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May 2004 Personalities:
Jenny Abramsky - BBC Director of Radio and Music; Jonathan S. Adelstein - (2) - Democrat US Federal Communications Commissioner; Raúl Alarcón - Chairman/CEO, Spanish Broadcasting System (US); Michael Anderson - CEO , Austereo; Edward G. Atsinger III - President and CEO, Salem Communications, US; George Balcan - veteran Montreal radio host (deceased); George G. Beasley - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Beasley Broadcasting, US; Sally De La Bedoyere - Managing director, UK radio ratings organization RAJAR; Tony Bell - managing director, Southern Cross Broadcasting Australia; Ralph Bernard - executive chairman and former chief executive UK radio group GWR; Gay Byrne -Irish Broadcaster; Wes Butters - BBC Radio 1 "Chart Show" host; Nicky Campbell - BBC Radio 5 breakfast show co-host; Chris Campling - UK Times radio columnist; Mike Carlton - Sydney 2UE breakfast host; Joseph P Clayton - (3) - President and CEO, Sirius (Satellite Radio) (US); Evan Cohen - former chairman, Air America Radio (resigned) ; Simon Cole - chief executive, UBC Media, UK; Jonathan (Jono) Coleman - (2) - Breakfast co-host on Heart FM, London; Roe Conn - (3) - Chicago WLS-AM afternoon host; Alistair Cooke- (late) journalist and BBC broadcaster; Robert T. Coonrod - President and CEO, Corporation for Public Broadcasting(CPB), US; Michael J. Copps - (2) - Democrat US Federal Communications Commissioner; Sara Cox -(3) - BBC Radio 1 drive time host; Anthony Cumia - Anthony of US Opie and Anthony show - cancelled August 2002; Gavyn Davies - former BBC chairman; John W. Dickey -Executive Vice President of Cumulus Media, US; Lewis W. Dickey Jr. - chairman, president, and Chief Executive Officer, Cumulus Media, US; Steven Dinetz - President and CEO, NextMedia (US); Paul Donovan - U.K. Sunday Times radio columnist; Eamon Dunphy - former Today FM (Ireland), host; Greg Dyke - (2) - former BBC Director-General; Bob Edwards - US National Public Radio senior correspondent and former host of 'Morning Edition' on (last show April 2004); Robert Feder - (3) - Chicago Sun-Times media columnist; David J. Field - President and CEO Entercom, US; Marc Fisher - (2) - Washington Post reporter; Richard Findlay - Chief Executive Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH)- to retire from post September 2004; Andrew Flanagan - (2) - chief executive SMG(former Scottish Media Group); Prof. David Flint --(4) - chairman, Australian Broadcasting Authority; Shelagh Fogarty - BBC Radio Five Live host; Neil Fox (Dr Fox) - UK Capital FM host and Hit 40 chart show host; Gary Fries - President and CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau, US; David Goode - chief executive designate, Scottish Radio Holdings; Mark Goodier - (2) - former BBC Radio 1 DJ; Lord Gordon of Strathblane - chairman, Scottish Radio Holdings; Ralph Guild - Chairman and CEO, Interep, US Ray Hadley -2GB, Sydney, morning host; Carl E. Hirsch - Executive Chairman, NextMedia, US; Sue Howard - Director of Radio. ABC, Australia; ); Gregg Hughes - Opie of US Opie and Anthony show- cancelled August 2002; Richard Huntingford - chief-executive, Chrysalis Group, UK; Paul Jackson - programme director, Virgin Radio, UK; Terry Jacobs -Chairman and CEO, Regent Communications, US; Alan Jones - (4) - Sydney 2GB breakfast host; Zemira Jones - president and general manager, WLS-AM, Chicago; Andy Kershaw - British disc jockey; Jason King - JK of UK JK and Joel duo; Steve Lamacq- BBC Radio DJ; John Laws - (2) - Sydney 2UE morning host; Rush Limbaugh - (2) - Conservative US talk-show host; Alfred C. Liggins III - president and chief executive, Radio1 Inc (US); Kelvin MacKenzie - -chairman and chief executive of U.K. Wireless Group which owns TalkSport; David Mansfield - (2) - chief executive Capital Radio, UK; Kevin Marsh - Editor, BBC Radio 4 "Today" breakfast show; Kevin J. Martin - Republican US FCC Commissioner; Lowry Mays - Chairman and Chief Executive,Clear Channel, US; Mark Mays - (2) Interim CEO and President and Chief Operating Officer, Clear Channel, US; Randall Mays -executive vice president and chief financial officer, Clear Channel (US); Douglas McArthur - chief executive of the UK Radio Advertising Bureau; William McEntee - CFO, Interep; Garry Meier - (3) - former Chicago WLS-AM afternoon co-host (taken off air Jan 2004 after contract talks stalled); Stephen Mitchell - BBC head of radio news; Tom Moloney -Chief Executive, Emap plc, UK; Chris Moyles -(6) - BBC Radio1 breakfast host; Christian O'Connell - (3) - London Xfm breakfast show host; Hugh Panero - president and CEO, XM Satellite Radio; Andy Parfitt - (2) - BBC Radio 1 Controller; John Peel - (2) - British broadcaster;; A. Jerrold Perenchio - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Univision (US); Michael K. Powell - Chairman, US Federal Communications Commission; Steve Price - Sydney 2UE drive time host; Mark Radcliffe - BBC DJ; Marc Riley -BBC DJ; Jonathan Ross - British broadcaster; Joel Ross - Joel of UK JK & Joel duo: Richard Sambrook - BBC Director of News; Tim Schoonmaker - former chief executive of UK EMAP Performance- to head Odeon cinema chain; Harriet Scott - UK Heart FM breakfast co-host; Jon Sinton - (3) - president, Air America radio network, US; Howard Stern - (3) - US shock jock; Chris Tarrant - former UK Capital Radio breakfast show presenter; Patrick Taylor -former chief executive GWR, UK, (left July 2003) Markus Tellenbach - CEO, SBS Broadcasting, SA; Mark Thompson - BBC Director General; Paul Thompson - chief executive, DMG Radio Australia; McHenry Tichenor Jr - President Univision Radio Walter F. Ulloa - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Entravision(US); Johnny Vaughan - (2) - Breakfast host for Capital FM, London and former BBC Radio 5 host; Johnnie Walker - veteran British DJ; Mark Walsh -- former CEO of Progress Media, parent of Air America, "liberal" US talk network; Joan Warner - (3) - CEO, industry body Commercial Radio Australia; Richard Wheatly - former chief executive, Jazz FM, UK, now heading The Local Radio Company: Terry Wogan - BBC Radio 2 breakfast host; Roger Wright - Controller BBC Radio 3; Chris Wright - chairman and co-founder Chrysalis Group, UK;
Numbers in brackets indicate the number of stories involving an individual mentioned more than once

May 2004 Archive

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April 2004 -June 2004
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.
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RNW May comment - Looks at how radio as an aural medium is progressing as technological change opens new ways to listen and new competition.
RNW April comment - Considers the basis on which any indecency regulation should be based: We conclude that the FCC is behaving shamefully at the moment in terms of the manner in which it lays down the rules, in which it enforces them, and is effectively changing the goal posts during the game.
RNW March comment - More US moralizing - does the country really want to step back in time? We look back at a previous time of mass moralizing in the US and UK.

2004-05-31: Yet again much of the coverage relating to radio last week in the US stemmed from two running stories - the politics of broadcast indecency rules and the politics of Iraq with Rush Limbaugh again coming under attack for his comments about the treatment of detainees and also facing a call for him to be removed from the American Forces Radio and Television Service.
The former two did not add much to previous cover but the last was a new move; it came from Media Matters for America, the organization run by former right-winger David Brock.
Brock wrote to the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asking him to consider removing radio host Rush Limbaugh from the American Forces Radio and Television Service.
Limbaugh's show us currently aired for an hour a day on the radio service and Brock in his letter says he "has spent the past four weeks condoning and trivializing the abuse, torture, rape and possible murder of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. guards at the Abu Ghraib prison-gross misconduct that you have described as 'fundamentally un-American.'"
…." It is abhorrent that the American taxpayer is paying to broadcast what is in effect pro-torture propaganda to American troops. I ask you to consider removing Mr. Limbaugh from the radio network to protect our troops from these reckless and dangerous messages."
"Both you and President Bush have rightly denounced the acts that took place at Abu Ghraib -- but American service men and women abroad are getting the wrong message when the Department of Defense simultaneously broadcasts Mr. Limbaugh's condoning of what you have called "fundamentally un-American" acts. Mr. Limbaugh's comments directly contradict orders issued by the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq-which, according to the Washington Post, bar 'military interrogators from using the most coercive techniques available to them in the past' -- thus undermining the military's chain of command. The comments may also inflame anti-American sentiment abroad, putting our service men and women at risk."
…" I look forward to your response and hope the Department of Defense will send a clear signal to our troops that it does not sanction Mr. Limbaugh's remarks."
The matter of Limbaugh's broadcast was also taken up by Eric Boehlert in Salon in an article whose general tenor is clear from the title "Rush's forced conscripts."
After noting some of Limbaugh's comments, he says the host's "increasingly bizarre comments" have "forced a long-simmering question into the open: Why does Limbaugh's program, as the only hour-long, partisan political talk show broadcast daily to U.S. troops, enjoy exclusive access to American Forces Radio -- and American troops in Iraq?"
Boehlert quotes Tom Athans, executive director of non-profit Democracy Radio, as saying the US government should try harder to "give a fair and balanced representation of political viewpoints on its airwaves" and notes that according to the Department of Defense's own broadcasting guidelines, 'All political programming shall be characterized by its fairness and balance,' and 'equal opportunities' for 'balance' are especially important 'during presidential election years.'"
He then quotes Melvin Russell, director of American Forces Radio and Television Services as saying the Limbaugh show is on the network only because of ratings.
"We look at the most popular shows broadcast here in the United States and try to mirror that. [Limbaugh] is the No. 1 talk show host in the States; there's no question about that. Because of that we provide him on our service," said Russell, who added that if a syndicated liberal host can draw big enough ratings the service would try and find a spot on the schedule.
"I'm hoping, if Air America takes off and someone on that show reaches the same level of audience Rush does, we could look to add them to the service. But there's nobody on the liberal side that compares to his ratings."
Russell also pointed to the broadcast of National Public Radio programs as an example of balance but others disagreed pointing to NPR output as straight reporting compared to the partisanship of Limbaugh.
Ron Schlundt, chairman of Democrats Abroad in Germany, noted repeated complaints had received the response, "You just don't like him because he's conservative" to which his reply was, "No, my objection is that he's so partisan and that it's not appropriate on a government radio station to have somebody saying 'We Republicans" five hours a week and not have anyone saying 'I'm a Democrat" five hours a week.'"
From the National Review came a more conservative take on the matter that pointed to broadcasts on AFRTS of NPR commentaries and "liberal host" Diane Rehm's talk show as well as other material such as commentaries by Jim Hightower and Dan Rather and continued that "Viewed as a whole, the list of names suggests that military listeners, if they want to hear a variety of views, can do so on American Forces Radio."
"But according to those who design its programming, the point of American Forces Radio is not to provide some sort of perfect ideological balance but rather to give military men and women a representative sample of the programming they could hear at home."
It suggested, "For now, people on military bases with access to the Internet can listen to Air America on the web - just like they would at home" and concluded, "The critics' real argument, it seems, is not so much with American Forces Radio, and the way it makes its programming decisions, as it is with Limbaugh himself. And that is nothing new."
RNW comment: There seem to be two distinct points intermingled here.
One is Limbaugh's popularity and obviously if US-wide ratings are the guide, then Limbaugh will remain alone for a long while but we noted from a
John Cook report in the Chicago Tribune that in the latest ratings in New York Al Franken on Air America beat Limbaugh amongst the 18-34 and 25-54 demographics- WLIB-AM, which carries Air America has a 3.4 to 3.1 lead over WABC-AM, which carries Limbaugh, in the 25-54 demographic and a massive 2.9 to 0.4 lead amongst the 18-34 year olds.
On this basis and presuming that most of the active military are in the latter age group there could be a case for a test run and poll amongst soldiers to see which they would want to retain or whether they'd like both alternating.
The second is the nature of Limbaugh's comments and in particular his bias and partisan nature as far as US politics are concerned and, more to the point in the current climate, the nature of his comments about the treatment of prisoners.
If nothing else, it seems to us that the shows should probably carry a notice before each broadcast disassociating the Armed Forces network from Limbaugh's views about maltreatment of prisoners and that if the top brass means what it says probably ought to have carried some public disassociation comment from the highest level albeit maybe more in the form of commentary on what US military rules or policy are with specific mention of how seriously breaches are taken than a straight condemnation of Limbaugh as a moral leper.

Over to Cleveland now for an attack, worthy of Limbaugh, but on a Clear Channel executive: It cane from John Gorman in the Cleveland Free Times in an article whose tone was set by the first couple of sentences.
"Welcome to WTAM, a station that's governed by lies, deception and an alternate reality. The boss hog warlord at WTAM is L. Kevin Metheny, who also oversees all Clear Channel radio station programming throughout Northern Ohio."
Gorman notes that it was Metheny whose name was changed in the 1997 Private Parts movie to Kenny Rushton but who was given by Howard Stern the nickname "Pig Vomit."
The reason for the article it turns out is a practice that the station has, according to Gorman, of taking interviews carried out by other Clear Channel stations and through voice tracking recycling them as the station's own.
And the evidence/ "Take that recent faux interview with Sen. John McCain. The alleged live interview with McCain was revealed as a fake when someone hit the wrong button and, in response to closing comments to Sen. McCain, we heard a woman from another Clear Channel station saying, "It's a beautiful, sunny morning..." followed by an embarrassing silence. Too much fast-forward, Kevin?
Gorman comments that what is being done is not illegal or breaching rules but we think he has a point in his sentence, "It's bad enough that we have to endure the occasional Milwaukee or West Virginia Clear Channel call letters on a WTAM newscast when an engineer runs the wrong feed, but Kevin, the sham has gone too far."
After the depressing, a story from the Washington Post of overcoming a disability without a whinge in sight. Written by Jennifer Frey it was about Diana Hollander, a host at Bonneville International's Washington, D.C., classical station WGMS-FM.
Hollander's epileptic seizures became so frequent that in October 2001 she lost her job as the midday host at the station and became a recluse in her home, afraid to go out and unable to drive.
Because she did not want her condition made public, the station had to take care in explaining to callers why she had left.
She regained part of her confidence when she was hired at a store despite making her condition clear and then a few months later WGMS program director Jim Allison called to suggest she talk to new general manager Joel Oxley about ways to improve the station.
He thought she was recovering and, with Oxley's approval, asked if she felt up to doing some voice work for WGMS.
It began with taping promotional spots and public service announcements and the station installed a makeshift studio in her home so she could tape shows - she became host of a regular recorded evening show - without deadline pressures that could trigger seizures.
Over the past month she has done half the shows "live" for practice and next month she will be back live.
"I don't know what to say about management," she says. "This just goes to show that there are people out there who care about their employees. They made all of this possible. They called and asked me if I wanted to come back. They came and laid in all this equipment so I could feel safe and do the show."
On to programming and a surprisingly engaging BBC Radio 4 offering last week in the third of the Routemasters series that looks at common features of the road system; Last week's offering (Still available on the Listen Again feature of the web site) was about lines on the road.
It included the tale of Dr June McCarroll who, in 1917 in the Cochelo valley in California, got tired of treating accident victims and of other drivers hogging the middle of the road so went and painted a white line down the middle of the road outside her home. In 1924 she, with the help of the Indio Women's Club and the California Federation of Women's Clubs, convinced the California Highway Commission in 1924 to adopt the policy of painting stripes on roadways. The programme this week - 08:30 GMT tomorrow - is about pedestrian crossings.
Moving across to Ireland, tonight sees the start on RTÈ Radio 1 of a six part series, "The State We Are In: A State Beyond Religion? " that looks the consequences for Irish society of the decline in power of the Catholic Church in the country. The first programme -'The Way We Were' - at 1900 GMT tonight looks at and looks back at the extent of the Catholic Church's power and influence in the last century.
Back to the UK and last Saturday saw the first of a two-part Radio 1 Series "Second Summer Of Love" presented by Zoë Ball looking at the "Acid House" revolution. The second half is next Saturday at 20:00 GMT and the first programme is available on the web site.
And to Radio 4 again and this week's Book of the Week is "Countdown to D-Day", a week of readings from some of the major figures of the time -- Field Marshal Erwin Rommel , Field Marshal Montgomery, Général de Gaulle, General Omar Bradley, Churchill and King George VI. It's daily at 08:45 GMT and again available after then via the web site.
And finally for classical lovers, the Composer of the Week this week on BBC Radio 3 is Briton Judith Weir. Daily at 11:00 GMT and then available via the web site.
Previous Columnists:
Chicago Tribune - Cook:
Cleveland Free Times - Gorman:
Media Matters for America - letter to Rumsfeld:
National Review - report re letter to Rumsfeld:
Salon - Boehlert:
RTÈ Radio 1 - A State Beyond Religion?
Washington Post - Frey:

2004-05-31: In another sign of the times - and one that may well benefit some UK radio companies - Chrysalis (See RNW Mar 16) and GWR (See RNW Mar 3) are already involved in download services to mobiles - Britain now has an official "Ring Tone Chart" compiled by KPMG from information from six of the UK's largest ring tone providers.
Ring tone providers have been providing their own lists of top tones for some time and already sales of ring tones have surpassed in value those of singles in the UK - around GBP 70 million (USD 128 million) last year compared to GBP 63 million (USD 115 million) for singles sales - a pattern that is building in Europe as a whole.
The most popular tones are a mix of pop hits -- Beyoncé Knowles has sold more than half a million ring-tones of each of her last two releases in the UK - and theme tunes from film and TV such as Mission Impossible and The Simpsons - and trade has been boosted by the capability of new phones to set different tunes for different callers in a phone's list.
The initiative to set up the chart was announced in January this year at MIDEM in Cannes and The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) UK Ringtones Top Twenty is to be announced fortnightly from today in the music industry's trade magazine Music Week.
Ralph Simon, Chair, Mobile Entertainment Forum Americas, said the chart fulfilled two main goals - "to provide the entertainment and mobile industry with a formal chart, reflecting the growing revenue and copyright importance as music and mobile telecommunications converge."
David Simmons, Head of the MEF Ringtones Initiative and CEO of music rights and publishing company Songseekers added, "Persuading ring tone providers to confidentially share with us their sales data understandably took a long time. However, we now have access to the data of six of the UK's largest ring tone providers and I believe that the reason that we have been successful is that these providers understand that this chart initiative is in their best interests. The chart will further increase industry visibility for the ring tone business, within the music and mobile industries and with music retailers and consumers."
Simon,who also founded Your Mobile, the company that introduced ring-tones to the UK six years ago and whose site lists top ring tones in Australia, the UK, and the USA, said the sound of a person's phone was an indication of their character. "People don't buy the music so that they can listen to it like they do a CD at home. It's something that you would want to play to friends or work-mates as your social identifier," he said.
"What's happening in Europe is that for the first time you are seeing more ring-tones sold than singles. There is a growing awareness that mobile music is becoming an ... imperative for the future of the music business, which is going through tough times."
MEF web site:
Your Mobile web site (US site -flag logos link to UK and Australian sites):

2004-05-31: Yet more US school radio stations could be hit by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that gives commercial broadcasters precedence to a frequency and plans by a broadcaster to move the licence for a station.
The station involved is Mid-Columbia Broadcasting Inc.'s KMCQ-FM whose move from The Dalles to Covington in Oregon has been approved by the FCC; The move would hit both KMIH-FM, operated by the Mercer Island School District, and KGHP-FM, a Peninsula School District station that uses the same 104.5 frequency for a translator.
KMCQ-FM operates at 100,000 watts, but would drop in power if it were to move to Covington whilst KMIH-FM operates at 30 watts but the FCC noted, "In the event that the Covington allotment is adopted and service is initiated by the new Covington station, the translator and the Class D FM station (KMIH) will be required to suspend operations if interference to the new primary station occurs" and adds, "there are alternate channels available" for both operations and that the areas already receive service from more than two dozen existing FM and AM stations."
The KMCQ move was part of a series involved several broadcasting companies proposing to swap or move frequency allocations among multiple cities in Oregon and Washington.
Both the school stations are opposing the move and KMIH general manager Nick De Vogel, a teacher at Mercer Island High, noted that it had already had to move from the original frequency is used then it launched in 1969 and queried the availability of alternatives, saying, "I never would have spent the time if there was somewhere 'down the street' to move to."
The school stations said of Mid-Columbia's move say that its contention in its filing that Covington was a distinct community that warranted having its own radio station was in fact "little more than an effort to migrate KMCQ from a rural community to an extremely well-served urban area" and other critics contend that the move is an attempt to tap the much larger Seattle radio advertising market.
*Approval earlier this year of a frequency and transmitter move by Radio One Inc. is almost certain to spell the end for the oldest high school station in the US, Haverford High School's 14-watts WHHS-FM, which has been on the air for 55 years (See RNW Feb 19).
RNW comment: On the basis that the airwaves are indeed leased from the public, the obvious requirement here is for a change in regulations to force commercial companies in such situations to conduct a referendum - giving the non-commercial stations exactly equal airtime and publicity to put their case - of all residents of the area who would be affected by the move.
Should there be a vote against, the democratic move would be refuse the change and level the playing field regarding any future moves: We would suggest a bar on a similar application for a reasonable period - say five years - and also prohibition - with the penalty of a permanent refusal of any such move unless initiated by the non-commercial stations affected - of any lobbying in favour of such a move by a commercial broadcaster within that period.

Previous FCC:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer report:

2004-05-30: Last week was fairly quiet for all the regulators with a low but steady level of activity in most areas.
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has invited applications for two new community licences, one in Tumut, New South Wales, and the other in Coober Pedy, South Australia. Applications have to be submitted by midnight on June 25.
In Canada, the only radio-related announcement by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was approval of an application by Sur Sagar Radio Inc. to amend the broadcasting licence of the transitional digital radio programming undertaking at Toronto to set the latest date for it to be operational as April 17, 2005.
There were no radio-related announcements from the UK but in Ireland, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has awarded the West Limerick community licence to WLCR- FM (West Limerick Community Radio) but called South Inishowen Community Radio (SICRFM) to an oral hearing for the South Inishowen Peninsula franchise area. (See RNW May 28)
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has held the second of six planned hearings on localism, this time in Rapid City, South Dakota; it also held meetings in Rapid City concerning satellite technology, rural wireless Internet, and telecommunications on American Indian reservations.
FCC chairman Michael K. Powell, who was scheduled to attend the localism meeting, left before the localism meeting began to attend a meeting in Washington, D.C. but Democrat Commissioners Jonathan S. Adelstein, for whom Rapid City is his hometown, and Michael J. Copps were present.
Adelstein in his opening remarks said that localism in broadcasting should go beyond such activities as promotions or fundraising activities for local charities and include providing opportunities for "local self-expression" such as promoting local talent, artists and musicians.
He spoke of broadcasters as trustees of "the public interest", a theme in which he was backed by Copps who said that the airwaves were owned by the people not firms or corporations and that broadcasters were allowed the privilege of using this public resource in exchange for a commitment to serve the public interest.
The FCC also reduced a fine on a Florida pirate operator from USD 10,000 to USD 1,000 on hardship grounds (See RNW May 25) but confirmed the full USD 10,000 penalty on a Nevada FM for exceeding permitted radiation levels at its tower (See RNW May 29).
Previous ABA:
Previous Adelstein:
Previous BCI:
Previous Copps:
Previous CRTC:
Previous FCC:
Previous Licence News:
Previous Powell:
ABA web site:
BCI web site:

CRTC web site:
FCC web site:

2004-05-30: US National Public Radio (NPR) is to use the funds it gets from the USD 225 million bequest by Joan Kroc, the widow of Ray A. Kroc, founder of the McDonald's fast-food chain, towards long-term expansion of its new staffing and also to reduce fees for its news magazine programmes to some stations.
Most of the bequest is being invested and is expected to earn around USD 6.2 million next year of which around USD 2.4 million will be used for discounts on fees for its news magazine shows with most of the rest going to expand its newsroom.
NPR's fees were linked in 1999 to the size of a station's audience and for some stations, which have been particularly successful, fees have increased by more than a half since then and NPR is to reduce fiscal 2005 station fees by a tenth of the percentage increase in the fees to them between fiscal years 2000 and 2004: Those whose fees did not rise will not get any discount. It says it will also consider a discount on feed for fiscal year 2006 but not thereafter.
It hopes the discounts will help stations invest in local programming and executive vice-president Ken Stern told Current Magazine that the staffing front NPR will hire 30 producers, editors and reporters in the next two years and 15 the third year. He noted that the network's news staff of 250 was smaller than that of the Baltimore Sun whose former editor Bill Marimow has already been hired by NPR as a second managing editor (See RNW Mar 23).
Other hirings include former ABC News producer Robin Gradison and former deputy assistant managing editor at U.S. News and World Report Bruce Auster as supervisory senior producer and, supervisory editor respectively.
Previous NPR:
Previous Stern:
Current Magazine report:

2004-05-29: A Mexican judge has over-ruled a decision by an arbitrator, the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce, that Grupo Radio Centro had broken its contract with Infored that had produced its top-rated Monitor news programme (See RNW Mar 4).
The decision also re-opens the issue of a USD 21 million award made to Infored and Monitor host Jose Gutierrez Vivo.
Since the panel's decision, Grupo Rado has filled the Monitor slot with programming, using the same title, from one of its own stations, hosted by leading Mexican broadcasters, Jacobo Zaludovsky and Nino Canun.
Infored, which purchased the Mexico City newspaper El Heraldo and renamed it Diario Monitor (See RNW Mar 14), has subsequently been producing programmes that have been broadcast by cable television station MBS on its radio frequencies.
Previous Grupo Radio Centro:

2004-05-29: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has confirmed a USD 10,000 penalty of USD 10,000 on Americom Las Vegas Limited Partnership, licensee of on KWNZ- FM, Carson City, Nevada, for failing to comply with maximum radiation emission levels.
Tests conducted at the site with other broadcasts powered down showed that KWNZ was contributing more than 94% of the total measured radiation and its emissions alone exceeded limits allowed for the general public by 36%.
Americom had argued for the penalty to be cancelled and an admonishment substituted on the grounds that it has subsequently contracted the fencing of the areas involved and that there is "only circumstantial evidence" of recent public use of the area near the KWNZ transmitter site and "no evidence whatsoever of public use of the particularized ten square foot area" where Americom exceeded the limits.
The FCC observed that there was in fact "ample evidence of recent public use of the area near the KWNZ transmitter site" including trash such as beer and wine bottles and ATV tracks; it confirmed the full penalty.
Previous FCC:

2004-05-29: UK Hit 40 show host Neil Fox presents his last show tomorrow after 11 years with the charts show, formerly known as the Pepsi Chart; his place is to be taken by Yorkshire Galaxy 105 breakfast show host Simon Hirst and radio and TV presenter Katy Hill, who will continue to host her Saturday show on Capital FM.
The show, owned by Capital Radio, Chrysalis, GWR and Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH), competes with Emap's commercial chart show Smash Hits and the BBC's Official Charts Show that was relaunched with Wes Butters as host last year (See RNW Feb 8, 2003). Butters took over from Mark Goodier who moved to host Emap's Smash Hits chart show and the GWR Classic FM Chart show.
Fox announced his first number one - Take That with Pray - on July 17, 1993, and commented, "I've been hosting the top 40 for over a decade and it's amazing to think how music has changed in that time. I've seen out Take That, the Spice Girls, Brit Pop, the explosion of Dance music and now the massive success of R n B. That's almost a whole generation of pop music right there."
"Now is definitely the right time for me to move on and I'm handing over to a great team. Katy was my choice, I've been a big supporter of her since we did a show on the Brits together - I said straight afterwards 'this girl would be perfect for Hit 40 UK'. Simon Hirst is a fantastic DJ he's done a brilliant job standing in for me when I've been away - so he really knows the ropes."
Previous BBC:
Previous Butters:
Previous Capital:
Previous Chrysalis:
Previous Emap:
Previous Fox:
Previous Goodier:
Previous GWR:
Previous SRH:

2004-05-29: Allen Lee, the former Hong Kong radio host and member of China's National People's Congress (NPC) who quit "Teacup in a Storm" radio show earlier this month (See RNW May 21), has now openly said he left both posts under pressure from Beijing officials about pro-democracy comments he had made on air.
Lee told members of a special panel of the Hong Kong legislative council that he had been in several meetings at which officials said that the Chinese authorities were unhappy with his public support for direct elections in the former colony.
Lee did not name the officials but said concerns were expressed about his stance at a meeting in Inner Mongolia in August last year and then received another warning in Beijing in March when he was attending the Chinese National People's Congress.
He said he left the posts this month after someone claiming to be a former Chinese official phoned him to request a meeting, then mentioned his wife and daughter, raising fears about intimidation of his family and leading him to quit as a "preventive measure."
"Beijing has an attitude that if you are not my friend, you are my enemy and this policy has made Hong Kong people even angrier," he said. "This is the worst division in society I have seen since I entered politics in 1978."
He also told the enquiry that the resignations of high-profile radio hosts definitely indicated a Beijing crackdown on opposition voices.
The other two hosts who have resigned - Raymond Wong and Albert Cheng - did not testify; they have expressed fears about their safety. Cheng had commented earlier in an interview, "Our lives are threatened, our families are threatened. If I come out and say something, who is going to protect me?"
Toronto Star report:

2004-05-28: Following a 10% rise in March, US radio advertising was up 4% on a year ago in April according to the US Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), which describes the figures as "encouraging."
For April local revenues were up 4% and national ones up 6% to take the combined total to 4% while for the year so far combined revenues were up 4%, local revenues were up 4% and national revenues were up 2%.
RAB's Sales Index, which equated pre-dot com 1998 to a base of 100, the combined April figure was 139.0, the local sales index was 140.3 and the national sales index was 134.4: Year to date indices were 141.1, 140.8 and 141.9 respectively.
RAB President and CEO Gary Fries commented, "The positive results for April are encouraging, as we begin to see a strengthening in Radio revenues compared to last year."
"Indicators point to stability in Radio sales over the next few months with increased acceleration in the second half of the year."
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Previous RAB - figures for March:

2004-05-28: XM satellite radio is fighting back over proposals from the US National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to shut down its weather and traffic channels.
It has sent notices to its 1.7 million subscribers asking them to contact Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to oppose the move.
It has set up a page on its site with the names of representatives who sponsored the bill in the House and is encouraging subscribers to also contact them.
The pages says the "broadcasters feel threatened by the success of satellite radio" and continues, " Instead of competing and improving their services, they want the government to protect their businesses by attacking satellite radio."
"This same group has tried to block every innovative technology that has been warmly welcomed into America's homes and cars. In the 1940's, radio broadcasters tried to squash television. In the 1970's, AM broadcasters tried to put the kibosh on FM stations. They never win and they never learn."
With summer travel on the way this [Memorial Day] weekend in the USA, XM s is extending its traffic reports and adding detail for motorists travelling to popular summer weekend destinations, including major beach and shore areas nationwide.
The expanded reports will continue until the Labor Day weekend and channels will provide information for Cape Cod; Long Island/North Jersey Shore; South Jersey Shore; Delaware Beaches including Rehoboth and Bethany; Eastern Maryland Shores of Maryland -- including Ocean City; and Orange County and Los Angeles County.
XM has also announced an agreement with Antex Electronics for the latter to develop high-end receivers for its signals, the first of which is the XM-3000 multizone satellite receiver that is to be introduced into the Antex TriplePlay line of multizone receivers later this year.
It will allow up to three different XM Radio channels to be received at the same time and distributed them to different areas simultaneously. The signal is received by a single antenna and then split to three tuner modules, each containing the complete XM programming line-up.
Previous NAB:
Previous XM:

XM web site:
2004-05-28: Christian O'Connell, the breakfast host on Capital Radio's London alternative station Xfm and winner of this year's Sony Gold as UK DJ of the Year (See RNW May 14), is to step onto the UK national radio stage in August as the new host of BBC Radio Five Live's Saturday morning Fighting Talk quiz show.
The show assess the "punditry" skills of a sporting personalities on a range of topics and O'Connell follows in the footsteps of current Capital FM breakfast host Johnny Vaughan who hosted the show's first series.
O'Connell commented that his decision to take the role was not an attempt to get out of work at home, saying, "With a new baby on the way I would like to make it very clear to my wife and in-laws that I will be doing vital, important work discussing the big sporting issues of the week, with some sweaty men in a dark room."
"It's the kind of show you listen to agreeing with, shouting at, laughing with and enjoying and that's a show I really want to do."
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2004-05-28: According to the Chicago Tribune, WLS-AM afternoon host is to make a final decision today over a new contract with the station.
His former co-host Gary Meier this week rejected a final offer from the Disney-ABC station to take a new contract (See RNW May 27).
Also in Chicago, Tribune-owned WGN-AM is marking 80 years under the name - its call signs were changed to WGN - World's Greatest Newspaper - from WDAP-AM in 1924.
And in suburban Chicago, NextMedia is to change the call sign of WZCH-FM, which it bought from Entravision, to WWYW-FM on June 1 and become "Y103.9, The Beat of the Burbs" playing a mix of AC and oldies.
Until the official change it is to play Motown hits through the Memorial Day weekend.
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2004-05-28: US National Public Radio (NPR) far from being a voice of the left and the people is in fact a voice of the elite and more of the conservative elite than the leftist elite according to a report just released by the leftist media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).
It counted every source cited - 2,334 in all - in 804 stories aired last June on four programs: "All Things Considered," "Morning Edition," "Weekend Edition Saturday" and "Weekend Edition Sunday" and noted, "Republicans not only had a substantial partisan edge, individual Republicans were NPR's most popular sources overall, taking the top seven spots in frequency of appearance. "
The report does note, however, that compared to the results of a similar study in 1993, there had been a "substantial increase in the number of non-elite sources featured" during the decade with workers, students, the general public, and representatives of organized citizen and public interest groups accounting for 31% percent of all sources in the latest study compared to the 17% of the first although most of the increase came from vox pops of unnamed members of the public.
FAIR also looked at which think tanks were featured most frequently on NPR during the four months from May to August last year and found that again conservative sources were used most often - 62 times for right of centre organizations, 56 for centrist ones and 15 for left of centre ones.
Overall nearly two-thirds of all sources were from what the report terms an "elite" - 28% from current and former government officials and 26% from "professional experts" such a academics, professionals and journalists with 7% of all sources being journalists - four fifths of them from commercial media organizations such as the New York Times and Washington Post - and 6% of all sources being corporate representatives.
There had been a significant increase in the use of think tanks and where in 1993 only ten were cited twice or more in the latest report this had grown to 17: The most frequently quoted was the centrist Brookings Institution (31 times) followed by the conservative Center for Strategic and International Studies (19) and the centrist Council on Foreign Relations (17) whilst the most frequently quoted left of centre think tank was the Urban Institute (8).
Women were underrepresented in the think tank representatives being quoted only 10% of the time and non-whites fared even worse with 3%; Only white males were quoted more than twice with the leading names being Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (8 appearances), Michael O'Hanlon of Brookings (7) and E.J. Dionne, also of Brookings (6).
In party-political terms, the report says that apart from the appearance of four Libertarian Party representatives in one story almost all appearances came from the mainstream parties with Republican voices - led by President Bush with 36 appearances then Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld with 6 - having a substantial edge and the only non-white amongst the top ten sources was Secretary of State Colin Powell.
FAIR says the study contradicts an "article of faith among many conservatives" who think that NPR has a left bias.
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2004-05-28: The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has awarded the West Limerick community licence to WLCR- FM (West Limerick Community Radio) subject to conclusion of successful contract negotiations.
It has also decided to call South Inishowen Community Radio (SICRFM) to an oral hearing for the South Inishowen Peninsula franchise area. The hearing will be held privately with the Executive of the BCI.
In Dublin, Dublin's Country FM says it is hopeful that the BCI will approve a name change. Two proposals - for the names More FM and Choice FM - had been rejected but the station says it is hopeful it will be given the go-ahead to re-brand as Star FM, the name under which the station originally won its licence, or Cara FM. The format is not to be changed.
Previous BCI:

2004-05-27: UK GWR Group has reported that its continuing operations for the year to the end of Mar 2004 had underlying turnover up 8.8% on a year earlier to GBP 125.6 million (USD 227.9 million) with underlying operating profit up 24% to GBP 20.7 million (USD 37.6 million) and pre-tax profit up 57.4% to GBP 16.6 million (USD 30.1 million).
Overall it turned a pre-tax loss of GBP 14.83 million (USD 26.9 million) a year ago into a pre-tax profit of GBP 14.77 million (USD 26.8 million) with an overall profit of GBP 267,000 (USD 484,000), turned round from a loss of GBP 22.53 million (USD 40.87 million).
It also reduced its net debt by GBP 35 million (USD 63.5 million) over the year and says it has since then trimmed it by a further GBP 10.6 million (USD 19.2 million) to GBP 54 million (USD 100 million).
Executive Chairman Ralph Bernard described the results as "excellent" and added, "The disciplined concentration on implementing structural changes and on introducing systems improvements during the difficult times of the advertising recession is paying off as the market recovers, and GWR has outperformed the industry."
"We look forward to the future with confidence, as the strength of our brands in analogue radio is matched by our leading position in digital radio. We have continued to focus attention on digital radio with some 20% of our operating profits being invested in exploiting our prime assets in this critical area. We have formed a powerful relationship with BT Wholesale to pioneer and develop the 'Livetime' datacasting operation. With sales of digital radios now well past 500,000 units, the value of the Group's first mover advantage is becoming clear."
Within the results GWR noted that its digital revenues were up 24.1% to GBP 8.1 million (USD 14.7 million).
It also said it had looked at other new media to increase revenue and in April launched "Hear it, Buy it, Burn it", a web-based service for downloading music, which enables listeners to download songs while they are being played live.
It said that in a generally improved advertising market, the Group's analogue radio business has performed strongly, delivering an advertising revenue increase of 8.4%, ahead of the 7.8% achieved by the radio industry as a whole. National revenues were up 8.7% and local ones 7.9%.
GWR also noted that its Local Radio Group, which contributed 69% of group revenues and increased revenues by 10.2% -- 12% national and local, less inventory, up 7.9% - had improved profitability because of the restructuring of LRG management into functional streams, separating programming and content (Creation) from sales (Opus).
It noted that Classic FM was now the third-rated commercial station in London. Classic FM has already announced a GBP 1 million (USD 1.8 million) promotional campaign and Bernard said the priority was to boost its audience outside London where it does less well; He added that they saw the target audience not as that of the BC's main classical output from Radio 3 but listeners from BBC radios 2 and 4.
Bernard said the station was now "couple of hundred thousand listeners behind Heart FM [the second -rated station, which is owned by Chrysalis] - which is not very much in a place as large as London." And added, "We're creeping up on the inside."
Commenting on possible mergers in the radio sector, where GWR has already come up against the regulator and before the Communications Act went into law was forced to sell its share in Bristol station Vibe on local advertising competitive grounds, Bernard said clarification was needed about potential larger deals but he thought deals would be possible.
He ducked comment on whether the daily Mail and General Trust, which owns 29.9% of GWR, might choose to sell to aid a bid for the Telegraph newspaper group, saying he had not been involved in discussions on the matter.
Bernard also said the group was still keeping "under review" the appointment of a chief executive to replace Patrick Taylor who left at the end of June last year.
GWR shares ended the day up 4.29% and 255.5 pence.
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2004-05-27: According to Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times, Garry Meier, who has been off the air since January (See RNW Jan 13), has rejected the final offer made by Disney-ABC's WLS-AM, Chicago.
Meier has been teamed for eight years with Roe Conn, whose contract ends next month. Feder reports that Conn is expected to agree to a new long-term deal.
Previous Conn:
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Previous Meier:

2004-05-27: Australian commercial radio representatives and the country's leading creative directors are holding a one-day think-tank in Sydney today to help set out a strategy to improve radio adverts and increase radio's share of the Australian advertising market.
The event is part of a push by commercial radio in the country to promote radio's effectiveness as an advertising medium and Commercial Radio Australia director Joan Warner said the industry body was working hard to persuade advertisers to allocate a larger portion of their marketing budgets to radio.
Commercial Radio Australia is involved in an AUD 20 million (USD 14 million) campaign to promote radio advertising and Warner commented, "Despite a positive response to the brand campaign, the industry recognises that there is more to do and one challenge identified was improving the creative component of radio advertising…Writing well for radio is often challenging but incredibly rewarding and the new course provides a broad range of radio writing skills which should help grow the pool of talented copywriters who specialise in writing for radio."
Steve Yolland of Magnum Opus said of the event, "This is a terrific initiative by Commercial Radio Australia and I applaud their commitment. Radio needs a creative boost in this country but it's no good us Creative Directors and Radio Nuts moaning to ourselves behind closed doors. We have to team up with the radio industry and think of more creative ways of having clients and agencies."
Why do I care about the future of radio advertising? Close your eyes. Listen. I can make anything happen in the space between your ears. Anything. No limits. Budgets don't matter. The impossible is possible. Pure imagination rules here. How exciting is that?"
James McGrath of George Patterson Bates added, "Radio advertising needs to be reinstated to its former position as the medium of choice after Television, not some distant afterthought beyond virtually every other form of media. It has the unique ability (when handled perfectly) to really engage at a really intimate level, right inside the head of the consumer."
Previous Commercial Radio Australia:
Previous Warner:

2004-05-27: SMG-owned Virgin radio has dropped the Captain America - Rock & Roll, Americana and alt-Country - Sunday early morning show hosted by Nick Stewart.
Last Sunday's show was the last and Stewart told the UK Guardian he was told of the decision by Virgin's director of programmes, Paul Jackson, made despite increasing listening by a fifth in the last three months of last year and added that he was confident of getting another slot soon.
"I've probably got 100,000 listeners on AM and FM and probably more on digital and the Internet. It shouldn't take me long," he said.
Virgin told the paper the station had given Captain America a "fair crack of the whip", but had decided to drop the show after listening to feedback from listeners.
"We are constantly evolving and asking listeners what they want. Captain America had been on air for over two and a half years and we decided it was time for a change," a spokeswoman said, adding that the change was a "tweak" rather than part of a revamping of the station schedule.
Virgin's web site on Wednesday evening still listed the show in the midnight GMT slot for May 30 but the link with this says the show, which it terms "critically-acclaimed" has now ended.
Previous Jackson:
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2004-05-27: Longtime Bay Area jazz radio announcer George Hughes has died from cancer aged 57.
In his career he had worked the all-night shift for San Francisco's legendary jazz radio station KJAZ -FM, in the late 70s and early 80s.
He was fired and rehired a number of times by station owner Pat Henry, who was known to pull a disc jockey off the air if he heard a record he didn't like or didn't want to hear in that time slot.
Hughes left KJAZ in 1988 - the station itself went off the air in 1994 after a 35-year life and despite listeners raising an unprecedented USD 1.5 million dollars to keep it on air- after which he worked for public station KCSM-FM.
KCSM, which is to broadcast an on-air tribute to Hughes on June 5, describes him on its web site as "a kind, open-hearted Bebopper, the Clark Kent of Jazz Radio, the King of Eloquence, the Master of the Segue."
"His dulcet tones, his encyclopedic knowledge of Jazz, his use of the English language will be sorely missed," it adds.
The station is also to re-broadcast on June 11, which would have been Hughes 58th birthday, his George's Desert Island Jazz at 0400 GMT, 21:00 Pacific Time.
KCSM site
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2004-05-26: The possibility of the current US anti-indecency movement ending up giving satellite radio a boost was given further currency this week with more comments from Howard Stern about leaving Infinity and also suggestions from agent Robert Eatman, who represents Erich "Mancow" Muller and Opie and Anthony (Gregg Hughes and Anthony Cumia), that Muller could potentially move to satellite radio.
Stern at the start of this week reacted to editing of a song parody "Robin Crapped Her Pants" said on his show, " I am so done with this situation. It's ridiculous. I want out, I want to go work for another medium where I can talk and not worry if Slash says the F-word. I want that, I crave it now. I want out of this."
Stern is under contract to Infinity for another 18 months and Muller is still expected to renew his deal with Emmis when his current contract ends in July but under this contract he has to pay any indecency penalties himself.
Opie and Anthony's contract with Infinity ends next Tuesday and the duo are reported to be in negotiations with both Sirius and XM: Their web site currently has two counters - one measuring the time until the contract ends and the other the days they have been off air (649 today) since Infinity and WNEW-FM took them off the air in the Sex for Sam row.
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2004-05-26: Mike Stude, who has agreed to sell Houston classical station KRTS-FM, the last locally-owned independent station in the market, to Radio One Inc. (See RNW May 25) is to use part of the proceeds from the USD 72.5 million deal to set up a foundation supporting arts and music education for children in Houston according to the Houston Business Journal.
Stude, who bought the station in 1987 for USD 2.3 million
, said the reason he had opted to sell was related to changes in the broadcasting business, saying, "In this era of corporate radio, it's tough -- if not impossible -- for a station like ours to compete against the huge radio chains."
He noted that competitors, who include the satellite radio services and the University of Houston's non-commercial KUHF-FM, as well as stations streamed on the Internet, now met his goal of providing a classical music service for the city.
On his plans for the foundation, he said, "It is important that something positive and enduring come out of the sale," Stude says.
"My commitment to supporting the arts in Houston remains as strong as ever. I can't think of a better way to ensure a good future for the arts in our community than by making sure that our children have the education and resources that they need."
Houston Business Journal report:

2004-05-26: UK Emap shares fell 10.64% to 756 pence following the release of preliminary results on Tuesday despite overall turnover in the year to the end of March increasing 9% on a year ago to GBP1.05 billion (USD 1.90 billion), operating profit up 11% to GBP 212 million (USD 384 million) and pre-tax profit up 12% to GBP 196 million (USD 355 million).
In divisional terms, Emap Consumer media grew revenues 3% to GBP 355 million (USD 644 million) with underlying growth 6%, Communications revenue was up 9% to GBP 213 million (USD 386 million) with underlying growth of 6%, Emap Performance revenue - including the company's radio operations - was up 3% to GBP 160 million (USD 290 million) but underlying this was a 2% decline, whilst French revenues were up 18% to GBP 322 million (USD 583 million)
Analysts put the share price decline down to an admission of severe competition in the French TV listings business: Emap's two publications, which together account for around a tenth of its French revenues, have been hit by the launch of a new title by Bertelsmann of Germany and lost around 15-20% of their circulation in a market where there are a total of nine listings magazines.
Group Chief Executive Tom Moloney commented, "This is another strong set of results, delivered against a backdrop where trading conditions have been mixed. Our core business performed well, and this was enhanced by exciting new product launches and solid bolt-on acquisitions."
"The business overall is in good shape. Whilst we will face some major challenges in the year ahead, we're ready for them, and we expect to continue delivering growth."
Emap says its performance division is showing Kiss and Magic strengthening in London, Big City was battling back and digital radio was delivering revenues- but there was increased music TV competition. Current radio sales were described as being maintained.
In other UK radio business, SMG has announced its first cross-platform deal, a GBP 1million (USD 1.8 million) plus arrangement with Unilever that will see the FMCG giant advertising its products across all of SMG's media - Scottish TV, Grampian TV, Virgin Radio, Pearl & Dean and Primesight.
The deal also includes a content element that will allow Unilever to trade certain SMG television content for airtime in overseas territories.
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2004-05-25: Radio One Inc. has announced a UD 72.5 million cash purchase of classical format KRTS-FM in the Houston, Texas, market from KRTS Inc.; it says it expects to change the station call sign and format on completion, which is expected in the third quarter of this year.
Radio One president and CEO Alfred C. Liggins, III said the acquisition was "a huge win for Radio One."
"This station represents one of the last high-powered, independently owned radio stations in the Houston market," he added. "We are very excited to be able to enhance our competitive position in one of our, and the radio industry's, largest and best markets."
Radio One already owns CHR/Rhythmic KBXX-FM and Urban AC KMJQ-FM in Houston.
In Chicago, Denver-based NextMedia has announced completion of its previously announced USD 5 million cash purchase of WZCH-FM from Entravision, which earlier this year said it was selling its three Chicago area stations to concentrate on strengthening its existing clusters.
WZCH, in Dundee, and WRZA-FM in Portage had been used to simulcast Entravision's "Super Estrella" Spanish hits format.
NextMedia has not yet revealed full details of its format change but the station is expected to be similar in part to that of NextMedia's other 11 stations in suburban Chicago with a local focus for news, weather and traffic. It expects eventually to have its own personalities for daytime, housed in the same Crystal Lake premises that house its Star FM station.
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2004-05-25: Reporting on radio advertising in China, the Straits Times says changing lifestyles and the cost of TV advertising could lead to a new lease of life for China's radio industry but it warns that the adverts themselves need to be better produced.
Amongst the changes benefiting the medium is a rapid growth in automobile ownership and the proliferation of mobile phones with built-in radios. The country has more than a thousand radio stations but takes only around 5% of the total advertising spend of about USD14.5 billion compared to at least two-thirds for TV.
According to Nielsen Media Research's director of client service Rita Chan one of radio's problems has been that in the past there was no effective ratings system but firms such as hers and CVSC-Sofres Media (CSM) are expanding or launching new radio ratings services to address this.
"'Advertisers and ad agencies always tell us if that there is no effective way of measurement, we are not going to spend a lot of money in that medium," said Chan. She added that she thought there was "big potential for growth in China's radio industry" and predicted advertising spending to increase by 10 to 20 per cent this year.
The paper reports Matt Brosenne, CSM's international business director, as being more cautious about the speed of growth that is likely:
"You have to give the industry time to digest the data, understand what it means and how to take advantage of it," he said. "'Nothing's happened recently that's made radio a vehicle of more impact, nor is there a significant change of content that says radio is a better answer."
And one of the problems cited is that of the adverts themselves, described by one channel-hopping taxi driver as mostly "just boring or annoying."
Straits Times report:

2004-05-25: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has cut on financial hardship grounds the penalty on a Florida pirate operator from USD 10,000 to USD 1,000.
Timothy J. Massett, lessee of the premises where the station was found, said he participated in the operation of the station by resetting the station's CD player when the music stopped just prior to the agents' inspection but had subsequently banned "those responsible for the transmission" from the pre and argued that the penalty should be cancelled because of his "low degree of culpability" and also because he received no warning letter, had no prior offences, and was unable to pay.
The FCC as normal did take into consideration the ability to pay and on the basis of details submitted reduced the penalty; it dismissed his other arguments.
Previous FCC:

2004-05-25: Frontier Silicon, a leading UK fabless manufacturer of semiconductors for digital TV/radio and consumer multimedia products, has announced the closing of a multi-million pound investment round that includes investment from Nokia Venture Partners.
It says the investment will re-enforce its position in the digital audio and TV market.
Frontier Silicon last week announced that it has started volume shipments of Logie, the world's first combined DVB-T and DAB system-on-chip device; The low cost circuit allows UK users to receive all available UK digital TV channels on the Freeview terrestrial system and all UK digital radio channels from one unit; the first manufacturer to feature the device is Goodmans.

2004-05-24: We have eschewed indecency - or rather stories related to the Federal Communications Commission's regulations on the matter this week, although it is still getting cover in the US print media, but found it difficult to avoid Rush Limbaugh, who is now coming under significant attack for his comments on the US maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
The criticisms seemed to us fair in their assessment of the morality and likely impact of Limbaugh's reports but maybe a little unfair in that, for example Michael Savage, were he half as well known, would do much more damage to America's reputation with his comments.
First though, a different perspective on another segment of US talk radio, courtesy of Paul B Farrell on CBS MarketWatch.
He had appeared on a money talk shows and commented of his appearance, "The last radio talk show I was on was special, a real eye-opener. Here's what I discovered: Callers really don't expect to learn anything. Talk radio is not about getting advice. It's also not about making decisions and getting into action."
"Investors want somebody to listen to them! It's that simple… Investors don't really want anything, they just want to feel like someone out there in this vast, cold, impersonal world is listening to them. Because nobody is!"
Farrell then comments -very negatively - about Congress and Wall Street's view of investors - "they see investors as a necessary evil to be manipulated with political rhetoric and absurd advertising campaigns" - before concluding, "Your failure to reform your corrupt ways with something more than stonewalling and deceptive ad campaigns isn't working. Your failure to address the core problems will eventually come back to haunt America ... are you listening?"
Which, of course, takes us to Limbaugh whose comments a number of publications think will also haunt his country.
From American Progress we noted a column by former West Point professor, professional infantry officer and author Robert Bateman who commented of Limbaugh's comments, "The guy does not get it, he does not realize that with his careless and thoughtless words that he's making things tougher on us soldiers, not easier. Although, potentially he believes he's making things easier for our political masters, that's above my pay grade. All I know is that he's making it worse for those of us in uniform."
"Limbaugh is out there, making excuses for the prison guards, and in the process making it that much more likely that there will be a 'next time.' How? By making what they did excusable. By minimizing it. By saying that it's not so bad, and that he can see how it's just like a fraternity hazing. What Limbaugh apparently does not even realize is that in the process of saying that he is de facto slamming the officer corps of the U.S. Army and calling us incompetent."
… "How? Well for starters, it was one of our generals that did the investigation that said all of this was despicable and should be investigated under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice."
And then a little history… "When we codified and updated our military laws after World War II we made damned sure that we put in specific laws that protected prisoners, and we added an 'anti-Nuremberg defense' clause in as well. It is every soldier's duty to refuse an unlawful order. Sometimes it's scary, but you have to do it. I've done it three times in my career, and an informal survey of my peers suggests most of them have had similar experiences. None of these were huge, in my experience, but were very small illegal orders. But I was scared at the time, telling my superior that I would not do something because I thought it was wrong. The point of this is that we're trained to do things like that, all of us. I am not anomalous. It's what keeps our Army straight."
And the concluding comment cum question," If he knew any professional officers, certainly, he would never have said what he did. I mean, even Limbaugh wouldn't deliberately endanger soldiers for mere political points…would he?"
RNW comment: May we also note lest Limbaugh supporters try and play down Bateman's credentials that his book on No Gun Ri to the delight of right-wing outlets like NewsMax challenged the Associated Press story of the "massacre" and argued that, although civilians were killed this was unintentional and happened in "the fog of war."
Another article expressing severe criticism of Limbaugh's views came from Philip Smucker on MediaChannel headed, "U.S. Talk Show Rhetoric Sounds a Rwandan Echo" and drawing comparison with the role of Rwandan radio in the atrocities in that country (Limbaugh found the courts guilty of genocide verdict against some of those involved worthy more of comment about infringement of free speech than a matter of recognizing incitement to murder as being illegal under US law as much as that of other countries).
Smucker doesn't limit his comments to Limbaugh though: He also brings in other hosts such as Michael Savage (he called Arabs "non-humans" and "racist, fascist bigots", asserted that Americans should "drop a nuclear weapon" on a random Arab capital, and that "these people" in the Middle East "need to be forcibly converted to Christianity" in order to "turn them into human beings.").
Enough, however, of comments that make friends of America despair as to how they can defend the country to those less well disposed towards it, and to end a more positive story about US radio courtesy of the Washington Post and Associated Press, albeit even then there is a sting when the value of a school station conflicts with the demands of profit for a corporation.
In "High School Radio Stations Alive and Well" David Porter of the AP began, "Even with CD players and iPods, America's teens still listen to the radio. And they tune in even more when the DJs are their own age."
" Their unwavering devotion has meant that high school radio has managed to survive - even thrive at the margins at the low end of the FM dial."
He then detailed some of the history of school radio in the US, success stories and problems when the frequencies allocated to a school or educational broadcaster are in the way of a commercial operation as is the case for Pennsylvania school station WHHS-FM, which has broadcast from Haverford High School since 1949 but is now expected to die because of a Radio 1 deal to purchase a New Jersey station and move the frequency to the Philadelphia market (See RNW Feb 19).
On however to programming still available via the Internet and worth a listen starting with the Tavis Smiley show on US public radio. Last week saw five weekday discussions related to the Brown v Board of Education ruling that ended legal separation of races in US schools.
The whole series is on the NPR web site and worth a listen albeit the comments by Cornel West, Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University, in Friday's programme would almost certainly upset many, particularly when he says America is an "adolescent, innocent , melodramatic civilization that believes in a flight from reality" and maybe "just doesn't have the capacity to deal with reality."
In the UK, the country's first new national radio soap opera for seven years goes on air today on the BBC Asian Service (See RNW May 23): We haven't yet heard "Silver Street" but UK Sunday Times radio columnist Paul Donovan has listened to preview tapes and comments, "I have heard the first five episodes. Initially confused, I now love it. But the music should go, because it is a distraction when the episodes are only 10 minutes long. And there are too many scenes in which more than one person talks at the same time, which you can sometimes get away with on television, but never on radio."
"I am drawn to it because, so far, it is fun, vivid, truthful, non-PC (hope that continues) and has characters I can identify with. About 30% of the characters are non-Asian, just as 15% of the network's audience is. But these racial boundaries are increasingly fuzzy: the editor, James Peries, has a Sri Lankan father and an English mother, and his deputy, Deborah Sathe, has an Indian father and a Scottish mother. I wish that the BBC had laid more emphasis on the serial's wide human appeal, rather than just calling it 'Britain's first Asian radio soap' in the seeming hope of ticking a multicultural box.
Back to the BBC analogue channels and tomorrow sees the third and final instalment of BBC Radio 2's "Maggie's Cultural Revolution" on Radio 2 at 19:30 GMT (The second show is still available until then via the Listen Again facility)
To quote Chris Campling of the London Times about last week's instalment, "It is, not to put too fine a point on it, unmissable radio." And drawing a comparison between Thatcher's years in power and now: "Margaret Thatcher may have been the enemy of the taste-makers of her time, but they came up with some pretty tasty stuff nonetheless. Back then, for example, pop could get angry and still get to No 1: can you imagine the Specials' Ghost Town getting airplay, let alone a gold disc, today? "
"Back then, the arts had the Iron Lady to push against. Now it has a blancmange, a state that tries to be all things to all people, and ends up pleasing no one. Little bit of politics there, as Ben (tickets still available to We Will Rock You) Elton would once have said."
Also from Radio 2, this time from Saturday, is "Lost Boy - The Nick Drake Story" - the story, narrated by Brad Pitt, of the English guitarist and singer-songwriter who died from an overdose of anti-depressants in 1974 at the age of 26.
From BBC Radio 4, 17:30 GMT on Thursday sees the return of "Revolting People", a sitcom set before the American War of Independence that is both amusing and informative as indeed is the News Quiz that airs on Friday at the same time.
For more serious fare from the channel try the second Asian Tigers programme tonight at 1900 GMT (This one is on China but last week's on Indonesia is still available on the web site for a short time.)
Previous Campling:
Previous Columnists:
Previous Donovan:
American Progress - Bateman:
CBS MarketWatch - Farrell:
MediaChannel - Smucker:
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UK Times - Campling:
Washington Post - Porter:

2004-05-24: Getting upset at the content of US radio can be dangerous to health if you over-react according to a report in the Sioux City Journal concerning a 54-years-old woman, Bramble Humphreys, who was upset by broadcasts by news-talk KSCJ-AM, Sioux City, Iowa.
Program director Willie Clark told the paper that Humphreys, known to the station as "Wendy" had in the past e-mailed the station complaining about various personalities and placed flyers on vehicles in the station parking lot claiming that KSCJ had bugged her computer.
He added that the police had been called several times and said that on Saturday she arrived at the station late in the morning and fired four to five shots from a .357-calibre handgun into a company vehicle and also hit the sales office and another personal vehicle.
No station employees were injured but Humphreys shot herself in the hand and was taken to hospital for surgery. Police say they are treating the incident as terrorism but said charges are pending until she is released from the hospital.
Sioux City Journal report:

2004-05-24: The problems "Oldies" stations face in deciding what are "Oldies" are for their target audience and the manner in which they have gradually shifted content are featured in the Washington Post in an article by Marc Fisher who notes that audience surveys show little interest in records from the 50s or early 60s.
"Consultants who advise oldies programmers," says Fisher, "have been pushing them gently into the '70s music library, but it's a dangerous road because that's when Top 40 radio died and all manner of much more specialized formats came along."
"So most Americans from that era grew up listening only to the kind of music they liked -- the soft soul of the Stylistics and the Spinners, disco, hard rock, lite rock and so on."
In a telling comment on research done - "by testing audience appetites for inoffensive songs of the '70s" - Fisher says they've identified some tunes such as Fleetwood Mac hits that reach across musical boundaries and has led Oldies stations over the last three years to push the average year of the songs they play from 1965 to almost 1967.
And for those who are being left out? Fisher reports that ABC Radio this spring launched its True Oldies Channel, focusing on the years 1958 to 1964 and being offered primarily to AM stations since the recordings were originally monaural, thus reducing FM's advantages.
Previous Fisher:
Washington Post report:

2004-05-24: Looking ahead to Wednesday's "Localism" hearing by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Rapid City, South Dakota, Democrat Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein appeals in the Rapid City Journal for local input on "how local television and radio broadcasters are serving communities in the Black Hills."
Referring to a "groundswell of public concern about how the growth of giant media companies has undercut the coverage of issues of concern in local communities" Adelstein notes that he grew up in the city and comments, "I know personally the dedication of many in our local media to provide the best service to our area. A dedicated and responsive media is one of the most important ways to ensure a first-rate economy, education, and quality of life for South Dakotans."
He lists the kind of input needed as posted by the FCC (See Licence News May 23) and adds, ". Since it is the smallest community we are visiting, it will serve as a case study of what is happening in hundreds of communities across the country the FCC will not have the opportunity to visit."
Previous Adelstein:
Previous FCC:
Rapid City Journal - Adelstein article:

2004-05-24: Entercom is considering moving its Kansas City operations out of Westwood in Kansas to space in Kansas City, Missouri, that formerly housed the Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance according to the Kansas City Star.
The paper says that Stan Counts Jr., an official with the Economic Development Corporation, told its board at its monthly meeting that discussions were under way but no tax incentive package had been agreed.
He added that should a move take place, the company would need a relay tower to connect signals for its eight stations in the market to its transmitters in Westwood.
Previous Entercom:
Kansas City Star report:

2004-05-23: Last week saw a steady amount of activity from the regulators except in Australia where there were no radio-related announcements.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was involved in a number of radio licence decisions.
In order of province they were:
Ontario:
*Amendment to licence of CFWC-FM, Brantford, to change its contours and frequency and increase power from 50 watts to 250 watts. This will change the station from a low-power unprotected service to a protected class A1 FM station and Larche Communications Inc., which was awarded CFWC's existing frequency for a new country music format FM, is expected to bear the costs of the changes.
Quebec:
*Renewal of licence of campus radio CFOU-FM Trois-Rivières, to 31 August 2011.
*Approval of frequency change for CJRF-FM Sherbrooke.
The CRTC also released its regular listing of ownership and control changes, this time covering the months of March and April.
They included radio changes involving transfer of the effective control of RBC, licensee of CHOW-FM, Welland, Ontario, through the sale by the Burnett family of all its voting shares to Mr. David Holgate and transfer of the effective control of the GX Radio Partnership, licensee of CFGW-FM Yorkton, Saskatchewan, through the sale of Yorkton Broadcasting Corporation's 75% of the voting shares to Mr. Lyle Walsh.
In Ireland, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has signed a ten-year contract with Raidio Ciarrai Teoranta (Radio Kerry) for its service to County Kerry that has already been on air for 14 years (See RNW May 19).
The UK was fairly quiet although Ofcom has released its latest Broadcasting Complaints Bulletin (See RNW May 18) and has also announced that it has contract out its broadcast advertising regulatory functions to a self-regulatory system to be administered by the Ofcom the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in a co-regulatory partnership with Ofcom (See RNW May 19).
It is also involved in discussions concerning food advertising, specifically related to "junk food" issues and says it aims to launch a consultation before the summer break.
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released further details of its May 26 Localism Task Force public meeting on broadcast localism to be held in Rapid City, South Dakota, the third such hearing by the commission.
Audio of the meeting will be web cast and the FCC has circulated five questions relating to how broadcasters respond to the community's needs, what programming should be available to the community but is not, how well broadcasters are informed about issues and events in the community, are there any segments of the community not being served and how could they be, and what, if anything, the FCC should do to promote more localism in broadcasting?
The FCC has also been involved in a number of enforcement actions including levying fines on two pirate operators (See RNW May 21) and on a number of stations for various technical offences (See RNW May 20).
Previous BCI:
Previous CRTC:
Previous FCC:
Previous Licence News:
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2004-05-23: Sirius gets a boost from contributors to the financial Motley Fool web site concerning articles on the relative merits of Sirius and XM satellite radios as an investment with 45% thinking the arguments put for Sirius were more compelling, 39% favouring XM, 12% appreciating both articles and 4% reckoning they both missed the mark.
Although an unscientific sampling and with only just more than 200 casting votes cast not a large sample, the responses to the articles relate to both the services themselves and the stock as an investment do seem to indicate that, as the site had previously indicated (See RNW May 14), Sirius may yet survive and prosper.
The Sirius argument put by W.D. Crotty argues that the market valuations of both companies - USD 3.9 billion for XM with 1.6 million plus subscribers and USD 3.6 billion for Sirius with a quarter of that, their relative cash position - Sirius has cash of USD 281 million and XM debt of USD 308 million, its content deals in the form of NFL, NBA, and NHL sports plus National Public Radio (NPR), and possibly its development of video, which was demonstrated at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas ((See RNW Jan 8) are all pluses for Sirius. He also notes that XM has imitated Sirius by dropping commercials on music channels whilst retaining its USD 9.95 a month charge, which means a significant extra revenue per subscriber for Sirius, which charges USD 12.95.
He also argues that XM has benefited greatly so far from General Motors pushing it but that Sirius has exclusive deals with Ford, Daimler-Chrysler and BMW and as these start to enter the race Sirius should see significant benefits.
Putting the figures together and assuming that the potential subscriber market is 20 million, he says that, even if the video development produces no revenue, both companies could survive: Sirius with the extra subscription revenue needs only around 43% of the market to share revenues evenly and if it takes a higher share it prospers accordingly.
Against Sirius, apart from comments about the nature of its subscribers, Seth Jayson argues primarily its market valuation, which he says is far too high, and also that the value of its sport and public radio content is being overvalued in terms of the typical satellite subscriber.
He argues not that XM is a good investment but that it's a better one than Sirius as it is further down the subscription road, is adding subscribers faster and at a much lower cost of USD 67 compared to USD 250 for Sirius: The market, he notes, values each subscriber at USD 2,700 compared to USD 10,000 for Sirius and the says the latter is "overpriced, and it's cruisin' for a bruisin'.
Previous Sirius:
Previous XM:
Motley Fool - Crotty on Sirius:
Motley Fool - Jayson on XM:

2004-05-23: The BBC's new daily Asian radio drama - Silver Street - goes on air on the corporation's Asian network from tomorrow.
More than GBP 1 million (USD 1.75 million) has been committed to the series, that follows the lives of young Asians living in a Midlands city and is being created by a team of British Asian writers and producers.
Previous BBC:

2004-05-22: The BBC has announced that Channel 4 TV Chief Executive Mark Thompson has been appointed Director-General to replace Greg Dyke, who resigned in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry into the death of scientist Dr David Kelly, revealed as the source of a BBC report alleging that the British government "sexed up " information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Thompson, a long-time BBC TV executive who left the Corporation two years ago for the Channel 4 post, joined the BBC as a graduate trainee in 1979 and worked on a number of news and current programmes before progressing up the ladder to eventually become of TV in 2000 under Greg Dyke.
The Corporation has also announced details of its revamping of Radio1 with Zane Lowe the chief beneficiary and Dave Pearce, whose drive time show has been axed, the main loser, although he will host a Sunday evening slot, Dance Anthems with Dave Pearce. John Peel also sees his show moved an hour later.
The new schedule starts in July and Lowe will now host shows from Monday to Thursday, adding Monday to his output; His show will also begin an hour earlier, at 1900.
Among other changes, Mike Davies' punk metal show The Lock Up has been brought forward to 9.00pm from 2.00am as part of Tuesday night's rock strand; Bobby & Nihal's Sony award winning Asian beats show has been brought forward to 9.00pm from 3.00am as part of Wednesday night's urban strand; Annie MacManus from the Zane Lowe show gets her own on Thursday's centred on the dance world and the early morning (05:00 to 07:00) The Blue Room hosted by Rob Da Bank and Chris Coco, adds Sunday mornings to its current Saturday outing.
The station is also introducing a Monday to Thursday 03:00 Experimental hour.
Station Controller Andy Parfitt commented, "Radio 1's remit is to break the best new music to the widest possible young audience. "
"In the past year our specialist shows have been instrumental in bringing through everyone from Keane to Franz Ferdinand to Kanye West. The changes we have made are designed to make our specialist schedule the most exciting listen possible reflecting everything that is new and important musically around the world today."
For Sports fans, BBC Radio Five Live has now released details of its Euro 2004 team, which will cover all the games in the tournament. The coverage will be presented by Mark Pougatch with commentary from Mike Ingham, Alan Green, Jonathan Pearce, John Murray, Simon Brotherton, Ian Brown and Conor McNamara backed by roving reporters and an expert team of analysts from England internationals: Terry Butcher (77 caps), Chris Waddle (62 caps) and Jimmy Armfield (43 caps) as well as former England Manager Graham Taylor and former QPR and Chelsea star Gavin Peacock.
Previous BBC:
Previous Dyke:
Previous Parfitt:
BBC Radio 1 new schedule:

2004-05-22: Interep's latest analysis of format trends in the US shows Spanish formats continuing their steady rise to a new high of an 11.8% share in Winter 2004, up from 11.5 in the Fall 2003 ratings and 10.9 in Winter 2003; The combined nine formats in the group are in second place behind the seven formats in the News/Talk/Sports Grouping which had a 16.3 share, down from 16.6 in the Fall and 16.7 in Winter 2003.
The other formats in the top five were CHR with 11.0 (9.0 in Winter 2003); Urban with 10.5 (12.9 in Winter 2003); and Adult Contemporary with (9.9 in Winter 2003): Changes in Urban Contemporary R&B classification had boosted CHR and lowered Urban rankings.
Lower down, Country formats lost a little share (8.3 to 8.2) in sixth place as did Classic Rock in seventh (6.0 to 5.9) and Oldies in eighth retained a 4.8 followed by New Rock (down from 5.0 to 4.7) in ninth rank and AOR in tenth with a static 3.7.
Below tenth rank there was little change except for Hot AC, which improved from a 3.0 in Winter 2003 to 3.5 in Winter 2004.
Previous Interep:

2004-05-21: Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH) has reported like-for-like revenues in the six months to the end of March up 10% on a year earlier and like-for-like radio revenues up 11% and total radio revenues from continuing operations up 18% with total revenues up 14% to GBP 47.2 million (USD 84.4 million).
Group operating profits were up 14% to GBP 10.9 million (USD 19.5 million) and adjusted earnings per share were up 13% to 21.4 pence.
SRH's net expenditure on digital radio and internet operations - it operates six digital multiplexes across Scotland and Northern Ireland - was up a third to GBP 0.8 million (USD 1.4 million)
Commenting on the results SRH chairman Lord Gordon of Strathblane said, "When taken against a strong first half last year, these results are particularly pleasing."
"The good revenue performance of the first six months in both radio and press has continued into the first few weeks of the second half, the performance of recent acquisitions will also have a beneficial impact, and we look forward to the rest of the year with confidence".
SRH also announced that Chief Executive Richard Findlay is to retire from the post at the end of the financial year in September although he will retain a non-executive Board position with additional responsibilities from that date. He has been with the company nearly three decades and Chief Executive for the past eight years.
He will be succeeded by David Goode, SRH's current Managing Director, Radio, who takes office on October 1. Goode has been with the company for two decades.
Also in the UK, former radio executive, Tim Schoonmaker who resigned as Emap Performance chief executive in January (See RNW Jan 9) is to join Odeon Cinemas as its chief executive. He had been reported to be in discussion with venture capital companies about making a bid for a UK radio company.
Previous Emap:
Previous Findlay:
Previous Lord Gordon:
Previous Schoonmaker:
Previous SRH:

2004-05-22: Michigan-headquartered Saga Communications has announced agreement to purchase four stations serving the Ithica, New York, market for an undisclosed price.
It is buying WTKO-AM and WQNY-FM from Eagle II Broadcasting and WHCU-AM and WYXL-FM from Eagle Broadcasting Co. and related real estate assets from Elgae Corporation.
In California, according to the Sacramento Business Journal Spanish language broadcaster Bustos Media Corporation has announced the acquisition for an undisclosed amount of OM Media Radio Network that provides Spanish language radio formats and has 35 affiliates around the country
The formats are its regional Mexican format "La Más Mexicana" with 28 affiliates, Spanish Contemporary "Exitos" format with five and Spanish Oldies "Recuerdo" with two.
OM, which like Bustos Media is Sacramento-based, has been renamed Bustos Radio Networks.
Previous Bustos Media:
Previous Saga:

2004-05-22: Progress Media's Air America Radio is seeking new money with pledges of extra investment from a group of early investors according to Reuters, which says they include Florida lawyer Mike Papantonio, Chicago entrepreneur Sheldon Drobny, and RealNetworks chairman Rob Glaser.
Papantonio, who co-hosts an Air America Saturday talk show with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the agency that the venture "is not dead and it's not going to die. I am a businessman and I see this as a great business opportunity."
He added that the network, which has now appointed another investor Doug Kreeger as chief executive to replace previous CEO Evan Cohen, was well on the way to raising its target USD 8 millon.
Previous Progress Media/Air America:

2004-05-22: A second Disney- ABC radio station that airs the Rush Limbaugh Show has turned down adverts about the host's remarks concerning the treatment of Iraqi prisoners and a number of Ohio stations have been attacked by the Teamsters Union for refusing to air adverts concerning the planned dismissal of workers when an Anheuser Busch distributor closes down its operations in Akron and moves to Brecksville.
The Limbaugh advert was prepared by Media Matters for America and was rejected by WBAP-AM, Dallas; Last week ABC's WMAL-AM in Washington, D.C. also refused to run the advert (See RNW May 16).
The Ohio advert was refused as too controversial by Infinity's WNCX-FM, Clear Channel's WKDD-FM, Radio One's WERE-AM, and dropped by Infinity's WDOK-FM and Radio One's WZAK-FM
Pat Darrow, Secretary-Treasurer Teamsters Local 348 suggested that the broadcasters were "more afraid of losing beer advertising dollars than informing their listeners"
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous Disney-ABC:
Previous Limbaugh:
Previous Radio One Inc:
Previous Viacom-CBS-Infinity:

2004-05-21: Sirius satellite radio has just received a major boost to its distribution, if not its income, as its service was officially launched on EchoStar's DISH network, giving it potential access to nearly 10 million satellite TV customers of the network.
Sirius is providing 61 commercial-free music services on the network and some 85% of the network's customers (8.25 million) - those subscribing to the premium packages America's Top 120, which costs USD 39.99 a month, and the more expensive Top 180 and America's Everything Pak - have access to the Sirius channels at no extra cost: other customers have an option to upgrade their packages to include Sirius.
Sirius is hoping that the move will entice more customers to pay USD 12.95 a month for its service, which so far has around 400,000 subscribers, fewer than a quarter of the number subscribing to rival XM.
Sirius President and CEO Joseph P. Clayton said that the move was to do with awareness of its service and added, "Once they hear what we have to offer, we believe that DISH Network customers will want to have SIRIUS in their cars, boats, RVs and trucks, as well as their homes."
As well as providing the service to DISH subscribers, DISH retailers will be able to offer a transportable DISH Network-branded SIRIUS Satellite Radio receiver priced at USD 149.95 with a portable "boombox" to be added soon.
Previous Clayton:
Previous Sirius:
Previous XM:

2004-05-21: UK Capital Radio has reported group revenues up 4% to GBP 59 million (USD 105 million) in the six months to the end of march with analogue radio profits up 5% to GBP 14.4 million (USD 25.6 million): Overall group profits were only slightly up, from GBP 12 million (USD 21.3 million) to GBP 12.1 million ( USD 21.5 million) and pre-tax profits were down 11% at GBP 6.46 million (11.48 million) because of restructuring costs. Basic earnings per share were down from GBP 0.43 to GBP 0.36.
Chief executive David Mansfield said the group's flagship Capital FM would keep its London lead, and said that rival Chrysalis, whose Heart FM overtook Capital FM in listening share but not reach in the third quarter of last year (See RNW Oct 24, 2003) didn't have a "hope in hell" of taking the London listening crown.
Commenting on the overall results Mansfield said, "There has been a modest improvement in the advertising economy and the Group has had ten consecutive months of year on year radio revenue growth, while increasing the number of listeners tuning into our stations."
"In London, we have clear commercial leadership with more listeners than any of our competitors. We are realising the benefits of the improvements we made to 95.8 Capital FM, with increased listeners across the schedule and at breakfast, Johnny Vaughan is off to a great start with early encouraging feedback from listeners and advertisers."
"Across the Group, we have seen record listening figures for Xfm and the Century FM Network and we have reclaimed leadership of the important Birmingham market."
"We believe that the advertisement of new analogue radio licences later this year together with the accelerated uptake of digital radio in the UK will present opportunities for the Group and we remain confident that the business is in a strong position for future growth."
Capital notes that across London, "in an increasingly competitive marketplace", it strengthened its leadership with Capital FM being supported by Xfm, Capital Gold and Choice FM.
Elsewhere it said the Century FM Network continues to increase listeners and revenue it was already attracting new national advertisers to Choice FM, its most recent acquisition.
Capital says its strategy is "to grow our strong portfolio of complementary radio brands and attract loyal listeners and advertisers."
"We believe that the Group will benefit from of the advertisement of new analogue radio licences later this year and the increased uptake of digital radio in the UK and we remain in a strong position to take advantage of potential consolidation opportunities."
Capital says it has seen a modest improvement in advertising market conditions in the last six months and adds that April revenues are up 1% on a year ago with May also up modestly. It expects better results in June with anticipated revenues related to Euro 2004 likely to boost results in what was a weak month a year ago.
Capital shares ended Thursday down 1.28% and 461.5 pence.
Previous Capital:
Previous Chrysalis:
Previous Mansfield:
Previous Vaughan:

2004-05-21: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has levied USD 10,000 penalties on two pirate radio operators, one in Florida and the other in New York.
The Florida penalty goes to Rony Richard Louis of Orlando and the New York one to L.A.C.A., State of New York, Inc. of the Bronx. Neither had responded to Notices of Apparent Violation.
Previous FCC:

2004-05-21: A third Hong Kong radio host has now quit the "Teacup in a Storm" radio show: He is Allen Lee, who had only taken over from Albert Cheng who resigned a fortnight ago (See RNW May 6).
Unlike Cheng a critic of the Beijing government as was his fellow host Raymong Wong who also quit (See RNW May 18), Lee, a member of China's National People's Congress (NPC) , was generally regarded as pro-Beijing.
Since announcing that he was leaving the radio show he has also written to NPC chairman Wu Bangguo, saying he intends to resign from the legislature.
Lee was criticized in the official English-language China Daily newspaper for speaking out against China's recent rejection of Hong Kong's calls for democracy: According to Radio Free Asia (RFA) he told Agence France-Presse he had received no threats but no longer enjoyed hosting the program, commenting, "I have a lot of my long-time good friends, I don't feel that I can criticize whatever they say or do.... If I can't enjoy my job, why do I do it? It's meaningless."
Shortly after Lee made his announcement, Hong Kong's acting Chief Secretary Michael Suen Ming-yeung said the government was determined to safeguard freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Hong Kong and stressed that the rule of law would be adhered to.
"We will not tolerate any acts of violence or intimidation," he said. "The police are fully capable and are determined to deal with such matters."
He added, "There is no indication to suggest freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Hong Kong are being suppressed."
RFA also reported that Choy Chi-keung, who is standing in for Wong , had appealed on air to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government to announce that it would not tolerate violence against commentators.
"At this time when people generally feel insecure, shouldn't our senior SAR officials come out to reiterate the government's intolerance for any politically motivated violence, that the government will not tolerate any violence that threatens to silence any voice?" said Choy, who is also a lecturer in government at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Before Wong Yuk-man decided to leave his show, someone vandalized his beef noodle restaurant in Kowloon City with red paint and in March this year he was assaulted in Tsim Sha Tsui by gang members.
Pro-democracy legislator and former journalist Emily Lau said she was "furious" at how threats of violence and political pressures have pushed the radio hosts to resign.
She also attacked the Hong Kong government saying it was not capable of safeguarding the freedom of speech. "This is a warning that shows room for media freedom has been significantly narrowed," Lau said.
Radio Free Asia report:

2004-05-21: The US Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has announced the allocation of nearly USD 8 million in funding under its Public Radio Public Service Competitive Funds for a range of projects that will take enhanced news and talk programming to Native Americans, produce documentaries on various topics and also additional localized coverage of Capitol Hill.
In all 15 projects were selected from a total of 60 proposals. The top grants were of USD 1.5 million to support the full launch of Public Radio Exchange (PRX), an Internet-based platform for digital distribution, peer review, and licensing of radio content that would link independent producers more directly with the marketplace; USD 1.2 million to Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, Anchorage, Alaska, to strengthen the editorial capacity of both Native America Calling and National Native News; USD 930,000 to Pundit Productions, Inc. for the expansion of centrally-produced congressional coverage customized for local stations; and USD 750,000 each to Sound Portraits Productions, Inc. of New York for the national launch of StoryCorps, a project designed to instruct and inspire Americans to record one another's stories in sound, and to the Tavis Smiley Show to support continued production.
CPB President and CEO, Robert T. Coonrod commented, "These projects will bring new voices and perspectives to millions of listeners. They also will help stations improve their bottom line and increase revenues, which ultimately will result in increased service to local communities. We're proud to help make that happen."
Previous Coonrod:
Previous Corporation for Public Broadcasting:

2004-05-21: Chicago suburban station WRZA-FM, which is now owned by Newsweb Corporation, has switched away from its former Spanish-language programming that Entravision had been airing and is now broadcasting format of the day programming in which a particular format or artist is featured.
It began with a day of Wheels - playing Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel, " Journey's "Wheel In The Sky;" and Jerry Garcia's "The Wheel," and then featured the Beatles,
A permanent format is expected early next month.
Previous Entravision:
Previous Newsweb:

2004-05-20: Winnipeg-headquartered CanWest Global Communications Corp. is planning a public offering of shares in its New Zealand radio and TV operations that it estimates will raise around NZD 119 million (USD 72 million).
The sale would be managed through the sale of 68 million shares in a newly incorporated New Zealand company CanWest MediaWorks Ltd. that will acquire CanWest's existing New Zealand operations.
This is around 30% of the company and Winnipeg-based CanWest would retain the remaining 70% although this could be reduced to around 64% if an over-allotment option of 12.8 million shares is fully exercised.
The new company will operate New Zealand's TV3 and C4 television channels and six national radio networks - The Edge, Channel Z, The Rock, More FM, Radio Pacific and Solid Gold - plus 22 regional radio stations.
CanWest MediaWorks Ltd. will use the proceeds of the IPO to help fund the acquisition of the media assets from the parent which will then use the funds it receives to reduce debt.
Previous CanWest:

2004-05-20: Colorado station owner, Indianapolis-headquartered Pilgrim Communications Inc has been fined a total of USD 30,000 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for offences at KSKE-AM, Vail, and KWYD-AM, Colorado Springs.
The total was comprised of a penalty of USD 11,000 for failure to maintain a main studio for KSKE and for failure to reduce its power at sunset, thus exceeding its authorized nighttime power levels and USD 19,000 for failure to have fully operational emergency alert system equipment at KWYD-AM, plus failure to maintain its main studio presence, failure to reduce power at sunset, exceeding nighttime permitted power, and failure to increase power at daytime and operating below the authorized daytime power levels.
Regarding KSKE, Pilgrim had argued that it had corrected the power problem, which it said was due to a fault in remote control equipment operated from KLMO-AM, Longmont, and that it that it maintained a studio for KSKE in Edwards, Colorado, with one employee there.
Regarding KWYD it said the remote control system that controlled power level's had not been re-programmed after a studio relocation but this had now been done and that it has also hired a person to staff the main studio and said EAS equipment that had also not been re-programmed had now been programmed.
It requested cancellation or reduction of the penalties on the basis of the corrective measures taken and of inability to pay. The FCC did not accept any of the grounds and said financial information provided did not justify a reduction or cancellation.
In Tennessee, however, the commission did accept that Fayette County Broadcasting, former Licensee of Station WSTN-AM, Somerville, has demonstrated inability to pay a USD 8,000 penalty for failure to install operational Emergency Alert System equipment. It noted that the company was no longer a licensee and issued an admonishment but cancelled the financial penalty.
In Florida it affirmed a USD 10,000 penalty on Wings Communications Inc. 's WELE-AM, Daytona Beach, for failure to continuously exhibit all red obstruction lighting on its tower from sunset to sunrise.
Wings had admitted the violation and that it failed to inform the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) of the outage, but asked for a cancellation on the basis of unsuccessful repair efforts. The FCC gave the argument short shrift and confirmed the penalty.
In Ohio, it confirmed a USD 11,000 penalty on Melodynamic Broadcasting Corporation, licensee of WCER-AM, Canton, for a number of breaches including failure to respond to Commission communications; failure to maintain a copy of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) handbook; failure to keep various power records and failure to operate in modes or with power as specified in its licence and failure to maintain a written designation of the chief operator.
Melodynamic had failed to respond to a number of Notices of Apparent Violation and when it eventually replied did so in terms of illness of the station manager, said the engineer was not full time, said it was in the process of completing installation of another ground system and was addressing interference and transmitter problems. It also queried the amount in terms of the revenue from the station but did not provide evidence to justify a reduction on this basis. The full penalty was confirmed.
Previous FCC:

2004-05-20: UK Emap is to spend GBP 1 million (USD 1.78 million on promoting its Kerrang! Rock station that is to go on air in the West Midlands on June 10th.
The campaign will include TV campaign, guerrilla marketing, street teams, stunts, bus sides and local media.
The campaign has a strapline "Music with Attitude" and Kerrang! marketing director Lisa Blower commented, "It is important that people realise that Kerrang! 105.2 is not a niche station. There is a little bit of rock inside most of us and our music remit will be a lot broader than some people might think. Just because you wear a suit by day, you're not excluded from Kerrang!'s world. Kerrang! 105.2 is about music with attitude rather than straight age demographics."
Emap will support the launch across its other radio, TV and publishing outlets including Kerrang! magazine that will be issuing special West Midlands area issues.
The station will have a potential audience of 3.5 million adults and the format will be similar to that of Emap's Kerrang! Digital service that is already available on the Freeview terrestrial digital platform, satellite, cable, online and digital multiplexes and in the latest ratings had a weekly reach of 775,000 listeners.
The brand is one of three - the others are Kiss and Magic - that Emap is to use to apply for new commercial FM licences in the UK; it is already planning a series of restricted service licence operations to pave the way for these applications.
Previous Emap:

2004-05-20: According to Robert Feder of the Chicago Sun-Times, negotiations are coming to a head over the hosting of the afternoon show on Disney-ABC's Chicago news/talk station WLS-AM.
The show has been co-hosted by Roe Conn and Garry Meier but the station took the latter off the air in January because of lack of progress in negotiations over a new contract and as a precaution in case agreement was not reached. (See RNW Jan 13).
Meier's contract expired in February and Conn, whose contract runs until June 15 has been hosting the show sol since Meier was dropped.
WLS president and general manager Zemira Jones apologized to listeners for the inconvenience caused by Meier's absence, telling the paper, "It was definitely not intended."
He said he remained optimistic and confident about an agreement although terms of the latest offer have not been revealed.
"We think Garry Meier and Roe Conn are fabulous personalities," Jones said. "We have been working diligently to get them to continue on the air. We value their talent tremendously and respect the great contribution they have made to WLS."
Previous Conn:
Previous Disney-ABC:
Previous Feder:
Previous Jones:
Previous Meier:
Chicago Sun-Times - Feder column:

2004-05-20: American talk show host Jerry Springer is to host Capital Gold's drive time show for a week from the end of this month whilst regular host Paul Coyte is on holiday according to the UK Guardian.
The paper calls the move part of a trend that this weekend will see Brad Pitt present a programme about the life of English singer-songwriter Nick Drake on BBC Radio 2 (See RNW April 8) and is expected to see Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood standing in for veteran DJ John Peel on Radio 1 later this year.
In another move at the BBC, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood is to become the Corporation's new composer in residence and write a new work for one of its radio stations. Greenwood, who trained as a viola player but has no education in classical composition, will remain a member of the band during the term of his appointment. It is expected to last three years and he will have use of BBC musical resources including the BBC Concert Orchestra.
The previous BBC Composer was Anne Dudley, keyboard player for Art of Noise and winner of an Oscar in 1997 for her score to the highest grossing British film of all time, The Full Monty.
At BBC Radio 4, Radio 1 breakfast host Chris Moyles has recorded a cameo role in the daily farming soap, The Archers. The episode, in which he goes into a pub and orders a pint, is to air on June 14.
Previous BBC:
Previous Capital:
Previous Moyles:
Previous Peel:
UK Guardian report:

2004-05-20: Afghanistan now has two university campus radio services with the launch this month of stations at Kabul and Herat universities and a third is expected to go on air shortly at Mazar-e-Sharif.
The Kabul station was inaugurated on May 4 as the highlight of UNESCO's World Press Freedom
Day activities in Afghanistan and the Herat service on May 18.
UNESCO provided the equipment for the Kabul station, which is based in the University's Faculty of Journalism and will serve both as a training tool for journalism students and an educational out-reach voice for the University in its efforts to further engage the local community.
The Herat University station, based in the Journalism Department of the Literature Faculty, targets above all the youth community with five hours of programming produced daily by students under the guidance of Afghan NGO Sayara Media & Communication and the university's professors.
Sayara expects to install a third station in Mazar University by July this year.
Sayara web site:

2004-05-19: A further decline in response rates has been reported by Arbitron for the 97 markets in its winter 2004 survey - down from 33.9% a year earlier to 32.1% overall and from 31% to 30.9% in the top ten markets.
The consent rate - the percentage of those eligible who agreed to keep a diary - also fell: It was down from 59.8% in winter 2003 to 56.3% for 2004 with the rate in the top ten markets down from 55.5% to 53.4% but the return rate - those who subsequently sent in a useable diary - was up from 56.1% to 56.6% overall and from 55.2% to 55.7% in the top ten markets.
Arbitron had already responded to the problem by opening a second interviewing centre in Houston, Texas, and through larger diary premiums to African-American and Hispanic households in areas that did not receive black or Hispanic Differential Survey Treatment. It is to add three more "treatments" for the spring 2004 survey; They include a letter and one-dollar pre-placement premium to be sent to all mailable households in advance of the first recruitment telephone call in a total of 40 markets including the top ten markets and 20 low response rate markets; a five-dollar-per-household "thank you" premium for black, Hispanic and young male 18-34 households in 20 low response rate markets.
In addition, in the top ten markets where Arbitron has been using a "promised incentive" technique since Fall 2003, Arbitron's recruiters will now mention the additional incentive for the return of a diary during the recruitment call. Previously, the promised incentive was disclosed only in the diary package.
In the UK, official radio ratings organisation RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) has taken a further step towards the introduction of a metering system with the appointment of marketing and communications consultancy mc2, founded by Mark Cross, to carry out what it terms "a major consultative initiative across the broadcast, media and advertising communities."
RAJAR says the move is designed to gain a consensus on how RAJAR's measurement system should be developed in the light of the planned move towards electronic testing.
Sally de la Bedoyere, managing director of RAJAR, commented, "The momentum of the decision-making process is starting to build. Arbitron [the Portable People Meter system] and GfK [the RadioControl Meter system] are due to present their next generation hardware to us very soon, with full tests and evaluation taking place before the end of the year. We are trying to take an over-arching view beyond the capabilities presented by the current methodology and technology. This will help us to set the agenda for RAJAR over the coming years."
Cross, who was formerly with PHD Compass and also has a media research project contract with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), commented, "The consultation process is going to work across a number of levels and across all the different stakeholders - the radio stations, the media agencies and the advertisers. At a radio level, this includes both the BBC and Commercial Radio. We need to gain clarity on what each stakeholder's views and requirements are."
UK advertising bodies the IPA and ISBA have already volunteered their involvement in the consultation and the ISBA's Radio Action Group is to help by running its own consultation as part of the process.
In an advertising development in the UK, media regulator Ofcom has opted as widely anticipated to contract out its broadcast advertising regulatory functions to a self-regulatory system to be administered by the Ofcom the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in a co-regulatory partnership with Ofcom.
The move that has been welcomed by advertising bodies and the radio trade body, the Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA), which noted that it had long supported the concept now to be adopted.
ISBA Director General Malcolm Earnshaw said of the decision, "Consumer trust in advertising is crucial for all of us. The creation of a 'one stop shop' for all advertising complaints will make it easier for consumers to ensure their views are heard. We also believe that, whilst Code drafting and adjudications systems for broadcast and non-broadcast will remain formally separate, the bringing together of all forms of advertising under the single ASA banner will eventually lead to more 'joined up' thinking on both. This is important at a time when advertisers are increasingly looking to run 'single idea' campaigns across a range of media."
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Previous de la Bedoyere:
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Previous RAJAR:

2004-05-19: BBC Radio 1 is planning major changes to its night-time schedule according to the UK Independent, which says station controller Andy Parfitt, who has already changed most of its day time schedule - changes included dropping Mark Goodier (See RNW Nov 14, 2002), easing Mark and Lard ((Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley) to Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music (See RNW Feb 20), and moving Chris Moyles to breakfast in an exchange with Sara Cox who took over from Moyles at afternoon drive (See RNW Jan 6) - said he is now planning a similar radical overhaul of its night-time shows.
They are hosted by among others Pete Tong, Judge Jules, John Peel, Tim Westwood and Steve Lamacq.
The paper says that it is likely that at least three of the current hosts will be dropped but that John Peel, who has been with Radio 1 since it began, is not under threat.
Parfitt told the paper the shows needed to reach out to a wider audience, commenting, "All of those shows appeal to particular musical communities. I'm really pleased that they have credibility within these specific communities, but I think the job of Radio 1 - given that we are a national broadcaster - is that we can't just preach to the converted."
He denied that there would be a move away from specialist shows to the mainstream, saying he planned to try to group together shows of similar genre and introduce greater flexibility to embrace emerging music popular with the station's 15 to 24-year-old target audience but adding, "Our commitment to delivering at the cutting edge for all of these genres is absolutely there."
With the renewal of the BBC Charter in mind Parfitt stressed the public service credentials of the station such as the youth current affairs programme Newsbeat and also the encouragement of new music.
"Our job is to discover, support, promote, take part in, the new musical experience of this country, which has for 40-odd years been an incredibly successful, interesting and diverse culture," he said but admitted that there would be uncertainty ahead although he had developed a "rhinoceros skin" to deal with critics.
"The extent of change that Radio 1 has undergone in the past 18 months will take a while to bed down," Parfitt commented. "I hope we can build on an early good start but I won't be surprised if there's some churn."
Previous BBC:
Previous Cox:
Previous Goodier:
Previous Lamacq:
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Previous Parfitt:
Previous Peel:
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Previous Riley:
UK Independent report:

2004-05-19: In further US results, Journal Communications has reported publishing and broadcasting revenues for its fourth quarter to April 25 up 7.3% to USD 38.43 with broadcasting, whose operating revenue at USD 12.76 million was up 11.9% outperforming publishing.
Within broadcasting, TV operating revenues were up 19.3% at USD 6.7 million but radio was up only 4.7% at USD6.06 million.
Susquehanna reported a similar increase for its radio operations with revenue up 4% to USD 46.7 million and net income up from USD 8 million to USD 8.5 million.
On the deals front, Big League Sports has announced agreement to purchase KFNS-AM and FM and KRFT-AM, St Louis, Missouri, from Missouri Sports Radio, LLC, for USD 11.5 million.
Big League Broadcasting co-president Stephen Shapiro said it would "preserve the current format and unique St. Louis spirit on both KFNS and KRFT."
His company operates WQXI-AM, "790 -The Zone" in Atlanta, Georgia, under an LMA with Jefferson Pilot Broadcasting.
Previous Journal Communications:
Previous Susquehanna:

2004-05-19: The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has now signed a ten-year contract with Raidio Ciarrai Teoranta (Radio Kerry) for its service to County Kerry.
The station has already been on air for 14 years with a music - made up of chart hits, classic hits and Irish country and traditional - and speech service that is targeted at a 25 plus audience.
Previous BCI:

2004-05-19: Taiwan's Government Information Office (GIO) has fined the country's "Sister Radio" TWD 9000 (USD 270) for a broadcast that mimicked the sounds lesbians from different countries make while having sex.
The station, Asia's first that is devoted to women's rights, was penalised for "harming public order or proper customs" in the broadcast during its weekly program specifically dedicated to lesbian issues called "Lez Radio."
Host Wei-wei in the short segment, "Free listening and free speaking" explained how to used condoms to make sexual contact safer and imitated the screams made by women of different countries.
Station Chairman Wang Li-ping, a former Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker, said the station was created with a spirit of activism to give a platform for discussion to a diversity of cultural trends and expressed concern that it could have problems renewing its licence.
Taiwan News report:

2004-05-18: Australian commercial radio had another strong month in April according to PricewaterhouseCoopers Radio Revenue Performance figures just released that show metropolitan radio revenues in April up 12% on the previous April at AUD 42 million (USD 28.8 million). The increase compares with 19% in January, 15% in February and 14.5% in March.
The figures also show revenue over the ten months to the end of April up 10% on the year-earlier period at AUD 427 million (USD 292 million).
Within the figures, Brisbane had the strongest April growth of 20.5% followed by Perth with 14%, Melbourne with 12.5% and Sydney with 12%.
Joan Warner, CEO of industry body Commercial Radio Australia, commented, "The radio advertising market continues to perform well and despite monthly figures this year slowing, overall the industry is still recording double digit figure growth - a strong result."
Previous Commercial Radio Australia:
Previous Warner:

2004-05-18: A Montana man whose radio equipment has been seized by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has come up with an unusual defence of his operating without a licence according to the Montana Standard.
It reports that Burton James, who said his equipment was confiscated by a group comprised of four men wearing Federal Communications Commission jackets, one federal marshal, and one Butte-Silver Bow police officer, claims that he was entitled to operate the station.
"The federal government has no jurisdiction whatsoever in several states and Montana is one of them," he said. He also said he believed he could operate a station without a license under another provision of federal law, which he cited as 47 U.S. Code 308.
"It clearly states that no license is required for any station during times of economic emergency and/or declared war, and both apply in this case," James told the paper.
RNW note: We tried a search but could not find the provisions James refers to in the code: The text we found said, "…in cases of emergency where the Commission finds, in the non broadcast services, that it would not be feasible to secure renewal applications from existing licensees or otherwise to follow normal licensing procedure, the Commission may grant construction permits and station licenses, or modifications or renewals thereof, during the emergency so found by the Commission or during the continuance of any such national emergency or war, in such manner and upon such terms and conditions as the Commission shall by regulation prescribe, and without the filing of a formal application, but no authorization so granted shall continue in effect beyond the period of the emergency or war requiring it."
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US Code 47 site:

2004-05-18: Britain's Ofcom regulator has criticized Emap's Key 103 station in Manchester for broadcasting "offensive" text jokes sent in by listeners concerning the Morecambe Bay tragedy in which at least 20 Chinese cockle pickers were drowned in February this year.
It also upheld another radio complaint concerning remaks made on a Mansfield station during a phone in on gay adoption.
In all Ofcom upheld five "standards" cases in its latest bulletin, three involving TV - all about swearing - in Greek in one case - in English in another that led the broadcaster to subsequently introduce a delay system - and also in English in a third case in which the word 'fuck' was displayed in the subtitles, during a performance by 50 Cent at the Brit Awards.
As well as the two radio cases that were also upheld a radio "unfairness" case was partly upheld. One other TV case, involving a music channel owned by MTV where text including "shit" and "fuck" was scrolled across the screen was considered resolved since the individual responsible had been fired.
The Key 103 complaint involved the reading of text jokes about the Morcambe Bay tragedy over three successive days by late-night host James Stannage; the complainant felt these to be offensive, in particular one in which the term "chink" was used.
The station's programme director had acknowledged, says Ofcom, that in "in retrospect, there was no place for humour in such a scenario and that the broadcasts were regrettable."
Ofcom commented in its ruling that reading the texts was "seriously ill judged and that the items had been offensive."
RNW comment: Unlike the Portland, Oregon, hosts fired last week after joking about the murder of Nick Berg (See RNW May 15), Stannage remains in his job. We rather feel that at least a couple of months of his pay should have been sent to the relatives of those who died by the station as a condition of this remaining so!
In the other radio standards case that was upheld, Mansfield 103 was the subject of a complaint that a presenter made bigoted and offensive remarks during a phone-in programme in which one of the subjects was the issue of gay adoptions.
The station told Ofcom it accepted that the phone-in was not up to its standards and agreed that some callers were treated in a manner, which it did not condone, although they were given the chance to put their views.
Ofcom noted that the programme had begun with a serious agenda regarding adoption by homosexual couples but added that "during the course of the phone-in, the presenter ridiculed and insulted some callers who wanted to make legitimate points about the subject" and " made derogatory remarks about homosexuality, some of which were directed to those who rang and declared that they were gay."
The partially upheld case involving radio related to the treatment of the active partner in a Farm Produce company about his treatment in a news report on BBC Radio Lincolnshire's breakfast show about his application for a planning permission for a wind farm. It was followed by a phone-in and discussion, intended to be about wind farms in general, in which the complainant was criticized.
The BBC had accepted that he should have been contacted immediately for his point of view and when he phoned to complain had apologized to him and offered to interview him that day or on the breakfast show the next day but he had refused.
The complaint had also alleged a conspiracy between the BBC and the local resident group's spokeswoman who had criticized him but this was rejected although Ofcom found that it had been unfair not to offer an opportunity to respond during the programme itself.
In its previous bulletin earlier this month Ofcom upheld four standards complaints, one involving BBC Radio 1's use of the word "motherfucker" in a song lyric, another against the same channel when Mark Radcliffe commented "You fucking lap it up" to his co-host in his afternoon show.
In the first case the phrase had been partially edited - Ofcom commented, however, that it "believed that the word remained clearly audible" - and in the second apologies had been made immediately.
In addition two TV complaints were upheld, one again about swearing and another about violence in Kindergarten Cop, which had been aired on a Sunday afternoon when young children could be expected to watch.
Previous Ofcom:

2004-05-18: A second Hong Kong radio host who had been critical of the governments of China and the former British colony has now gone off air.
Raymond Wong was said by a guest host to have needed to take a rest because he was 'physically and mentally tired'.
Earlier this month Albert Cheng, Wong's co-host on the Cantonese-language "Teacup in a Storm" morning show left having recorded a final message containing veiled references to political pressures (See RNW May 6).
Straits Times/AP report:

2004-05-18: BBC World Service's Outlook programme this week is being completely devoted to special "Listeners' Week" devoted to ideas and stories from listeners rather than its usual agenda.
It has been constructed by allowing listeners to tell their stories or direct the programme towards an interesting person or issue following which local reporters were sent to aid them "bring the stories to life."
The stories span the world and include items on a sanctuary for abandoned parrots in northern Holland, the selling of young girl dancers in a Jamaican strip club, a man who looks for abandoned wheelchairs in Japan then repairs them and sends them to South Africa, and a couple in Quebec who welcome ships into port by playing the relevant national anthem and raising the flag of the country
RNW note - Outlook airs from 11:00-11:45 GMT and programmes are available for a week on the World Service web site.
Previous BBC:

2004-05-17: Yet again the main print comment relating to radio over the past week has been in the more general context of politics, in this case indecent broadcasts as defined by the Federal Communications Commission in the US and comments on the treatment of Iraqi prisoners made by talk host Rush Limbaugh who likened what had happened to fraternity hazing and was more sinister than stressed-out fighting men "blowing off some steam".
The two stories overlapped in an odd way when, as reported by Jacques Steinberg in the New York Times. Steinberg noted a number of examples of self-censorship in decisions by the producers of Masterpiece Theatre to make available to PBS TV stations only expurgated versions of the British TV series "Prime Suspect", giving choice only of how much had been cut out, and of an Emmis station in Indianapolis removing "words like 'urinate,' 'damn' and 'orgy'" from a recent Limbaugh show.
Also out, this time from classic rock stations, are songs like Elton John's "The Bitch Is Back" and "Bitch" by the Rolling Stones.
Emmis chairman and CEO Jeff Smulyan commented of some of the actions taken, "If you're asking if there has been over caution on the part of broadcasters today, I think the answer is yes,"
"Everyone is going to err on the side of caution. There is too much at stake. People are just not sure what the standards really are."
The article comments that broadcasters say they have little choice but to practice a form of self-censorship following a series of recent decisions by the F.C.C., as well as bills passed in Congress, that put them on notice that even the unintentional broadcast of something that could be considered indecent or obscene could result in stiffer fines or even the revocation of their licenses.
Occasionally the caution becomes risible as when at WABC in New York a technician used the "dump" button to prevent the word "parachute" from being heard.
Program director Phil Boyce said the host had tripped over the second half of the word in a way that made it sound as if he had stepped in something offensive and added, "You will never be criticized for dumping something that may not have needed to be dumped. But God forbid we miss one and let it slip up."
A different and a more mocking tone was on display in the London Times where in a similar article by Sarah Baxter - titled, "Prim America blanks out British TV's naughty bits" - cited many of the same examples and asked, "How did autopsy photographs of naked corpses in her crime series Prime Suspect end up on American television with black triangles in intimate places?"
"And why did the gritty investigator's mouth mysteriously blur every time she lost her temper? Could it have been to bar US viewers from lip-reading the curses she spat at indolent subordinates?"
In the Washington Post, Drew Clark in an article, "TV Has Grown Up. Shouldn't FCC Rules?", looked at the matter in the light of changing technology and came up with a number of possible scenarios before concluding that "the current debate over broadcast indecency standards is woefully out of touch with the realities of the digital world as we now know it -- not to mention the world that is just over the horizon."
"I don't want my 4-year-old son to see crude or provocative shows when he turns on our television," wrote Clark. "I also don't want him to see such material when he turns on our Internet-connected computer. Yet it would be impractical, as well as unconstitutional, for the government to set itself as the censor of cable, satellite and Internet content. It makes more much sense for consumers to determine what comes into their homes."
"The technology exists for us to be masters of convergence -- whether it's a V-chip, or Internet and movie filters, or a blocking device that keeps out cable and satellite channels that we don't want to see. And, of course, it doesn't require technology to talk with our kids about viewing standards…
It's time to recognize that Congress and the FCC can no longer be the nation's "public interest" nanny. Instead of trying to preserve rules from a world that no longer exists, they would do better to encourage the development of tools that will let us regulate ourselves."
Away from the political power centres of the US, the issue of broadcast indecency and restrictions was also getting print cover. One of the more perceptive articles we noted came from John Smyntek in the Detroit Free Press.
Smyntek noted that the four-letter word most applicable was "fear" not the other F-word …" Fear of license challenge and revocation and loss of major capital assets. Fear of prolonged legal fights and expenses. And fear of long public battles with conservative interest groups that are good at thwarting surveyed majorities that won't agree with them."
Smyntek notes Detroit's involvement in the action with fines imposed on Infinity's WKRK-FM and quotes Ann Arbor-based media consultant Lou Kasman as saying Viacom "must fight this censorship" with a stable that includes Infinity, Westwood One, MTV, plus CBS and Showtime.
He also quotes WRIF-FM morning co-host Mike Clark as disagreeing with FCC chairman Michael Powell's argument that the rules should not be made more clear.
"It would be nice if they would decide to tell everyone where the line is -- at least some guidelines -- as opposed to being subject to the whims on any given day" of Washington bureaucrats said Clark.
Putting things even more bluntly Viacom President and COO Mel Karmazin commented, "Just because you don't like the words 'anal sex' doesn't make it indecent."
Further in the sticks, the Oklahoman in an editorial mirrored what we consider the waffle and ill-thought out drivel that seems commonplace in current American political life from the top down with comment that on the surface seems totally unobjectionable in the thought, "Given the choice between voluntary self- control and censorship, we'll take self-control."
What it didn't do was connect any dots in its concluding paragraphs after noting Smulyan's comment on the lack of clarity in the rules:" Maybe. But an equal argument can be made that standards, in fact, are pretty clear, and that there's simply more accountability than before. This is a fine and logical process."
"The airwaves belong to all Americans, and their government has a responsibility to make sure licensees act as good stewards. As we say, it works best when broadcasters do this themselves."
RNW comment: And when the penalties - and rules - can effectively be changed a year after an offence to massively increase the penalties, this is a reasoned comment?
Moving on to rather more important politics in a world context, we noted a significant number of items condemning Rush Limbaugh for his comments about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by the US (the comments in the Palm Beach Post that we cited yesterday give a reasonable flavour of the tenor in most US newspaper comment - See RNW May 16).
In what is regarded as a conservative and pro-American newspaper, the UK Telegraph, Zoe Heller, linked the morality of the US reaction to Janet Jackson's brief mammary exposure and Bono's "fucking brilliant" comment with that of its reaction to the abuse of imprisoned humans.
"You'd think, given this atmosphere of moral backlash, that the release of souvenir photos depicting the sexual sadism of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib would have caused a veritable explosion of chest-beating and soul-searching," she wrote. "Well, not quite. In truth, the fleeting appearance of Jackson's studded breast received a more uniformly adverse reaction."
After detailing some of Limbaugh's initial reactions, she noted his comments when Nick Berg was beheaded: "I maintained throughout the release of these prison photos, perspective was what was needed. They're the ones who are sick. They're the ones who are perverted. They are the ones who are dangerous. They are the ones who are subhuman. They are the ones who are human debris, not the United States of America and not our soldiers and not our prison guards."
Heller also noted the reactions of the Bush administration , from the President down, before writing, "It was left to Republican Senator John McCain - who spent years being tortured in a Vietnamese prison cell - to remind the committee that an occupying army, especially one that claims to be a liberating force, is bound to a higher moral standard than that of its enemies."
She ended by noting comments from Fox News anchor John Gibson, asking about the outrage at Berg's murder and commenting, "The same people screaming about American abuses at Abu Ghraib are now conspicuously silent about this outrage directed against an American."
(RNW comment- not really true, but then again it is the Fox network).
Heller then ends, "If Gibson had bothered to read a translation of what al-Zarqawi actually said in his vile snuff video, he would have been surprised at how uncannily similar his own words were to al-Zarqawi's. Just prior to decapitating Berg, al-Zarqawi exhorted his fellow Muslims to feel more righteous anger about the Abu Ghraib crimes. 'Where is the sense of honour?' he asked. 'Where is the rage? Where is the anger for God's religion?'"
As Heller concluded, and it could apply to Limbaugh, Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma, and far too many Americans for anyone to be hopeful of anything but ultimate moral failure in Iraq, "Neither man, it seems, ever heard that useful nursery adage about two wrongs not making a right."
After that, the first recommendation we have this week for listening is from the US and Friday's Travis Smiley Show on US National Public Radio, which was broadcast from Morgan State University in Baltimore and focused on the 50th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (As will today's show). A good educational programme, but not a heartening one for those believing too many myths about US moral superiority or indeed the virtues of its Supreme Court (try this link for details of the 1896 Separate but Equal Ruling in Plessy v Ferguson ruling that was eventually overturned by the Brown ruling in 1954).
Still with the historical but this time much more recent and in a different context, and tomorrow on BBC Radio 2 sees the second of a three-part series on the Thatcher years in the UK - "Maggie's Cultural Revolution", which if nothing else sheds light on how divisive her reign was, with views still in massive conflict. The first part is still on the channel's web site.
And a third recommendation, also with some illuminating views as to past historical foul-ups - "The History of Folly" has just ended on BBC Radio 4. All four programmes are still currently on the site.
For drama, try BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Play from Wednesday, "Einstein in Cromer (available until this Wednesday on the site)."
For those devoted to classical music Charles Ives is the composer of the week (11:00 gmt daily) on BBC radio 3 this week and for something completely different, try "Another Five Numbers", also from BBC Radio 4-it's the second series looking at various mathematical numbers or concepts and their history. The second and original series are now on the web site, giving a look at the invention of numbers from zero to infinity with i and pi in between.
Previous Columnists:
Detroit Free Press - Smyntek:
New York Times - Steinberg:
Oklahoman - editorial:
UK Telegraph - Heller:
UK Times - Baxter:

Washington Post - Clark:

2004-05-17: Demographic changes in Australia are changing radio's obsession away from its 2-decade "obsession with audiences aged under 40" according to a Sydney Morning Herald report.
It says the push for older audiences is the most significant change in Australian radio since the 1980's when FM stations were launched targeting younger listeners and lists amongst those talking up the over-40 potential as DMG Radio Australia, the Australian Radio Network (ARN), Southern Cross Broadcasting's Sydney 2UE talk station and Macquarie Radio's 2GB and 2CH.
In DMG's case, now that it has completed its Nova network, which is targeted at the younger demographic, the paper says that national sales chief Keith Thomas last week confirmed that the company was looking at older listeners for its second Sydney licence and for Melbourne, should it be the winning bidder at a licence auction in August.
"It's fair to say there appear to be some interesting opportunities in the over-40 demographics that we will be exploring," he said. "If you put two and two together, we would be considering that move very carefully."
Defending some of the bias towards targeting younger audiences, however, he added, "Advertisers feel they have a better chance of influencing the buying decisions of younger audiences. People over 40 have pretty established buying patterns.
ARN's chief executive, Bob Longwell commented, "Seventy-one cents of all goods and services are spent by someone between 25 and 54 years old."
"That's our obsession. It just makes logical sense. About 60 per cent of national advertiser budgets go to 18 to 34-year-olds. In the UK and the US, it's the reverse. Radio has been branded young, but the population has shifted and the market is shifting, too."
RNW note: As well as demographic changes, the introduction of new commercial FM licences in Australia has already put pressure on FM leader, Austereo, which is in a tough battle against DMG's Nova network, built up from the new licences.
There is also another potential competitor in the wings in the form of the joint venture between Virgin and Macquarie Radio, which was just popped to the post by DMG in the bidding for the new Sydney licence-it bid AUD 106 million to their AUD 105 million bid.
The main problem for the new team is licence availability and there have been continuing rumours that they are interested in Austereo's Triple M network and may even have made an informal bid for it. Village Voice, which owns 60% of Austereo, is known to want cash to buy back more of its preference shares and there are suggestions that it might consider an offer if it were pitched high enough. It would, however, face a problem in a straight bid for Triple M in the problems required to disentangle the network from its big sister, the Today FM network.

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2004-05-17: Cumulus has granted 950,000 options of its common stock priced at USD 19.38 over the next four years to six of its executives, most of them to the Dickey brothers.
Chairman, President and CEO Lewis W. Dickey Jr. is granted options to purchase 500,000 shares and Executive VP John W. Dickey 200,000 with the next highest grant, of 100,000 options going to Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Martin R. Gausvik.
Cumulus shares ended last week trading at USD 18.96.
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Previous Lewis Dickey:

2004-05-16: The main radio licence news over the past week came from the UK where Ofcom, rather than another consultation, has now starting releasing details of pits planned issue of some 30 commercial FM licences over the next 18 months; elsewhere there was a reasonable level of activity including more indecency penalties in the US.
In Australia the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has released a discussion paper concerning the future of the 1386 KHz frequency in Sydney and has also been involved in decisions concerning FM frequencies in New South Wales and Western Australia.
The discussion paper looks at possible options for the use of the frequency following a decision a year ago not to allocate it for community broadcasting use.
Options now being put forward for consideration are retaining the frequency for a community service, making it available for an open narrowcasting service, using it for Digital Radio Mondiale trials or making it available for other purposes.
ABA Chairman Professor David Flint commented, 'The ABA would like to hear from key stakeholders and the general public about how it might best utilize this frequency and resolve some of the problems surrounding its use, given that it is the last remaining unallocated planned frequency in the analog Sydney market."
It is also to make additional capacity available for commercial service 2LM Lismore to operate an FM translator in Kyogle, New South Wales, under the Commercial Radio Blackspots Program which makes government funding available to deliver new or improved commercial radio services to regional and remote communities where it has not been commercially viable for licensees to provide coverage.
It has also made FM channel capacity available to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in the Richmond/Tweed area for a future national radio service providing coverage to Lismore
In Western Australia, it is inviting applications for new community radio licence for Cocos Islands with a deadline for applications of Friday 4 June 2004
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has been involved in a number of routine licence decisions.
In order of province, they include:
Alberta:
*Addition of 25 watts transmitter in Buffalo Head, and 50 watts transmitters in Foggy Mountain, Red Earth and Watt Mountain, for CIAM-FM Fort Vermilion.
Manitoba:
*Approval of fourth extension, until 2 February 2005, for Native Communication Inc. for an extension of the time limit to commence the operation of new transmitter for CINC-FM Thompson at Lake Manitoba.
Saskatchewan:
Approval of application by Moose Jaw Tier 1 Hockey Inc. to amend the broadcasting licence for the radio programming undertaking CFVZ-FM Moose Jaw to allow it to carry fastball games from Memorial Field, and selected Moose Jaw High School athletic events as well as the hockey games of the Moose Jaw Warriors and baseball games of the Moose Jaw Millers already licenses plus a one-hour noon-time program broadcast Monday to Friday related to the promotion of events and games of the hockey club.
Addition of 2,100 watts transmitter in Saskatoon for CJLR-FM, La Ronge.
Yukon Territory:
*New 240 watts FM transmitter in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, to carry the service of CBU-FM Vancouver, British Columbia
* 380 watts FM transmitter in Whitehorse to broadcast the programming of CKRW- AM, Whitehorse.
Licensee Klondike Broadcasting Company Limited says the purpose of the transmitter is to enable it to remain competitive in the local market by providing FM stereo service to the city of Whitehorse and surrounding area, while continuing to provide service on the AM band to those area residents who are unable to receive the new FM signal.
In Ireland, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has invited applications for two new Dublin area licences (See RNW May 11) and has also issued revised guidelines relating to temporary licences as well as guidelines in respect of coverage of the country's Referendum on Irish Citizenship and Local and European elections 2004.
In the UK, as already reported (See RNW May 14), Ofcom has now released more details of its plans to release around 30 more commercial FM licences over the next 18 months, commencing with Blackburn and Edinburgh licences next month.
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been involved in enforcement actions relating to both indecency and technical offences. The indecency penalty was levied on Entercom in respect of comments in 201 on the Andy Savage Show on KNDD in Seattle (See RNW May 15).
The other penalties were on a Florida pirate operator (See RNW May 11) and on a Louisiana FM (See RNW May 13).
The Commission also cancelled on financial hardship grounds a USD 22,000 penalty on a West Virginia AM and instead issued an admonishment (Also RNW May 13).
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2004-05-16: Sheldon and Anita Drobny, the couple who founded the precursor to Progress Media's Air America Radio before selling most of their holding (See RNW Dec 2, 2003), are now involved in negotiations to take control of the company according to the Chicago Tribune.
The paper says that a "possible acquisition" in conjunction with the aid of at least one major new investor is "imminent" according to one source.
The paper also reports that one Air America source told it that the network's Chicago sales staff - laid off along with its Los Angeles sales staff last week - were still owed a fortnight's pay and had also never been involved in a health insurance plan, though Air America promised coverage and deducted health insurance premiums from their pay checks.
It quotes Air America President Jon Sinton as saying that any mistakes made will be corrected and adding, "At the end of the day, we're not going to let anybody go unpaid. We'll make good on whatever may be out there. If health coverage has lapsed, it will be restored."
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Previous Sinton:
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2004-05-16: Conservative US radio host Rush Limbaugh is now involved in two separate battles of adverts, one relating to possible action against him over his drug purchases and the other to his attitudes to the maltreatment of prisoners.
In the first case the adverts were from Limbaugh himself as yet again the host attempts to use publicity to pile pressure on Palm Beach prosecutors whom he accuses of being politically motivated in their actions.
Limbaugh, through his grandiloquently-termed Excellence In Broadcasting (EIB) company paid for full page advertisements in the Palm Beach Post and South Florida Sun-Sentinel, that include a May 9 editorial from the conservative Washington Times that accuses West Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer of political opportunism in his conduct.
The adverts - available through Limbaugh's web site - are headed, "Local, National Journalists Question Political Motives in Limbaugh Investigation", then continues, "While editorial writers and columnists at the Palm Beach Post search for new ways to bash Rush Limbaugh and discredit him - most recently by taking his comments about the Iraqi prisoner issue out of context and then using these distorted quotes as a means to justify the investigation of Mr Limbaugh by Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer - a number of prominent national and local journalists, commentators and editorial writers have questioned or charged that the investigation of Rush Limbaugh by Mr Kischer is politically motivated."
It then continues, " We believe that readers of the Palm Beach Post deserve to see this, more widely-held point of view" and goes on to reprint the Washington Times article. (The advert is available as a 1.86 Mb PDF via the Limbaugh site).
On his site Limbaugh argues that he had to buy the adverts because "We just can't get our story out in the editorial pages of the Palm Beach Post. They just refuse to look at my side of this story."
He cites a column by Frank Cerabino in the paper last Sunday - the same day as the Washington Times opinion that so "stunned him" he sought permission to reprint it - whose point, he writes, "was, as I was able to make sense of this piece, his point was that because of my Skull and Bones comment on the first day of the release of Iraqi prison pictures, because of my Skull and Bones comment, this entitled the Palm Beach state attorney to go after me and do whatever it takes to show me, teach me a lesson."
Reporting on the adverts, the Palm Beach Post, quotes Limbaugh as saying on his show, "I, El Rushbo, have to buy my way into this paper in order to get some modicum of fairness" and then a response from Post Editor Edward Sears who said he finds it "amusing that opinions disturb Rush Limbaugh" and adds that the paper has accurately and responsibly reported on both Limbaugh's admitted prescription drug abuse and the conflict between his lawyer, Roy Black, and the state attorney's office.
The other adverts target at Limbaugh over his comments made by him concerning the treatment of prisoners.
It began with aa 30-second TV spot - aired on cable networks in the DC area- and then a radio advert. They were produced by Media Matters for America and contrasts the Bush administration's denunciation of what happened with Limbaugh's original May 4 comments.
Limbaugh's only DC outlet, WMAL-AM, refused to run the advert and its President and General Manager Chris Berry said "Rush Limbaugh is the top-rated show on my station...I'm not going to run something that screws him."
Media Matters President and CEO David Brock commented, "We first posted reports of Limbaugh's comments to our website. His [Limbaugh's] radio show reaches 20 million Americans each week, with many of these listeners considering him a legitimate news source. We are running the ad to spotlight whether Rush Limbaugh is a credible source of information."
RNW comment: Having read the Cerabino piece last week and then re-read it (and also quotations that Limbaugh has posted on his own site) in light of Limbaugh's comments, we think Limbaugh is misrepresenting the column.
The point it seemed to us was to draw a comparison to Limbaugh's sudden devotion to the niceties of the law when it applies to him and his former attitudes to drug offenders and current attitude to the much harsher treatment being given to detainees of Iraq, many innocent of any offence - and if not, why were some 300 suddenly released on Friday just after the Rumsfeld visit to Abu Ghraib prison?
And as for misrepresentation of Limbaugh, may we suggest a little examination of some sources-- including quick read of the history of the
Red Cross, the Geneva Conventions re Prisoners of War, and then Limbaugh's original comments regarding the treatment of prisoners in Iraq, an excerpt of which is:" This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off? These people are the enemy. Our people are being fired at, shot at, these are young people that have volunteered to go over there and they're having bullets fired in their way, bombs and mortar fire aimed at 'em by the people that they are guarding and charged to get information from. Everybody has a breaking point. Now, I'm not suggesting that it's common, normal in disciplined military structures for people to lose control. I'm suggesting that it might be understandable."
As Cerabino writes, "From Limbaugh's bellowing, you'd think Krischer was breaking chemical lights and pouring the scorching phosphoric liquid over the naked talk-show host's... oh, never mind."

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Palm Beach Post report:

2004-05-15: US radio rep company Interep, which last year lost its deal with Citadel to Katz Media (See RNW Oct 4, 2003) has reported first quarter commission revenues down 8% to USD 16.9 million as a result of the lost business. It says revenues from other clients were "essentially the same" as a year earlier.
Overall Interep had a net loss up 3% to USD9.2 million with the per share loss up from USD 0.87 to USD 0.90.
Chairman and CEO Ralph Guild said Interep was "seeing stronger pacing in the major markets for second quarter business bookings and are very optimistic that this positive trend will
Continue."
He added, "I am pleased to say that we are maintaining our year-end guidance of mid to high single-digit national radio growth in 2004."
SVP and CFO Bill McEntee said the combination of important factors such as a recovering economy, positive national radio outlook, and continuing efforts to increase sales productivity positioned the company well for 2004.
Looking ahead, Interep says second quarter pacing is showing stronger gains over last year, particularly, in the top markets with overall national pacing in the high single-digit range.
It says the top 25 markets, which represent 70% of the national business, are up in the high single-digit to low double-digit range and markets ranked 26-50 are pacing in the -2% to flat over last year.
In other US radio business, Emmis has announced that it has now completed its previously announced sale of its controlling interest in Argentine broadcaster Votionis to local minority partners for USD 7.3 million. The sale was part of a restructuring of Emmis's international operations (See RNW Dec 24, 2003)
Votionis operates AM Radio 10, Argentina's leading news and information station, station and Mega 98.3 FM station in Buenos Aires that pioneered the "rock nacional" format.
On the financial front, Entercom has announced the state to a stock-repurchase programme under which it can, at its discretion, buy up to USD 100 million of its stock.
President and CEO David Field said that while Emmis would continue to place the highest priority on acquisitions and operating performance the share buyback was a "further demonstration of our financial strength and re-investment in the radio industry."
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Previous Entercom:
Previous Field:
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Previous Interep:
Previous McEntee:

2004-05-15: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has confirmed a USD 12,000 indecency on Entercom for material aired during "The Andy Savage Show" on KNDD-FM, Seattle, on May 30, 2001 and June 1, 2001.
It had previously reduced the penalty - a total of USD 14,000 made up of USD 7,000 for each broadcast - to USD 12,000 on the grounds of previous compliance.
Entercom had argued that the item, which concerned whether and how a penis could be used to lift or pull objects, did not breach FCC regulations because there was a clear absence of any sexual or excretory context or import in the complained-of material since there is no discussion about the sexual or excretory functions of the male genitalia.
Following the penalty reduction Entercom continued to assert its argument that the Bureau's decision amounts to a new indecency definition, and additionally argued that the Commission's indecency definition is unconstitutional.
These arguments were rejected and the penalty was confirmed with statements from two commissions - Democrat Michael J. Copps and Republican Kevin J. Martin - who each felt that it was inadequate.
In his dissenting statement, Copps commented that he was," concerned that this fine for what the majority concludes is a violation of the indecency statute will be easily absorbed as a "cost of doing business." I am further troubled that the Bureau, rather than the Commissioners, made the initial determination. Our enforcement actions should send a message that licensees cannot ignore their public interest responsibilities. The Commission's action today fails to do so."
Martin said, "Consistent with my past statements, I believe we should be fining broadcasters on a 'per utterance' basis."
RNW comment: The introduction to this item (the FCC web site carries a transcript) related to a story from India where Savage said that in a protest against the government a naked holy man tied a rope around his penis and pulled a Jeep.
If we assume the story was true, and that such protests were to become widespread, there is a legitimate right to report such news in our view. We didn't find the commentary on the show edifying but it does seem clear that rulings on such matters could easily move beyond limiting indecency to censoring news.
In this particular case, the think Entercom was making a reasonable argument and Copps was showing himself up with Martin tailing along behind.

