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2000-10-22: Licence news this week. And with Congress still sitting, the fate of low power FM in the US is still awaited (RNW Oct 21); elsewhere it has been reasonably busy.
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority has allocated a community radio licence to serve the Narrabri area in New South Wales, to Narrabri Shire Community Radio Incorporated.
Two bids had been made for the licence when it was first advertised in June 1999, the second from Kaputar FM, and the authority decided at the time not to allocate the licence because it was concerned about the ability of each of the applicants to provide a satisfactory service to the general community of the area.
This time Kaputar FM had been dissolved and its members were been accommodated within the organisation of Narrabri Shire Community Radio.
Narrabri already has three national radio stations (2ABCFM, 2JJJ and 2ABCRN) and two commercial radio stations (2MO and 2GGG).
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has renewed for 18 months the licence of CKLP-FM Parry Sound, Ontario, owned by Playland Broadcasting Limited.
The station has been in trouble with the Commission for failure to comply with licence conditions and its licence was previously renewed only for a short-term 3-year period.
Since then there have been further breaches in terms of the level of Canadian music and failure to keep adequate tape logs of output.
As a result the station was summoned to a July meeting with the CRTC to show cause why the Commission should not issue a mandatory order requiring CKLP-FM to comply with the regulations.
Since the meeting the station has moved into new facilities, relocated and tightened up on its logging facilities as well as installing a back-up machine and has also obtained a new music selector system.
This computer software is more advanced than that previously used, and can ensure the proper levels of Canadian music are programmed even when the station's music format is adjusted for special occasions such as Christmas.
The Commission has also published public notices seeking comment concerning radio licences for greater Toronto and television licences for Greater Vancouver for reports to be prepared to ensure that services reflect the diversity of languages and cultures in the two areas.
This follows criticism of the Commission for not paying enough attention to Canada's multicultural nature (RNW Oct 19).
In particular in the Toronto area, it wants comments concerning demographic trends, availability and composition of existing radio services, technical ways in which more radio services providing greater diversity could be made available and the impact of regulatory policies and licensing criteria on potential new entrants to the Greater Toronto radio market.
The commission says it will put on ice until the report is completed any applications for new frequencies or amendments to existing radio service technical parameters in the area.
In the UK, the Radio Authority is advertising a new regional Independent Local Radio FM licence on the FM waveband covering most parts of the former metropolitan counties of South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, including the cities of Sheffield, Leeds and Bradford.
It will serve a smaller area than the existing regional station for Yorkshire, Galaxy 105, primarily because there is no frequency available for coverage of the Humberside area.
The authority has also announced that it received three applications for the North-East Regional Digital Multiplex licence.
They are from The Digital Radio Group (North East) Ltd, owned by The Wireless Group, GWR Group, Emap Digital, Scottish Media Group, and the Carphone Warehouse; MXR LTD. owned by Chrysalis Group, Capital Radio, Guardian Media Group. Jazz FM, UBC Digital Soul Media and Ford Motor Co. and North East Digital Radio Ltd. owned by Forever Broadcasting Digital Radio Ltd., Saga Regional Digital Radio Ltd. and Score Digital Ltd. (Scottish Radio Holdings plc).
Digital Radio Group is proposing ten services, three of which would only be part-time; the part-time services proposed are for "kids" radio in daytime, jazz in off-peak hours only, and news and community information.
MXR is proposing nine full-time services, including a children's service and jazz and North East Digital Radio is proposing seven full-time services. between 6am and midnight including an over-50's service and jazz.
As well as the new digital service, the authority has given details of it assessment of the local digital multiplex licences for Central Scotland, awarded to Switchdigital (Scotland) Ltd. and due to start in May next year and for Northern Ireland. awarded licence to Score Digital Ltd. due to start in Autumn next year (Licence news Oct 8).
In the case of the Scottish licence it says it was pleased about the broad range of music-based formats proposed but concerned about the lack of local content on non-simulcast services. It hoped that in future, with the growth of audiences for digital services, service providers would produce more local speech elements aimed at Scottish listeners.
Concerning Northern Ireland it comments that it was pleased to note the wide range and number of services proposed most of which will be new to a considerable portion of the potential audience.
It notes that four of the services will be simulcasts of existing local Northern Ireland services but listeners throughout the Province will for the first time be able to access all of them. It rejected a competition complaint against Score by Radio Telefis Éireann (RTÉ) which applied to it to be a programme service provider but was not chosen.
The authority has also invited public interest comment on the application by GWR Group subsidiary, Storm (West Midlands) Ltd, for the new regional West Midlands licence.
Storm's signal would overlap with two services owned by GWR, Beacon FM and Classic Gold WABC.
A similar operation is already under way concerning an application for this licence from Variety FM Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian Media Group plc (Licence News Oct 8)
Previous Licence News;
ABA website :
CRTC website ;
UK Radio Authority website:

2000-10-22: Another bit of radio history died this week, courtesy of finances, technological advances and Viacom, when CBS ended its news operations from "Black Rock", the modernist skyscraper designed by Eero Sarinen at 51 West 52nd street.
The building has housed CBS since 1964.
Just before 2pm on Friday, WCBS Newsradio co-anchors Paul Murnane and Susan Kennedy came up after the briefing to say "That's it for us from Black Rock. Goodbye, Black Rock" although the final news report from the building was actually transmitted up to 8:59:10p.m.
"Black Rock" was occupied only by CBS until 1987 when the network began moving staff to its studios and renting space to other tenants.
Then two months ago, Viacom, which bought CBS earlier this year, announced that it was to sell the building; six weeks ago the FM station was moved out and AM station WCBS Newsradio has now followed.
CBS says the building's infrastructure could not support the technology needed to today's operations; WCBS is now on all-digital technology, the first all-news station in the US to make the transition according to the company.
Staff it says will have more room in their new home which features a central newsroom surrounded by studios and has an extra 9000 square feet (around 850 square metres) of office space and none of the reel-to-reel tape machines which lined the old cramped workspaces.

