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2000-08-24: The US Department of Justice and the US Federal Trade Commission have now cleared the merger of US digital radio broadcasting technology companies Lucent Digital Radio and USA Digital Radio to form Ibiquity (RNW July13).
Investors in the combined company include Lucent Technologies and 15 of the top 20 US radio broadcasters.
Previous Ibiquity

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2000-08-24: More programming for Sirius Satellite Radio which is due to go on air around the end of this year.
US National Public Radio (NPR) has announced that it is launching two new channels which will be broadcast on Sirius and available online at NPR's web site.
The channels NPR Now and NPR Talk will be mainly made up from existing NPR shows including "Talk of the Nation" and Car Talk" and will also feature a new morning news show headed by former print and television journalist Melinda Wittstock..
The new show will be the first to be created by NPR2, the network's new satellite programming division, which forms part of NPR's multi-media expansion , which includes NPR News, NPR Cultural, NPR Online and NPR Worldwide.
Both channels will promote NPR's local radio stations and NPR2 will also provide fresh NPR classical and jazz features for other Sirius channels.
NPR President and CEO Kevin Klose, said, "NPR2's presence on Sirius will extend our public service mission to new listeners and help build audience for our member stations nationwide."
" As Americans increasingly integrate new technologies into their media habits, they will be able to find standard-setting NPR programming wherever they go - on their radio, in their cars, online and even overseas."
Sirius has also announced an agreement to carry programming from independent entertainment network Comedy World.
Sirius comedy broadcasts will include daily Comedy World programming, as well as a weekly show hosted by entertainer Sandra Bernhard.
Previous Klose ;
Previous NPR;
Previous Sirius;
Previous satellite radio;
NPR site;
NPR News release;
Sirius site;

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2000-08-23: SMG, the former Scottish Media Group, has reported first half pre-tax profits up 25% to £ 30 million, aided by contributions from its acquisition of the Ginger Media Group which includes Virgin Radio (RNW Jan 13).
The group says it is delivering exceptional returns and is in a good position to develop as a major player in UK media.
And according to the UK Radio Magazine, GWR group is to spend £1.24 million on buying 62% of GP Broadcasting, which operates Peterborough station Lite FM.
The same terms are on offer for all the company's shares, which would value the station at £2 million.
The deal depends upon the UK Radio Authority ruling within five months that taking over the licence would not be against the public interest.
GWR exceeded current UK ownership limits when it purchased DMG Radio (RNW June 15) but has announced its intention to sell a number of its AM stations.
UK Radio Magazine site ;

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2000-08-23:The Clear Channel takeover of AMFM has moved almost to closure as the US Federal Communication Commission's Mass Media Bureau has now formally announced that it has issued authorisation for the transfer of control of AMFM and its subsidiary licensees to Clear Channel.
It has also issued authorisations related to divestitures to third parties and the CCU/AMFM Trust I.
Previous Clear Channel :

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2000-08-22: US radio ratings organisation Arbitron is gaining some competition for its Infostream Internet ratings service from a new player, Measurecast Inc. which has launched a streaming audience measurement service providing Internet organisations with audience data within 24 hours of a webcast.
Measurecast's first customer is BroadcastAmerica.com whose president and Chief Operating Officer John Brier said "Rather than trying to mould traditional methods to a very untraditional medium, MeasureCast has developed a powerful new measurement tool that is easy to use and appropriate for the Internet streaming industry. "
" The accurate research and next day reports from MeasureCast will enable us to establish critical streaming benchmarks, which helps our radio partners and advertisers alike."
Rather than relying on reports from programme monitors MeasureCast employs Active Event Monitoring(tm), a server-side technology, to record the exact number of streams requested from an Internet broadcaster's streaming server.
Previous Brier ;
Measurecast website ;

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2000-08-22: In February (RNW Feb 14), we reported on some 600 pigeons in Orissa State in India losing their jobs as message carriers because of the introduction of radio communications.
Now, according to an AP report in the Los Angeles Times, it appears the pigeons are also losing their lives.
The report quotes B.N. Das, police superintendent of signals at the pigeon service headquarters as saying that 21 pigeons have died of sunstroke in recent months because they had not been watched carefully enough.
Those left are also at risk because the 34 constables assigned to pigeon duty in remote districts see the job as a punishment and the pigeons as a costly anachronism.
The police department has asked the government to sell off most of the birds and use the pigeon service's $2,900 annual budget elsewhere in the department.
The pigeon service was started in Orissa in 1946 using pigeons from the army.
They were trained to specialize in three types of service: static, under which bird flies one way with a message attached to a leg and is then taken back to its base, boomerang under which birds travel regularly, carrying messages between two points within a 60-mile radius and mobile pigeons which fly back to their home base and were carried by police officers patrolling remote areas to keep in touch with their colleagues.
The last major disaster in which they played a significant role was the 1982 Orissa flooding when the police pigeons were the only method of communication because radio networks were disrupted by water.
Das said pigeons were not used in last year's devastating super-cyclone because the disaster was so great that the constables assigned to the pigeon posts fled.
The state's communications system was useless for days, but word finally got out through ham radio operators.
Previous Indian pigeons report;
Los Angeles Times/AP report;.

