elsewhere although the in-vehicle listening was much nearer to the at-home figure on weekdays.
FM listening led AM for all age groups but particularly amongst the 12-17 group (96.9 to 7.6) and least amongst the 45 plus audience (74.4 to 59.2). Amongst formats the most popular overall were Adult contemporary (49.7); Contemporary hit (43); and Spanish tropical/regional (33.7). Least popular was Jazz/Classical (2.0).
There was some regional variation here with San Juan having AC most popular (54.1) ahead of contemporary hit (41.3) but Spanish news/talk least popular (0.3); the East Area showed AC (46.4) only a little ahead of Spanish tropical/regional (46) with Spanish news talk (0:1) and Spanish contemporary (0.)) at the tail end; in all the other areas Adult contemporary ranked first with contemporary hits second but there was more variety (not the format!) at the tail end with Jazz/classical and educational/other at the bottom in the North area; Spanish news talk lowest in the north east area; Jazz/classical and educational/other at the bottom in the south area; and variety bottom in the west area.
In terms of AQH share, more than twice as many men as women listened to Spanish tropical/regional and considerably more women than men to adult contemporary and contemporary hit.
Previous Arbitron:
Arbitron web site: (links to report - 448kb PDF).

2002-06-05: Latest Internet listening figures from MeasureCast show a further 3% rise in listening in the week to May 26: in the rankings Virgin held on to the top station spot with increased listening and Clear Channel to the top network, but in its case with lower listening for the second consecutive week. ESPN came back into the top five stations after dropping down the ranks in the week to February 17.
We also note that Entercom's sport-talk WEEI-AM fell from 18th to 23rd (Entercom has now stopped streaming - see RNW June 1).
For the week to May 26, MeasureCast's top five stations ranked by Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) with previous week's TTSL and Cume persons (CP), a measure of the cumulative audience, in brackets, were:
1: Hot Adult Contemporary Virgin FM - TTSL 403,061 (377, 891); CP 74,379 (68, 835): Same position with higher listening and reach.
2: Jazz format Jazz FM - TTSL 236,862 (232,522); CP 61,414 (64,398): Same position with higher listening but lower reach.
3: Classical format WQXR-FM, New York - TTSL 222,470 (231,085); CP 29,304 (38,565): Same position with lower listening and reach.
4: Classical format King FM - TTSL 129,355 (131,108); CP 22,307 (23,271): Same position with lower listening and reach.
5: Sports talk ESPN - TTSL 92,150: CP 15,733 : Not ranked previous week,
The top five networks for the week (Previous week's figures in brackets) were:
1: Clear Channel Worldwide TTSL 1,378,299 (1,725,281) ; CP 264,462 (272,291). Same position with lower listening and reach.
2: Radio Free Virgin TTSL 801,501 (842,193): CP 166,282 (171,874) - Same position with lower listening and reach.
3: WARP Radio TTSL 735,767 (742,504) hours: CP 123,091 (123,189) - Same position with lower listening and reach.
4: StreamAudio network TTSL 541,981 (587,679) : CP 90,779 (95,215) - same position with lower listening and reach.
5: Virgin Radio TTSL 525,721 (513,754); CP 96,966 (96,064) - Same position with higher listening and reach.
Previous Entercom:
Previous MeasureCast ratings:
MeasureCast web site:

2002-06-04: Either it really is a done deal that Jeremy Vine is to replace Jimmy Young on BBC Radio 2 in January or the UK Guardian is going to have some egg on its face along with the UK Sunday Times, which also reported the decision last month (See RNW May 27).
In its Media Guardian section on June 3, Maggie Brown says the BBC is sticking to the "no contract has been signed" public statement until after Young collects his knighthood on June 27 but adds that Vine's agent confirms that the deal has been done.
To move to the post from his current role on BBC TV's Newsnight news and current affairs programme, Vine will leave the BBC staff and than, says Brown, more than treble his pay with a likely figure of around GBP300, 000 a year with the additional likelihood of additional TV presenting income.
She also says that Vine will gain an audience some five times as large as that for Newsnight and step out from the shadow of other Newsnight presenters ahead of him in the packing order.
Brown says the Jimmy Young production team, have praised Vine's work standing-in for Young, and forecasts that "Vine and team are expected to go into a huddle to rethink the show in the autumn, but are determined not to frighten off regular listeners with startling innovations."
Brown also speculates that the BBC may keep on for another year current BBC Radio 2 programme controller Jim Moir, already at 61 a year over the official BBC retiring age and working on a contract that expires at the end of this year.
She ends however, with a note of caution, writing, "The final question troubling BBC executives and spin doctors must be how to handle the end-of-year handover: will Vine and Young, who so far have never met, collude in a photo-opportunity and provide a happy ending after all? Doubt it."
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2002-06-04: Following last week's look at the issue of streaming royalty payments (See Columnists yesterday), Kurt Hanson in his Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN) on June 3 has done some calculations in relation to the decision by Entercom to drop its streaming.
They make interesting reading: Hanson says the decision to drop the streams was related to the perceived returns from resources put into them and then goes on to calculate a figure of an extra USD750, 000 a year from streaming by Entercom's WEEI-AM in Boston.
Working from Duncan's Radio Market Guide, he calculated that WEEI gets around USD1.5 million a year in revenues for every thousand listeners in the Average Quarter Hour (AQH) figures given by Arbitron.
He then looked at MeasureCast's figures for WEEI streamed some 240,000 hours, thence calculating an AQH of around 480 for the streamed service, figures that would be credited to the station if an Arbitron diary puts down the station, although listening to the stream not tuning in to the terrestrial broadcast. (RNW note: The radio metering systems currently being tested would also credit Internet listeners).
From this, Hanson calculates that the Internet listeners are worth around USD750, 000 a year to WEEI, noting that this does not relate to any special adverts in the online stream and adding that even if the gain in audience is only around 1% it is a gain worth having.
Also concerned with Internet operations, US religious broadcaster Salem Communications through its One-Place.com subsidiary has signed a letter of intent to acquire the internet portal operations of Crosstalk.com for USD 4.1 million.
Crosstalk provides content for the "online Christian community" and Salem President and CEO Ed Atsinger said they the acquisition "by leveraging the operational infrastructure of our existing Internet business" would contribute to cash flow almost immediately and to earnings within the first year of operation. The deal is subject to approval by Salem's Board and Crosstalk's shareholders.
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RAIN web site:

2002-06-04: An interesting sidebar story to the current tension in Kashmir has been published by the Times of India, which looks at the output of All India Radio's Radio Kashmir that it says "counters news from Pakistan by giving statistics to prove the Pakistanis wrong."
It quotes Dr Rafeeq A. Masoodi, Station Director of Radio Kashmir, Srinagar, as saying nearly 85 per cent of Pakistanis listen to his station
The station broadcasts, says the Times of India report, in "Dogri, Kashmiri, Ladhaki, Balti, Gojri, Pahari, English and Urdu (the official language)", adding that "words like encounter, crackdown, informer and ambush form the Universal Vocabulary."
In all, it notes, there are seven operational radio stations in Kashmir- "Srinagar, Jammu and Leh and AIR Kargil, Poonch and Kathua and CBS Srinagar."
Hindi film music, Kashmiri music and drama, it says, form the staple of the commercial service, which Masoodi says has increased its revenues nearly ten-fold over the past six years although the budget has been halved.
(RNW note: With no ratings service or audience metering, we would be a tad sceptical about any figures from either side on this, never mind the figure that are given to "prove the Pakistanis wrong." We'd also be rather concerned about the impact of the current services from either side but rather hope that the listening to international broadcasters such as the World Service and Voice of America has some effect in countering the bias of the local broadcasters.)
Previous Indian Radio report:
Times of India report:

2002-06-03: To start off our look at comments and articles on radio this week, we have opted to widen the scope a little and include online sources as well as traditional print and in particular pay a tribute to Kurt Hanson's Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN) for putting together some details and figures concerning webcasting.
The May 28 issue on the matter looked at the background to the way the US Copyright Arbitration Panel (CARP) went about setting the proposed rates that were recently rejected by the Librarian of Congress (See RNW May 22).
Hanson suggests that had the panel looked only slightly differently at their brief they might have come up with very different proposals. He writes suggesting they "interpreted - or misinterpreted - their assignment as finding the rate that a willing seller and a willing buyer did (rather than "would") agree to, in the U.S., during the time period in question. And at that time, the sellers weren't selling" and goes on to look at the deals that had been agreed elsewhere, in Australia, Canada, and Europe.
RAIN lists courtesy of the Digital Media Association (DIMA- see l,link below) some details of the testimony from Paul William Kempton, a consultant from a UK-based company, that shows that in these areas the general rule has been a lower rate for royalties than has gone to the composers for performing rights.
The CARP panel suggested rates around double those to composers and Hanson quotes Kempton's conclusion: "From my analysis of prevailing headline royalty rates in a number of jurisdictions, I find that the royalty rates for performance of sound recordings are no higher, and indeed, are generally set lower than royalty rates for the musical composition."
"While the differential ranges from country to country, there is consistent pattern of lower sound recording royalty rates throughout the territories analyzed."
A more general view of the Internet streaming situation came in the Chicago Tribune where reporter Raoul V. Mowatt elicited a number of comments from individuals and associations.
One of them, 23-years-old teach Felicia Duran commented on both the absence of commercials and choice available on the Internet. "You can pick and choose what you listen to," she said. "It's pretty convenient."
Another Chicago resident, Josh Wardell, also commented on the choice. "Many times, you'd hear stuff on there that you'd never hear on regular radio," he said. "You have such an expanse of genres. Whatever you want, you can pull it up and listen to it."
Most listeners, says the article, think the recoding industry and artists are being greedy.
"The record industry is trying to shut down streaming audio, and this is one way to do it," said Phil Radtke, a 57-year-old Evanston man. "They're trying to get money wherever they can get it."
Another listener Frank Schoenburg said he didn't see why Internet radio should have to pay more than terrestrial broadcasters and added, over the possibility of either fees or large swathes of adverts, "If they have to pay too much money, they might just shut down."
"Or they might put on even more advertisements. Either way, I don't like it, and I won't listen to it."
However there was a more hopeful note from Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said, "I remain confident that we can find creative solutions to enable Webcasting to thrive while providing recording artists and those who invest in sound recordings a fair and equitable royalty in return."
In another article looking at published data, this time concerning terrestrial broadcasting, Kevin Downey of Medialife looks at the winter data just released by Arbitron in a report headed, "Radio's relentless slippage in ratings".
"Radio ratings are on the decline," he writes, "and the reason has little to do with a falloff in listening since the Sept. 11 attacks caused a surge in all media audiences."
He notes that ratings in almost all demographic groups were sliding years before September 11 and continues, "The reason has far more to do with a proliferation of media choices, which have splintered all media audiences, and a recalculation of the population resulting from the 2000 Census."
Some of the key figures he lists from the Arbitron data are an overall 2% fall over 2001 in AQH (average quarter hour listening) although the audience actually went up by 3% because of an increase in the US population. People are not only listening for less time but, Downey notes, ratings dropped 2.7% for morning drive and only 1.6% in afternoon drive
(RNW note - We'd liked to have seen here if there are any figures that would indicate changing habits amongst Americans: Do they go to work earlier or work later and so on? This would obviously affect in-vehicle listening but so would CD players in autos but there would not, we would suggest, be much effect from changes n visual media, be it TV or the Internet).
He also notes that some formats have show ratings gains, most significantly Spanish radio whose morning drive ratings gained almost 7% over a year
RNW Note -Back to other influences such as demographic change. For anyone who wants more detail, MediaLife's article includes the Arbitron date and it is also available from Arbitron's site -see links below.
Add: Some other notes from the published date are that the only demographics in which AQH rating did not fall was the 45-49 years old group and boys from 12-17; These groups showed no change while every other group showed a fall ranging up to 4.2% for girls from 12-17 and 4.1% for the 25-34 age group.
There was also a greater fall of 2% among women (18 plus) than men, where the fall was 1.2%.
In format terms:
*Morning Drive's largest gains were those of Urban (Up 11% but within this Urban A/C was up 15.4% and Oldies down 33.3%); Alternative (up 8%); and Spanish (Up 6.7% but within this Mexican Regional was up 13.8%, Spanish News down 11.1%).
*Largest falls were of Children's (Listed as down 100% with no 2002 AQH rating); Adult Standards (Down 23.1% with a 40% fall in nostalgia); and Classical music (Down 15.4% -RNW note - the number of terrestrial classical stations keeps falling but classical station listening is high on the Internet: We will be interested to eventually see what the situation is on the satellite radio stations)
*For Afternoon drive, the largest gains were those of Alternative (Up 14.3%); Urban (Up 12.8%) and Spanish (Up 8.3% with Mexican Regional and Spanish variety each up 20% but News down 14.3%).
*Largest Afternoon Drive falls, apart from Children's and Rhythm and Blues each of which dropped out), were Adult Standards (Down 28.6%(, Oldies (Down 12.2%) and Classical (Down 11.8%).