2000-10-21: US radio giant Clear Channel has come under attack over the way in which it promotes national prize contests which critics say give the impression that they are local and thus offer a higher chance of winning than is the actual case.
It's also been accused in a New York Daily Post article of side-stepping guidelines imposed by Florida following an $80,000 dollar fine in May on deceptive trade charges.
In his article John Mainelli says that in Florida Clear Channel reacted to orders to give much more frequent on-air contest disclosures, to reveal locations along with winners' names, and to stop editing interviews to make them seem local, by simply stopping announcing winners and playing tape on its Florida Channels.
In New York where Clear Channel's "$100,000 Thursdays" contest runs on aZ100, Mainelli says the contests continue but "you need a search party to find rules that reveal you're not competing with just New Yorkers - but with millions of contestants listening to stations in up to 49 other states. "
He continues, "In radio's version of "the fine print," a fast-talking Z100 announcer rattles off rules just once a day that include two subtle disclaimers: "This station is participating in a contest with other Clear Channel stations" and, "Odds will vary based on entries from this and other states."
Mainelli says Clear Channel denies any intention to mislead but has issued a 27-page "group contesting" manual to coaches station staff on ways to respond to media inquiries about their contests.
In the Boston Globe, Clea Simon also takes up the question of the "$100,000 Thursdays" competition which runs on WXKS-FM.
"Each week, the station advertised," she writes, "that it would give away $10,000 an hour, beginning during Matt Siegel's show at 8 a.m. and continuing for 10 hours."
"Despite a daily recorded spot that announces that many Clear Channel stations are involved, the much more frequent invitations to ''call in and win'' still sound as if they only involve the Boston Top 40 station."
" Second, when the winners are announced on the air, their hometowns - or even their local stations - are not mentioned. This furthers the illusion that every winner is local, even though trade journals report that the contest is airing on 83 of the more than 900 stations owned by the international company, which is based in San Antonio."
"Finally, even that fast-talking disclaimer doesn't make it clear that a WXKS listener will not win every hour, and that there is no guarantee that a WXKS listener will win at all. Not once each day, not ever."
Simon also says that standardised answers are given to queries and that the station is not allowed to give out information how many WXKS listeners have won.
Previous Clear Channel :
Previous Mainelli :
Previous Simon :
New York Post report:

2000-10-21: As the US Congress session continues past its scheduled end date, the fate of Low Power FM plans are still in abeyance with broadcasters continuing fierce lobbying against the idea.
Congress is now going to be in session next week and it's still unclear what will happen to the Rod Grams Bill to require third adjacent channel protection which would severely curtail the number of stations possible.
The bill now has the support of some 55 of the 100 US Senators but could face a presidential veto which has led to efforts to attach it to an appropriations bill which would not be vetoed.
Sen John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee has condemned this tactic in a letter to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
He wrote," By any reasonable interpretation, the Appropriations process has been highly irregular, with the use of legislative gimmickery designed to avoid debate, subvert the regular legislative order, and obscure from the American people special interest-driven legislative riders and pork barrel spending."
Previous Grams:
Previous LPFM :
Previous McCain :

2000-10-20: For those of you thinking about the future of radio, two interesting articles by Eric Taub in the New York Times on digital radio are worth a read.
They're timely as well since development continues apace, particularly for satellite radio, where XM Satellite Radio which last month demonstrated its prototype receives has now announced successful fabrication and initial testing of XM's system chips which are now being delivered to go into satellite capable radio receivers.
Both XM and rival Sirius Satellite Radio are scheduled to start services next year, Sirius in January and XM in May or June.
Commenting on satellite radio, Taub writes that satellite radio "it could mean a big shift in the radio world. Narrow-format digital shows, mostly free of commercials, will go head to head with the advertiser-laden talk and pop-music channels on AM and FM radio."
"In fact, digital satellite radio could presage the biggest change in broadcast radio offerings since the advent of FM in the 1950's."
He notes that both Sirius and XM are doing what cable TV companies have done in offering a subscription service of narrowly focused channels for a wide range of tastes.
Surveys show, he writes, that people will pay $9.95 a month for something they are used to getting free and he cites a Yankee Group survey which found a fifth of listeners did not like today's US radio.
Senior analyst, Michael Goodman said that m any of the dissatisfied listeners complained about a large number of commercials and a lack of programming variety, adding, "Improved sound quality alone would not have been enough for digital satellite radio to succeed."
"People don't buy satellite television just for improved reception, and they won't buy satellite radio solely for better sound."
Both the satellite radio companies are in alliance with automobile makers who will supply receivers in more expensive models from next year with major manufacturers also supplying them for older models and those lower in the makers' range of vehicles.
Cognisant of the problems the US cellphone companies faced because of differing standards, the two companies have now agreed to develop radios which will be able to receive their signals as well as AM and Fm radio but this will not be available for two to three years which could inhibit initial take-up.
Although the emphasis is on car radios, home receivers will also be offered and Sirius has already said there will be no extra subscription where people have a car radio subscription; XM still has to decide what its policy will be for home receivers.
Both companies have also taken measures to try and ensure continuous reception across the US including the use of terrestrial repeater stations in some locations, such as skyscraper-lined streets, where satellite reception is not possible.
They have also taken measures to ensure continuous reception in difficult terrain as where a mountain could block reception from a satellite. Both companies will have two satellites above the US at any time to help prevent signal loss.
In the case of Sirius, the signal is normally received from one satellite and heard after a four-second delay: if there is a signal interruption such as when driving under a bridge, the radio can then pick up the signal from the second satellite, which is four seconds later, and seamlessly make up the required signal using this buffer.
Both companies will be working in digital format only from start of production to the receiver and will offer around a hundred channels plus date services such as satellite navigation and other information.
US terrestrial radio transmissions are also making the transition to digital although many listeners may not notice as the radios being developed by Ibiquity, formed from a merger between USA Digital Radio and Lucent Digital Radio (RNW Aug 24 ) will be able to receive AM and FM as well as digital signals and will in some circumstances use the analogue signal as a back-up when there are digital problems.
Like satellite radio, some of the companies may introduce extra data services into their digital service for a subscription fee.
Previous Sirius:
Previous XM:
New York Times on satellite radio;
Sirius web site:
XM Web site:

2000-10-20 : Contrasting items about Internet radio and audio, (to distinguish it from radio distributed via the Internet), over the past few days.
By far the most uplifting was the launch of the RealNetworks Foundation which according to an AP report was in part inspired by of streaming audio from independent Belgrade radio station B92 which was frequently taken off air by the Yugoslav government of Slobodan Milosevic.
To get over this B92 started streaming its audio as early as 1996 and this, says the report, gave Rob Glaser, RealNetworks founder and chief executive, a focus for his company's philanthropic efforts. Glaser commented, "It was a great example of how the work we were doing could really make an impact." The Foundation has been set up with an initial $2 million endowment and will also receive 5% of Real's profits every quarter.
In the third quarter of this year Real announced record net revenues of $67.1 million, up 92% over the third quarter of 1999.
Pro-forma net earnings for the quarter were $7.6 million, $0.04 per diluted share compared to $0.03 per diluted share for the same period in 1999.
No grants have yet been announced although the organisation' web site is inviting applications, in general for grants from $10,000 to $75,000 for a one year project. The site sets out the foundation's goals as being to Enable alternative voices or foster the right of free speech throughout the world; Broaden access to technology among underserved communities throughout the world; Enhance the quality of life in the areas where RealNetworks employees live and work. " In a totally different vein is the creation of Barbie FM by Mattel, makers of the Barbie Doll. This is an Internet-only venture although Mattel says they had considered creating a UK radio station aimed at young girls but had been hampered by UK radio authority rules (which place restrictions on advertisements targeting children amongst other things). The "station" will be on the Internet from October 24th running from 8am to 4pm for three days of the UK school half term. Mattel says it was the brainchild of two sisters who contacted Mattel with the idea of launching a station devoted to subjects of interest to young girls -animals, beauty, dancing, fashion and music. The company has not said how much it will spend on the station, which is to be put out as part of a pre-Christmas marketing push, beyond terming it a "substantial amount." And in the US, Musicmusicmusic inc. has launched KidsOwnRadio.com. It is to feature fairy tale readings, music, games and so on.
RNW comment: Is it only us who seems something uplifting about B92's efforts and precisely the opposite where the prime aim is to sell to children.
Do E-mail us with your comment, either in general or indeed if you care to listen, about the output of any of the sites (translations into English please for comments on B92!).
Our attitude is plain from the links below: we do not care to market the children's sites for them.
New York Times/AP article:
Real Networks web site:
Real Foundation web site :
B92 Web site:

2000-10-19: Canada's broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, has been accused of not being sensitive enough to the country's multicultural make-up according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.
The paper says that Heritage Minister Sheila Copps and the cabinet have told the CRTC to take a second look at how its broadcast licences reflect ethnic diversity in Vancouver and Toronto.
Copps has told the regulator to do an in-depth review to find new ways to make sure Toronto radio stations reflect cultural diversity after a period in which there were 39 appeals to the government about the CRTC's awarding of radio licences(RNW Aug 16).
Earlier this year, the CRTC issued three radio licences that were supposed to be specifically for ethnic audiences, but one of the licences went to a station that is aimed at people over the age of 50, and seems to have little to do with ethnicity.
In addition to the cabinet's action, a Montreal-based antiracism organisation has taken the CRTC to the Federal Court of Appeal, arguing that the commission is not listening to its complaints and is clouding the complaints process.
Fo Niemi, executive director of the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR), told the paper, "There are . . . substantive issues of racial equality and multiculturalism which we feel the CRTC does not take into consideration when analysing complaints of bias."
CRTC spokesman Denis Carmel responded by saying that the regulator realises it has some work to do to let the public know how to exercise its rights and make complaints."
Toronto Globe and Mail (search for radio and date).

2000-10-19: "Honorary Bob Collins Way", a section of Illinois Street in Chicago, has been dedicated to the memory of the late WGN-AM host, killed in a plane crash in February.
The ceremony was attended by colleagues from the station who heard Illinois governor George Ryan say. "Bob would be proud if he were here, but I think it's a real tribute to a fellow who had millions of people who he was friends with on a daily basis."
Previous Bob Collins :
Chicago Tribune report :.

2000-10-19: The Irish High Court is to deliver judgement next Tuesday on proceedings by the Flood Tribunal (into Ireland's first commercial national radio licence award) against Dublin West TD (Member of Parliament) Liam Lawlor.
Lawlor failed to appear before the tribunal on October 10th and also to hand over documents demanded by the Tribunal.
Lawlor has now said he is willing to testify in private before Mr Justice Flood and with the right of legal representation; he has also said through his lawyer that the tribunal is asking for too wide a range of documents relating to his financial dealings.
The offer marks a change in stance by Lawlor who last year argued successfully in the Irish Supreme Court that he could not be compelled to attend private hearings with tribunal lawyers who are investigating allegations against him.
He does, however, have precedents to aid him in his objection to providing documents in action taken by former Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey who succeeded in having Moriarty tribunal orders quashed on the basis that they were too general.
Subsequently, however, the court rejected objections by developers Michael and Tom Bailey to Flood Tribunal to orders that they produce their financial records.
In this week's Flood Tribunal proceedings which resumed on Tuesday, Michael Grant, an assistant secretary in the Department of Communications during the 1980s, resumed his evidence about drawing up the Radio and Television Bill in 1988.
He testified in regard to an unauthorised amendment to the bill that very grave error to tamper with the stamped copy of the Bill and he would "assume it was done by someone who was not aware of the strict rules."
Previous Flood Tribunal:
RNW note: Most of our report is culled from The Irish Times which has been carrying full reports on the Flood Tribunal. For their reports follow the link below:
Irish Times --search page
(go for radio and October 2000).