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2000-08-22: After the UK and Germany, Italy is the next European country expected to raise billions from auctioning mobile phone spectrum.
It is to set out details of how it intends to conduct its auction this week and expects to raise a total of some £22 billion.
Expected to bid are existing Italian companies and the European giants including British Telecom (through the Blu consortium), Telecom Italia, Vodafone (through Omnitel), and Wind backed by France Télecom.

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2000-08-21: Diversity amongst the columnists this week, although many of them are on leave or just sticking to reviews.
The ending of Sue Arnold's column in the UK Observer, does however, touch upon wider issues, "You have to admire people …… ……who can blather away without a pause; it's a talent all on its own."
" One of these days someone will apply for Agony FM."
"Radio is for news and music and sport and, of course, the Proms (RNW note: A UK series of classical music concerts) on Radio 3 at this time of year. But it's also for practical advice about A-levels (RNW note: UK Examinations which are a prime determinant in getting a plave at university) and hamsters. You should use it."
In the UK Sunday Times , Michael Wright, a holiday stand-in, gazes a little into the future starting with, "Here's what I really want from a car radio. Sitting in my little car, preferably not in a traffic jam, I want to be able to whistle a bar or two of a song or symphony and for that piece instantly to fill my battered motor, in digital stereo. I want the news, weather and traffic reports instantly to be accessible whenever I give the order."
He then comments that stations are getting better at knowing what to play when, adding," Soaking up Classic FM in the car almost every day, for example, I am struck by how much of the station's output offers just what the doctor ordered, at exactly the time he prescribed it."
"It's strange how a Mozart slow movement or a wash of Tallis can turn the traffic queues on Tower Bridge from an unwanted obstruction into an opportunity to gaze at the beauty of the Thames at dusk."
Not that Wright finds the station perfect: "John Brunning's Smooooooth Classics at Seven ("The ultimate wind-down") comes on sounding like a coffee commercial for sexually frustrated housewives. "
" Every day it starts with a snippet of the In Paradisum from Fauré's Requiem, then, just when we've decided that, yes, this is exactly what we want to listen to, John switches us over to The Lark Ascending for the 50th time."
And even when it does manage it, it spoils it, "Just occasionally, radio comes up with exactly the thing you want to hear. Driving home last week, humming Danny Boy to myself, I wished I could hear it being played. I turned on Classic FM, and lo! There it was: the very tune - hardly a Classic FM staple - arranged for violin and piano, swirling out of the speakers. So this is how God must have felt when she said: 'Let there be light.'"
" Flushed with my technical breakthrough in conjuring up audio on demand, I had another go, humming the opening of a Schubert piano sonata. And lo! There came, instead, an advertisement for online train tickets."
" Fine: I'll practise my humming."he concludes.
And while on advertisements, his Times colleague Peter Barnard, adds a little information there in a clumn which pays tribute to Albert Lasker, "the first great advertising man and a pioneer of radio as a selling tool early in the 20th century.
" Lasker, he writes, "was an American who was packed off to Chicago to join the advertising agency Lord and Thomas, which he later owned."
"Lasker brought scientific thinking to advertising, virtually invented the notion of the copywriter, and had a straightforward philosophy: 'Get a simple message, hammer it home.'"
Lasker was also the subject of a programme on the BBC Radio 4 series Anatomists of Desire about advertising gurus and, says Barnard, "not the least of the first programme's merits was that it demonstrated how radio did the spadework for the goldrush that television advertising was to become."
Barnard ends," The best commercials obey the Lasker principle of simplicity, the worst are too clever by half, sending woolly messages that are like bad jokes: forgotten in a few seconds. "
" Lasker, who had wanted to be a journalist, had the sub-editor's feel for telling, uncomplicated phrases. It's a skill modern radio needs. And not just in the commercial breaks."
A pity indeed to harp on our well-worn track, that this particular programme isn't available "on-demand" from the Radio 4 website. It would be well worth paying a little to get it.
Previous Columnists:
Previous Arnold:
Previous Barnard:
Barnard UK Times column;
Wright Sunday Times column;

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2000-08-21: The launch of commercial Irish national talk radio may now be delayed by up to six months because some of its backers have pulled out.
NewsTalk 106 has been asked by the country's Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC) to find more backers so that it does not end up controlled by too few major investors.
The station, which was backed by all of Ireland's independent stations, who were taking a share related to the size of their audiences, was awarded its licence against competition from Dublin Live FM.
Originally itwas expected to go on air earlier this year but it now looks more likely that the launch will be some time early next year.
It is expected to have a format of news interspersed with traffic and weather updates plus sport and the arts.