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2004-05-15: The French capital now has its first English-language commercial station - Paris Live Radio - that so far only on the Internet, satellite and cable, with digital audio broadcasts due next month. It is also hoping to obtain an FM licence.
Paris Live was founded by Australian barrister Renzie Duncan and is targeted at tourists and English-speaking expatriates in the city.
Its English comment is limited by French law requiring 40% of music played to be in French and the station says up to half may be in French including up and coming French bands.
Presenters for the station come from Australia, Britain, France, Ireland, and Japan.
Paris Live web site:

2004-05-15: Portland, Oregon, Marconi Show hosts Marconi, Tiny and sidekick Nickie J. have been fired by Entercom's KNRK-FM after they repeatedly aired the audio of the beheading of American Nik Berg and laughed at the incident.
The station subsequently broadcast an apology on behalf of Entercom and the station that said, "The actions of the KNRK News Morning Show were insensitive, inappropriate and repulsive."
Host Marconi also put out an apology on the show web site saying, "This is my statement on the whole thing. We did it it's done. Lines were hurdled over. I also think the combo of the audio and the comments together may have been too much for most to handle.
"I have become so numb to the horrific things that happen in this world that I sometimes forget there are still people who feel…I in no way meant to be insensitive to anyone. My comments on this were inappropriate [As misspelled on site]."
It went on, "This thing that happened to this guy is horrific. He was a guy who was just trying to help out and they killed him. Everyone should be OUTRAGED!! "
"I did not mean anything by what I did on the air. Just didn't think it through. You guys are right. That's always been the beauty of this show. You always tell us how you feel."
"It may not always be what I want to hear, but at least it's honest. That's why I hope you can except [presumably "accept" was meant] my apology if you were in anyway offended.
"I am sorry. Don't listen if you don't want to, but just understand that I am human and I make mistakes and have learned lots from this already. Thanks for your time."
RNW note: The station site makes no mention of this development presumably considering its listeners don't need the courtesy of any explanation. The hosts have also had previous experience of being dropped by Entercom -their show was discontinued by Entercom's KNDD in Seattle last year following a reformatting only eight weeks after it replaced the long-running Andy Savage morning show. Savage left KNDD after his contract expired.
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2004-05-14: The UK media regulator Ofcom has now published details of its plans for licensing an additional 30 or more new commercial local FM licences over the year from the start of next month.
It says it will offer one non-metropolitan licence each month and a larger metropolitan or regional licence every two to three months, commencing respectively with Blackburn and Edinburgh licences next month.
Subject to frequency availability, it has also decided following consultation to offer separate licences in Cornwall, Plymouth and Exeter rather than a proposed South-West regional service: new regional licences will be advertised in North-East England, the Solent area, and South Wales.
Details have been given of six licences to be advertised this year and Ofcom says further three smaller licences will be added to the list for advertisement between September and November 2004. These areas will be announced in June, along with a full timetable of licence advertisements for the period December 2004 - May 2004.
Announced so far in date order are plans for new licences for (L indicates larger licence) :
June 2004 - Blackburn and Edinburgh(L).
July 2004 - Ashford
August 2004 - Kidderminster
September 2004 - Belfast (L)
November 2004 Manchester (L).
Applications for the awards will be handled by a Radio Licensing Committee to be chaired jointly by Ian Hargreaves and Kip Meek.
Previous Ofcom:

2004-05-14: Nielsen Media Research has proposed a trial of the Swiss-designed RadioControl watch meter system in Australia and is now canvassing support from publishing, radio and TV groups. It has already received support from the Ten TV network and the radio industry.
The system is already in use for unofficial radio ratings set up by GfK Media for The Wireless Group that complains that official diary-based ratings from RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) significantly underestimate its listening.
The official Australian commercial radio body, Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), last year opted not to move to a metering system and agreed a three-year diary-system deal with Nielsen (See RNW April 10, 2003).
It said at the time that meter technology was not sufficiently proven but CEO Joan Warner added that although CRA had decided to go for stability the industry was nevertheless keen to see an electronic meter trial.
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2004-05-14: Progress Media's Air America Radio network has now confirmed that it has closed its sales offices in Los Angeles and Chicago, laying off around 15-20 people.
It says the move was made because it didn't make sense to have sales staff in cities where it had no stations after a deal to broadcast the network on Multicultural Broadcasting stations in each city collapsed in acrimony last month (See RNW April 22).
Network president Jon Sinton says the company is now moving from its original business model, which was to lease and control stations that aired its programming, and is in discussions about affiliates in the two cities and other locations: it last announced a new affiliate - with KUDO-AM in Anchorage, Alaska - at the end of last month: At that time it said on its web site that it was being aired on nine stations plus both satellite radio services and the Internet with another dozen plus affiliates in the pipeline.
The company says it has around USD 30 million in financing and re-iterated the commitment of its investors, although it adds it would like further financing. It is moving to a more traditional affiliate model and easing its insistence that stations take the whole line-up.
Previous Progress Media/Air America:
Previous Sinton:

Next column:


2004-05-14: UK commercial radio has broken the dominance by the BBC of the Sony Awards - the UK Radio Oscars - and some of the big names have been beaten by newcomers this year with names such as Chris Moyles and Terry Wogan failing to make the Gold grade..
The two individual awards, Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for a career achievement and The 2003 Award, went respectively to Johnnie Walker, now on BBC Radio 2, and BBC Radio Five Live commentator Ian Robertson.
Walker was cited for "his dedication to the cause of compelling music radio, and especially of creative music makers, for the inspiration he's been for those who have followed in his footsteps."
His career spanned the pirate days of Radio Caroline to BBC Radio 1, which was formed in part to replace the pirate operators, a spell in the USA from 1976-1982, then a return to the UK, first with GWR, then BBC Radio 1 and finally in 1998 - three years after he had announced retirement - BBC Radio 2 where he currently hosts the drive time show that has an audience of 5 million, the UK's largest in the time.
Robertson's award was made to recognise what the judges termed "his dazzling commentary on the 2003 Rugby World Cup final victory, widely acclaimed by listeners, England players and radio critics alike…"
Commercial stations took the Gold awards for:
Station of the Year with a million-plus audience - Chrysalis's Heart FM.
*Breakfast Show of the Year- Emap's Manchester station KEY 103 for the JK& Joel (Jason King & Joel Ross) breakfast show. The duo have now been signed up by BBC Radio (See RNW Jan 17).
*DJ of the Year - Christian O'Connell of Capital Radio's London alternative station Xfm.
*Entertainment Award - Chrysalis's Heart FM for the Jono and Harriet (Jonathan Coleman and Harriet Scott) breakfast show.
*The Competition Award - GWR FM Wiltshire with Live With Matt And H
*The Information Award - Life Matters from SRH Programming for Forth One.
*The Interaction Award - City Beat, Belfast, for The Stephen Nolan Show
*The Music Broadcaster of the Year - David Rodigan of Emap's Kiss 100.
*The Speech Award to City Beat, Belfast, for The Stephen Nolan Show - the judges commented of this entry," "A piece of radio that took the breath away. Utterly compelling. One of those rare programmes that demanded attention from first to last. To interview a convicted mass-killer with even-handedness and yet with barely-disguised revulsion on occasions made this a tour de force of presentation, and also production."
*The Station Programmer Of The Year - to John Simons of GMG Radio
The BBC maintained its dominance in many areas notably in news and current affairs, drama, and comedy. BBC Radio 4 took the Station of the Year Award for the second year running and its black music station 1Xtra won the Digital Terrestrial Station of the Year and Daily Music Show of the Year awards - for Lunchtime With Ace And Invisible - awards.
Listed by network: -
*BBC Radio 1 had no Golds this year.
*BBC Radio 2 - The Weekly Music Show Of The Year - for Jonathan Ross
*BBC Radio 3:
The Drama Award with the Loneliest Road:
BBC World Service took the Silver Award in the category with Monsieur Ibrahim Et Les Fleurs Du Coran, knocking BBC Radio 4, which has dominated this category over the years, down to the Bronze for Coming Down The Mountain.
The Specialist Music Award with Andy Kershaw's Festival In The Desert.
BBC Radio 4 won Golds for:
*Station of the Year.
The Comedy Award with I'm Sorry I Haven't A Christmas Carol
The Feature Award for The Archive Hour: Lance Corporal Baronowski's Vietnam from Loftus Productions.
The 'Music Special' Award with For One Night Only: Bob Marley At The Lyceum.
The News Programme Of The Year for Crossing Continents: India.
The News Journalist Of The Year - Hugh Sykes on The World at One and PM.
The Short Form Feature Award for Stuck In The Middle from BBC Radio & Music Factual, Birmingham.
*BBC Radio 5, which including the awards already noted to Robertson had seven Golds, the highest number for any station. They were for:
The News Output Award - for Drive.
The News Story Award for Jeremy Bowen's The Capture Of Saddam Hussein.
The Promotional Campaign Of The Year - for 8 mile from BBC Broadcast
The Speech Broadcaster Of The Year - Ian Robertson (of BBC Radio Sport).
The Sports Award for The Real Alex Ferguson produced by Unique;
The Station Sound Award.
In addition Golds went to the following BBC local stations:
Station Of The Year with an audience under 300,000 - BBC Radio Foyle.
Station Of The Year with an audience between 300,000 and 1 million - BBC Radio Suffolk.
The Community Award - BBC Radio Shropshire with No Buts.
The Event Award - BBC Radio Cleveland with The State Visit Of President Bush.
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2004-05-14: Although to a casual observer the fact that rival XM has more than four times as many subscribers as Sirius (See RNW May 13 ) would seem to spell doom for the second-ranked company, the game is not yet over according to financial web site, The Motley Fool, although it does cite previous examples where companies competing with leaders like Amazon and e-Bay are no longer remembered.
"Sirius does have a few advantages over XM. It does," writes Rick Aristotle Munarriz. "It sports a stronger balance sheet. It has developed superior content programming when it comes to pro sports. Its satellite situation is more stable. It draws a larger sum when it comes to average revenue per subscriber. Those are valid strengths."
Munarriz continues by noting the likely growth in the market and says. "There will be plenty of market-share pie to share. And while the steep losses by both players are troubling, they are par for course during the customer acquisition phase. ..As usual, it boils down to valuation. Is XM worth USD4.2 billion? More importantly, with more than 1.2 billion fully diluted shares out there, is Sirius worth USD 3.7 billion? That seems like an awfully narrow margin given XM's considerable lead. It's not too often that a clear market leader isn't granted a more respectable premium. More often than not, it doesn't stay that way for long."
The site then invites comments on a Sirius discussion board that so far seems mainly devoted to the advertising by each satellite company.
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2004-05-14: The US Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has announced grants totalling more than USD 2.3 million to help a further 29 US public radio stations in 14 states to purchase equipment to make the transition to digital broadcasting.
19 of the stations serve rural or minority audiences and the stations concerned are in Alabama (Tuscaloosa); Alaska (Anchorage, Bethel, Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka and Valdez); Idaho (Boise); Iowa (Iowa City and Waterloo); Michigan (East Lansing); Minnesota (St. Paul/Minneapolis and St. Cloud/Collegeville); New Jersey (Trenton); New York (Albany and Buffalo); North Carolina (Elizabeth City and Raleigh); Ohio (Columbus); Pennsylvania (Philadelphia); Virginia (Roanoke);
Washington (Pullman); and Wisconsin (Madison).
The grants are part of funding of nearly USD 150 million provided over the past four years to the CPB to assist the transition of public radio and TV stations to digital and its president and CEO Robert T. Coonrod said the Corporation was "genuinely enthusiastic about what it can do for millions of Americans."
"We are only beginning to grasp digital technology's potential to expand and enhance programs and services to enrich our listeners' lives in new ways," he added.
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2004-05-13: UK Local Radio Company(TLRC) , which is headed by the former Jazz FM chief Richard Wheatly, says that it is to purchase Radio Investments Limited, the local radio group whose 22 stations include Minster FM in York and Sun FM in Sunderland.
The Local Radio Company had raised GBP 48 million (USD 85 million) through a public flotation and Wheatly said the acquisition would allow it to build a radio group based on a significant number of "second tier" stations.
Radio Investments was owned by GWR, Caledonia Investments and the Guardian Media Group (GMG), Jazz FM's parent; it has net assets worth GBP 20.8 million (USD 37 million) and had a pre-tax loss of GBP 900,000 (USD 1.6 million) in the year to the end of September 2003.
Wheatly said he bought it "cheaply" because the two major shareholders were looking to dispose of their holdings because of future regulatory concerns about competition and added that the company had recently turned round its fortunes, with revenues up by nearly 15% in the period from September 2003 to the end of February.
"We see a lot of opportunity to grow the business both through acquisition and also applying some of the non-traditional things we did at Jazz, like selling CDs and moving into concerts," he told the UK Guardian, adding that he planned to expand the group by "filling in" gaps in its national coverage - it is concentrated in the south and north-east of England.
"We're well poised to take advantage of any fallout from the bigger groups who will look to sell off local assets to avoid competition authority concerns. We are already looking at a number of options," he said.
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2004-05-13: Despite the bad publicity it has engendered for some of those involved through various cash-for-comment cases, Australian companies are likely to continue their sponsorship of the countries talk radio unabated barring further negative developments according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The paper says Telstra, which recently came into the spotlight because of its sponsorship of Alan Jones' breakfast show on Macquarie Networks Sydney 2GB (which was ruled not to have breached Australian sponsorship regulations - See RNW April 6) , is unlikely to renew its Sydney deals because of renewed calls for investigation of whether it had attempted to influence debate about its service levels.
Other companies, however, are likely to continue deals and the paper quoted Tony Bell, chief executive of Southern Cross Broadcasting, which owns talk stations 2UE in Sydney and 3AW in Melbourne, as saying, "The commercial reality is that high-rating broadcasters are sought after to endorse products, and the audience understands that."
Commenting on "live reads" he said, "Unlike younger stations where commercials can be an annoying factor, with talk stations and an older audience, they consider commercials as a source of information."
Among media buyers Fusion Strategy managing director Steve Allen told the paper that sponsorship payments were "like a bonus, like an incentive payment [to the broadcaster]," said.
He added that negative coverage so far had not damaged the commercial value of the arrangements but continued, "There will come a point, however, where credibility could be fractured. If this goes further on the nose and the public changes its mind, then on-air presenters would be the first to drop [such deals]."
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2004-05-13: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has confirmed a USD 12,000 penalty on a Louisiana FM but cancelled on of USD 22,000 issued to a West Virginia AM in connection with public inspection file, emergency alert and tower related offences.
In place of the penalty on MRJ, Inc., licensee of WWYO-AM, Pineville, West Virginia, it issued an admonishment.
MRJ had not denied the violations including failure to conduct weekly tests of EAS equipment nor that it had failed to enclose its antenna within an enclosed locked fence but had sought reduction or cancellation of the forfeiture based upon its unique role in its community and "its value to its "poverty stricken" community as a vital provider of emergency news information, a distribution point for emergency relief supplies and the only news station operating on the weekend in the area", its commitment to continued remedial action and remedial actions taken so far and its claimed inability to pay.
The FCC following usual practice rejected the other pleas but accepted the hardship argument, which was backed up with documentation, and cancelled the penalty but admonished the company and gave it 30 days to submit a report showing it was in compliance with regulations concerning fencing-in the antenna.
In the Louisiana case, it confirmed a USD 12,000 penalty on Metropolitan Radio Group, Inc., licensee of KTKC-FM, Springhill, for failure to maintain the required presence at its main studio and to maintain all material required in the station's public inspection file.
The station had argued that at the time of the inspection it was in the process of moving premises, that it maintained a nearly complete public file at one location - not that given as the main studio - and that the amount should be reduced because of the "inconsequentiality" of the offence.
All arguments were rejected and the full penalty was confirmed.
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2004-05-13: Sirius Satellite Radio says it now has 400,000 subscribers, passing what CEO Joseph P. Clayton termed "another important milestone for Sirius as we continue to grow our business and move closer to our target of one million subscribers this year." He added, "Not only are more consumers discovering the pleasures of our commercial-free music, but they are also recognizing our premier position in sports programming, including NBA and NHL games, as well as being the only satellite radio provider of play-by-play NFL games."
Sirius's rival, XM, has more than four times as many subscribers, having reached nearly 1.7 million by the end of March.
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2004-05-12: DMG's Nova held on to the top slot to make it a hat trick in the lead in Sydney in the latest Australian ratings from the AC Nielsen McNair survey but elsewhere Austereo retained its grip with the top spot in three capitals - Brisbane (B105 FM), Adelaide (SA FM) and Perth (94.5 FM) and also had the top FM in a fourth, Melbourne where Fox FM was second, behind talk station 5AW.
In Sydney Austereo's 2-Day lost share from 11.0 to 9.4 and fell from second to third but Triple M increased share from 6.4 to 7.5 and ended up one rank in seventh.
There was little good news for Southern's Cross Broadcasting's 2UE in Sydney: John Laws was down to eighth in his morning slot with a 7.3 share, down from 8.5 and his worst figures in 34 years of Sydney radio, whilst rival Ray Hadley at Macquarie Network's 2GB was in second place - and top ranked talk slot - for the time with an 11.5 share, up from 10.7.
In the Sydney breakfast stakes, Alan Jones retained his lead for 2GB with a 13.3 share, down a little from 13.5 in the previous ratings; his 2UE rival Mike Carlton was also down a little, from 8.0 to 7.8 but retaining fourth place. In afternoon drive Steve Price for 2UE lost share from 7.2 to 7 but retained seventh rank ahead of 2GB in 8th.
Commenting on the results, Austereo CEO Michael Anderson said it had seen "strong results right around the country and across both networks. 2Day in Sydney is not where we want it to be, but it only makes us more determined. The improvement in Triple M in Sydney shows just what is possible. We have dug deep and recognized what this station is all about."
"The industry and media has been full of talk and speculation about the impact of further competition on Austereo - listeners know already. Every station is responding with new shows right around the country, great on air talent and great competitions. It's all about ensuring the Austereo networks get it right, day in day out."
"We enjoy leadership positions in almost every market. Each station is responding to the new environment and getting ready for even more change."
City by city, the top three stations were (previous % share in brackets):
*Adelaide: SAFM - same rank with 20.1 (21.0); 5AA - 16.8 (15.3) - up from third; Mix 15.6 (17.1) - down from second;
*Brisbane - B105FM - same rank with 19.1 (19.9); NEW 97.3 FM with 15.1 (14.2) - same rank; Triple M with 12.8 (13.1) - same rank.
*Melbourne - 3AW with 14.4 (14.2); Fox FM with 12.0 (12.2) - same rank; ABC 774 with 10.3 (10.9) same rank; * Nova retained sixth spot with 9.1 (8.2).
*Perth - MIX 94.5FM same rank with 19.5 (21.3); 96FM with 12.7 (10.2) - up from fifth; All New 92.9 with 12.5(10.9)- same rank; *ABC 720 with 9.8 (11.0) fell from second to fourth and Nova fell from fourth to fifth with 8.6 (10.3).
* Sydney - Nova with 11.4 (12.0) - same rank; 2GB 10.4 (9.9) - up from third; 2-Day with 9.4 (10.7) - down from second; *ABC 702 8.7 (9.4) - retained fourth and 2UE lost share - from 7.3 to 6.6, falling from seventh to eighth.
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2004-05-12: Westwood One has announced that it is to launch a radio version of NBC TV's Sunday Morning "Meet the Press" programme from May 23.
It says it already has affiliates in Boston, Houston, Kansas City, Salt Lake City and Washington DC.
Commenting on the agreement, Westwood One COO Chuck Bortnick said host Tim Russert had made the programme the number one of its kind and added that Westwood was "very excited about making this addition to our outstanding line-up of programming."
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2004-05-12: SMG's annual report shows that its chief executive took home nearly a fifth more in 2003 than the year before and that the chief executive of its publishing division more than quadrupled his pay.
Desmond Hudson, the chief executive of the publishing division was made redundant when the division was sold: he received a "transaction bonus" of GBP 550,000 (USD 965,000) in connection with its sale: it says the GBP 216 million (USD 379 million) received was "considerably higher than anticipated or forecast by most analysts" and the payment - 0.25% of this - was "intended to reflect the quantum of the sale price and the individual's performance in the transaction."
Hudson also received GBP 291,000 (USD 510,000) in contractual payments related to his redundancy.
In all, with his pay for the time worked and bonuses, Hudson was paid just above GBP 1 million (USD 1.77 million) in the year, more than four times his remuneration in the previous year.
The report also lists other executive payments including that to chief executive Andrew Flanagan of GBP 562,000 (USD 986,000), up 18% on a year earlier.
In contrast to the publishing sale, no payments were made in connection with the sale of the group's stake in Scottish Radio Holdings.
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2004-05-12: Following reports earlier this month that Progress Media's Air America had missed its payroll deadline (See RNW May 7), it is now said to have also missed payments in Los Angeles.
It is also said to have told sales staff there and in Chicago and San Francisco that they were being laid off but has not officially responded to the reports.
Air America's web site still lists Evan Cohen and Rex Sorensen, who stepped down as chairman, and vice-chairman, as being in their posts.
RNW comment: It may well be that Air America's woes -- it has now lost outlets in Chicago and Los Angeles as wekk as a number of top level executives - are, as it says, merely teething troubles.
Even if this is so, it is making elementary mistakes in keeping quiet about developments. There is a store of goodwill towards a new voice but it is likely to be dissipated fairly speedily if the organization fails to make its voice concerning its status - never an encouraging sign for a potential advertiser or anyone doing business
with a company when opponents have a significan vested interest in predicting an early demise.
If it has the funding available that is has claimed, there seem no good reasons to be cutting back or having financial problems at this stage.

Previous Progress Media/Air America:

2004-05-11: The BBC's internal disciplinary process set up into the BBC Radio 4 Today report that alleged "sexing up" of information relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - and subsequently led to the resignations of the Corporation's Chairman Gavyn Davies, Director-General Greg Dyke and Andrew Gilligan, the correspondent involved - has concluded with a statement defending two executives and saying no staff are to be dismissed.
No details are given of any action being taken against any individuals but the ruling is in part a slap in the face to Lord Hutton who conducted the inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, the government scientist who committed suicide after it was revealed that he had been the source for the report.
Hutton concluded that Gilligan's radio report was unfounded, and also said BBC editorial procedures were defective and that the board of governors had failed to investigate closely enough before defending the report.
In a statement, Stephen Dando, Director, BBC People, and Caroline Thomson, Director, Policy and Legal, who led the disciplinary process say," In relation to the broadcast on the Today programme, on 29 May 2003, we are satisfied that a core script was properly prepared and cleared in line with normal production practices in place at the time, but was then not followed by Andrew Gilligan" but go on to add, "We consider that the BBC's evidence to the Hutton Inquiry could have been clearer in this respect."
It then refers to an e-mail sent by the editor of the Today programme, Kevin Marsh, to the Head of Radio News, Stephen Mitchell, on 27 June 2003, that Hutton concluded should have been referred to their senior colleagues. He said the fact that it was not constituted a flaw in the BBC's management system.
"The impression given by the BBC's evidence was that this e-mail did not reflect the views of senior News management," says a statement. "The [disciplinary] process has concluded that in fact it did reflect their views and that the views in question had been the subject of recent discussion, so there was no need for the e-mail to be referred up. The implied criticism of Stephen Mitchell and Kevin Marsh in these aspects was in our view unjustified."
Richard Sambrook, BBC Director of News, said: "I welcome the conclusion of the BBC's internal inquiry that proper editorial processes were in place on the Today Programme.
"I also welcome the fact that it has concluded that Kevin Marsh and Steve Mitchell acted properly and that all those involved were acting in what they believed were the BBC's best interests.
"This has been a difficult period for BBC News. There are lessons to learn from the events of last year and we will be working closely with Ron Neil [a former news director who is chairing a "process" about editorial lessons to be learned from the episode] in his review to ensure the BBC's journalism is of the highest standard.
"We must now put this chapter behind us and continue with our main objective: providing strong, trusted journalism to our UK and global audiences."
Gilligan said he rejected the claim that he hadn't followed BBC procedures, saying, "If this had been the case I would have expected my superiors to have noticed it and mentioned it to me at the time, but they did not" but adding that he was "broadly pleased with the outcome of the inquiry, in that the BBC seems finally to have joined the rest of the country in rejecting the conclusions of Lord Hutton."
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2004-05-11: XM Satellite Radio has registered 10 million shares as an interest payment to General Motors according to an SEC filing.
The deal is linked to 2003 financing agreements, with interest payable in shares or cash and in connection with which GM had the right to buy up to 10 million shares at USD 3.18. GM exercised its option last month. At the end of last year around USD 52.8 million of USD 100 million of financing had been borrowed. XM shares, which touched USD 26 last week, were down to USD 21.6 on Monday this week.
In other US media business, Liberman Broadcasting Inc. says it expects it shares to sell for USD 15 in its planned initial public offering (IPO): The company is to sell 10 million shares and selected stockholders will sell an additional 1.05 million shares in the IPO.
Previous XM:

2004-05-11: UK Chrysalis Group has reported a 23% rise on a year ago to GBP 33.3 million (USD 59.1 million) in radio division revenues in the six months to the end of February but overall group turnover at GBP 84.6 million (USD 150.2 million) was up only 0.3%.
Excluding Chrysalis Television, which was sold in August last year (See RNW Aug 2, 2003) overall operating profit more than tripled from GBP 1 million (USD 1.78 million) to GBP 3.70 million (USD 6.57 million); If the TV figures are included the overall operating profit was down slightly from GBP 3.90 million (USD 6.93 million).
Profit before tax was GBP 2.2 million (USD 3.9 million) compared to GBP 7.6 million (USD 13.5 million) in 2003, but if exceptional items are excluded the 2004 profits of GBP 1.9 million (USD 3.4 million) were some 40% ahead of the GBP 1.3 million (USD 2.3 million) of 2003.
Chairman Chris Wright said, "These results show that we are on track to deliver strong earnings growth over the coming years as we reap the benefits of the leading market positions and competitive advantages that we have established in our key business areas."
He added, "I am delighted to announce a very successful start to the 2004 financial year for the Chrysalis Group with significant growth in operating profits, driven principally by a very strong performance from our Radio division which, together with our Music division, continues to considerably outperform the market."
Chief Executive Richard Huntingford said, "This is another strong set of results for shareholders. We continue to deliver on the Chrysalis "outperformance" mantra with very strong showings from our Radio and Music divisions compared to their industry peers. Current trading and good visibility, together with the superior growth dynamics inherent in our radio businesses, gives us plenty of confidence for the future."
Chrysalis notes that radio revenues in March and April were up 20% and a year ago and adds that recent ratings, including a strong LBC performance - it has almost doubled its listening over the past year - "give us confidence that full year expectations will be met."
It also says regarded expected consolidation in UK radio, "Chrysalis continues to believe that consolidation will have a positive impact on the radio industry and that Chrysalis Radio is well positioned to play a key part in any future activity. As always, our strategy will be determined by how we might maximise shareholder value, particularly given the superior growth dynamics inherent in our existing radio businesses."
In other UK media business, SMG, which has already cut its debt by around GBP 306 million (USD 544 million) through the sale of its Herald publishing business (See RNW Jan 25, 2003) and of its holding in Scottish Radio Holdings (See RNW Jan 17) has now sold its quarter stake in British morning TV company GMTV to ITV for GBP 31 million (USD 55 million) in cash.
ITV now has 75% of GMTV and Disney holds the remaining 25%: If the sale gets regulatory and shareholder approval, ITV will have to make a bid for Disney's holding at the same price it has paid SMG.
SMG chief executive, Andrew Flanagan said his company didn't want to retain a minority holding in someone else's business.
"It is clearly in our shareholders' interests to sell the stake at an attractive price," he added. "Our focus is on driving and capitalising on the operational performance of our wholly-owned media assets as the advertising markets continue to improve."
SMG says it will use the proceeds of the deal to further cut its debt, which is now down to around GBP 150 million (USD 267 million).
SMG has also agreed a separate deal with ITV for the sale of national TV advertising - some 85% of their current revenues - on its Scottish TV franchises and for the use of the ITV name on the franchises.
National advertising sales for SMG were previously contracted to Carlton Communications plc, prior to its merger with Granada plc to form ITV plc. SMG will continue to service local Scottish advertisers through its own sales operation, based in Scotland.
The sale has spurred speculation that SMG may eventually sell its TV interests, which are comprised of Scottish TV, Grampian TV, SMG TV Productions and Ginger Television.
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Previous Wright:
2004-05-11: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has confirmed a USD 10,000 fine on a Jacksonville, Florida, man for unlicensed operation of an FM transmitter despite a plea that the station had only been involved in test transmissions.
Gabriel Dorcely had been operating a transmitter at more than 3.300 times the permitted power for an unlicensed FM and he told the FCC's Tampa office that he filed an application for a low power FM (LPFM) broadcast station and that the Commission had assigned a FRN number to him. He added that he assumed the FCC would send him something in response to his application and claimed that he was just testing the station.
A notice of apparent violation was subsequently issued and Dorcely responded asking the FCC to take into consideration his past history, degree of culpability and inability to pay but submitted no documentation regarding the latter.
The FCC in confirming the penalty said that because Dorcely was not a licensee, he had no history of overall compliance, and noted that he had provided no documentation about ability to pay.
It said he knew a licence was required and chose to operate without one and rejected his argument that he was simply testing the equipment. The full penalty was confirmed.
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2004-05-11: The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has advertised two more Dublin-area licences.
They are for an Alternative Rock FM service for Dublin City and County and a Multi-Cultural Broad Format FM for Dublin City and Part-County. Applications have to be submitted by July 9 and guides to submissions are available on the BCI web site.
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2004-05-10: For our look at print comment on media this week, we start by considering obscenity - not in terms of rude words but comment that can still fairly described as vile, starting with a UK Guardian article from the sports pages, "Why TalkSport is an obscenity" by Steven Wells.
Wells start with commenting on being at a game involving Millwall [an English soccer club that got a bad name for racist fans] and notes that the Millwall fans there were keen to distance themselves from their racist reputation.
"So why is it then," he asked, "that when the UK's most popular commercial sports radio station (with a claimed listener ship of over eight million, nearly all of them football fans) gives a platform to nationalist bigots, quasi-fascists and racists of every strain, nobody blinks an eye?"
He gives details of one call and then later, noting that the presenters are not "Nazis" …"They make this clear whenever a nazi caller makes a nazi point. Which happens quite often. Because TalkSport might not like the Nazis - but the Nazis love TalkSport."
"This is evident from even a casual trawl through the UK's far-right websites. Debates about immigration on TalkSport are flagged in advance and later, nazi callers boast about their performance in chat rooms…But how could the nazis not love a station that debates (seriously) whether the word "paki" is more offensive than the word "brit"?"
And later: "Our only hope is that some day the sports fanatics who run the relatively sane part of TalkSport - the sports bit - will get together with the right-wing morons who run the utterly insane part and say - hang on, these footballers, tennis players, golfers, boxers and track athletes we keep banging on about? You do realize that a lot of them are, well, black, don't you?"
"Maybe someone at TalkSport - maybe even Kelvin MacKenzie [Chief Executive of the parent company] himself - will make the connection between his station's consistent stream of hateful refugee propaganda and the attacks that take place on asylum seekers (and other randomly selected "foreigners") whenever anti-immigrant hysteria in the media reaches one its increasingly frequent crescendos."
"And maybe, in the mean time, all those soccer clubs - and other sporting institutions - who so proudly boast of their anti-racist credentials, could boycott TalkSport. Until it cleans its act up. Until it stops giving sustenance and succour to racists who would destroy our sports if they ever achieved power."
Crossing the Atlantic, we consider Rush Limbaugh in much the same light, and found his delivery style in a 15-minute commentary he posted on his site - arguing a point that can reasonably be made, namely that the US should not get obsessive over being disliked when the standards it is supporting are to be valued - rather too similar to that of the late Oswald Moseley, the British fascist leader, whose speeches were often well argued and plausible until looked at in cold print with a little skepticism.
However, let the man speak for himself, at the moment in the context of US treatment of prisoners in Iraq:
From his web site: "Welcome to the real world. They're not pictures of violence, they're not pictures of death, they're not pictures of horror. I am not going to join the chorus of people who aren't even thinking, who are just reacting with emotions…"
"Somebody has to provide a little levity here. This is not as serious as everybody is making it out to be. My gosh, we're all wringing our hands here. We act like, 'Okay let's just die,' you know? 'Let's just give up. What can we do to make these people feel better? Let's just pull out of there, and let's just go. Let's just become a neutral country. Let's just do that.' I mean, it's ridiculous. It's outrageous what's happening here, and it's not -- and it's not because I'm out of touch; it's because I am in touch, folks, that I can understand. This is a pure, media-generated story. I'm not saying it didn't happen; I'm [not] saying the pictures aren't there, but this is being given more life than the Waco invasion got."
And quoted elsewhere "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You [ever] heard of need to blow some steam off?"
"Now, don't you feel like a dopey dittohead for letting a little outbreak of prisoner sadism bug you? These were just boys and girls blowing off steam during a stressful situation. Let's not make an international incident out of it, for crying out loud."
And from the "Being Liked" audio that Limbaugh posted a couple of short quotes taken out of context: "I'm getting confused" and "We are nice people. We don't have any excuses to make…"
We'd certainly agree with Limbaugh on the first, on the second agree as far as many Americans are concerned but as for the man himself? Try his web site and listen. Consider the moral standards you think America should have and then make up your own mind.
So on to someone actually under attack in the US for "indecency" but for a defence of Howard Stern, written in the New York Times by Ira Glass, host of "This American Life" on US public radio.
How about the encomium at the start:" I'm the host of a show on public radio, and when my listeners tell me they don't care for Stern, I always think it reveals a regrettable narrowness of vision. Mostly, they're put off by the naked girls."
"But Stern has invented a way of being on the air that uses the medium better than nearly anyone. He's more honest, more emotionally present, more interesting, more wide-ranging in his opinions than any host on public radio. Also, he's a fantastic interviewer. He's truly funny. And his staff on the air is cheerfully inclusive of every kind of person: black, white, dwarf, stutterer, drunk and supposed gay. What public radio show has that kind of diversity?"
In a wider context Glass says it's sad that people shrug off the crackdown on Stern, commenting…" the recent F.C.C. rulings make me Stern's brother as I've never been before. Here are just a few of the things we've broadcast on our show that now could conceivably result in fines of up to a half million dollars for the 484 public stations that run the program: assorted curse words, people saying ''damn'' and ''goddamn'' (a recent F.C.C. decision declared that ''profane'' and 'blasphemous'' speech would now come under scrutiny); various prison stories; and a very funny story by the writer David Sedaris that takes place in a bathroom and that violates all three F.C.C. criteria for ''indecency.'' It's explicitly graphic in talking about ''excretory organs or activities''; Sedaris repeats and dwells on the descriptions at length, and he absolutely means to pander and shock. That's what makes it funny."
…" In the past, the F.C.C. would have considered context, the possible literary value or news value of apparently offensive material. And the agency still gives lip service to context in its current decisions. But when the commissioners declared in March that an expletive modifying the word ''brilliant'' (uttered by Bono at the Golden Globe Awards) was worthy of punishment, it made a more radical change in the rules than most people realize. Now context doesn't always matter. If a word on our show could increase a child's vocabulary, if some members of the public find something ''grossly offensive,'' the F.C.C. can issue fines."
Glass notes that the process is "arbitrary by design" because it is complaint driven, notes the campaign by Stern to see if the same rules would be applied to Oprah Winfrey's Show (See RNW May 7) and continues, "What's craziest about this new indecency witch hunt is that it's based on the premise that just one exposure to filthy words will damage a child… Recently on my show, I asked one of the people who organizes write-in campaigns to the F.C.C., Brent Bozell, what harm it did anyone to see Janet Jackson's breast for a fleeting second, or to hear Stern use the phrase ''anal sex,'' and he said it destroyed the ''innocence of childhood.'' In our talk, Bozell used the phrase ''anal sex'' himself, presumably doing exactly as much harm to young people as Stern did on April 9, 2003… That day, a brief conversation about the act on Stern's show drew $495,000 in fines. Bozell and I received no fines."
On, however, to programmes still available on the Internet and first a recommendation for BBC Radio 4's Great Lives in which veteran reporter Charles Wheeler rates the late President Lyndon B. Johnson, much more highly than is the general case. Well forth a listen, even if just for the combination of deep social concern, crudity and insecurity displayed by LBJ. As well as noting how much of LBJ's Great Society dreams were killed by involvement in a foreign war in which the President relied heavily on the judgement of others about foreign affairs [Vietnam] it also has LBJ commenting on the means by which American Blacks were kept from having the vote.
Also from Radio 4 is "The Arab Crisis" - the second instalment is tonight but the Listen Again site still has the first programme for a few more hours - this contains comment from Egypt defending the use of torture and again is worth a listen in the context of current events.
And for comment on those matters, two recommendations, one for the Tavis Smiley Show on Thursday on US National Public Radio in which Smiley discusses the issues of who should be held accountable for the treatment of Iraqi prisoners and the other for BBC Radio 4 and Broadcasting House, which on Sunday also considered the matter and also, from West Point, on teaching of the Geneva Conventions to members of the US Army.
For a lighter note on events, try Punt and Dennis: It's Been a Bad Week, on BBC Radio 2 at 21:00 GMT on Thursday and from the same channel on Tuesday at 19:30 GMT, Maggie's Cultural Revolution, looking at impact and legacy of Thatcherism on popular culture.
And finally back to current events but this time from a different perspective try BBC Radio 4 and Word of Mouth, which last Sunday, among other items looked at the words used in describing violent activities and also how meanings can be changed through the manner in which a term -- for example "insurgent" as used by the military - can have its meaning changed. The same has happened with other terms - as of "liberal" whose original meaning was perverted by the political right in the US, fascist, which was perverted by the left, and "discrimination", perverted by those who didn't want their racial prejudice accurately, if harshly, described.
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New York Times - Glass:
Rush Limbaugh web site:
UK Guardian - Wells:
*Link for those who want the official US Army (Taguba) Report on the treatment of Iraqi Prisoners