2000-10-18: The Ford Motor Company is to take a stake in MXR, the UK consortium created by UK regional radio operators to bid for UK regional digital radio licences.
Ford is taking 5% of the consortium formed by UK Capital Radio, Chrysalis, Guardian Media and Jazz FM (RNW July 26), and as part of the deal is to fit digital radios in all its models by 2004.
Similar deals have been done by automakers in the US, relating to satellite radio as well as digital.
MXR recently put together its first bid, for a 9-channel service on the North East regional digital licence.
Previous MXR ;

2000-10-18: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's radio current affairs programs - AM and PM - are to be subjected to a major overhaul next year according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
It says they are to give more emphasis to business reporting and less emphasis to politics and economics.
In addition, says the paper, PM is also likely to be shortened and will include "outpoints" so that individual stations can choose whether to run the entire program.
The Herald says it has obtained a copy of a confidential memo from the head of local networks, Michael Mason, addressed to John Cameron, deputy director of news and current affairs, which was accompanied by an E-mail saying AM will move away from politics and economics into a much wider array of programs while PM will be even more radically reshaped to become a 20-minute program followed by a half hour devoted to a specialist business show. The memo lists health, business, technology, social change, and other topics identified by audience research as areas to be included in the revamped AM. The memo, which proposed trimming PM to 20 minutes from 50 minutes, says it is a unanimous view that the programme is too long with variable content.
The Herald story has been published just after ABC issued its annual report claiming an audience increase in most Australian metropolitan centres during the past year.
Concerning radio, the report says significant gains were made by NewsRadio, which increased its audience by 4.5 per cent and ABC Classic FM, which increased its audience by 3 per cent; Triple J remained steady with a 0.5 per cent increase in its audience. It also says that during the year local and regional radio produced more than 109,000 hours of radio programming, an increase of almost 10,000 hours compared with the previous year.
Previous ABC, Australia:
ABC news release on annual report:
Sydney Morning Herald report:

2000-10-18: The senior police officer who broke down the doors of Capital Radio in Harare, Zimbabwe, and seized its equipment in defiance of a court order (RNW Oct 10) has been found guilty of contempt of court.
Assistant Commissioner Libberman Ndlovu, who was served on October 4 with a high court order prohibiting a raid until an appeal was heard the next day, was fined Z$3000 (US$60) and given a months prison sentence, suspended for three years, on condition he does not commit any similar offence during the period.
Ndlovu had disregarded the court order saying he took orders "only from his superiors and not the courts."
His superior, police chief Augustine Chihuri, who had also been cited for contempt, denied involvement and said he was "not ready to stand by his officer." Chihuri was cleared of contempt.
Previous Zimbabwe report.

2000-10-17: Bad news for news in the Chicago radio business from the Arbitron summer ratings just released.
WGN-AM has dropped down to third place, behind music stations urban-contemporary WGCI-FM and top-40 WBBM-FM.
Compared to the spring ratings, WGGI rose to a 6.8% share from 6.4%, WGCI-FM climbed to 6% from 5.7% and WGN-AM dropped from 6.2% to 5.6%, gaining nothing from the August demise of news stations WMAQ-AM (RNW Aug 1) although all-news WBBM-AM lifted its share 3.7% to 4.4%.
As well as the top two, music stations making gains included classic rock WLUP-FM up from 2.8% to 3.3%, alternative rock WKQX-FM up from 3.4% to 4% and smooth jazz station WNUA-FM up from 3.6% to 4.6%.
In the morning drive slot, where Spike O'Dell took over from the late Bob Collins who died in a plane crash (RNW February 9 ),WGN-AM held on to the number one spot but its share fell from 9.6% to 8.7%.
Below him gains were made by the second placed WBBM-AM team of Felicia Middlebrooks, Ken Herrera and Pat Cassidy, up from 5.6% to 7.5%, ``Crazy'' Howard McGee at WGCI-FM, up from 4.9% to 5.1% and Mancow Muller at WKQX, up from 3.0% to 4.7%
WGN also suffered losses in at midday, down from 5.1% to 4.6% and Afternoon Drive, down from 4.8% to 4.3%.
On the all-sports scene, WSCR-AM, The Score, which took over the WMAQ signal, raised its share from 1.1% to 1.5% and competitor WMVP-AM lifted itself from 0.9% to 1.1%.
Previous O'Dell :
Chicago Tribune report on ratings:
Chicago Sun-Times on ratings:

2000-10-17: Some good news for the radio news staff at the BBC if a report in the UK Guardian is correct.
The paper says the corporation is planning to move its London-based radio news operation back into London after three years in White City in West London.
The paper says the most likely scenario is a return to Broadcasting House whence the news staff were ousted in 1997 with subsequent complaints, especially from the Radio 4 "Today" and "World at One " news programmes, that big-name interviewees would not make the tip out to White City.
An announcement will only be made after decisions have been made where to move departments currently based in Broadcasting House and the move will not happen, says the paper, before 2007.
BBC World Service staff re expected to move from Bush House into Broadcasting House at the same time according to the report which says the paper has learned that the corporation has secured an extension to its lease there which was due to expire in 2005.
Previous BBC :
UK Guardian report :