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2000-08-20: Licence news this week. And the main story this week is the final approval by the US Federal Communications Commission of the Clear Channel-AMFM take-over, subject to the divestment of 122 stations. (RNW Aug 17)
Elsewhere more bits and bobs, with nothing at all worthy of mention from Australia.
In Canada, the CRTC has put through a large number of routine renewals, mainly of CBC TV licences but including radio licences running to 2007 in Alberta for the Big West Communications Corporation stations CIBW-FM, Drayton Valley, and CHBW-FM Rocky Mountain House and its transmitter CHBW-FM-1 Nordegg.
It has also approved a transfer of ownership of CHEQ-FM Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, Quebec, from Gestion Overtime Inc.
No conditions were applied as the station has been unprofitable for the past three years and a change of frequency for Christian Radio Manitoba Ltd broadcasting as CHVN=FM Winnipeg. The applicants' originally requested frequency was disallowed.
And finally it approved a Low Power FM licence until the end of 1991 to the Cameron Bell Consultancy Ltd for a 50 watt station to give news related to the construction of the Broadway/ Lougheed Corridor.
In the UK the Radio Authority has announced that next week it will advertise the West Midlands Digital multiplex licence.
This week it has announced that it received only one application for the Central Scotland digital multiplex. This was from Switchdigital Scotland, which is proposing 8 music channels as well as also carrying the BBC Gaelic service for Scotland.
Switchdigital's shareholders are The Wireless Group (55%), Clear Channel International (20%) (RNW Aug 19), Capital Radio (20%) and the Carphone Warehouse (5%).
The Authority has also only received one application for the local radio licence in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, for the next years. This was from existing licence-holder, Bucks Broadcasting Ltd., broadcasting.
Previous licence news
CRTC Website;
UK Radio authority website

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2000-08-19: US radio giant Clear Channel is still gobbling up stations with the purchase of 11 stations in California from the Mondosphere Group.
They're in Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria-Lompoc but no price has been announced.
Clear is also involved in SwitchDigital the only group applying for the Central Scotland digital multiplex licence in the UK (see tomorrow's licence news).
Clear has a fifth of the group, which already has a London digital multiplex licence.
Elsewhere on the US radio deals front AAA Entertainment which already owns three FM stations in Peoria, Illinois, is spending $2.3 million to add a fourth, WBGE-FM which it is buying from B&G Broadcasting.
And in West Virginia, Mortenson Broadcasting is paying $600,000 to Hanson Broadcasting for WMON-AM & WZKM-Fm in Charleston. It recently spent £1 million on WSCW-AM & FM in Charleston.
In Georgia, Cox Broadcasting has been granted a waiver by the FCC which will allow it to complete its purchase of WFOX, Gainesville, from AMFM. Cox owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution but produced studies which the FCC accepted arguing that the 55 miles separation from Atlanta means the two cities are separate markets and the deal thus does not breach media cross ownership regulations.
Previous Clear Channel :

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2000-08-19: Germany's third generation mobile phone auction has ended with bids totalling £30.8 billion, £376 per head of the country's population and just under the £381 per head in the British auction, which raised £22.5 billion.
Each of the six remaining bidders bought two of the 12 blocks on sale, giving them all a licence but Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa announced hours after the announcement that it was withdrawing from successful consortium E-plus, leaving Holland's KPN with full ownership of E-plus.
The other winning bidders at prices ranging from £5.13 billion to £5.17 billion British-Telecom backed Viag Interkom, Deutsche Telekom, France-Telecom backed Mobilcom, Group 3G (a joint venture between Telefonica of Spain and Sonera of Finland) and Vodafone-Mannesman.
Shares in most of the companies concerned have fallen because of the high prices paid.
Particularly hard his has been British Telecom which is increasing its debt to around £ 30 billion with the cost of the licence and the £4 billion it is to spend doubling its holding in Viag to 90%.
Previous German spectrum auction :

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2000-08-19: The US Democrats seem to have underestimated the power of radio during their conference in Los Angeles, upsetting some powerful stations in important states and giving the Republicans a chance to make some hay.
With its nose particularly out of joint was KMOX, the dominant news station in St Louis, who had booked two Democrats as guests only to find itself in a hole when neither turned up and no big name substitutes could be found despite the best efforts of some 30 volunteers involved in the Democratic National Committee's radio operation.
Part of the problem, as elucidated earlier this week in a Washington Post column, is that many of the Democrats just don't want to get out of bed early for the radio shows.
And this, says the column, has offered some early bird chances to the Republicans who earlier in the week targeted "radio row" to satisfy the hosts who were lacking Democrats.
Whilst the Republicans had Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson prepared to talk to stations the Democrats had no big names on offer and gave him a walkover with a potential audience of millions.
The report quotes says Mark Pfeifle, an Republican National Committee spokesman travelling with Nicholson, as saying "We're the only show in town -- I don't know why the Democrats haven't figured it out. "The DNC has not brought anybody here until 10 a.m."
" That's 1 p.m. on the East Coast. The Democrats missed every East Coast drive-time show this morning."
Washington Post column ;