2004-05-10: US public radio has largely been converted to the idea of maximising audience rather than serving those for whom nothing was provided on commercial radio according to an article in the Washington Post.
In it Marc Fisher says that after a decade of "culture war" over which audience public radio should serve, most stations, as government funding declined, have accepted "the view of public radio's most influential consultant, David Giovannoni, that any station's job is to attract the most listeners."
In Washington, he notes, WAMU-FM carried Morning Edition and WETA-FM, which used to be the area's classical public station, had music: Now both stations air the same National Public Radio (NPR) programming for most of the time in the morning and at drive time, when they air "All Things Considered".
The move, says Fisher, made financial sense, even if it reduced listener choice: WETA, he notes, received thousands of letters of protest when it dropped its morning classical show five years ago but, even if ratings did not improve after the move, donations went up.
He also notes that WETA's action did not automatically translate into increased audiences for commercial classical station WGMS-FM, saying many of WETA's 300,000 listeners simply stopped using the radio as their source for classical music. Some, he surmises, probably moved to CD, MP3 or satellite radio while others moved to news.
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2004-05-09: Last week was again fairly quiet on the radio front for the regulators and yet again there was no announcement of further indecency penalties from the US.
Australia was the most active areas whilst there was nothing significant from the UK, where Ofcom is still consulting but not about radio this time,or Ireland.
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has instructed Sydney 2UE to hire an independent monitor to carry out two periods of monitoring over the next 18 months (See RNW May 7). It has also released its 2002-03 Broadcasting Financial Results for commercial radio and television broadcasters just released that showed commercial radio revenues in the country up 6% on a year earlier (See RNW May 5).
On the shipwreck coast it has announced that the transmitter site and specifications for 3YB, Warrnambool, Victoria, are to be changed: The transmitter will move to a new site around 14KM (9 miles) NE of its current location and its CMF (cymotive force) is to be permitted an increase from 380V to 450V in the sector 180-230 degrees.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has issued a public notice, with a June 9 deadline for intervention, concerning applications (in order of province):
Ontario:
Application by Corus Radio Company and Rogers Broadcasting Limited to amend the licences of CFNY-DR-1 and CJAQ-DR-1 to switch frequencies so as to consolidate these Toronto stations within a single Digital Radio Broadcasting (DRB) multiplex.
Ontario and Quebec:
Application by Aboriginal Voices Radio Inc. (AVR) for a fourth extension - until October 14 this year - of the time limit to commence the operation of the new FM station to serve the Ottawa/Gatineau (formerly Hull) area.
Quebec:
Application by Metromedia CMR Broadcasting Inc. to amend the broadcasting licence for CHMP-FM, Longueuil, in relation to the mix of spoken word and music programming it must carry.
In the US, although it imposed no new indecency penalties the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was involved in enforcement action over emergency alert system (EAS) tower offences on an Arkansas FM and Clear Channel in New York State respectively. (See RNW May 5).
As regards indecency, something of a fight-back has started, particularly over its ruling - in clear contradiction of issued guidelines - that the use of the term "fucking brilliant" during the Golden Globes Awards breached its rules (See RNW May 4).
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2004-05-09: The Indian Government is expected to announce a new community radio policy soon under which communities would be able to own and run stations: Currently only institutions can run stations.
A United Nations Development Programme statement issued after a 2-way workshop "Designing and enabling framework for community radio in India" involving the organization, UNESCO, and the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, quoted India's joint secretary for Broadcasting, U.S. Bhatia, as saying, "What we have now is good but we need to proceed to a new model that allows communities themselves to own and run their radio stations."
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2004-05-08: Clear Channel has named President and COO Mark P. Mays as Interim CEO with immediate effect following the hospitalizations of chairman and CEO Lowry Mays (See RNW May 5).
In a statement, Lowry Mays said, "I have decided to take some time off to focus on my health, so that when I come back, I am at 100%," said Lowry Mays. "While I am gone, I have complete confidence in Mark along with all of the managers at Clear Channel to keep things running smoothly."
Mark Mays said the company was "pleased that Lowry will be taking as much time as he needs to completely recover from his recent surgery" and added, "Our record first quarter results show that we have a deep management team in place across all Clear Channel operating units, with the very best people in the industries we serve."
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Previous Mark Mays:

2004-05-08: Univision Communications has reported net income of USD 31.6 million (USD 0.9 cents per share) in the first quarter, nearly two-and-a-half times that of a year earlier, on revenues up 35% to USD 352.9, including a USD 63.3 million contribution from Univision Radio, the former Hispanic Broadcasting Corp. that Univision acquired in September last year for USD 3.2 billion.
TV revenues were up 12% to USD 259.3 million and pro-forma figures comparing Univision Radio with predecessor Hispanic Broadcasting showed revenues also up 12%
Commenting on the results Chairman and CEO A. Jerrold Perenchio said, "Univision Communications once again delivered record results in the first quarter, with each of our businesses securely positioned as the Number One Spanish-language media/entertainment property in its respective industry. Our advertisers have begun to benefit from the cross-platform opportunities afforded to them by our combination of top-quality, integrated assets, while our audiences are enjoying an even broader range of information and entertainment than a year ago."
Univision Radio President McHenry T. Tichenor, Jr. added, "The radio division posted strong performance in the first quarter. Our first quarter revenue growth of 12% compares favourably with reported industry growth of 4%. We enjoyed solid results in both local and national advertising, and benefited from early successes with integrated sales across all the Univision media platforms."
"Also during the quarter, we launched RadioCadena Univision, our new AM talk network, whose programming has been well received by advertisers and listeners on ten of our owned and operated AM stations and seven independent affiliates. RadioCadena Univision is an example of how Univision Radio will capitalize on Univision's broad array of resources to more productively deploy our assets and improve our overall operating performance."
Following the results, Fitch Ratings has confirmed Univison's 'BBB-' senior unsecured rating and revised its Rating Outlook to Positive from Stable.
In other US radio business Salem Communications has announced that it is to pay UD 3.7 million to Visionary Related Entertainment, LLC. for Honolulu FRS KPOI and KHUI.
When the deal is completed, Salem will have three FMs and five AMs in the market and President and CEO Edward G. Atsinger III commented , "This addition will provide attractive economies of scale to our overall Honolulu cluster, and will significantly enhance our FM coverage of this market."
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2004-05-08: The latest issue of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's newsletter, Inside the ABC, includes a feature on digital radio, about which it says little has been said as attention has been mainly on digital TV.
Digital radio, which was described by ABC Director of Radio Sue Howard at the 2004 Australian Broadcasting Summit as, 'one of the most exciting new services on offer from the digital revolution, 'is now undergoing field trials in the country.
The feature notes the ABC's long-standing commitment to the development of digital radio broadcasting in Australia and the launch two years ago of DIG Radio, the ABC's first Internet digital radio station.
This carries a mix of rock, pop, jazz, country, and folk and attracts around 135 000 access per week, mainly from over 30s: The ABC is planning two more stations - DIG Jazz and DIG Country.
Howard says that digital radio will significantly enhance ABC radio services, allowing it, for example, to deliver NewsRadio's continuous news and current affairs coverage and broadcast Federal Parliament proceedings simultaneously.
"Local radio stations could maintain general programming while simultaneously broadcasting sports, or could broadcast Rugby League and AFL at the same time in the one city," she says.
She also says the ABC could "develop new content streams for niche audiences - jazz and country music, sport and rural. All the existing characteristics that have made radio such a successful medium up until now will make it even better."
"Attributes such as rewind and time shifting will enhance radio's utility. Greater choice, listening flexibility and text graphics will all add to radio's ability to inform and entertain. It will become even more of a personal medium through interactivity and niche services and new technology that will enhance its portability through radio in mobile phones."
The ABC's Head of Radio Development Russell Stendall says ABC Radio has been planning for the multimedia capacity of digital radio for some time and says it has 'developed some solid expertise in the area through ABC Online."
"We now have broadcasters across all our networks, whose work is a combination of radio and online reporting and production," he adds. "These broadcasters know what is required to publish text, graphics, video and multimedia content to accompany stories broadcast on radio."
"All of these features will be an integral part of the whole digital radio experience. ABC Online is one of the largest - and most popular content sites in Australia and ABC Radio generates about half of that content."
"This collaboration between ABC Radio and ABC New Media is a very powerful alliance for the ABC's future. It will play a vital role as we look to develop high quality, low cost, unique content for digital radio.'
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2004-05-08: Sam Donaldson's syndicated radio show "Live in America" aired for the last time yesterday.
Disney-owned ABC News Radio had supplied it to some 40 stations and Donaldson, asked why it had been dropped, said ABC management should be asked, not him.
He added, "I was enjoying it. I had a good time. But that's management's decision."
Donaldson, says his contract is nowhere near its end, is to continue working for ABC News.
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2004-05-07: Latest official UK radio ratings from RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) show Chris Moyles boosting his BBC Radio 1 breakfast show's listening by some 400,000 listeners a week to 5.93 million on the previous quarter when Sara Cox was in the slot: Moyles helped the channel to pull back some lost share from the previous quarter but its weekly reach of 9.85 million is still down year-on-year.
The BBC listening share overall was 52.6% listening share, down from 52.9% in the previous quarter whilst commercial radio had a 45.5% share, up from 45.3% in the previous quarter.
Amongst other stations getting a fillip were BBC Radio 5 Live, whose breakfast show hosted by Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty added some 350,000 listeners on the previous quarter for a weekly reach of 2.6 million and which overall had a record 5.1% share, and Capital FM whose breakfast show in Chris Tarrant's final quarter added 133,000 listeners a week to approach 1.4 million, widening the gap over rival Jono Coleman of Chrysalis's Heart FM, who lost around 50,000 to 833,000.
Of other BBC national analogue stations, Radio 2 remained the top national station but lost audience - down to 12.9 million a week from13.15 million in the previous quarter; Radio 3 gained 100,000 listeners a week over the previous quarter to reach a record 2.29 million and Radio 4 was down from 9.51 million to 9.37 million.
BBC Local and Regional Radio stations increased their reach from 10.27 million in the previous quarter to 10.65 million.
Jenny Abramsky, Director of BBC Radio & Music, said she was "particularly pleased with Radio 3's performance and that Radio Five Live has capped its tenth birthday celebrations with such excellent results."
"It is still too early to look at trends for our new digital services," she added, "but it's great to see that BBC 7 has grown by almost 50%."
In the London market, as well as Capital FM, Capital's Xfm did well in the breakfast ratings where 40.000 more listeners were added to Christian O'Connell's total to take it to 297,000; it also gained listeners for Capital Gold's breakfast show.
Overall Capital took its UK listenership up to 8.12 million with increases in listening for its Century FM network and also BRMB and Capital Gold in Birmingham and Red Dragon FM in South Wales.
Capital chief executive David Mansfield said, "Today's results mark a new beginning for 95.8 Capital FM with increases not just at Breakfast but importantly across the day. I am delighted with the performance of our other London stations showing the real value of our portfolio. It's also great news outside London with our ambitious plans for more listeners listening longer delivering over 8 million listeners nationally."
Chrysalis's LBC talk station added another 124,000 listeners to week to reach 697,999: It has now nearly doubled its share - up from 1.8% to 3,4% - over the past year and is now 250,000 ahead of BBC London, which was almost level with it a year ago.
UBC Media said it was pleased with the steady progress in building audiences for its two main digital services, Classic Gold Digital and Oneword Radio and Chief Executive Simon Cole said, "Digital listening is the future for UBC. Sales of DAB digital radios recently passed the crucial half million mark and listening to digital audio services via Sky and Freeview has become significant. These numbers show that our services are benefiting from the digital take-up and we would expect to see this growth continue".
Within the figures, compared to the previous quarter:
*BBC Radio 1 gained 408,000 listeners to end with a weekly audience of 9.85 million, an unchanged weekly reach of 20%, and a listening share of 7.6%, down from 7.7%.
*BBC Radio 2 lost 249,000 listeners to end with a weekly audience of 12.90 million, an unchanged weekly reach of 27%, and a listening share of 15.3%, down from 16%.
*BBC Radio 3 gained 98,000 listeners to end with a weekly audience of 2.290 million, an unchanged weekly reach of 5%, and a listening share of 1.2%, down from 1.4%.
*BBC Radio 4 lost 141,000 listeners to end with a weekly audience of 9.372 million, a weekly reach of 19%, down from 20%, and a listening share of 11%, up from 11.5 %.
*BBC Radio 5 Live gained 351,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 6.476 million, an unchanged weekly reach of 13%, and a listening share of 5.1%, up from 4.4%.
*BBC World Service gained 19,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 1.315 million, an unchanged weekly reach of 3%, and an unchanged listening share of 0.6%.
*BBC Asian Network lost 70,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 383,000, an unchanged weekly reach of 1% and an unchanged 0.3% share.
On the commercial side for national networks:
*GWR's Classic FM gained 334,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 6.544 million, an unchanged weekly reach of 13%, and a listening share of 4.5%, up from 4.3%.
*The Wireless Group's talkSPORT gained 275,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 2.141 million an unchanged weekly reach of 4% and a listening share of 19%, up from 1.4%.
*SMG-owned Virgin (total including all AM and FM) lost 88,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 2.486 million, an unchanged weekly reach of 5%, and am umchanged listening share of 1.4 %.
Digital national commercial networks:
*Core gained 31,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 129,000, up from to 98,000, too small for reach and share to be rated.
*Kerrang! gained 53,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 775,000, reach up from 1% to 2% and an unchanged listening share of 0.2%.
*Oneword gained 12,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 76,00, too small for reach and share to be listed.
*Planet Rock gained 43,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 242,00, a reach too small to be rated and an unchanged of 0.1%
*Q lost 7,000 listeners to end with a weekly audience of 371,000, an unchanged reach of 1% and an unchanged share of 0.1%.
*Smash Hits lost 110,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 641,000 an unchanged reach of 1%, and an unchanged listening share of 0.2%.
*The Hits gained 3,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 82700, an unchanged reach of 2% and a share down from 0.3% to 0.2%
*The Storm gained 27,000 listeners to end up with a weekly audience of 101,000, to small for reach and share to be rated.
*Sunrise, which took over Mean Country, had a weekly audience of 569,000, a reach of 1%, and a share of 0.7%, up from 0.5%.
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2004-05-07: XM Satellite Radio says it had 1,681,903 subscribers at the end of March, having added 321,675 in the first quarter of this year - more than double the 135,916 subscribers added in first quarter 2003. It says it has 83% of US satellite radio subscribers, compared to 84% a year earlier, and took 70% of net new subscribers in the quarter - Sirius had recently said that it took 44% share of retail sales of satellite radio receivers in March (See RNW May 1).
XM says its subscription revenues in the quarter were more than tripled on a year earlier to USD 39.8 million with total revenues also more than tripling, from USD 13.1 million to USD 43 million.
Its losses were also up - by 14.4% before income taxes at USD 144.5 million and by 34.7% overall to USD 170.1 million. It had an EBITDA loss up 23.2% to USD 78 million in the quarter but notes that for the first time its revenues exceeded fixed expenses and says the cost of adding each subscriber fell from USD 156 a year earlier to USD 106.
It also said that at the end of the quarter it had USD 385 million in cash and an additional USD 50 million of capacity under our facilities from GM for a total liquidity position of USD 435 million at the end of the quarter.
Commenting on the results, President and CEO Hugh Panero said, "Our subscriber growth this quarter was fuelled by our 100% commercial-free music on 68 channels -- the most in satellite radio -- the addition of compelling new content and services, including XM Instant Traffic & Weather, expanded availability of XM across a number of new GM and Honda vehicle models and continued strong performance in the retail distribution channel."
Rival Sirius has announced two new executive appointments: Scott Greenstein will become President/Entertainment & Sports, where he will oversee all programming, marketing and corporate marketing for the company, and James Meyer becomes President/Operations & Sales, with a role overseeing and directing the company's relationships with its automotive OEM and other partners and also managing retail markets, product management and geographical expansion. Both had previously worked as consultants for the company and will report to Sirius President and CEO Joseph P. Clayton.
Denver-based NextMedia has announced net revenues up 3.4% to USD 24.4 million in the quarter and an overall net loss nearly halved on a year ago - from USD 5.2 million to USD 2.8 million: Radio revenues were up 3.8% to USD 16.6 million but outdoor was down 3.6% to USD 8.0 million.
Executive Chairman Carl Hirsch and President and CEO Steven Dinetz said, "In the first quarter of 2004, we saw an improving radio advertising market and a return to year over year radio revenue growth. In the outdoor division, continuing high single digit revenue growth in traditional outdoor was offset by a quarterly decline in national advertising in our alternative advertising market."
"We completed our acquisition of WCCQ- FM in our Joliet, Illinois cluster, announced the pending acquisition of WZCH- FM in our Crystal Lake, Illinois cluster, and solidified our regional focus in the Coastal Carolinas by acquiring substantial outdoor assets in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina market, where we also own the leading radio cluster. We continue to seek to enhance the value of our asset portfolio through strategic acquisitions, dispositions, and asset swaps."
In Europe, SBS Broadcasting SA has reported first quarter revenues up 22% to Euros 115.7 million (USD 139.700 million and trimmed its overall loss by 55% to Euros 8.7 million (USD 10.5 million) with per share loss down 57% to Euros 0.13 from Euros 0.30.
Commenting on the results CEO Markus Tellenbach said: "SBS is off to a solid start in 2004. During the first quarter we recorded robust increases in station operating cash flow, adjusted EBITDA and a 55% reduction of our net loss over the first quarter of last year. Our television revenues once again outpaced our markets while we continue to improve the bottom line as we capitalise on our improving operating leverage. "
"Our station management teams are executing on our business plan as they drive ratings and revenue in their markets. As we expand our top line, we remain focused on controlling costs and enhancing our cash flow margins. Highlighted by strong local station brands, our pan-European footprint continues to provide a unique and efficient venue for advertisers. With a strong balance sheet and an improving advertising environment, we are on track to record significant increases in station operating cash flow and operating income for the year."
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2004-05-07: The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has imposed a new condition on the licence of Southern Cross Broadcasting's 2UE, Sydney, requiring it to engage and pay for an independent monitor who will examine its output for two periods over a year -starting on Monday, May 10- without advance warning of when the monitoring will take place.
The action says the ABA is "designed to foster better compliance by 2UE" of disclosure requirements regarding payments by sponsors following the 1999 cash-for-comment scandal in Australia.
As a result of the inquiry carried out into the matter, the ABA had already imposed conditions on the 2UE licence requiring it distinguish advertisements from other programme material and also maintain a regime of on-air and off-air disclosure of certain commercial agreements between presenters and their sponsors and to conduct a compliance program which requires presenters and staff of 2UE to undertake training concerning the obligations imposed on 2UE by the Broadcasting Services Act, the Commercial Radio Codes of Practice and this licence condition.
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2004-05-07: Following the departure of former CEO Mark Walsh and programming chief Dave Logan last month (See RNW April 28), and a dispute over payments to Multicultural Broadcasting, Air America Radio's co-founder and chairman Evan Cohen and vice-chairman and investor Rex Sorensen have both resigned according to the Chicago Tribune.
The paper also reports that the network did not make its payroll this week and quoted network president Jon Sinton as saying, "We're on a wild ride… But the bottom line is that we are on the air to stay."
Asked when replacements for Walsh and Cohen would be named, Sinton replied, "I wouldn't hold my breath."
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2004-05-07: US radio talk host Howard Stern's campaign to generate obscenity complaints against the Oprah Winfrey Show concerning a discussion of anal/oral sex has generated nearly 2000 letters to the US Federal Communications Commission ( FCC) - its enforcement agent Suzanne Tetreault later told the New York Daily Post they had received 1900 letters.
Some of the complaints have been posted on the smokinggun.com site, with the senders' names blocked out.
Some are obviously mocking the agency as in one that says, "The Oprah Show described in graphic detail a sexual term known as "tossing salad". It was so offensive that my child's head literally exploded. Please ban free speech so that this never happens again".
Others are very succinct - "OPRAH IS A SINNER", and others draw comparison with Stern's Show such as one that says, "I am truly ashamed of the decision that your Commission has made to protect "the people" from Howard Stern. How can you allow Oprah Winfrey to discuss "tossing the salad" [oral, anal, sex] on a nationally televised TV show at 4p.m. when children are coming home from school, and then persecute Howard Stern for doing no worse at 8a.m. in the morning?"
The FCC says that complaints against the Winfrey show are "still pending" and a spokeswoman for the show has said they have not "been notified by the FCC of any indecency investigation."
Stern has also managed to garner some political support according to the New York Observer, which reports that Republican and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani commented, "Everyone knows what Howard is like. They listen to his show and then they've made a decision that they enjoy his kind of humor. I think the F.C.C. or regulatory agencies have better things to look at than that. And I think it does get very close to inhibiting free speech."
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2004-05-06: In more US first quarter radio results, Entravision has reported net revenues up 8% to USD 52.1 million and broadcast cash flow up 13% to USD 13.4 million: overall it cut its net loss by just over a fifth from USD 6.65 million to USD 5.23 million with the net loss per share applicable to common stockholders up from USD 0.08 to USD 0.09 as the number of shares was trimmed from 111.986 million to 87.141 million.
Chairman and CEO Walter Ulloa said, "In the first quarter we posted solid revenue gains led by a double-digit increase at our radio division. Top line growth continues to be fuelled by strong ratings at our television and radio divisions and fuelled by robust demand from advertisers seeking to reach the expanding Hispanic marketplace."
"Our management team remains focused on controlling costs and improving operating leverage throughout the company as we seek to maximize the cash flows generated by our diverse asset base."
Looking ahead Ulloa said, "As we enter the second quarter, we are seeing continued improvement in the advertising environment as all of our divisions are showing solid operating momentum. Supported by our motivated and professional sales teams, we are focused on closing the Hispanic media revenue gap in our markets."
"We remain committed to our expansion strategy and continue to explore opportunities to enhance our asset base by entering new markets or strengthening our existing clusters. With our footprint strategically positioned in the nation's fastest growing and most densely populated U.S. Hispanic markets, we provide advertisers with a unique platform from which to tap the explosive growth of the Hispanic population."
Saga Communications has reported net operating revenue for the first quarter up 11,6% on a year earlier to USD 29.2 million and net income up by more than half to USD 2,5 million (USD 0.12 per share) for USD 1.6 million (USD 0-.8 per share) a year earlier.
Same station net operating income was up 18.1% to USD 8.7 million and same station net operating revenues were up 8% to USD 28.2 million and same station operating income was up 16.1% to USD 8.5 million.
Saga is predicting second quarter net revenues of USD 35.0 - USD 35.5 million and station operating expenses of USD 22.4 TO USD 22.7 million on a pro forma basis.
Saga has also announced agreement to purchase a fourth station in Champaign, Illinois: it is paying I.A.I. Broadcasting Inc. USD 3.25 million cash for WXLS-FM, Danville, in a deal expected to close in the third quarter of this year.
Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) has announced net first quarter revenues up 4.7% on a year ago at USD 29.2 million, mainly attributed to "the double-digit growth in our Miami and Chicago markets" although it notes that this was offset by declines in New York: Overall it turned a net loss of USD 801,000 a year earlier into net income of USD 11.7 million, including a gain of USD 10.9 million from discontinued operations - last year SBS was involved in a USD 24.4 million sale of KLEY-FM and KSAH-AM, serving the San Antonio, Texas, market and a USD 30 million sale of KPTI-FM, serving the San Francisco, California market.
Loss from continuing operations was slightly down on a year earlier - USD 3.2 million compared to USD 3.3 million.
Commenting on the results chairman and CEO Raúl Alarcón, Jr. said, "Our first quarter results exceeded our expectations, reflecting the exceptional ratings positioning of our large market radio assets in an improving advertising market. Leveraging our continued strong ratings, coupled with the expansion of our station group in 2003, we generated increased revenues in Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami."
"The momentum has continued into the second quarter in these key markets and we expect our future revenue generation to be bolstered by the recent addition of radio personality, Renan Almendarez Coello, to KLAX-FM in Los Angeles."
"We are also beginning to see improving revenue trends in New York and we are well positioned to capitalize given our rating leadership position. Supported by the investments we made in our station group, programming and management resources in the past year, we remain focused on pursuing our primary long-term goal, which is to drive revenues and close the gap between Hispanic media industry ratings and revenue across all our markets."
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2004-05-06: BBC Radio 3 has come under criticism from the listeners' group "Friends of Radio 3" following the decision to drop an openly declared commitment to classical music.
In the station's entry in the corporation's annual programme policy document a declaration "Classical music remains at the heart of the schedule" was replaced by commitment to a "broad spectrum" of music: Classical music was specifically mentioned only once - in the same sentence as jazz, world music, drama and arts discussions.
The group says it will be writing to Radio 3 Controller Roger Wright to demand an explanation and spokeswoman Sarah Spilsbury told the UK Independent, "They don't claim to be the classical music station any more and we feel sad about that. I think they desperately don't want that mantle."
She added that they would be asking Wright, "What motivated you to remove it. What's the thinking behind not having it any more?" and commented, "We have to clarify this. It looks very gloomy as far as we are concerned."
Before the policy statement was published, the Friends had expressed concern that the amount of classical music coverage was diminishing in a document signed by, among others, the composers Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood; the musicians Antony Hopkins and Christopher Robinson; the actors Prunella Scales and Timothy West; and the writers Anthony Sampson, Anthony Thwaite, Raymond Briggs, Jan Morris and Stanley Sadie.
The group said: "The position of FoR3 is that if Radio 3 is to have a broader remit, including a wide range of contemporary music and contemporary cultural issues, Radio 3 management should address the fact that, as a result, coverage of classic drama/poetry and the classical music repertoire must necessarily be eroded."
The group claims that what is being lost is not being offered on other output by the BBC despite the introduction of digital channels and says that more than two-fifths of the channel's evening programming is now non-classical.
Wright defended the station's classical music output, saying, "We have recently announced our continuing and extensive partnerships with many of the summer music festivals ... so it seems odd for Radio 3 to be asked to defend our commitment to classical music."
A spokeswoman for the station added that that more than 80 per cent of the schedule consisted of Western classical music. "If that is not putting it at the heart of the schedule, then I don't know what is," she said.
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2004-05-06: Popular Hong Kong radio talk host Albert Cheng King-hon, a long time critic of the Hong Kong government, has taken a long break from his show, making comments on his last show before leaving that some of his friends had betrayed their political beliefs.
Commenting in a pre-recorded comment on his last "Teacup In A Storm" morning show Cheng said of last month's interpretation of the Basic Law by the National People's Congress Standing Committee that effectively ended the different path promised for Hong Kong when the British left their colony, "I feel angry, helpless and frustrated. Many friends told me not to criticize the government as fiercely as before."
"Some friends have even sold their souls recently. It makes it difficult for me to speak my mind freely because I may feel uneasy about criticizing them on air."
Straights Times report:

2004-05-06: Veteran Montreal radio host George Balcan has died aged 72.
Manitoba-born Balcan was with CJAD-AM for a quarter of a century: he bean his radio career in Hamilton, Ontario, and moved to CJAD as afternoon host in 1963, taking the morning drive slot at the station in 1967.
He then moved after five years in the slot to CFCF, working on both radio and TV, but returned to his morning role at CJAD in 1976, remaining in the slot until retiring in 1998.
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2004-05-06: The Australian Prime Minister John Howard has issued what the Sydney Morning Herald termed a "veiled rebuke" to Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) chairman Professor David Flint, saying he "should regret" not disclosing correspondence with Sydney talk host Alan Jones.
Flint wrote supportive letters to Jones during the 1999 cash-for-comment affair in which hosts were criticised for accepting undisclosed payments from corporations for favourable comment.
The ABA board had already expressed " serious concern" about the letters following a meeting last week (See RNW May 1).
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Sydney Morning Herald report:

2004-05-05: Clear Channel has reported record results for its first quarter this year with revenues up 11% to USD 2.0 billion and net income up 64% to USD 116.5 million; diluted earnings per share was up 58% to USD 0.12.
The profit figures include USD 47 million of gains related to Clear Channel's sale of its remaining interest in Univision and USD 11.6 million in gains relating to the sale of radio assets and also a USD 31.4 million pre-tax loss on the early extinguishment of debt and excluding these would have trimmed the net income to USD 100.3 million (USD 0.16 per diluted share).
In a statement chairman and CEO Lowry Mays, who successfully underwent surgery last Friday after doctors found he was suffering from swelling of his brain caused by localized bleeding and a small blood clot, commented, "We are off to a great start for the year and are pleased to report record first quarter results. These impressive results reflect our success in providing the highest quality content and services to the communities we serve and delivering value to our customers and results to our advertising partners. This focus, combined with employing the best people, is the key to our financial performance and enables us to create value for shareholders over the long-term."
President and COO Mark Mays, who took the company's conference call, said the results highlighted, "the tremendous operating leverage of our businesses in an improving revenue environment."
"We realized impressive revenue gains in each of our operating divisions, and were successful in translating this performance into cash flow and earnings growth," he added.
"In addition, during the quarter we initiated a $1.0 billion share buyback program, providing us with another avenue to increase shareholder value. With the economy strengthening and the advertising environment continuing to improve, we are ideally positioned to deliver impressive growth for the remainder of the year and beyond."
CFO Randall Mays added, "The first quarter of 2004 showed yet again the ability of our businesses to generate significant free cash flow. During the quarter we further strengthened our balance sheet reducing total debt by $779.9 million and reducing leverage to 2.68x. We are utilizing a portion of our free cash flow to fund a share repurchase program. To date, the Company has repurchased slightly less than $100.0 million in stock under the buyback program."
Clear Channel radio revenues were up 5% to USD 833 million compared to 16% increase in outdoor revenues to USD 522 million and a 17% increase in live entertainment division revenues to USD 514 million whilst other revenues were up 6% to USD 132 million.
Clear Channel said the increase in its radio broadcasting revenues was led by advertising growth throughout the quarter with March the strongest month and notes that strong categories included services, automotive, entertainment and consumer products.
It says an increase of 3% in operating expenses to USD 512.3 million came primarily from an increase in programming and promotion costs, increased sales related expenses driven by commission and accrued bonus expenses and an increase in general administrative expenses associated with an increase in the cost of employee healthcare benefits.
Looking ahead, Clear Channel says it expects full year operating income to be up in the low double-digit percentage range and earnings per share to increase in the high teens to low twenties.
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2004-05-05: UK radio ratings organisation RAJAR (Radio Joint Audio Research) says that as well as Arbitron, with its Portable People Meter, and GfK with the RadioControl "watch" system, four new serious contenders have now emerged as potential suppliers of electronic measurement technology to replace its diary system.
RAJAR says it will not name the companies at this stage and adds that the newcomers, two of whose systems are in an advanced stage of development "offer interesting new dimensions to the current debate." All the systems work either through inaudible codes in the broadcast signal, the approach Arbitron has adopted, or through matching audio from broadcasts to that transmitted by subscribers, the GfK system.
RAJAR managing director Sally de le Bedoyere says that the interest of the potential suppliers will not mean delays in its planned timetable that could see a new measurement system in operation during 2006.
RAJAR is going ahead with trials this summer of the GfK and Arbitron systems, assuming they have completed the requested changes to their systems on schedule and de le Bedoyere added, "Currently, we are in the hands of both Arbitron and GfK. This is a hugely important time for all of us at RAJAR. This process of testing and evaluation has had to be thorough, and recognizes the very detailed needs that we have."
"The UK is the most technologically advanced major radio market in the world, bar none. We have a very detailed list of requirements, specifically in the measurement of digital radio and the internet."
Regarding the new contenders she said, "It could be that one of these suddenly emerges as a fully functioning, viable alternative to what we have before us now. Right now, we don't know. What this enlarged review does mean is that we will end up with the best possible solution, perhaps merging some of the best ideas and technologies."
"All of the organizations pitching to us know the importance of the UK decision. They are being very helpful and constructive, and understand our very precise needs. The next generation of audiometers should represent a major leap forward and clarify many issues for us."
"The organization that gets the UK contract is logically in pole position to be adopted as the global standard. That's why all the leading candidates are desperately keen to throw their hats in the ring with big budget investments."
Jonathan Gillespie, Head of Radio for OMD UK, one of the country's leading media buying and Planning agencies, said RAJAR's decision was "vitally important for the whole media industry."
The selection of the right candidate and the right technology has the potential to open so many doors for all media owners," he added. "The implications are profound. If we end up with a technology that is really able to eavesdrop on a person's media consumption, then the horizons for development are considerable."
RAJAR's first ratings for this year are due later this week but GfK has just released its latest ratings, which include good news for BBC Radio 1 breakfast host Chris Moyles: GfK says he has increased the show's audience in the period from January 5 to March 21 by 17% - from 2.2 million to 2.6 million listeners a day -over the quarter from September 15 to December 14, 2003.
Overall the weekly reach figures for the main UK networks from GFK for the period from January 5 to March 21 (with in brackets GfK prior period, running from November 3rd, 2003 - February 22nd, 2004, and then RAJAR figures to the end of December) in rank order were:
BBC Networks:
BBC Radio 4 - 17.02 million (16.77 million; 9.51 million): Weekly reach of 38%, up from 37%
BBC Radio 2 - 15.14 million (15.34 million; 13.15 million): Unchanged 34%.
BBC Radio 1 - 11.40 million (11.19 million; 9.85 million): Unchanged 25%.
BBC Radio Five Live - 8.78 million (9.04 million; 6.13 million): Unchanged 20%.
BBC Radio 3 - 3.57 million (3.39 million; 2.19 million): Unchanged 8%.
Commercial networks:
talkSPORT - 6.31 million (6.21million; 1.87 million): Unchanged 14%.
Classic FM - 5.63 million (5.59 million; 6.46 million): Up from 12% to 13%
Virgin - 3.32 million (3.37 million; 2.57 million): Down from 8% to 7%.
GfK figures for commercial stations in the London area now allow comparison over a year: They showed that for the period from September 2003 to March 2004 (in brackets previous figures from March to August 2003) the five most popular stations were:
Capital FM -2.560 million - Unchanged 24%.
Heart FM - 2.406 million - Up from 23% to 24%.
Magic FM- 1.909 million - Unchanged 18%.
talkSPORT - 1.593 million - Down from 16% to 15%.
Virgin Radio 1.417 million - Down from 15% to 14%
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2004-05-05: The Australian Broadcasting Authority's 2002-03 Broadcasting Financial Results for commercial radio and television broadcasters just released shows commercial radio revenues in the country up 6% on a year earlier at AUD 774.2 million (USD 654.2 million); 251 licensees who reported their results for 2003-03.
In comparison the 48 TV licensees who reported had a revenue increase over the previous year of 6.7% to reach a total of AUD 3.451 billion (USD 2.514 billion).
Radio licensees collectively had a broadcasting profit of AUD 106.2 million (USD 77.4 million) in the 2002-03 financial year, down by 2.1 per cent on the previous year, whilst television licensees had aggregate profits of AUD 506.4 million (USD 368.9 million), up 23.3%.
During the year the ABA collected AUD 216.1 million (USD 157.4 million) in licence fees, up 5.7% on the previous year.
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2004-05-05: The BBC World Service has appointed Hosam El Sokkari, the current Head of BBC Arabic Online, to head its Arabic Service, the oldest of the 43 language services it runs.
El Sokkari is the first Arab to head the service since it started in 1938: He was born and educated in Egypt and worked in Finland and Germany as a cartoonist and newspaper journalist before joining Deutsche Welle as a correspondent in 1988 and the Arabic service in 1994. He was appointed Head of BBC Arabic Online in 1999.
Before he takes up his new post he will be seconded to BBC News and during the secondment Liliane Landor, current Acting Head of BBC World Service News and Current Affairs, will be seconded from BBC News as interim Head to run the Arabic service. She was born in the Lebanon and has been with the corporation for 14 years.
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2004-05-05: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a USD 5,4000 penalty on an Arkansas FM for failure to install emergency alert system equipment and of USD 10,000 for failure to paint a New York State tower.
The Arkansas penalty goes to Petracom of Texarkana, LLC, licensee of KPGG-FM, Ashdown, which had been assessed with an USD 8,000 penalty in 2003 after it was found its EAS equipment had been removed for repair and not re-instated within 60 days.
Petracom had sought cancellation or reduction of the assessed forfeiture amount based upon its remedial efforts, history of compliance, and inability to pay. The FCC accepted that Petracom had taken corrective measures before the FCC inspection and on this basis trimmed the penalty to USD 5,400 but rejected the argument of a history of compliance on the basis of an enforcement action against sister company Petracom of Joplin, L.L.C. (See RNW April 7).
Regarding the argument of hardship it noted that records had not been provided to substantiate this.
In the Clear Channel case, which related to an antenna structure in Utica, New York, used by WOUR-FM, a 2002 inspection had shown that chipping and fading had impaired visibility of the structure. Clear Channel sought cancellation or reduction of the forfeiture, based on the fact that the FCC Buffalo Office allegedly erred in inspecting the antenna structure - given the Agreement between the New York State Broadcasters Association ("NYSBA") and the Commission entered into pursuant to the agency's Alternative Broadcast Inspection Program ("ABIP").- and that Clear Channel instituted prompt remedial action.
The FCC said the Buffalo Office's inspection was part of its field-wide targeted tower safety program, and as such, was not routine under the ABIP and commented that remedial action did not negate a penalty. It confirmed the full amount.
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2004-05-04: In more US radio results, Beasley Broadcasting has posted record net revenues - up 6.3% on a year ago to USD 26.1 million but operating income from continuing operations was flat at USD 4.7 million and net income was down to USD 200,000 (USD 0.01 per share) compared to USD 2 million (USD 0.08 per share) a year earlier. The latest figures include a loss of USD 2.4 million on extinguishments of debt whilst the year-earlier figures included a net income from discontinued operations plus a gain on the sale of investment securities totalling USD 1.1 million.
Beasley said the revenue improvement was because of improved performances in eight of the ten markets in which Beasley operates. There were no station sales or purchases in the quarter for either year.
Chairman and CEO George G. Beasley commented, "With stronger than expected revenue performances across our portfolio, 2004 is off to a solid start. "
Regarding acquisitions he said Beasley was looking at filling in some holes in current station clusters and at a couple of clusters in markets new to Beasley but cautioned patience saying suitable situations could take a year or 18 months to arise or never arise. He also said the company was considering all options, including a merger with another group.
Looking ahead, Beasley says it anticipates second quarter revenues up 3.5% on a year ago including the impact of reformatting a Philadelphia station.
Cumulus Media has reported revenues up 12.9% to USD 65.5 million and same station revenues up 5.2% to USD 58.9 million and trimmed its net loss attributable to common stockholders from USD 7.25 million (USD 0.12 per share) in the first quarter of 2003 to USD 1.98 million (USD 0.03 per share).
Chairman, President and CEO Lew Dickey, commented, "Through our strong operating performance and important strategic acquisitions, we continue to execute on our strategy of building a strong platform that generates tremendous free cash flow and we are well-positioned to be the premier consolidator in our target space of markets ranked 50-250."
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2004-05-04: Former UK Channel 4 TV Director of TV and Programmes Tim Gardam and Patrick Barwise, Professor of Management and Marketing at the London Business School, have been appointed to lead the latest review of the BBC's activities in the run-up to the renewal of its charter in 2006.
The appointments, announced by UK Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, tie in with a review of public service broadcasting being conducted by the Ofcom regulator and a report into the Corporation's online services by former Trinity Mirror chief executive Philip Graf.
Barwise will lead the review into the BBC's digital TV services and Gardam that into its digital radio services - 1Xtra, BBC6, BBC7, BBC Asian Network and Five Live Sports Extra. Both reviews include a period of public consultation running until June 11 and will include market impact assessments and contributions from the UK media regulator Ofcom. The findings from the final reports will feed into the current review of the BBC's Charter.
Commenting after the announcement, Jowell said, "The BBC has wholeheartedly embraced the digital revolution. But while licence fee payers rightly expect their major public service broadcaster to be at the forefront of a rapidly changing broadcasting ecology, they also expect the Government to ensure that the Corporation fulfils its public service remit. These reviews will help us ensure that balance is being struck."
Under their remits the reviewers will look at whether the BBC is operating in accordance with details given when its digital services were approved, examine the market impact of the services and particularly look at future development regarding TV services for children.
They are directed to take into account the BBC's own submissions plus responses to them and any other evidence considered appropriate. The reports are due by the end of August.
Gardam commented, "The success of digital radio will be a vital factor in the Government's overall digital strategy and in the future of the BBC. I look forward to working with Patrick Barwise, and I hope that together we can produce coherent recommendations to further both of these services. Though it remains early days for these services, the perceptions of the audience will also be an important factor. I can assure all involved that this will be an open minded and vigorous review and it will, I hope, be a useful contribution to the debate on Charter Review."
The BBC in its submission has described its new digital services as "delivering distinctive and original public service content to UK audiences and are on track to meet all of the conditions of their approvals."
It quotes an "independent assessment" - carried out by Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates Ltd on behalf of the BBC - as showing, "that BBC digital radio stations are playing a vital role in driving digital penetration and have had an "unambiguously positive" impact on the commercial sector... They have provided programming that is distinct from commercial offerings and existing BBC stations, and have supported UK producers, presenters and artists… [and] are increasingly cited by DAB purchasers as the key reason to buy."
The BBC itself says it has "undertaken vigorous campaigns to promote the uptake of digital radio and has worked in partnership with commercial radio and the Digital Radio Development Bureau to drive digital penetration" and says that its digital radio stations "offer more for ethnic minority audiences, better use of the BBC archive and greater value from sports rights."
"Each service," it adds, "has stimulated, supported and reflected the diversity of cultural activity in the UK, through programming that reflects and involves the UK's multicultural society."
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UK Culture Dept web page regarding consultations (Has e-mail link for comment on BBC digital review: Deadline is June 11):

2004-05-04: Reporting on Australian radio's current success story, DMG Radio Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald says that chief executive Paul Thompson feared at one stage that the company would not succeed in its attempt to beat a network to rival market leader Austereo.
The reason was a hearing, launched soon after DMG Radio Australia paid a record AUD 155 million in 2000 (See RNW May 25, 2000)for the new Sydney commercial FM licence that was used to launch its Nova network flagship.
The hearing into Australian regional radio was prompted in part, reports the Herald, by letters, apparently written to newspapers by members of the public, blaming DMG for the loss of localism on Australian regional radio.
Eventually the letters were exposed as fakes concocted by a public relations consultant acting for Austereo (See RNW April 27, 2001) and Thompson told the paper, "It was such a well-orchestrated campaign, it was so widespread and it ran for something like two years before we identified what was going on. We were being damaged at the regulator level, at the government level, at backbench level, at the advertiser level . . . I did think at one stage 'Can we live through this?' "
"I also don't feel in any way any need or desire to justify what we have done," he said. "We have had a strategy that has worked about as spectacularly as we could have hoped for.
"It is eight years since we established the plan and [the Brisbane win -DMG won the new licence there with an AUD 80 million bid - see RNW Apr 23] was the culmination of that eight-year plan because we have completed the national network."
DMG has already dented competitor's radio profit margins in Australia and with its national network now completed through a winning Brisbane bid of AUD 80 million (USD 58 million) last month (See RNW April 23) and a possible two stations in Sydney - already achieved when it won the latest Sydney commercial FM with a bid of AUD 106 million (USD 78 million) earlier in April (See RNW April 16) - and Melbourne should it win the auction there later this year, would be in a position according to analysts to create "a dual national network targeting different age or gender . . . groups, thereby further enhancing its appeal to national advertisers".
Commenting on the Nova network's success Thompson put it down to a policy of fewer adverts and newer music, saying, "Radio back in 2001 was not a medium that launched new music but recycled music that had been exposed by other media. What the Novas did was to bring new music back to commercial radio and re-establish it as a platform for new music in Australia."
He noted that Austereo earlier this year distributed a report attacking DMG's financial performance and suggesting it consider selling part of its Nova network to Austereo and commented that it was as if they had to "kill the baby before it grew up to be king".
"They really needed to kill us while we were small and defenceless," he added. "I think it is a bit late."
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Sydney Morning Herald report:

2004-05-04: The fight back against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and current censoring proclivities of many US proclivities seems to be building up as more organisations file objections to FCC rulings or object to planned changes in regulation.
In addition there is now a steady build-up of editorial opinions looking at the matter in terms of First Amendment issues; the latest we have noted was in the New York Times where Adam Cohen said the FCC penalty of USD 495,000 on Clear Channel for broadcasting an episode of the Howard Stern Show has slipped into "ridiculousness".
Cohen writes that in its Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) the FCC "huffily " termed the product "Sphincterine", whose inventor was interviewed by Stern, a "purported personal hygiene product" and also considered as a key factor the fact that the segment contained "repeated flatulence sound effects."
"Call it the whoopee cushion doctrine," writes Cohen. " It is hard to believe that the government now regards flatulence jokes, the lamest staple of gag gift stores, as grounds for taking away a broadcast license. But since Janet Jackson's unfortunate wardrobe malfunction, the F.C.C. has been furiously rewriting the rules. Another edict holds that broadcasters can lose their licenses even for "isolated or fleeting" swear words, a doctrine arising from a single gerund uttered at the 2003 Golden Globes."
"Don't bother calling the commissioners philistines - they do it themselves," he continues. "In the Golden Globe ruling, they admit their definition could put D. H. Lawrence and James Joyce off limits."
Cohen also says that it is Stern's offensiveness that makes his cause so important because the FCC is using him as "cover for a whole new approach that throws out decades of free-speech law."
Some of the new FCC standards he terms objectionable such as the inclusion of "profanity", which means that terms such as "Go to Hell" are actionable; others he terms disturbing such as the decision not to set specific definitions of "indecency" but to allow it as well as looking at a list of vague categories to "analyze other potentially profane words or phrases on a case-by-case basis."
In addition as well as making the criteria "hopelessly vague", writes Cohen, the FCC is removing longstanding rules that allowed breathing space so that rather than repeated violations an isolated incident is punishable and also it is to be considered "irrelevant" that the broadcaster has made good-faith efforts to understand the Commission's highly subjective standards.
"This new legal landscape," concludes Cohen, "will stifle important artistic expression, since broadcasters will be afraid of wandering too close to an essentially undefined line. It also raises a real danger that indecency will be used to stifle political dissent. Among the comments Mr. Stern is in trouble for are a schoolyard epithet used about President Bush and another aimed at a Republican congresswoman."
The US Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) shares Cohen's objections judging by a recent filing in support of petitions asking the FCC to reconsider its "Golden Globes Order" [in which it rules, in clear contradiction of its published guidelines, that Bono's use of the term "fucking brilliant" broke its rules].
The RTNDA says the ruling unconstitutionally limits the ability of broadcast journalists to provide accurate and insightful reporting to the public and emphasises "the deleterious and chilling effects its [order] has had and will have on broadcast journalism."
RTNDA says "the Commission's actions have further muddied the already vague definition of indecency, left broadcasters to guess which words and phrases will subject them to strict liability, and offer no guidance as to when, if ever, the context of a given program will outweigh its presumed offensiveness."
Given that Congress is poised to increase the fines for indecency violations to $500,000 and the FCC's stated willingness to revoke licenses, RTNDA argues that it is now unacceptably risky for radio and television stations to air live audio and video from all sorts of news events, from the routine arraignment, trial or locker room interview, to the emotionally charged demonstration, disaster or terrorist attack.
RTNDA states that, in some instances, the use of language that may be objectionable to some is integral to news reporting and says that by effectively removing context from its analysis, the FCC is violating the First Amendment by interfering with the editorial judgments of broadcast licensees. "To suggest that coverage of news events be sanitized, as the Commission has now done, is in and of itself a form of censorship," says RTNDA.
It notes that the U.S. Supreme Court has said the Commission may constitutionally regulate indecent broadcasts, but also made clear that the FCC must proceed cautiously and consider carefully the chilling effect its standards have on broadcast speech.
RTNDA now believes it says that the Commission has "violated the precept that the government must tread lightly where it ventures into the area of broadcast censorship."
RNW comment: One of the problems, it seems to us, is that non-elected officials (in the case of elected bodies, the citizen's right to vote foolishly would be given priority) such as the FCC Commissioners cannot easily be subject to sanctions when they behave, as we think they have done in the Golden Globes ruling, in ways that clearly put the rule of law or running of their agency into disrepute.
In the Globes case, having put down clear rules that were reasonably acted upon by FCC staff, the overruling of the enforcement bureau in our view deserves severe sanction and such sanction could only be made by the courts so as to avoid any rulings being over-politicized.
We would welcome it were a case to go up to Federal Court level that the judges could rule such appointees unfit for public office for a period or fit only subject to certain conditions - demonstrable elementary literacy would appear to fit the case for the FCC commissioners.

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New York Times - Cohen:

2004-05-03: The last week saw a wide range of articles concerning radio in print, including more relating to current US "indecent broadcast" issues, the departure from Morning Edition of host Bob Edwards just short of 25 years as host, more on Air America Radio and some upbeat articles about the prospects for satellite radio.
First Bob Edwards and a tribute from David S. Broder in his Washington Post column: "This Monday morning will be different," he writes. " After 25 years, I won't be able to start the day with Bob Edwards on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." Like thousands of other fans, I am not happy about the change."
Describing NPR as "among the major blessings in life" Border notes his reaction to other NPR shows then writes, "Bob Edwards has become as much a part of my life as the morning cup of coffee, and for many of the same reasons. He gets you awake and going, without assaulting your senses. You can sip his information at the same calm pace that you take in those first few swallows of caffeine. And his work goes down just as smoothly."
He goes on to say his purpose is not to gripe about the changes NR is making but to "salute a man who is the epitome of professionalism in a medium on which I rely."
In his column he gives details of an interview concerning US homeland defence by Edwards of Texas Democrat Rep. Jim Turner and comments, "By asking the right questions, and asking them with remarkable economy, Edwards gave his guest time to spell out all the essentials -- who, what, when, where and why -- of a fairly complex program. From the introduction to the final, "Congressman, thank you very much," Edwards had spent only 77 words drawing out the essential facts with five questions."
"That," he continues, "is professionalism, ladies and gentlemen. Combine it with good manners, an even disposition and an occasional bit of offbeat good humour in this morning companion, plus the willingness to awake before dawn for 25 years to bring us the world with our coffee -- well, you can see why we owe Bob Edwards a lot…And why I dread starting this Monday without him."
Next the more negative, this time in comments on Air America Radio, now off the air in Chicago, by Robert Feder in his Chicago Sun-Times column
…"it would be hard to imagine how the rank amateurs running the operation could have done a better job of mismanaging their maiden month or alienating their potential audiences in such crucial markets as Chicago and Los Angeles," he writes, noting that not only has the network lost deals in the two cities but has also lost "the politically savvy Mark Walsh as chief executive officer and Dave Logan as executive vice president of programming and operations."
"Logan's ouster," writes Feder, "was the more confounding since he had been the one person on the payroll with the experience to set the network's programming right. His first-rate credentials as a programmer from Chicago's own WLUP-FM to the start up of XM Satellite Radio should have made Logan Air America's most valuable player."
He concludes, "…the fact that he's out -- and won't even talk about what happened publicly -- speaks volumes about the chaos going on behind the scenes.
In similar but slightly more positive vein, Teresa Wiltz writes in the Washington Post of the "tumultuous inaugural month for Air America Radio" and says that departing CEO Mark Walsh sees the situation as "a glass-is-half-full scenario" for him.
"I've had that [CEO] title before," Walsh told the paper, "I don't need it. "You try to start up a multi-station radio network in six months and say it's not bumpy. I would say we've had remarkably few bumps in the road."
Michael Harrison of Talkers was less positive, commenting, "Chaos is not a good sign" and adding that from the start there were signs of weakness in Air America's business plan, based on a political goal of unseating Bush from the Presidency rather than the business of radio.
"Most of the media's attention has been on the fact that they are liberal and little attention has been given to the fact that radio networks make it on their business plan, not their politics," Harrison said. "One would have to question their business plan -- whether you're liberal or conservative, whether you're playing music or comedy, radio is radio and it requires sound broadcasting practices."
David Goodfriend, the network's general counsel and chief operating officer, who has stepped in as CEO for the moment, defended the network's business plan, commenting, "We're a fast-growing company. Six months ago, we didn't exist. We went from zero to 100 in a period of six months."
In contrast to Air America, whatever US radio giant Clear Channel may be criticised for (more below), lack of commercial and business acumen is not amongst the issues and Scott Galupo in the Washington Times (editorially Conservative and controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church) contends that it has also seen its way clearly to providing listeners with what they want rather than "ruining radio."
"If you're a Clear Channel hater, I wonder if you're also a Wal-Mart hater," he writes. "I'll bet you are. I'll bet, furthermore, that if you were honest with yourself, you would see that the reason you hate both companies is because you're a snob."
Galupo then rather in our view ruins his argument by including a gratuitous political dig: "It all goes back to former President Bill Clinton. Presumably, Clear Channel is not in his back pocket."
He makes a case for the necessity for changes in the US radio industry because of weaknesses before the 1996 Communications Act that permitted consolidation, present's Clear Channel's argument that radio is "least concentrated segment of the media industry", argues that allegations of its using clout in what it plays to gain advantages for its other arms (something we're sure his newspaper would have called a benefit of "synergy" in other contexts but that he terms "essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul" and which Clear Channel general counsel Andrew Levin says would be "against our business interests."
Galupo also quotes, Joel Oxley, general manager of Bonneville International's WWZZ-FM as saying, "If you look at radio overall, there's never been a time when there were more choices. If you look back at the FM dial 30 years ago, there wasn't much on it."
"What big radio companies such as Clear Channel have done," concludes Galupo, "is geared radio to a mass audience."
"It conducts sophisticated market research. It polls listeners over the phone. Clear Channel succeeds because it has mastered the game of ratings; it simply plays what people say they want to hear."
College radio and National Public Radio are subsidized by taxpayers for a reason, he writes but for commercial radio," bottom lines are the bottom line…Clear Channel has the same problem Wal-Mart has. It is hated by elites because too many people, too many ordinary people with ordinary tastes, shop there."
Nowhere in Calupo's article is there any suggestion that a media business leasing public airwaves has any wider interests than its bottom line and it is this facet of consolidation that comes in for criticism in an article by AP Business writer Ellen Simon that we noted in the San Francisco Chronicle.
She starts by noting the problems - of what he didn't hear rather than what he did - faced by David M. Rubin, dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, when last summer's blackout hit.
Listeners and the public had called in to the talk show on Syracuse's only commercial station, Clear Channel's WSYR-AM to list details of stores open and streets affected but Rubin said he heard only one local news reporter once.
"I heard a lot of news about New York, but none locally," said Rubin, adding that about an hour and 40 minutes after the lights went out, the talk show host went off the air and the station switched to national news.
"To those of us still sitting in the dark, this was not satisfactory," he said. "More importantly, this would certainly not have been satisfactory if it were a terrorist attack."
Subsequently, he said the situation at WSYR has improved, adding, "But it's all within the context of a pretty awful situation."
He was backed up by Gene Kimmelman, policy director at Consumers Union, who said," "As a few companies take more control of radio and TV, it creates more incentive to mechanize the gathering of news and take it far away from the community, leaving not enough real people to man the studios and provide up-to-date information for emergencies or weather… You lose your capability to respond to emergencies."
Clear Channel, says the report, would not directly address the blackout incident, or offer any comment for this story. It did, however, send an e-mail statement saying it was "committed to providing communities with the highest quality local news."
It did point out that its radio division has 110 news bureaus with about 400 employees "focused on the gathering, support and production of local news throughout the company (that's around one for every three stations on average)"
Also complaining was Geoff Schumacher, editor of the Las Vegas Mercury, an alternative free weekly, who commented, "It maddens me to no end that when I'm stuck in traffic due to a flood in Vegas, and this happens once or twice a year, I go up and down the dial and get no help at all. Radio has ceased to be relevant in terms of covering news and getting local information."
And the regulatory view from Barbara Kreisman, the FCC's designated officer for the Media Reliability Security Council, a group charged with developing a plan to keep broadcasters running in emergencies: "You don't need every radio station in town to have reporters."
RNW comment: If a big city we might agree but when it's the only station in a town or none of the stations in a town staff news adequately then we would argue that the situation is different. The US currently reminds us of the times when newspapers in the Soviet Union waited for TASS agency reports before carrying news of local disasters, albeit in the latter case the fear was of offending a political line not upsetting the accountants.
On to satellite and a report by Adrian McCoy in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headed "Satellite services making inroads into the radio landscape."
As well as giving details of the services it notes that both Sirius and XM are projecting break-even in 2003 and also the fears of terrestrial broadcasters as, to quote Sean Ross, vice president of music and programming for Edison Media Research, "Listener dissatisfaction has finally become something tangible and harder for many stations to dismiss."
It says that for terrestrial broadcasters the formula for success has become "Local, local, local" and quotes Keith Clark, vice president of programming for Infinity Pittsburgh as saying satellite is, "Essentially a jukebox that doesn't identify with any local community."
"The key for traditional broadcasters," he added, "is to be local in everything. I don't think that's something satellite will ever figure out how to do."
In this context McCoy notes the introduction, against vigorous opposition by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), of satellite and weather channels by the satellite broadcasters
It also notes that the most popular programmes on Sirius mirror what's most popular on mainstream radio: Top 40 and classic rock channels.
Sirius spokesman Ron Rodrigues said that came as a surprise, commenting, "When the founding fathers started the company, they thought the niche-oriented channels would be the most popular…People are attached to their hits. But they like the fact that we put them on commercial-free."
XM seems to be attracting a different group of customers that favour more niche programming and its spokesman David Butler said, "We have channels that appeal to fans of music that is very popular but difficult for commercial radio to support, like blues. Because we broadcast coast to coast, we have the ability to do so."
One area where other problems for terrestrial could benefit the satellite companies, at least under current laws, is if top-rated hosts like Howard Stern are driven off air by the FCC's new harsher penalties and in the Nashville City Paper Ron Wynn notes that Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone and president Mel Karmazin are taking a First Amendment stance rather than rolling over as Clear Channel has done.Wynn notes that Karmazin took a shot at Clear Channel in saying that "another company cancelled Howard (Stern)'s show for no reason other than that they were going to Washington (to) testify and just didn't seem to have the courage to stand up for programming that they aired."
Wynn says "here's an example of the wrong people being recruited to fight the right battle. Someone needs to speak out against the paranoia fuelling this 'indecency' movement, but it has to come from media consumers."
"Certainly," he writes, "no one is forced to hear or watch this stuff, and the FCC was established as a regulatory agency, not a censorship board. But Powell knows he has a large chunk of the 40 and up crowd in his corner, people who are sick of having everything from teen sex discussions to gangsta rap flung in their face at any time of the day or night. Many of these people don't endorse or want censorship, but they're not prudes, snobs or elitists just because they're appalled people are calling into radio stations at 7 a.m. and rating their sexual partners."
He goes on, "There's no easy solution, and commercial radio and television people are rightly concerned that this new FCC push might negatively impact their already perilous enterprises. With cable and satellite radio and television free to air any and everything, demographic and audience projection figures aren't very pretty regarding the future of commercial broadcasting."
On now to programmes available from the Internet or due up. And first of all this week has to be Morning Session - Bob Edwards' last show (Friday April 30) is on the NPR web site as also in a tribute to him are a selection of his stories and interviews.
Crossing the Atlantic and for those who like a classic story, the current Classic Serial on BBC Radio 4 is The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson whilst for those with a penchant for recent history could try BBC Radio 2 where Jeremy Vine, who reported from South Africa as a BBC Correspondent, looks at how the new South Africa has delivered on its promises In No Easy Walk to Freedom. The first episode is still on the web site and the next is due tomorrow at 19:30 GMT.
Also with South Africa in mind Wednesday on Radio 2 sees the final programme in Freedom Sounds at 21:00GMT. It's preceded by the second of eight shows in Mark Lamarr's A Beginner's Guide to Reggae (the first programme is still on the site).
Also worth a listen is The History of Folly on BBC Radio 4 - the first two shows are on the site and the third is due next Saturday (09:30 GMT).
Previous Columnists:
Previous Feder:
Chicago Sun-Times - Feder:
Nashville City Paper - Wynn:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - McCoy:
San Francisco Chronicle/AP - Simon:
Washington Post - Broder:
Washington Post - Wiltz:
Washington Times - Galupo:

2004-05-03: Irish state broadcaster RTÉ has finally published details of the pay of top earners between 1998 and 2000: It had been ordered to make the details public by the Irish ombudsman Emily O'Reilly following an application under the Freedom of Information Act by the UK Sunday Times.
Highest paid was Pat Kenny, presenter of the TV Late Late Show, the world's longest running chat show that was launched in 1962 with Gay Byrne as host. Kenny was paid Euros 517,234 (USD 618,000) in 2000.
Next was 2FM DJ Gerry Ryan with Euros 255,474 (USD 305,000) and third, marginally behind, was RTÉ Radio 1 presenter Marian Finucane with Euros 255,228 (USD 305,000).
Gay Byrne, who hosted the Late Late Show until 1999, was fourth - he was the top earner in 1998 with Euros 492,457 (USD 588,000) - around half the figure bandied around at the time - and in 2000 was still paid Euros 226,768 (USD 271,000) as part of a "residual contract" designed by RTÉ to keep him from signing for a rival.
In fifth place was 2FM presenter Dave Fanning with pay in 2000 of Euros 197,622 (USD 236,000).
In comparison the highest paid grade in a salary chart also released by RTÉ was for the top-ranked department head, running up to Euros 81,067 (USD 97,000) just ahead of the most senior programme editor on Euros 80,272. The highest paid correspondents received u to Euros 74,230 (USD 89,000) and the highest paid radio post was the most senior producer at Euros 64,573 (USD 77,000).
Also in Ireland, Eamon Dunphy has again been the subject of rumours that he may join NewsTalk 106 FM - he has been off the Irish radio airwaves since leaving The Last Word on Today FM.
However the UK Sunday Times dismisses the rumour, which would him in an early slot, on the basis that current 07:00 to 09:30 host David McWilliams has just signed a new contract.
It notes similar rumours some months ago that Dunphy might take the evening drive time slot hosted by George Hook: They were scotched when Hook announced that he had just signed a new contract.
Previous Byrne:
Previous Dunphy:
Previous RTÉ:
UK Sunday Times report:

2004-05-03: The BBC World Service is to pay tribute to the late Alistair Cooke, noted for his Letters from America that had been aired for 58 years, with two "Letters to Alistair" programmes to be aired later this month.
Cooke died aged 95 in March (See RNW March 31) shortly after his retirement on doctor's advice (See RNW Mar 3).
His last programme had been broadcast in February, since when the BBC has filled his slot with archive programmes.
The 15-minute programmes will air on May 15 and 22 at 0430 GMT and 11:30 GMT.
Previous BBC:
Previous Cooke:

2004-05-03: The last week saw a wide range of articles concerning radio in print, including more relating to current US "indecent broadcast" issues, the departure from Morning Edition of host Bob Edwards just short of 25 years as host, more on Air America Radio and some upbeat articles about the prospects for satellite radio.
First Bob Edwards and a tribute from David S. Broder in his Washington Post column: "This Monday morning will be different," he writes. " After 25 years, I won't be able to start the day with Bob Edwards on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." Like thousands of other fans, I am not happy about the change."
Describing NPR as "among the major blessings in life" Border notes his reaction to other NPR shows then writes, "Bob Edwards has become as much a part of my life as the morning cup of coffee, and for many of the same reasons. He gets you awake and going, without assaulting your senses. You can sip his information at the same calm pace that you take in those first few swallows of caffeine. And his work goes down just as smoothly."
He goes on to say his purpose is not to gripe about the changes NR is making but to "salute a man who is the epitome of professionalism in a medium on which I rely."
In his column he gives details of an interview concerning US homeland defence by Edwards of Texas Democrat Rep. Jim Turner and comments, "By asking the right questions, and asking them with remarkable economy, Edwards gave his guest time to spell out all the essentials -- who, what, when, where and why -- of a fairly complex program. From the introduction to the final, "Congressman, thank you very much," Edwards had spent only 77 words drawing out the essential facts with five questions."
"That," he continues, "is professionalism, ladies and gentlemen. Combine it with good manners, an even disposition and an occasional bit of offbeat good humour in this morning companion, plus the willingness to awake before dawn for 25 years to bring us the world with our coffee -- well, you can see why we owe Bob Edwards a lot…And why I dread starting this Monday without him."
Next the more negative, this time in comments on Air America Radio, now off the air in Chicago, by Robert Feder in his Chicago Sun-Times column
…"it would be hard to imagine how the rank amateurs running the operation could have done a better job of mismanaging their maiden month or alienating their potential audiences in such crucial markets as Chicago and Los Angeles," he writes, noting that not only has the network lost deals in the two cities but has also lost "the politically savvy Mark Walsh as chief executive officer and Dave Logan as executive vice president of programming and operations."
"Logan's ouster," writes Feder, "was the more confounding since he had been the one person on the payroll with the experience to set the network's programming right. His first-rate credentials as a programmer from Chicago's own WLUP-FM to the start up of XM Satellite Radio should have made Logan Air America's most valuable player."
He concludes, "…the fact that he's out -- and won't even talk about what happened publicly -- speaks volumes about the chaos going on behind the scenes.
In similar but slightly more positive vein, Teresa Wiltz writes in the Washington Post of the "tumultuous inaugural month for Air America Radio" and says that departing CEO Mark Walsh sees the situation as "a glass-is-half-full scenario" for him.
"I've had that [CEO] title before," Walsh told the paper, "I don't need it. "You try to start up a multi-station radio network in six months and say it's not bumpy. I would say we've had remarkably few bumps in the road."
Michael Harrison of Talkers was less positive, commenting, "Chaos is not a good sign" and adding that from the start there were signs of weakness in Air America's business plan, based on a political goal of unseating Bush from the Presidency rather than the business of radio.
"Most of the media's attention has been on the fact that they are liberal and little attention has been given to the fact that radio networks make it on their business plan, not their politics," Harrison said. "One would have to question their business plan -- whether you're liberal or conservative, whether you're playing music or comedy, radio is radio and it requires sound broadcasting practices."
David Goodfriend, the network's general counsel and chief operating officer, who has stepped in as CEO for the moment, defended the network's business plan, commenting, "We're a fast-growing company. Six months ago, we didn't exist. We went from zero to 100 in a period of six months."
In contrast to Air America, whatever US radio giant Clear Channel may be criticized for (more below), lack of commercial and business acumen is not amongst the issues and Scott Galupo in the Washington Times (editorially Conservative and controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church) contends that it has also seen its way clearly to providing listeners with what they want rather than "ruining radio."
"If you're a Clear Channel hater, I wonder if you're also a Wal-Mart hater," he writes. "I'll bet you are. I'll bet, furthermore, that if you were honest with yourself, you would see that the reason you hate both companies is because you're a snob."
Galupo then rather in our view ruins his argument by including a gratuitous political dig: "It all goes back to former President Bill Clinton. Presumably, Clear Channel is not in his back pocket."
He makes a case for the necessity for changes in the US radio industry because of weaknesses before the 1996 Communications Act that permitted consolidation, present's Clear Channel's argument that radio is "least concentrated segment of the media industry", argues that allegations of its using clout in what it plays to gain advantages for its other arms (something we're sure his newspaper would have called a benefit of "synergy" in other contexts but that he terms "essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul" and which Clear Channel general counsel Andrew Levin says would be "against our business interests."
Galupo also quotes, Joel Oxley, general manager of Bonneville International's WWZZ-FM as saying, "If you look at radio overall, there's never been a time when there were more choices. If you look back at the FM dial 30 years ago, there wasn't much on it."
"What big radio companies such as Clear Channel have done," concludes Galupo, "is geared radio to a mass audience."
"It conducts sophisticated market research. It polls listeners over the phone. Clear Channel succeeds because it has mastered the game of ratings; it simply plays what people say they want to hear."
College radio and National Public Radio are subsidized by taxpayers for a reason, he writes but for commercial radio," bottom lines are the bottom line…Clear Channel has the same problem Wal-Mart has. It is hated by elites because too many people, too many ordinary people with ordinary tastes, shop there."
Nowhere in Calupo's article is there any suggestion that a media business leasing public airwaves has any wider interests than its bottom line and it is this facet of consolidation that comes in for criticism in an article by AP Business writer Ellen Simon that we noted in the San Francisco Chronicle.
She starts by noting the problems - of what he didn't hear rather than what he did - faced by David M. Rubin, dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, when last summer's blackout hit.
Listeners and the public had called in to the talk show on Syracuse's only commercial station, Clear Channel's WSYR-AM to list details of stores open and streets affected but Rubin said he heard only one local news reporter once.
"I heard a lot of news about New York, but none locally," said Rubin, adding that about an hour and 40 minutes after the lights went out, the talk show host went off the air and the station switched to national news.
"To those of us still sitting in the dark, this was not satisfactory," he said. "More importantly, this would certainly not have been satisfactory if it were a terrorist attack."
Subsequently, he said the situation at WSYR has improved, adding, "But it's all within the context of a pretty awful situation."
He was backed up by Gene Kimmelman, policy director at Consumers Union, who said," "As a few companies take more control of radio and TV, it creates more incentive to mechanize the gathering of news and take it far away from the community, leaving not enough real people to man the studios and provide up-to-date information for emergencies or weather… You lose your capability to respond to emergencies."
Clear Channel, says the report, would not directly address the blackout incident, or offer any comment for this story. It did, however, send an e-mail statement saying it was "committed to providing communities with the highest quality local news."
It did point out that its radio division has 110 news bureaus with about 400 employees "focused on the gathering, support and production of local news throughout the company (that's around one for every three stations on average)"
Also complaining was Geoff Schumacher, editor of the Las Vegas Mercury, an alternative free weekly, who commented, "It maddens me to no end that when I'm stuck in traffic due to a flood in Vegas, and this happens once or twice a year, I go up and down the dial and get no help at all. Radio has ceased to be relevant in terms of covering news and getting local information."
And the regulatory view from Barbara Kreisman, the FCC's designated officer for the Media Reliability Security Council, a group charged with developing a plan to keep broadcasters running in emergencies: "You don't need every radio station in town to have reporters."
RNW comment: If a big city we might agree but when it's the only station in a town or none of the stations in a town staff news adequately then we would argue that the situation is different. The US currently reminds us of the times when newspapers in the Soviet Union waited for TASS agency reports before carrying news of local disasters, albeit in the latter case the fear was of offending a political line not upsetting the accountants.
On to satellite and a report by Adrian McCoy in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headed "Satellite services making inroads into the radio landscape."
As well as giving details of the services it notes that both Sirius and XM are projecting break-even in 2003 and also the fears of terrestrial broadcasters as, to quote Sean Ross, vice president of music and programming for Edison Media Research, "Listener dissatisfaction has finally become something tangible and harder for many stations to dismiss."
It says that for terrestrial broadcasters the formula for success has become "Local, local, local" and quotes Keith Clark, vice president of programming for Infinity Pittsburgh as saying satellite is, "Essentially a jukebox that doesn't identify with any local community."
"The key for traditional broadcasters," he added, "is to be local in everything. I don't think that's something satellite will ever figure out how to do."
In this context McCoy notes the introduction, against vigorous opposition by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), of satellite and weather channels by the satellite broadcasters
It also notes that the most popular programmes on Sirius mirror what's most popular on mainstream radio: Top 40 and classic rock channels.
Sirius spokesman Ron Rodrigues said that came as a surprise, commenting, "When the founding fathers started the company, they thought the niche-oriented channels would be the most popular…People are attached to their hits. But they like the fact that we put them on commercial-free."
XM seems to be attracting a different group of customers that favour more niche programming and its spokesman David Butler said, "We have channels that appeal to fans of music that is very popular but difficult for commercial radio to support, like blues. Because we broadcast coast to coast, we have the ability to do so."
One area where other problems for terrestrial could benefit the satellite companies, at least under current laws, is if top-rated hosts like Howard Stern are driven off air by the FCC's new harsher penalties and in the Nashville City Paper Ron Wynn notes that Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone and president Mel Karmazin are taking a First Amendment stance rather than rolling over as Clear Channel has done.
Wynn notes that Karmazin took a shot at Clear Channel in saying that "another company cancelled Howard (Stern)'s show for no reason other than that they were going to Washington (to) testify and just didn't seem to have the courage to stand up for programming that they aired."
Wynn says "here's an example of the wrong people being recruited to fight the right battle. Someone needs to speak out against the paranoia fuelling this 'indecency' movement, but it has to come from media consumers."
"Certainly," he writes, "no one is forced to hear or watch this stuff, and the FCC was established as a regulatory agency, not a censorship board. But Powell knows he has a large chunk of the 40 and up crowd in his corner, people who are sick of having everything from teen sex discussions to gangsta rap flung in their face at any time of the day or night. Many of these people don't endorse or want censorship, but they're not prudes, snobs or elitists just because they're appalled people are calling into radio stations at 7 a.m. and rating their sexual partners."
He goes on, "There's no easy solution, and commercial radio and television people are rightly concerned that this new FCC push might negatively impact their already perilous enterprises. With cable and satellite radio and television free to air any and everything, demographic and audience projection figures aren't very pretty regarding the future of commercial broadcasting."
On now to programmes available from the Internet or due up. And first of all this week has to be Morning Session - Bob Edwards' last show (Friday April 30) is on the NPR web site as also in a tribute to him are a selection of his stories and interviews.
Crossing the Atlantic and for those who like a classic story, the current Classic Serial on BBC Radio 4 is The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson whilst for those with a penchant for recent history could try BBC Radio 2 where Jeremy Vine, who reported from South Africa as a BBC Correspondent, looks at how the new South Africa has delivered on its promises In No Easy Walk to Freedom. The first episode is still on the web site and the next is due tomorrow at 19:30 GMT.
Also with South Africa in mind Wednesday on Radio 2 sees the final programme in Freedom Sounds at 21:00GMT. It's preceded by the second of eight shows in Mark Lamarr's A Beginner's Guide to Reggae (the first programme is still on the site).
Also worth a listen is The History of Folly on BBC Radio 4 - the first two shows are on the site and the third is due next Saturday (09:30 GMT).
Previous Columnists:
Previous Feder:
Chicago Sun-Times - Feder:
Nashville City Paper - Wynn:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - McCoy:
San Francisco Chronicle/AP - Simon:
Washington Post - Broder:
Washington Post - Wiltz:
Washington Times - Galupo:

2004-05-03: Irish state broadcaster RTÉ has finally published details of the pay of top earners between 1998 and 2000: It had been ordered to make the details public by the Irish ombudsman Emily O'Reilly following an application under the Freedom of Information Act by the UK Sunday Times.
Highest paid was Pat Kenny, presenter of the TV Late Late Show, the world's longest running chat show that was launched in 1962 with Gay Byrne as host. Kenny was paid Euros 517,234 (USD 618,000) in 2000.
Next was 2FM DJ Gerry Ryan with Euros 255,474 (USD 305,000) and third, marginally behind, was RTÉ Radio 1 presenter Marian Finucane with Euros 255,228 (USD 305,000).
Gay Byrne, who hosted the Late Late Show until 1999, was fourth - he was the top earner in 1998 with Euros 492,457 (USD 588,000) - around half the figure bandied around at the time - and in 2000 was still paid Euros 226,768 (USD 271,000) as part of a "residual contract" designed by RTÉ to keep him from signing for a rival.
In fifth place was 2FM presenter Dave Fanning with pay in 2000 of Euros 197,622 (USD 236,000).
In comparison the highest paid grade in a salary chart also released by RTÉ was for the top-ranked department head, running up to Euros 81,067 (USD 97,000) just ahead of the most senior programme editor on Euros 80,272. The highest paid correspondents received u to Euros 74,230 (USD 89,000) and the highest paid radio post was the most senior producer at Euros 64,573 (USD 77,000).
Also in Ireland, Eamon Dunphy has again been the subject of rumours that he may join NewsTalk 106 FM - he has been off the Irish radio airwaves since leaving The Last Word on Today FM.
However the UK Sunday Times dismisses the rumour, which would him in an early slot, on the basis that current 07:00 to 09:30 host David McWilliams has just signed a new contract.
It notes similar rumours some months ago that Dunphy might take the evening drive time slot hosted by George Hook: They were scotched when Hook announced that he had just signed a new contract.
Previous Byrne:
Previous Dunphy:
Previous Newstalk 106:

Previous RTÉ:
UK Sunday Times report:

2004-05-03: The BBC World Service is to pay tribute to the late Alistair Cooke, noted for his Letters from America that had been aired for 58 years, with two "Letters to Alistair" programmes to be aired later this month.
Cooke died aged 95 in March (See RNW March 31) shortly after his retirement on doctor's advice (See RNW Mar 3).
His last programme had been broadcast in February, since when the BBC has filled his slot with archive programmes.
The 15-minute programmes will air on May 15 and 22 at 0430 GMT and 11:30 GMT.
Previous BBC:
Previous Cooke:

2004-05-02: Last week was silent on the radio licensing front for most of the regulators and nearly as quiet regarding radio related activities.
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) board met and discussed the relationship between chairman Prof. David Flint and broadcaster Alan Jones following comments from Jones former colleague John Laws saying Jones had put pressure on the Australian Prime Minister to renew Flint's term during the cash-for-comment scandal and the revelations of friendly letters written to Jones by Flint.
It issued a statement saying no decisions were altered by Flint's vote but he is to recuse himself from the ABA's inquiry into complaints about the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's cover of the war on Iraq (See RNW May 1)
There was nothing from Canada, only the release of latest ratings from Ireland (See RNW April 29) and nothing related to radio from the UK although there Ofcom has now released its 55th consultation paper since coming into operation at the end of last year. It published seven more consultations in the week and, even though its chief executive Stephen Carter has acknowledged a danger of "consultation fatigue" is in line to add another 40 or so this month.
In the US, there's still no sign of more indecency penalties on Howard Stern but the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been active relating to technical breaches of the regulations.
It cancelled one USD 10,000 penalty and confirmed one of USD 30,000 at the end of April (See RNW April 30) and earlier confirmed penalties of USD 15,000 on Small Town Radio and of USD 10,000 on each of two Florida pirate operators (See RNW April 28).
The FCC also issues its latest statistics on station numbers, showing a fall in the numbers commercial AMs and educational FMs and a rise in the number of commercial FMs since the beginning of the year (Also RNW April 28).
Previous ABA:
Previous FCC:
Previous Flint:
Previous Ofcom:

ABA web site:
FCC web site:
Ofcom web site:

2004-05-02: Troubled BBC Radio 1 has a hard task to turn itself round according a poll of its target 15-24 listeners carried out by the UK Guardian.
The paper runs a sample of comments varying from the devastating comment that it is "totally misjudging" its audience from a 22-years old Manchester man, an equally devastating "I would rather drink my own wee for breakfast than wake up to Chris Moyles" view on the station's new breakfast host and self-proclaimed saviour from a 23-years old Edinburgh woman to a significantly more favourable "On the other hand, the music is actually quite good. There is a wide variety and Radio 1 tends to steer away from the more "sugary" bands" from a 15-years old Bristol girl.
The same girl has another dig at Moyles, contrasting him with his predecessor in the breakfast slot: "With Sara Cox in the afternoon there is an especially large range, whereas Chris Moyles seems to prefer chatting to playing music. But dance anthems blaring out at 6pm on a weekday are unlikely to encourage people to tune in."
Perhaps the most worrying comment, however, came from a 16-years-old youth from Manchester:" The fact is that people of my age nowadays don't listen to radio. With modern technology you can find any song you want and burn it on to a CD. Why tune into a radio station to listen to music you don't want to hear?"
RNW note: As with so many surveys, this one is hopelessly unscientific and allows venting of personal opinions to potentially overwhelm statistical evidence. UK ratings are due next week and should show how the wider audience judges not only Radio 1 but also individual DJs including Cox and Moyles.
Previous BBC:
Previous Cox:
Previous Moyles:
UK Guardian report:

2004-05-02: Jacobs Media has launched a new web campaign under the appositely-named "Save Radio Now" title to inform Americans about First Amendment rights and regulatory and legislative actions related to free speech.
The consulting firm was involved recently with Edison Media Research in a poll of rock radio listeners that showed that the vast majority didn't want the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) involved in content control (See RNW March 25) and its president Fred Jacobs commented "There is a large gap between the opinions about indecency that are being expressed by the FCC and Congress and what we're hearing from radio listeners in America."
"The purpose of this site is to provide education, as well as an equal voice for this silent majority to communicate to their elected representatives and the regulators who are setting the tone."
The SaveRadioNow.org website comments that, "While many feel this current crackdown on indecency is an election year ploy, few lawmakers on either side of the aisle are viewing this as a "free speech" issue. Most have been vocal about eliminating indecency on the airwaves, with little consideration of First Amendment issues."
The site describes Save Radio Now as "is an online service designed to inform radio listeners about how the radio medium is being changed by F.C.C. policy" that …"provides you with information about how the radio stations you listen to are being affected, along with ways that you can make your opinions known to policy makers."
It continues, "Why is this important to you? Regardless of your political leanings, ill-defined and arbitrary standards have the potential to impact all points of view, from Howard Stern to Rush Limbaugh and everywhere in between. Beyond radio, free speech restriction can have an impact on other media, too."
The site includes a petition that asks the F.C.C. to reconsider their policies, as well as their definition of "community standards", message boards, and links to pages of breaking news, testimony from "broadcast executives to Congress about indecency and their company policies that will effect what your favourite stations can say and play"
On the other side of the coin, the US Parents Television Council has become worried that the US Senate may not pass legislation that would increase indecency penalties.
In an e-mail to members calling for immediate action it says, "As you know, Congress is considering legislation that would severely punish broadcasters who violate indecency laws. Unfortunately that legislation has stalled in the US Senate. If the Senate doesn't vote on this bill, S. 2056, in the next few days, it will likely die… The public is outraged over the Super Bowl halftime show, the F-word on television broadcasts, and the graphic sexual content on morning drive-time radio."
"If we are to be successful in our efforts to reduce the obscene, indecent, and profane broadcasts from the public airwaves, then the FCC must have the power to impose meaningful fines and/or revoke station licenses of broadcasters who break the law. Don't let the broadcasters sweep our national outrage under the rug."
Previous FCC:
Save Radio Now web site:

2004-05-01: Now former National Public Radio (NPR) Morning Edition host Bob Edwards signed off from his show on Friday after being the sole host of the show since it began just under 25 years ago: He is due back on the network as its senior correspondent on Monday.
His show began with a report on the marines pull back from Fallujah and ended with him thanking the "hundreds of people who have done their best to make me sound like I know what I'm talking about."
In 30 years with NPR Edwards has conducted more than 20,000 interviews and a selection of his stories and interviews have been posted on the NPR web site.
The earliest is a 1974 report on President Nixon's resignation; next up are the first Morning Edition and his first Morning Edition interview - with broadcaster Charles Osgood, whom he also interviewed on his last show, an interview that ends the selection.
Previous Edwards:
Previous NPR:
NPR web site - Edwards Tribute link:

2004-05-01: Pressure is mounting in Australia on Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) chairman Professor David Flint following revelations on the ABC Media Watch programme about letters he wrote to broadcaster Alan Jones; Jones was later said by 2UE host John Laws to have put pressure on the Australian Prime Minister John Howard to re-appoint Flint (See RNW April 30).
According to the Sydney Morning Herald the Prime Minister has asked for advice concerning the correspondence: he made the request after the ABA chairman met other board members to discuss suggestions that he is too close to Jones. The board expressed full confidence in Flint after the meeting.
The paper says the Prime Minister's spokesman said the Prime Minister had asked for a brief on the correspondence from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
The government was embarrassed further when Veterans Affairs Minister Danna Vale sent a fax of support to Jones saying "stay brave and true" and continuing, "Thinking of you Alan and write to assure you of our warm support and to add our names to the long list of all your friends."
The fax went to rival station 2UE, where it was read out on air by current breakfast host Steve Price; Jones was 2UE breakfast host before moving to 2GB in March 2002.
A readers poll by the Sydney Morning Herald after 2,500 votes had been cast listed 63% of respondents saying they believed John Laws version of the alleged comments by Jones about putting pressure on the Prime Minister with only 2% believing Jones and 7% the Prime Minister: 24% said they believed none of them and the remaining 1% were unsure.
In an editorial headed "Time for Flint to Step Back" , the paper comments on Flint's activities since his appointment in 1997, including the 1999 cash for comment affair and last month's similar enquiry into the Telstra sponsorship of Jones show on 2GB (See RNW April 6).
It says, "A letter from Professor Flint to Jones, which ABC TV's Media Watch brought to light this week, casts a pall over both these inquiries, and any future ones over which Professor Flint might preside…Professor Flint is dismissive of those he regulates, and damning of those who complain. He should never have written that letter, but he did. After doing so, he should have recused himself from all dealings with Jones. He did not."
"If he chooses to remain in his job, he is faced with an inquiry into the ABC, which he criticised strongly in his book Twilight of the Elites, brought by the Government whose ongoing favour is required for his continued appointment."
"He should disqualify himself from that inquiry, and avoid dealings with complainants and with Jones until his term as chairman expires on October 4. The Federal Government has the option of sacking him, but has not shown such strength of character since its first term. In looking for an independent regulator for the industry, it should ensure it gets a watchdog, not a lapdog."
The ABA board in a statement has reaffirmed its recent decisions regarding the ownership and control of Sydney radio station 2GB and the content of talkback programs on 2GB and 2UE: it notes that some decisions were made by majority vote but adds that the chairman's vote would not have affected any of them.
It says it "recognizes the public concern regarding the impartiality of its Chairman, Professor David Flint and the integrity of the Authority's decisions" but believes it has "has maintained an effective and impartial decision making process, and that it will continue to do so."
Regarding the letters written by Flint to Jones it says "serious concern was expressed" at its meeting and adds, "The Chairman expressed his regret that due to his oversight these letters were not disclosed at the time of the hearing into 2UE in 1999."
Although not criticizing Flint, it also says that "in the interest of preserving public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the Authority's decisions" the chairman will take no further part in the consideration of complaints about the coverage of the war in Iraq on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's AM programme.
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2004-05-01: According to the New York Post, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) indecency judgments are being made on a different basis when it comes to comments made on The Howard Stern Show as opposed to the Oprah Winfrey Show.
The paper says that Stern show regular Captain Janks phoned the shock jock yesterday to report that the FCC had sent him a response to his complaint about a recent "Oprah" episode in which an O! magazine editor graphically described the act of "tossing salad".
In its response he said the FCC commented, "We previously found that fleeting and isolated remarks of this nature do not warrant commission action because the complained-of material does not fall within the scope of the commission's indecency prohibition. We reject the claims that this program content is indecent and we need not reach the second element of the indecency analysis."
The Post says that an FCC aide admitted to it that the reason for different standards was that Oprah was "beloved" whilst Stern was considered a "lightning rod."
Stern had been running a campaign over the FCC's anti-indecency campaign in which he had posted a transcript of the Winfrey Show on his web site and invited people to make complaints to the Commission (See RNW April 13). The transcript is no longer on the site.
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2004-05-01: Regent Communications has announced more record results with net broadcast revenues for the first quarter up 8.5% to USD 17.8 million, operating income up 61% on a year earlier to USD 1.4 million and station operating income up 24% to USD 4.4 million; overall Regent had a profit of USD 319,999 (USD 0.01 per share), nearly triple the USD 110,000 a year earlier.
Same station net broadcast revenues for the quarter were up 6.8% to USD12.7 million and same station operating income was up 16.1% to USD 3.4 million.
Chairman and CEO Terry Jacobs said the results were above expectations and added, "We experienced broad based strength in local advertising in essentially all of our markets and witnessed an improving advertising environment as the quarter progressed. We were also successful in converting our top-line performance into significant growth in station operating income and free cash flow, which increased 24% and 65% respectively."
"These results highlight the benefit of operating leading market stations as well as the tremendous operating leverage inherent in our business. We are optimistic the environment will continue to improve throughout the year and are confident in our ability to capitalize on this growth."
Looking ahead Regent says it expects second quarter net broadcast revenues and station operating income of approximately USD22.1 to USD22.4 million and USD7.6 to USD7.8 million, respectively with earnings per share around USD 0.04: it says same station net broadcast revenues should be up f5% to 7%.
Jacobs said of the prospects, "Looking ahead, we have an attractive mix of start-up, developing and mature radio properties in an improving revenue environment. This allows us to deliver impressive growth in both revenue and cash flow. We have an excellent track record for delivering impressive results and expect to continue this trend through 2004 and into 2005."
In other US radio business, Salem Communications has now priced a previously announced sale of 3.1 million shares (See RNW April 27) at USD 30 per share. It says that, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their over-allotment option it expects net proceeds of USD 65.5 million, which will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes that may include the redemption of up to approximately $52.5 million principal amount of outstanding 9% senior subordinated notes.
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2004-05-01: The latest newsletter from the UK Radio Advertising Bureau sets out its stance regarding UK radio ratings, with various links including one to reflections by its Chief Executive, Douglas Macarthur, who has been on the board of the RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) ratings company for a month.
RAB notes that RAJAR began its diary ratings in 1992 and currently captures information about the radio listening behaviour of around 130,000 respondents per year or 3,000 different respondents every week from round the UK.
It was recognised that developments meant that the diary system was becoming inadequate and in 2001 RAJAR held a conference for the radio industry to discuss the future of audience measurement at which time it was agreed that the organisation would run a series of in-depth tests on two of the most advanced audio-meters then available, Arbitron's Portable People Meter and the RadioControl device, used in the UK by GfK.
The tests showed what RAB terms "puzzling discrepancies that were accepted by both meter manufacturers who started to make changes to their meters which were identified as necessary in order to make their technologies workable in the UK market.
A second round of tests is due this summer and RAB says it "supports the prudent and solid testing programme that is leading the world through the RAJAR tests, and agrees that the systems tested do not yet meet the criteria the industry requires for its trading currency - as does 99% of the radio industry, and the BBC, IPA, ISBA and CRCA."
In a swipe at comments made by Wireless Group chief executive Kelvin MacKenzie whose group is taking legal action against RAJAR (See RNW Mar 17), RAB comments, "We feel recent public debate has so far been one-sided, big on sound bites and short on meaningful discussion of the real issues."
"Over the last 12 years, RAB's mission has been "to guide national advertisers and their agencies towards effective advertising on Commercial Radio". Measuring effectiveness includes measuring audiences, so we are concerned that the next audience recording technology is accurate and accepted throughout the industry. We have followed the controversy over digital measurement technology and want to ensure that the issues involved are widely understood."
McArthur concludes by making two recommendations:
"First, let researchers, advertisers, agencies and radio companies debate research issues in an open way with all relevant facts fully disclosed and without being subject to a constant tirade of what appears to be self-publicizing abuse."
"Second, let's support RAJAR, whose small team has more useful things to do in continuing to develop robust, reliable, radio audience research than responding to playground sneers and unjustified legal threats."
RNW comment: At an early stage in the MacKenzie campaign, which has given him a lot of publicity, who took what we considered a realistic view of it, namely to ask "Who benefits?"
We also took the trouble (
See RNW July 2, 2003) to check with RAJAR about any disclosure problems - something the UK Guardian, which has run a number of articles giving MacKenzie's point of view, apparently had not done.
Since then we have been convinced that if there is any justice MacKenzie's case will be thrown out and that he'll get a thick ear. We also think that at the very least he should have to pay RAJAR's costs and for once we'd have liked to see a US system of punitive damages.

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2004-05-01: Sirius has announced that in March it took a 44% share of retail sales of satellite radio receivers according data compiled by the NPD Group.
It says more than 32,000 receivers were sold, more than double the number for March last year and nearly 40% above the number sold in February this year.
Sirius expects a further boost later this year when its receivers become available in more Daimler-Chrysler vehicles as a factory-installed option, in Wal-Mart and Radio Shack stores; in addition its services will potentially be available later this month to around nine million subscribers to EchoStar's DISH Network satellite television service.
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