2000-10-16: Driving along a motorway on Sunday, I picked up an edition of BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme which near its head contained an anecdote by one of the contributors about a lecturer who dramatically illustrated the "pumping" action of the Oesophagus by standing on this head before his students and then proceeding to empty a two pint (litre) of milk from a container via a tube in his mouth.
Which seems as good a way to look at some of this week's radio columns starting with Gerry McCarthy's UK Sunday Times column in which he deprecates Irish state broadcaster RTÉ's science coverage.
Writing of a programme on nanotechnology. McCarthy says it was "admirably logical and organised in the best scientific manner but made for poor communication. Nothing here to engage the casual listener. "
"This problem." adds McCarthy, "routinely crops up in RTE's coverage of the sciences, but dullness is not intrinsic to the subject."
Indeed it isn't, as my newly found knowledge of the human digestive system would testify.
And that in turns takes us to things that could be said to have "stuck in the gullet" of various columnists to varying degrees.
One of them is what Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times described as CBS radio stations in the city "forfeiting their news legacies."
The following segment of his column is worth a fairly full quote: "Just as CBS is getting ready to pull the rug out from under Carol Marin at WBBM-Channel 2, the company's local radio stations are forfeiting their news legacies, too."
"Little more than two months after CBS/Infinity Broadcasting shut down WMAQ-AM (670) after 78 years and fired dozens of first-rate news professionals, the surviving all-news station, WBBM-AM (780), showed what can happen without competition."
"Reporters at "Newsradio 780" were outraged Sunday when they weren't allowed to break into the Bears football game--after their station's transmission has been restored--to report on the Loop power outage that left thousands stranded in the dark. Radio listeners desperate for information in a real crisis had nowhere to turn."
"And CBS/Infinity Broadcasting's WXRT-FM (93.1), the adult rocker that once prided itself on a solid news operation, last week sent its sole surviving journalist to Hollywood to interview the stars of CBS prime-time programming………..Mary Dixon, news anchor on Lin Brehmer's WXRT morning show, was forced to swallow her integrity by reporting from the CBS junket, accompanied by afternoon host Frank E. Lee."
"It was, by all accounts, a corporate sellout of the worst sort. CBS is getting very good at that these days."
And in a similar vein, Pati Poblete in the San Francisco Chronicle, reflects on the Wild 94.9 FM DJ's who could end up fined $1000or spending a year in jail, or both, in jail as a result of a stunt in which they are said to have dressed up as escaped prisoners and knocked on people's doors asking for help in sawing off their handcuffs (RNW Sept 29).
Poblete says the fine seems unlikely to deter, commenting, "Howard Stern is a thriving example of that. A thousand-dollar fine is a drop in the bucket compared to the free publicity they get from pulling these pranks."
"Because there's been considerable deregulation of the radio industry in the past decade, DJs are pretty much given free rein over the airwaves."
``Well, we can't swear. We can't kill anyone,'' said one of 94.9's morning DJs known as ``Hollywood.'' Other than that, it's anything for a laugh.
The Federal Communications Commission, Poblete writes, does have a rule banning broadcast of hoaxes harmful to the public, such as those that falsely report a catastrophe that cause mass hysteria but the popular tradition of live-air hoaxes has been a continuing dilemma for the FCC, which has struggled with how to punish stations without trampling on their First Amendment guarantees of free speech.
She concludes, "The intense pressure to maintain high ratings has caused DJs to cross the frontiers of good taste and, in some cases, break the law. "
"The problem is, shock radio has created a ratings bonanza for some stations. And for these jocks, good ratings are more important than good taste. It would be pretty difficult for them to turn Mary Poppins on us now. "
"No doubt, the pranks will get more crass than cautious, the more we tune in. But as much as we need a good laugh on the way to work, a bad joke that can affect a community is just a plain turnoff. "
"Frightening schoolchildren and old women? Halting morning rush-hour traffic? Sounds more like a rude awakening than a morning show to me."
Previous Columnists:
Previous Feder :
McCarthy UK Sunday Times column;
Feder Chicago Sun-Times column:
SFGate search page (radio and date will find San Francisco article).

2000-10-16:Another look at the Flood Tribunal hearings to start the week before hearings resume on Tuesday into the 1989 award of Ireland's first national commercial radio licence to Century Radio which later collapsed with debts of £8 million.
As the tribunal ended last week's hearings it heard that the idea of an independent national service came out of the "blue" two years earlier from then communications minister Ray Burke.
Michael Grant, assistant secretary at the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, told the tribunal that since the early 1980s, his Department's emphasis had been on replacing pirate stations with legal local stations and on October 6th, 1987, the Government agreed to licence new local and community radio stations.
Three weeks later Burke said there was to be a national service as well, something the department had not been asked to research before Burke made his decision.
Grant also testified that the minister had told civil servants that the Broadcasting Bill should carry a stipulation that new stations carry a minimum 20% of news and current affairs in their output.
He said that Ray MacSharry, then minister for finance, had made a strong case for licences to be auctioned to the highest bidder but that this had been rejected by Burke.
Burke said this would mean that only the "well heeled" would be able to afford to get involved whilst his (Burke's) option would give everyone "an equal chance to get access to the airwaves."
Previous Burke :
Previous Flood Tribunal:
RNW note: Most of our report is culled from The Irish Times which has been carrying full reports on the Flood Tribunal. For their reports follow the link below:
Irish Times --search page
(go for radio and October 2000).