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2000-08-18: Clear Channel says it already has buyers lined up for the 122 stations it has to divest to get approval of its take over of AMFM and hopes to close the deal within two weeks.
Randy Palmer, vice president of investor relations for the company says there won't be much effect on listeners and no layoffs are planned.
Heading the combined company will be Clear Channel Chief Executive L.Lowry Mays and former AMFM chairman and chief executive Thomas Hicks who will become vice-chairman of Clear Channel.
The above, of course, assumes that the lawyers don't become involved as they already have with the Viacom purchase of the Infinity stock it doesn't hold.
In the Infinity case, shareholder Yehuda Glatzer has filed suit in a Delaware Court claiming Viacom is trying to take advantage of the current low Infinity share price,
He says it is paying too little for the company despite the premium it has bid. And is asking the judge to stop the transaction and award damages and legal fees.
Previous Clear Channel ;
Previous Infinity Broadcasting;

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2000-08-18: US Spanish-language radio group Entravision, in its first report as a public company, has reported second quarter net revenues this year of $35.7 million, up 146% over the same period in 1999.
Broadcast cash flow in the same period was $14 million, up 147%. On a same station basis gains were also healthy with revenues up 28% and broadcast cash flow up 34%.
Entravision has now completed its $448 million acquisition of Z-Spanish media, which adds 25 radio stations to its portfolio and makes it the largest Spanish-language radio group in the US.
Amador S. Bustos, President and CEO of Z-Spanish Media, has become President of Entravision's Radio Division, as well as a member of Entravision's Board of Directors and Jeff Liberman has become Chief Operating Officer of Entravision's Radio Group.

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2000-08-18: Bidding in the third-generation German mobile phone auction of spectrum has now topped £29 billion after its 162nd round with no further contenders dropping out.
However analysts are now speculating that Group 3G, a joint venture between Telefónica of Spain and Sonera, of Finland, will soon pull out and effectively end the auction.
The bids, which in total are already well above the £22.5 billion raised by the UK spectrum auction (RNW April 28), are now around £255 per head of the German population, nearly as much as the £381 per head paid in Britain.
The high costs have led credit rating agency Standard & Poor's to say it is likely to downgrade the credit rating of most of the companies involved.
Previous German spectrum auction :

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2000-08-17: Children's radio is to return to Britain under the first BBC Radio 4 schedules released by the channel's new controller Helen Boaden.
The programmes will be in a children's radio story time which is to be broadcast at 7.15 p.m. on Sundays for at least a year.
They will be single voice readings not radio dramas.
Boaden, said she had long been an advocate of radio for children, adding,"It always seemed blindingly obvious to me,"
Boaden's predecessor James Boyle axed the last regularly scheduled children's programmes on the channel in 1998.
The BBC has been accused of squandering its expertise in children's radio programming.
Its weekday Children's Hour, which began in 1922, had an audience of more than a million for its stories, quizzes, plays and music at its peak in the min-Fifties and its weekday story Listen with Mother ran from 1950, until it was dropped in 1982
. Other programming announced include an extended Gardener's Question Time which will run 45 minutes instead of its current 30 minutes and radio dramas to include Emma by Jane Austen Scoop by Evelyn Waugh as well appearances in their own works by playwrights Harold Pinter (in A Slight Ache) and Alan Bennett (in Forty Years On).
Previous Boaden;
Previous Boyle;

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2000-08-17: Clear Channel's $16 billion take over of AMFM has finally been given the all clear by the US Federal Communications Commission subject to the disposal of another 23 stations in ten markets on top of the 99 stations whose sell-off the Justice Department had required as part of its approval of the deal in July (RNW July 27).
The 122 stations which now have to be disposed of, either by sale to a third party or to an insulated trust are in a total of 37 US markets -- Albany, New York, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Austin, Texas, Biloxi-Pascagoula, Missouri, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Cincinnati, Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio, Columbia, South Carolina, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas, Daytona Beach, Florida, Denver-Boulder, Colorado, Des Moines, Iowa, Ft. Pierce, Florida, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Point, North Carolina, Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Houston, Texas, Jackson, Missouri, Jacksonville, Florida, Los Angeles, California, Miami, Florida, Melbourne, Florida, New Haven, Connecticut, Orlando, FL, Pensacola, Florida, Phoenix, Arizona, Providence, Rhode Island, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, Richmond, Virginia, San Diego, California, San Francisco, California, San Jose, California, Shreveport, Florida, Springfield, Massachusetts, Stamford-Norwalk, Connecticut, and Waco, Texas.
San Antonio, Texas, based-Clear Channel, operated more than 800 radio stations in the US as well as having interests in some 240 stations internationally.
Dallas-based AMFM owned 465 US radio stations; the combined company is now by far the largest radio organisation in the US.
One step down in radio terms and Viacom Inc is to pay $15.5 billion in stock to buy the publicly held 35% of its radio subsidiary Infinity Broadcasting Corp., the Number 2 radio station owner in the US.
Infinity's then corporate parent CBS, which bought Infinity in 1996, sold 35% of the shares when it floated Infinity in 1998 at a time when radio shares were riding high amidst rapid industry consolidation.
Viacom inherited CBS's 65% when it took over the company this year and Viacom President (and Infinity chairman and CEO) Mel Karmazin had said he wanted to buy back the rest of Infinity if its share price did not rise.
Viacom was able to do so on the back of a high Viacom share price. Infinity stockholders will receive 0.564 shares of Viacom for each Infinity share they own.
Previous Clear Channel;
Previous Infinity Broadcasting;
Previous Karmazin;
FCC News release;