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Previous Columnists:
Previous DIMA:
Previous RIAA:
Previous Sherman:
Arbitron web site:
DIMA web site on CARP:
Chicago Tribune - Mowatt:
Medialife - Downey on Arbitron trends:
RAIN web site:

2002-06-03: Sirius Satellite Radio is now available in 37 US states and says it is on course for a nationwide service by the start of July. It activated its service in nine more states plus Washington DC over the weekend.
Meanwhile rival XM has filed documentation for a sale by the Baron Asset Fund of 97300 Class A common stock valued at just under USD900, 000
Previous Sirius:
Previous XM:

2002-06-02: Last week was fairly quiet on the licence front apart from the UK although in scale the main decision came from the US where what will probably be the biggest deal in a year, the USD800 million take over of Ackerley by Clear Channel, was given the go-ahead.
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has invited applications for new community licences for two areas. They are for three licences for the Gosford area of New South Wales and two for the Nambour area of Queensland.
Canada was quiet on the radio front as was the Republic of Ireland but in the UK, the Radio Authority issued a plethora of reports as well as giving details of a number of licensing activities.
They included the publication of its Programming & Advertising Review for first quarter of 2002 (See RNW May 30) and also its Annual Report for 2001 (although the latter was not on its website before the weekend, despite indications to the contrary on the site - it will turn up but in the meantime they will make it available to those interested but in its current form it is 35Mb).
The report, says the Authority's news release highlights the growth in digital radio in the UK, where more than 200 stations are already operating and where a new digital multiplex is approved at a rate of one a month.
It also notes continued demand for analogue licences, for Restricted Service Licences and for its new Access Radio licences in connection with which it has issued 15 pilot licences.
Seven new commercial analogue licences were issued during the year to take the UK total to 255 at year end (15 local licences were re-awarded during the year and a further 42 renewed) and in addition thirteen new digital multiplex licences were awarded, taking the UK total to 33.
During the year, the Authority says it considered 439 complaints, compared to 537 in 2000; of these it upheld 78. It imposed two fines, one of GBP10, 000 on Sunrise Radio for a breach of the Broadcasting Act in carrying an interview with its owner in advance of his standing for a parliamentary seat in the UK General Election (See RNW June 13, 2001) and another of GBP1, 000 on Rock FM, Dumbarton, for signal over-deviation (See Licence News Sept 16, 2001).
The Authority has also invited comments on its draft AM waveband strategy, jus published. The key proposals are:
*a more sympathetic consideration of requests for format changes in areas that have a broad service on FM, with particular favour for changes that would bring a service to audiences that are currently under-served.
*Retention of the current requirement for four hours a day of locally produced and presented programming where AM stations are part-networked. The Authority notes that full networking would allow creation of a national broadcaster without going through the cash-bid Independent National Radio licensing procedure.
*A possible new phase of local AM licensing although this would be at the expense of some current FM licensing plans.
*Consideration of the use of the AM band for Access Radio; three of the current Access Radio experimental stations are on AM.
On the licensing front, the Authority has received six applications for the new Barnsley FM licence in South Yorkshire.
They are from:
*Dearne FM Ltd.- proposing a local news plus music format.
*Locke FM (Radio Barnsley Ltd.) - proposing a community-based service of pop music plus news and information.
*Oakwell FM Ltd. - proposing a service of local news and information plus music from the 60s onwards.
*FM 102 The Point (Cottage Broadcasting Ltd.) - proposing a service of music of the past four decades plus news and information for the area.
*Select FM (Barnsley Fm Ltd.) - proposing a full service station aimed at a 25 plus audience with music from the 60s onwards plus local news, sport, and information.
*Tyke FM Radio Ltd. - proposing a wide variety of music plus speech and news.
The Authority has also advertised a new FM licence for Yeovil in Somerset and published its assessment of the award of the Mid Ulster FM licence to Mid FM Ltd against competition from Mid Ulster Broadcasting Ltd. (For details see Licence News, December 16, 2001).
In its assessment the Authority says members felt the involvement of an existing licence holder Belfast City Beat Ltd would provide valuable expertise and operational support in an area that had previously proved a challenging market; the group evolved from a local committee, Mid-Ulster Media Services, which was set up to secure a new licence for the area after the failure of the previous licensed service in 1999.
"In Members' view," says the Authority, "Mid FM's business plan, whilst ambitious, was well-considered and provided the sustained marketing budget which would be helpful in establishing and maintaining the service."
It also noted that the service would broaden choice and continued, "In view of Mid FM's realistic staffing plan, and its intention to share resources with the City Beat newsroom, Members were confident that the group would have the capability to deliver its proposals for news and speech programming."
Also in the UK, the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC) issued its latest Bulletin (See RNW June 1) and the RadioCommunications Agency noted the conviction of a Lancashire pirate in its first case involving broadcasting from an Internet link. The pirate involved had been broadcasting as "Dodgy FM" in Chorley and when the source was traced it was found that the station comprised a computer receiving through the Internet that was linked to transmission equipment. The offender was given a 12-month condition discharge but also had his equipment confiscated and was ordered to pay GBP100 in costs.
In the US, a Puerto Rican pirate station suffered a similar fate. In this case the offender had been issued with notices from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)directing him to stop operating the station in Jayuya but continued to transmit. US Marshals and the FCC's San Juan office working together seized the broadcasting equipment. Also in the US, as we reported at the end of last month (See RNW May 31), the FCC has allowed Clear Channel to take over the Ackerley Group subject to disposal of some stations to comply with radio and TV cross ownership regulations. It gave Clear Channel a 12-month waiver to allow it time for the disposals.
Previous ABA:

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ABA web site:

FCC web site :
UK Radio Authority web site:

UK Radiocommunications Agency web site:

2002-06-02: Infinity's syndicated duos Washington-based Don and Mike (Don Geronimo and Mike O'Meara) and New York- based Opie and Anthony (Gregg Hughes and Anthony Cumia) were back live on Friday but according to the Washington Post Don and Mike, although refusing comment,did not exactly let matters lie.
The two shows were airing "best-offs" for most of last week after the hosts' bad-mouthing of each others shows on air.
Don and Mike spent their show
playing music that the paper described as "with a musical tribute to the recent unpleasantness." The selection included "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "Back Stabbers," "(I Hate) Everything About You," and "We Didn't Start The Fire."
The duo also gave away muzzles, duct tap and handcuffs. "It's our way of saying, 'Thank you for listening,' " Don Geronimo said on air.
Opie and Anthony meanwhile denied reports that they had been suspended.
FMQB reports that Opie said it was the death of his grandmother that had kept the show off air, adding, ". "We will never be suspended for talking about an inferior radio show. I wasn't here Friday because I was in a hospital watching my grandmother die."
FMQB also reports that an Infinity spokesman confirmed that Opie and Anthony were not suspended but proffered no comment when asked if Don and Mike had been suspended.
Previous Don and Mike:
Previous Opie and Anthony:
Previous Viacom-CBS-Infinity:
FMQB web site:

2002-06-02: Starting on Monday (June 3), US National Public Radio (NPR) is to start airing a series of documentaries of concerning the neighbourhood that housed the World Trade Center. The 12-minute reports gathered through Lost and Found Sound's Sonic Memorial Project will air on its All Things Considered show.
The initial impetus for the project came after the September 11 attacks when Lost and Found Sound's producers set up the project to collect audio for a memorial of the World Trade Centre and it was initially a group of radio independents working with NPR and public station WNYC but expanded to encompass New York-based artists and journalists from other media.
One initial impetus was to collect and preserve voicemail messages from the World Trade Centre that had been recorded by the communications company Verizon and both NPR and WNYC also asked listeners to share "sonic artefacts" through a voice mailbox established at NPR or by calling into Brian Lehrer's WNYC show, On the Line.
The series covers the history of the area and the first documentary rediscovers "radio row," a neighbourhood of radio and electronic gadget stores that was destroyed to make way for construction of the World Trade Center. Producers found one of the shopkeepers and a treasure trove of documents detailing angry court battles and neighbourhood resistance to the construction.
Other reports include one on the Mohawk Indian ironworkers who worked on constructing the upper stories of the World Trade Center and another on the "building stewardesses" - mini-skirted young women who were hired to popularise the twin towers amongst New Yorkers in the late 1960s
Previous NPR:
NPR web site:

2002-06-02: UTV has now pinpointed a number of radio stations in the Irish Republic that it wants to acquire according to the Irish Times. The paper quoted UTV managing director John McCann as saying it had "specific radio assets" in mind although he would not identify them or put any timeframe on the deals. He also said UTV would not rule out other media acquisitions such as newspapers.
UTV already owns Cork-based County Media (See RNW Nov 24, 2000) and has concluded a deal to acquire Limerick-based Treaty Radio for Euro 15.74 million subject to regulatory approval (See RNW April 9).
UTV is also moving to enter radio in the UK through membership of a new consortium, Absolute Radio UK, which is among the 15 applicants for the new East Midlands licence and is to bid for other licences including the new West Midlands regional licence.
Previous UTV:
Irish Times report:

2002-06-01: Entercom has stopped streaming its radio stations online because of the continuing uncertainties concerning Internet streaming royalty charges and other issues. In a notice posted on its Buffalo Kiss 98.5 web site, it says that "due to many factors" it has "had to make the difficult decision to no longer provide a streaming service online for all of its 101 nationwide radio stations."
It adds that there many and complex legal issues surrounding streaming and continues, "As we all move into this new digital age we have to collectively figure out the new rules so that artists, record labels and the industry that supports them, Radio, can all win."
"That solution, " it says, "has not been found yet… Entercom Communications Corporation, Kiss 98.5 as well as all the other broadcasting corporations in America have down everything they could in this matter."
"Unfortunately, United States politicians and the artist & record labels have not compromised one bit. We plan to continue streaming as soon as it is feasibly possible, but that will not happen until a fair agreement is reach. Until then, we are extremely sorry for the inconvenience."
Previous Entercom:
Entercom announcement on Buffalo site:

2002-06-01: UK online bookmaker UKBetting is to take over TeamTalk, the UK sports radio and Internet company, in an agreed GBP13.7 million deal. The new owners, whose GBP10.2 million offer for TeamTalk was rebuffed last month (See RNW May 14). will use the acquisition to push users towards its betting arm.
It used the same tactics a tactic it operated with earlier purchases of two dotcom companies, Sportal (once valued at more than GBP250 million) and Sportinglife.
It says that it will review what to do with TeamTalk 252, the AM sports operation on the former Atlantic 252 frequency; it is expected to make further staff cuts at TeamTalk, which announced some 70 job losses last week.
UK Betting may get a significant boost from the collapse of Sports.com, the last large standalone Internet sports company in the UK. Sports.com, which was expecting a significant boost from the soccer World Cup, was put into liquidation on Friday afternoon after a major backer pulled out. It will stay in operation until the end of the World Cup to handle bets that have been placed on the site, but will then be closed unless a rescuer is found. Around 150 jobs are likely to go.
Sports.com, as well as operating its own site, provides services for a number of other companies including AOL.
Previous TeamTalk:

2002-06-01: Infinity Broadcasting has taken the two morning stars of its WBBM-FM off the air, setting the stage for what Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times says may turn out to be "the biggest Chicago radio talent raid in years."
Eddie and Jobi -- Ed Volkman and Joe Bohannon - are being kept of the station indefinitely because of what management terms a "contract dispute" reports Feder, adding that their agent says there is no dispute and they are willing to honour their current contract, which runs until the end of the year.
Feder says WBBM vice president and general manager Don Marion refused to talk about his action but insiders said the idea was to push to pair into signing early renewals with the station or alternatively cut their market value by keeping them off the air.
Feder says that Clear Channel would be happy to hire them at its rival, and struggling, contemporary-hits station Kiss FM.
He quotes John Gehron, vice president and general manager of Kiss and regional vice president of Clear Channel's Chicago group (RNW note - formerly an SVP with Infinity) , as saying, "We would love to have them at our radio station. We are definitely interested in making them an offer."
The duo's agent, attorney Steve Mandell said "Eddie and Jobo are keeping their options open. It is evident that other stations are aware of their success, and no one should be surprised when those stations step up to the plate."
Feder comments that Infinity's hardball tactic could backfire and adds that the pair, whose show tied for fifth place in their time spot in the latest Chicago ratings, "are virtually certain to wind up in the seven-figure salary stratosphere.
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous Feder:
Previous Gehron:
Previous Viacom-CBS-Infinity:
Chicago Sun-Times - Feder column:

2002-06-01: Two complaints against British radio, one concerning racist content and the other sexual innuendo, were upheld by British Broadcasting watchdog, the Broadcasting Standards Commission, in its latest bulletin just issued.
In all the Commission lists 138 complaints compared to 75 in April, although no statements were required from broadcasters in 99 cases compared to a corresponding figure of 64 in April.
There were seven complaints regarding fairness (five in April), all against TV (April was three TV, one radio of which the radio one was upheld and the TV one upheld in part), one of which was upheld.
In all, statements were required in 32 cases concerning standards and a total of two radio complaints (same as April,) and five TV (three) were upheld; another two cases involving radio were resolved.
The complaints upheld against radio involved BBC Radio Leeds and Virgin. The former related to its Kick of with Kellner programme broadcast on January 7 when its "Top Ten to …" segment, following a news report that led with a complaint by the chairman of the Leeds United Supporters Club that he had been beaten by police and bitten by a police dog in Cardiff, constructed a list of "Top Ten reasons to resent the Welsh."
The list was self-evidently tongue-in cheek and the broadcaster said it appreciated sensitivities but did not accept that the Welsh or any other of the UK nations could never be the subject of humour.
The Commission held that "the attempt to deflate tempers in this way, so soon after the post-match violence, was ill advised." And upheld the complaint.
The complaint concerning Virgin related to a January broadcast of Steve Penk's breakfast show that had included an "adult take" on the Lords Prayer that a listener said included inappropriate sexual content. Virgin said the item had "had not been out of context with the presenter's style in a programme that catered for a slightly older audience."
The Commission, however, held that "notwithstanding the nature of the programme's audience and this presenter's well-known approach and style, the distinct sexual innuendo had exceeded acceptable boundaries for transmission at the time of day." It upheld the complaint.
The resolved complaints both involved Virgin Radio, one an edition of Jon Holmes late evening show and another Steve Penk's breakfast show.
The Holmes' complaint related to a listener complaining that Holmes mocked a caller who was in a psychiatric hospital. Virgin responded by apologising and saying that Holmes, an alternative comedian, had been hired to develop a unique show but, although guidelines had been made clear, things had not worked as planned and his contract had been terminated.
In the case of Steve Penk the complaint was about offensive language and sexually explicit jokes when children might be listening. Virgin apologised, said that they did not think there would have been offence to the majority of listeners and added that the joke competition involved was no longer run and the presenter had left the station.
Previous BSC/BSC Complaints Bulletin:
Previous Penk:
BSC web site (Note: This is a 'Flash' site: It links to the report in PDF format- 126 kb):

2002-06-01: Gary Roberts, Managing Director of Austereo's Perth stations MIX 94.5 and 92.9, is to leave the position when his contract ends at the end of this month. He has headed the stations for ten years, the last five with Austereo.
Paying tribute to him, Austereo Group Managing Director Brad March said, "Gary has been a great contributor to our success in Perth and we support him in his decision to leave and pursue other interests."
Previous Austereo:
Previous March:

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