2000-10-15: The issue of the public responsibilities of broadcasters as technological changes such as digital broadcasts and the Internet offer new opportunities have been featuring in comments from regulators both sides of the Atlantic this week.
In the US, the emphasis, apart from the continuing differences about low power FM radio, have related to fairness rules (RNW Oct 13) and television but in the UK regulator's minds radio has been high on the agenda.
Speaking to the 23rd General Conference of the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association in South Africa, Tony Stoller, Chief Executive of the UK Radio Authority stressed the difference between telecommunications and broadcasting.
Broadcasting, he said, "has always had a different social purpose than telecommunications…… it espouses values and aims which are not merely industrial or commercial, which deploy a public good . . . for the broad benefit of listeners and viewers, and of the society they inhabit."
Yet, he noted, even in the UK , "with its broadcasting heritage and history, new structures for broadcasting are being looked at in the same landscape as those for telecommunications."
"The likely outcome is going to be legislation which, in one way or another, seeks to equate those two hitherto distinct fields."
Stoller then went on to give various examples of "convergence" which had show up differences and led to failure rather than success.
He also neatly put some of the Internet propaganda into perspective, noting that in a BBC Reith Lecture Dr. Gro Haarlem Bruntland claimed that "the Internet will be a great equaliser" but in the same speech said that half the world's six billion population survive on less than $2 a day.
"Given that 70% of the world's population have never used a telephone, and 95% have never used a computer, " said Stoller, "the Internet revolution may be a little while in coming."
He continued, "Broadcasters need to be both clear in understanding, and vociferous in asserting, that broadcasting and telecommunications are fundamentally different."
"It is not just the economics that are different. One radio or television transmitter broadcasts to (at least in theory) an infinite number of people. It doesn't matter therefore whether you are reaching one person or a million, the costs are the same."
"This is true broad-casting."
" In telecommunications, every time you add even a single extra listener or viewer, there is an added cost. This is narrow-casting, or one-to-one."
"We use the broadcasting method where a single output is desired by a substantial number of people. It is a better use of resources, both technical and financial."
"It is not the same as a telephone call or an Internet hook-up. "
Politicians and law-makers. like all of us are attracted by the new he said but "They need to be reminded constantly of the virtues of what broadcasting already offers and will continue to do into the new century."
Speaking in the UK, the chairman of the Authority, Richard Hooper, told the Community Media Association that the "need to make radio as inclusive as possible" is at the centre of the authority's vision, part of which leads it to want a new tier of non-profit "Access" radio in Britain.
It sees Access radio as," a new approach to harnessing the individuality and potential of non-commercial radio, and of using radio to assist in the broader aspects of education, social inclusion and social experimentation."
Before outlining further details of the proposals, Hooper stressed that "localness is a requirement for commercial radio stations licensed by the Radio Authority."
He continued, "A good local commercial station can and should be a good community station. We are concerned if stations, in the wake of ownership changes for example, lose their local flavour and become automated outposts of a distant networking operation."
In a further comment, which also has echoes in the US context of consolidation and low power FM, he said of the time ten years ago when he was just a member of the authority, "I remember us being criticised by some of the large existing stations to the effect that we were licensing too many radio stations and the market could not sustain them."
" I found the argument self-serving and without merit. My view has always been that, especially given increasing consolidation of ownership at the top of the industry, the Authority has an obligation to encourage where possible new market entrants in the interests of plurality and diversity."
"Access radio is born out of this drive for plurality and diversity, giving as many people as possible access to the microphone in a democratic society. It is given even more importance at a time when we are suggesting to Government that ownership rules should be further liberalised for radio." Commenting on the practicalities of the proposal, Hooper said that although it was born out of the success of RSLs (Restricted Service Licences for specific purposes and special events) alongside hospital and student radio the existing structure was limited because little new analogue spectrum is available.
He therefore thought the bulk of such services would be unlicensed stations on cable and Internet in the early years but that from around 20005 the introduction of digital radio would bring a major opportunity to offer small-scale digital services.
Coupled with legislation for this, the authority proposed a Radio Fund to provide start-up and non-recurrent funding for access stations.
The details of this fund, which would require stations to attract matching funding from other sources, would have to be worked out with consideration of such ideas as individual subscriptions and pledges and business support - but not programme sponsorship -- as exists for US National Public Radio.
Hooper stressed that the idea was for it to provide "seed corn" funding so as to stimulate a large number of stations which would become self-sufficient.
However he also stressed that such stations would be banned from sponsorship or spot advertising since the authority believed strongly that "the historic British tradition of broadcasters competing for audiences not for sources of funding has stood us in good stead over many years."
Previous Hooper :
Previous Stoller :
UK Radio Authority web site (has links to both speeches)..