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2000-08-17: Bids in the auction for Germany's third- generation mobile phone licences have now reached £27 billion (DM85 billion) after 12 days and 150 rounds with only one bidder dropping out so far.
Forecasters now estimate that the total could top £30 billion and the telecoms regulator has now cut the amount by which new bids have to top existing offers from 10% to 5%.
12 "blocks" of radio spectrum up for auction with bidders needing two to get a licence.
Still left in the race are Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile; Group 3G, backed by Spain's Telefónica and Finland's Sonera; E-Plus, backed by KPN of The Netherlands and Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa; MobilCom, backed by France Telecom; Viag backed by British Telecom and Vodaphone-Mannesmann.
Fears that bidders have underestimated the cost of the licences have led to falls in the share price of most of the associated companies.
Previous German spectrum auction :

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2000-08-16: US National Public Radio show "This American Life" is to go on the road in December for a number of shows which will be taped with live audiences.
Host Ira Glass and the show's crew will take in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The show which takes a quirky look at the oddities of American life is five years old in November; it has been on the road before, the last time being two years ago.

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2000-08-16: Bids for mobile phone radio spectum in Germany have now topped £24 billion , topping the £22.5 billion raised in the UK.
So far only one bidder, Swisscom subsidiary Debitel has dropped out.
Previous German spectrum auction

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2000-08-16: Losers in the battle for Canadian radio licences don't like to accept the referee's word nowadays it would seem.
Decisions in June (RNW June 18) by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)to award a Toronto AM licence to PrimeTime radio run by Oakville, Ontario., station CHWO, which targets listeners over 50 years old and a Toronto FM licence to black-oriented music format Milestone Radio are both being challenged.
The latter is being challenged by 39 appeals arguing that other minority groups deserve the frequency more.
PrimeTime, which took over the 740 AM frequency left open by CBC Radio's move to FM, is being challenged in a petition by Infinity Broadcasting whose president Neeti P Ray argues that ethnic groups, not the over-fifties, are the fastest growing segment of the Toronto population and that there are ample mainstream stations already serving the easy-listening music audience targeted by PrimeTime.
Had Infinity been successful it would have broadcast in 22 languages and Ray also cites a study commissioned by his company which attacks the CRTC decision for not taking into account Toronto City Hall reports on the growing population of minorities in cities.
In the case of Milestone, which had previously made unsuccessful licence bids(RNW Jan 7), most of the challenges come from south Asian groups who do not have any radio stations.
The appeals are expected to be heard in September.

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2000-08-15: Some Radio talk show hosts it seems are even less inclined to stick to their words than politicians they castigate for the same action.
Only a day after he had nnounced that he was banning Democratic vice-presidential contender Joseph Lieberman from his show, Don Imus welcomed the Senator back.
In so doing he commented , "This just makes me look like a complete, total fool. We actually do like you, but we were perplexed why we couldn't get a hold of you."
Imus did however rehect an offer from Lieberman to return to the show together with Democratic presidential contender Al Gore. Maybe we should wait and see!
Previous Imus ;

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2000-08-15: Ceridian Corporation is to hold a special shareholders' meeting on October 5 to approve its plan to split into two and separate off its Arbitron ratings arm (RNW July 19).
If the plan is approved, the company will set up a reverse stock split at a ratio not exceeding one to five thus expected to give existing shareholders five new Ceridian and one new Arbitron share for each five Ceridian shares they currently hold.
Previous Ceridian/Arbitron

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2000-08-15: Cumulus Media Inc has reported strong growth due to acquisitions but falls in cash flow and same-station revenues in its results for the second quarter and first six months of the year.
When all pending acquisitions and divestitures are completed the company will own and operate 271 radio stations in 54 mid-size and smaller U.S. media markets, an average of five per market.
It also owns and operates a multi-market radio network in the English-speaking Caribbean.
Figures for the second quarter show net revenues up 36.7% on 1999 Q2 to $62.6 million, broadcast cash flow up 21% to $16.4 million. EBITDA was $ 12.4 million after approximately $1.2 million in non-recurring corporate costs including severance, professional fees, and other miscellaneous corporate expenses.
On a same-station basis, however, net revenues for the 212 stations involved were down $1.6 million or 3.5% to $43.6 million.
Cumulus also announced that it was endingvarious Internet-related activities and consolidating its corporate functions which are currently based in Atlanta and Milwaukee, in Atlanta.
It recorded a related one-off charge in the quarter of $9.3 million relating to these changes.
For the half-year to June 30, net revenues increased $33.2 million, or 43.2%, to $110.3 million, Broadcast Cash Flow (increased $3.9 million, or 21.3%, to $21.9 and basic and diluted loss per share was $1.06 compared to $0.94 for the six months ended June 30, 1999.
Previous Cumulus;
Cumulus news release;