2000-10-15: Licence news this week. And the main issues this week again are community radio in the guise of US Low Power FM and UK Access radio plans (See above).
The FCC has also released more spectrum for mobile communications.
In Australia and Canada, authority announcements were pretty well confined to telecommunications and television, in Ireland the main news was the churches decision not to apply for the medium wave "religious" radio licence for Dublin (RNW Oct 13), but the UK was quite busy.
In the UK the Radio Authority has received an application from TalkSport for renewal of its national licence which expires in 2003.
The application was made under 1996 legislation which permits an Independent National Radio (INR) licence to be renewed if the licensee's service is to be simulcast on the national digital multiplex.
As well as the £50,000 non-refundable application fee paid, the authority now has to set terms for additional payments by the station. These comprise a cash bid and a percentage of qualifying revenue (PQR) for the licence period and have to be commensurate with those which would be obtained if the licence were re-advertised and awarded to the applicant submitting the highest cash bid, although the authority is now stressing the PQR component.
TalkSport, then Talk radio, made a cash bid of £3,820,000 for its licence in 1994, a sum which inflation would now have brought up to £4,251,660. It currently pays 4% as its PQR as well as a £305,000 annual licence fee to the authority.
On the local licence side, the authority has renewed the local licence held by Q102FM for Londonderry in Northern Ireland and invited the sole applicants for renewal of the St. Albans & Watford area licence to re-apply for "fast track" consideration. This is St. Albans & Watford Broadcasting Co. Ltd., broadcasting as Mercury 96.6 FM.
The authority has also announced that next week it will advertise the digital multiplex licence for the Scottish city of Aberdeen and the surrounding area.
In the case of another local licence, that for Kettering, Corby & Wellingborough, the authority has received a declaration of intent to apply from two companies, one a renewal application from existing holder KCBC Ltd., broadcasting as Connect FM and will now re-advertise the licence later this month.
The authority has also fined Oxford station Oxygen FM £1000 for over-deviation (RNW Oct 11).
In the US, the FCC has also been involved in disciplinary action against stations. It has upheld a $7000 fine levied KRXK, Rexford, Idaho, over an incident following explicit discussion about her sex life with a woman who called the station's morning show.
It has also levied fines of $4000 each on stations in Dallas and Detroit then owned by AMFM for sponsorship violations.
They concerned an AMFM advert of the song "On a Day Like Today" which a former AMFM executive said he had been pushed into playing 14 times a week.
Under FCC rules the playing of the song should have been announced as paid for.
The FCC has also allocated for commercial wireless services 50Mhz of spectrum in the 3650-3700 MHz band, currently allocated for government use.
The action preceded an order by President Clinton for the US federal government to review and then auction wide swathes of spectrum controlled by government agencies and also by private companies as a precursor to plans to auction it in 2002.
The auction, for new services like 3rd generation mobile phones, would be expected to raise tens of billions of dollars for the US treasure as it already has for European governments(RNW Aug 19 and RNW April 28).
Some of the money, however, would have to go back to government departments and private companies to compensate them for moving their communications to spectrum which is currently under-used but is not suitable for such purposes as third generation mobile devices.
Previous Licence News;
UK Radio Authority website:
FCC Web site :

2000-10-14: Mathew Bannister, currently BBC director of marketing and communications but better known for his axing of a number of famous presenters during his re-launch of BBC Radio 1 which aimed it at a younger audience, is to leave the corporation in mid-December.
BBC director-general Greg Dyke said in a statement that BBC Radio's current success was in no short measure down to the work he did, firstly - and famously - as the Controller of Radio 1 and subsequently as Director of Radio.
Previous BBC :
Previous Dyke :

2000-10-14: The Grand Ole Opry country music show, created as the WSM-AM show in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1925 is celebrating its 75th anniversary this weekend with a birthday show which will reach around three quarters of American states by radio as well as a much wider audience on the Internet.
For the first time the station's official web site, Opry.com, will have live video streaming of the birthday show which will have as guest announcers US radio personality Casey Kasem and CBS Early Show co-host Jane Clayson.
According to a history of the show, it started when WSM announcer George Hay, credited with thinking-up with the name ``Grand Ole Opry,'' a play on a Grand Opera segment that preceded the show, asked a fiddler to play tunes requested by listeners.
Grand Ole Opry web site :

2000-10-14: More consolidation in radio on both sides of the Atlantic: In the UK the Wireless Group, which already holds a quarter of the shares of Wave 105 FM in Southampton is to paying £21 million to buy the rest, thus valuing the station at £86.5 million pounds.
And in the US, the seemingly insatiable Clear Channel is paying $11 million for four stations in New Hampshire near the border with Vermont. The four are WTSL-AM & WGXL-FM Hanover, WXXK-FM Lebanon, and WVRR-FM Newport.
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous US Deals:
Previous Wireless Group :

2000-10-13: A US Federal Appeals Court has upheld a submission by the National Association of Broadcasters and Radio-Television News Directors' Association and thrown-out "fairness" rules which required broadcasters to give candidates a chance to respond to personal attacks and political endorsements.
The rules had already been suspended for 60 days by the Federal Communications Commission to assess the effect this would have (RNW Oct 7).
The broadcasters had claimed that the rules had a chilling effect on free speech and hailed the court order that the FCC to repeal the rules as "a tremendous and historic victory for the First Amendment rights of broadcast journalists ", saying it now gave broadcast journalists the same rights as their print colleagues.
FCC Chairman William Kennard and Commissioner Gloria Tristani both said they regretted the court decision to repeal the rules without the benefit of the further information that the suspension already in effect would have brought.
Commissioner Tristani in her statement said," The rules at issue have been part of the modern broadcast landscape for many years and have been both praised and attacked."
"The purpose of the rules has always been to ensure the American public is an informed citizenry, a goal fundamental to our democracy."
Previous Kennard :
Previous Tristani :
Tristani Statement:

2000-10-13: Encapsulating its report in the effective headline, "Bigfatradio.com goes bigfatbroke", the Sydney Morning Herald reports the demise of the internet venture fronted by a cast of former Australian Broadcasting Corporation Stars.
The station was launched earlier this year (RNW June 16|) despite the fact that dotcom problems were already becoming apparent.
Stating the obvious, co-founder Chris Gilbey told the paper, "If you have a business that is spending more money than it is making, it can't keep going."
He attributed the failure to the inability of advertisers to understand streaming media.
Financial backer Chris Coudoudanris said the venture had failed to attract a second round of funding. "There was nothing wrong with the business, it was just bad timing."
In the US, however, reports seem to be premature that a similar fate had befallen Feed the Monster Media, which is 17% owned by CBS and which runs eight online radio station operations for Viacom-CBS- Infinity radio operation.
For a short period its clients sites were replaced by a one-page message telling each station's listeners to contact the station's general manager>
The company said that it was in negotiations with investors, investment banking firms and potential strategic partners to raise new capital.
It said if it did not successfully conclude the negotiations it would suspend its operations. All the stations are now back on line.
Previous BigFatRadio :
Sydney Morning Herald report :