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2000-08-14: Another slim week for the columnists but again good value from Peter Barnard in the UK Times, ruminating on music on radio nowadays.
To start with though, his introduction, to use his own words," warrants passing on." "You get to hear all sorts on a trawl of the radio dial, but the following from a caller to one network warrants passing on: "I'd just like to send a message to my two ex-wives. I'm delighted they fell in love with other people because I'm having a fantastic time".
As is his won't Barnard then develops more general comment from the particular, this time by noting that the comment came from a caller to a Classic FM programme, Classic Romance, a soporific show presented by Simon Bates every Sunday morning."
Barnard then continues that, "People with a sugar allergy should avoid this programme. The same could be said for much of Classic FM's output." "At least, the same could be said by classical purists and indeed people such as me, who think there is still something - how shall we put this? - slightly tacky about Classic FM. Lacking in weight, old chap, and certainly not at all intellectual."
"Indeed, the most telling direct comparison between Classic and Radio 3 is that the former is an emotional network whereas the latter is an intellectual one." Widening the argument further Barnard comments that the listening figures show Classic FM with a weekly reach of 6.2 million and an audience share of 4.4 per cent, more than three times that of BBC Radio 3.
Commenting on Classic's success, he says he thinks it has exploited wider cultural changes. giving examples of former disc jockeys who turn up "all over the dial" and concluding that, "There is a homogenous feel to radio now. Musically, radio reflects, as well as influences, a trend that sees concert violinists marketed like models in the case of the women and like footballers in the case of the men, a shift begun by Nigel Kennedy before Classic FM was born."
"Does it matter that there are now people who think that Nessun Dorma is a football anthem rather than an operatic aria? Does it matter that Classic almost exclusively features the more tuneful works of dead composers?"
"If Mozart had lived in a different age, would he have written for Hollywood? I really don't know."
"What I do know is that when Classic started, there were those who said that its bite-sized chunks would give a whole new audience an appetite for the four-course meals served up on Radio 3. This has not happened."
"Classic expands, the Radio 3 audience is static. Six million people are apparently quite happy to regard the appetiser as the whole meal. Classic is to serious music what the sound bite is to serious politics. And both are here to stay."
In the Sunday Times, where his colleague Paul Donovan is on holiday, stand-in Roland White is on less serious ground although his introduction is again noteworthy.
"Pat Murphy, who reports on cricket for Radio 5, made an uncharacteristic slip of the tongue last week when talking about the Test match weather. There was, he said, a chance of "drivel". "
"Or perhaps it wasn't a slip of the tongue. Perhaps he had been listening to Sunday Service, the programme he was interrupting."
Widening the argument later White writes of "the dangers of so-called zoo radio, the practice of having a main presenter supported by a couple of sidekicks", the idea of which was to make a show sound energetic and lively.
He goes on though to ask where radio goes next, saying, "I suspect the reason we are stuck with zoo is that nobody can think of the next revolutionary new format."
"If you have one person presenting a radio programme, it doesn't take a genius to employ a bit of help. But where do we go from there?"
The answer White suggests is backwards, saying, "more often than not, I have found that the shows with real variety and change of tone are now presented by one person."
However after citing a few examples he concludes, "In many other areas, though, the forecast is not good: look out - as Pat Murphy might put it - for prolonged patches of drivel."
And whilst that would be unfair as a description of the other columnists, by comparison they do seem rather pedestrian this week with too few ideas or phrases warranting "the passing on."
Previous Barnard;
Previous Simon Bates;
Previous Columnists;
Previous White;
Barnard column;
White Column;

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2000-08-13: Mobile phone spectrum in Europe is continuing to attract high bids.
Following on the heels of the UK third generation mobile phone spectrum auction for which bids reached $22.5 billion (RNW April 28), the German 3rd generation auction has now topped $20 billion.
One bidder, Swisscom subsidiary Debitel, has now dropped out and there is speculation that the 3G consortium including Sonera and Telefonica may be next out.
Deutsche Telecom's T-Mobil, Hutchison's E-Plus and Vodaphone's Mannesman Mobilfunk are the leading bidders still in the race.
Germany is potentially the largest mobile phone market in Europe and bids so far are already more than three times the original forecast of $6.4 billion for up to six licences.

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2000-08-13:The Sydney Morning Herald reports the death aged 85 of one of Australia's key broadcasting figures, Dr Clement Semmler.
A blacksmith's son, Semmler was born in rural South Australia and after graduating at Adelaide University was a high school teacher, radio writer and broadcaster before joining the ABC in 1942.
He played an important role in setting up the Corporation's national television service, and in 1961.he became assistant general manager in charge of radio, television and Radio Australia, later becoming general manager.
Sydney Morning Herald obituary

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2000-08-13: Licence news this week. And the main story this week is the dog that didn't bark; despite lots of anticipation the US Federal Communications Commission still hasn't come through with its approval of the Clear Channel-AMFM takeover, approved by the US Department of Justice last month(RNW June 22).
Elsewhere all was also fairly quiet. In Australia, the government has just announced appointments and re-appointments to the Australian Broadcasting Authority (RNW Aug 12) but there has been no important activity on the radio front.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has renewed a number of licences including those for CKLP-FM Parry Sound, from 1 September 2000 to 28 February 2001 and from 1 September 2000 to 31 August 2007 for CBC's CBPS-FM, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario, CBPJ-FM Waterton Lakes National Park and CBPI-FM Waterton Park,Alberta, CBPQ-FM Coquihalla Toll Plaza, British Columbia and CBPN and CBPN-FM Golden, British Columbia.
The CRTC has also approved the addition of a 92 watt FM transmitter at Banff, Alberta, for CKIK-FM Limited and changes in effective control of Portage-Delta Broadcasting Company Ltd., Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, licensee of radio programming undertaking CFRY Portage la Prairie which has been bought by Golden West Broadcasting Ltd.
In the UK, the Radio Authority has renewed Wessex FM's licence for the Weymouth & Dorchester area for a further period of eight years, from 4 September 2001 and has advertised a new small-scale Independent Local Radio FM licence to serve the town of Warminster, in West Wiltshire, and the immediately surrounding area.
It has also published the latest edition of its pocket book which lists names, addresses, frequencies, air dates and licence expiry dates for all the Independent Radio stations within the UK including the nine new analogue local licences and twelve new digital multiplex licences awarded up to June.
It also gives the Authority's future licensing plans for 2000/2001.
Previous licence news
ABA website;
CRTC Website;
UK Radio authority website

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2000-08-12: The StopDrLaura website has announced the defection of yet another advertiser from the Dr Laura Schlessinger radio show.
Latest defector says the site is Natrol which has announced that current environment surrounding this program does not suit the personality of our and what we wish to accomplish as a responsible corporate citizen."
For another view on the boycott call (RNW note - and in our view rather too rarely argued point about the implications), have a look at an article by Debra J.Saunders in the San Francisco Chronicle.
This starts off by citing a decision by Rabbi Pinchas Lipner to disinvite Schlessinger from speaking at the Hebrew Academy of San Francisco's annual International Conference on Jewish Medical Ethics in February.
Saunders says she strongly disagrees with Schlessinger's comments on homosexuality but points out that Schlesssinger does not advocate violence against gays and does urge parents to accept their gay children.
Saunders adds that John Aravosis, who started the StopDrLaura site, would not comment on what happened with the ethics conference.
But he did comment about a Schlessinger comment that she hadn't , "said anything different than the pope has said." by saying he didn't think he had to explain the difference between Dr Laura and the Pope.
Saunders gives her version of the difference, "The Pope is a powerful man with lots of followers, who could do to Aravosis what he does to Schlessinger -- and then free speech advocates would cry censorship. She is a lone woman, who can only hire security guards. She is easier to intimidate than the Pope." Saunders concludes that, "This is no different than the Hollywood blacklist. She holds unpopular positions, censorious zealots keep her from speaking even on medical ethics. Yet people who are horrified at the blacklist yawn as anonymous foes muzzle her. This time, they tell themselves, it's different."
Previous Dr Laura;
Dr Laura website;
StopDr Laura site;
San Francisco Chronicle article;.

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2000-08-12: The Australian government has re-appointed Professor David Flint as chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Association for a second term running until October 2004 but his deputy Gareth Grainger has been dropped and the position left unfilled for the moment.
Also re-appointed were Michael Gordon-Smith as a full-time member, and Sydney lawyer Ian Robertson and Internet expert John Rimmer as part-time members.
Two new part-time members are also being appointed. They are former Special Broadcasting Services (SBS) chief executive Malcolm Long and Robert Le Tet , Melbourne-based film producer and co-founder of EONFM in Melbourne, now Fox FM.
Previous Flint;
Previous Gordon-Smith;
ABA website;

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2000-08-12: US Shock jock Don Imus, now fully back at work after his riding accident in June (RNW June 20), seems to have lost none of his taste for name-callin.
This thishe called Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman a snivelling coward" and "banned him for life" after Liebermann refused to go on his radio show.
According to John Mainelli in the New York Post, Imus said his producer Bernard Mcguirk got the run-around when he called to ask Liebermann to appear on his show.
Liebermann, who had been on the show dozens of times, apparently told McGuirk he now has to deal with Gore's (Democratic Presidential candidate Al Gore) staff.
Imus then went into a rant on his show, saying, "If I'm Joe Lieberman and I got famous being on this program a hundred times, I don't turn myself into a snivelling coward and allow the Gore people to tell me what to do."
"Don't lay it off on that crook you're running with because you sold out every principle and moral ethic that you held in this cheap grasp for power because you want to be - which you're not going to be, by the way - the vice president."
With typical modesty Imus continued, "We plucked this loser out of the wilds of Connecticut. At least get on the phone with Bernie and say things are a little tight right now and we have to be careful and have to go on the 'Today' show or whatever."
" They tell us to call the Gore people, that they're doing the booking, which we know is a lie. " "They're doing a politically correct thing because they're frightened to death ... that I'm going to ask him why he decided to run with this crook. They won't ask him that on the 'Today' show."
Previous Imus;
Previous McGuirk;
New York Post article;.

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2000-08-11: Yet more advertisers have dropped Dr Laura Schlessinger's radio show as a result of controversy over her remarks about homosexuality according to the StropDrLaura site.
Latest to drop out are Internet Company Priceline.com and the Red Lobster Seafood restaurant.
Schlessinger's own site is carrying the same "Support my sponsors" message it has had for a while
Previous Dr Laura;
Dr Laura website;
StopDr Laura site;

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2000-08-11: Claims by Australian radio host Phillip Adams that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Board wanted him fired for political reasons (RNW July 11) are not to be investigated by the Australian Senate according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The claims were categorically denied at the time by the ABC but Labor Senator Chris Schacht says he will grill the ABC management during funding hearings in November over what he terms "prima facie" evidence that the ruling coalition is interfering politically with the ABC.
The paper says Schacht wants to know if it is true that ABC network manager Steven Alward and editor Amanda Armstrong, under pressure from the board, threatened to sack Adams.
According to reports in Australia Alward told Adams during a meeting at Adams's home that hey they themselves would be sacked if they didn't fire him and Armstrong added that they had to protect themselves.
They are then said to have offered a deal under which Adams' Late Night Live slot would be cut from eight hours a week to two on a Saturday afternoon and his Aus$150000 salary would be cut by two thirds.
According to the reports Adams reconstructed the events on tape immediately after the meeting and then wrote to ABC chairman Donald McDonald who wrote back denying any plan to fire him or discussion of his dismissal by the board.
McDonald has handed over the matter to ABC director of radio, Sue Howard, and the new managing director, Jonathan Shier.
Previous Adams;
Previous Howard;
Previous McDonald;
Previous Schacht;
Previous Shier;
Sydney Morning Herald report.

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2000-08-11: XM Satellite radio, whose competitor Sirius Satellite Radio earlier this week (RNW Aug 9) completed in space tests of its first satellite, has now announced that it has closed the $ 235 million financing deal announced in July (RNW June 11 ) thus completing its funding to launch of its satellite radio service.
XM's first satellite is due to be launched in November.
Previous Satellite Radio;
Previous XM satellite radio;

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2000-08-10: It hasn't taken long for the ABC Radio Networks-Radio 1 Inc deal to bear fruit for Dallas-based host Tom Joyner.
His Tom Joyner Morning Show, which was lost by WHUR-FM Washington to WMMJ-FM Washington (RNW Aug 8), is gaining two top ten markets on August 28th, the day of the Washington change.
The two organisations have signed a letter of intent to also broadcast the show from 6am to 10am weekdays on WILD-AM in Boston and KMJQ-FM in Houston from that date.
And some more results: Christian-oriented Salem Communications Corporation has reported net broadcasting revenue of $24.8 million for the second quarter of this year, up 15.9% compared to 1999.
Broadcast cash flow was up 8.7% to $11.3 million.
Same station basis net broadcasting revenue and broadcast cash flow increased 11.2% and 9.6%, respectively, for the second quarter in 2000 as compared to 1999.
The company's non-broadcast media business lost 2 million in the quarter.
Net income was $1.6 million for the quarter, or $0.07 per share, compared with a loss of ($0.21) per share in the same period last year.
Previous Joyner:
Previous Radio 1 Inc;

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2000-08-10: Latest Sydney ratings show that 2UE, the station at the heart of the cash-for-comment affair (See RNW Aug 3), and also in controversy when it lost rugby commentary rights (See RNW April 7), hasn't suffered in audience terms.
2UE was up in the ratings in all time slots except the 7pm to midnight time and Ray Hadley and the 2UE Talking League team averaged a bigger audience than rugby rights holder 2GB and 702 combined.
Showing up worst in the ratings was Triple M, the AusStereo rock station, which dropped 3 per cent to a rating of 10.3, its worst performance for a year and a half.
It lost audience in particular amongst the younger audience with under 25 listeners down nearly 7 per cent and the 25-39 group down nearly 6 pr cent.
Previous Hadley :

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