2000-10-13: The Flood Tribunal into the award of Ireland's first national commercial radio licence to Century Radio has been told that Bank of Ireland officials believed the company would be a lost cause if the advertising revenue of state competitor RTÉ was not capped.
Eamonn Gallagher, area credit manager with Bank of Ireland, told the tribunal that, "It didn't take much analysis to see that the losses were huge."
"Revenue down. Costs up. Everything going wrong."
The tribunal heard that five months after Century went on air in September 1989, the chief executive and marketing director had resigned, only 45 of the original staff were left and ten more were due for redundancy.
Gallagher said Century directors Oliver Barry and James Stafford continuously promised the Government would soon be enacting legislation to cap RTÉ's advertising, which was expected to divert some advertising spending towards Century Radio.
"It was the only window of hope," said Gallagher. "I'd say we would have considered it was probably a lost cause if it continued as it was."
Gallagher also said that after seeing the true state of affairs the bank sent a letter to Century on January 3, 1990, only a week after bank officials and Century directors had attended a meeting with then communications minister Ray Burke at which he had said he would be introducing legislation to cap RTÉ's advertising.(RNW Oct 8).
The cap was introduced later in the year but failed to stop the closure of Century in November 1991.
Still in Irish radio-land but concerning a more current licence issue, the Irish churches have decided not to apply for the medium wave "religious radio" licence for Dublin.
This has been advertised by the country's Independent Radio and Television Commission but the churches hoped to get an FM licence. The churches' radio consultation group. made up of representatives of Catholic and Church of Ireland representatives but which is also involved in discussions with the Presbyterian and Methodist churches, says it is still interested if an FM licence becomes available.
Iin the meantime will explore other ways of taking part in broadcasting, possibly with existing stations in Dublin.
Previous Barry:
Previous Ray Burke;
Previous Byrne :
Previous Flood Tribunal;
Previous Stafford :
RNW note: Most of our report is culled from The Irish Times which has been carrying full reports on the Flood Tribunal. For their reports follow the link below:
Irish Times --search page
(go for radio and October 2000).

2000-10-12: Conservative US radio -and now TV - talk-show host Dr Laura Schlessinger has taken a full page advertisement in the trade magazine Variety to issue a "heartfelt" apology to the gay community.
In the back page advertisement, she pegs her comment on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on which Jews reflect on their actions over the past year.
She continues, "While I express my opinions from the perspective of an Orthodox Jew and a staunch defender of the traditional family, in talking about gays and lesbians some of my words were poorly chosen."
"Many people perceive them as hate speech. This fact has been personally and professionally devastating to me as well as to many others."
"Ugly words have been relentlessly repeated and distorted for too long."
She then says she was one of the first talk hosts to take calls on-air from openly gay and lesbian listeners and ends by saying that she deeply regrets "the hurt this situation has caused the gay and lesbian community."
The apologies were rebuffed by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) whose director Joan Garry said the host was refusing to be held accountable for what she had said and has not promised to stop calling gays "deviant."
Criticism from gays andlLesbians has led to a number of major advertisers dropping the host's shows and the TV show, which started in September, has already had a break for re-working amidst poor reviews and low audiences. It has already been dropped by all the Canadian stations that had run it.
The apology is featured on the StopDrLaura web site but is not mentioned on the host's own web site.
Previous Dr Laura :
Dr Laura web site:
StopDr Laura web site :
Variety site (mentions advert but you need to subscribe to read full stories).

Next column

2000-10-12: Taking up the issue of Low Power FM which may yet be effectively emasculated or killed by US legislators, the Los Angeles Times issues a stirring defence of the plan.
It says that Federal Communications Commission chairman William E. Kennard has bent over backward to address big commercial broadcasters' concerns but their objections, on which they have spent some $19 million in lobbying, have been endless.
It cites as an example expert testimony that "in the absolute worst case" would affect existing station signals as a result of which Kennard agreed to require an LPFM shutdown when they cannot resolve the interference.
The broadcasters then came up with new objections.
The paper comments unfavourably on the three bills involved, "Senate Bill 2068 by Sen. Judd Gregg (Republican-New Hampshire) would bar the FCC from issuing any low-power FM licenses at all; SB 3020 by Sen. Rod Grams (Republican -Minnesota.) would severely restrict and delay new licenses; and SB 2989 by Sen. John McCain (Republican -Arizona) would give big commercial stations new rights to sue and collect punitive damages from any low-power station that interferes with their signal."
Of these it says," McCain's measure is the most mischievous. It doesn't specifically ban low-power FM, but effectively kills the idea by placing the burden of proof on the low-power stations, which obviously won't have the financial and legal wherewithal to withstand such court challenges."
The paper concludes," All of these legislators, and McCain particularly, have made election promises to return Washington to the people." "But in their attempt to defeat Kennard's plan 'to give voice to those ideas not always heard, but which many yearn to hear' these legislators have shown that the federal government remains too firmly in the hands of the powerful. Congressional leaders might help prove otherwise by spurning all three bills, allowing Kennard and the FCC to approve the community-oriented microstations."
Previous Grams :
Previous Gregg :
Previous Kennard :
Previous LPFM :
Previous McCain :
Los Angeles Times article :

2000-10-12: UK Capital Radio is calling on the British government for tighter regulation of the BBC, including making the corporation comply with commercial radio ownership according to the UK Guardian.
The call, in a submission to the UK Department of Trade & Industry, follows a fall in UK radio stocks earlier this month after the BBC announced its plans for new national digital radio channels (RNW Sept 29).
Capital was particularly hard hit with its shares falling nearly 9% on the news.
The paper quotes Sally Oldham, strategy and development director of Capital Radio, as saying, "The BBC should be included in any measure of ownership legislation because it accounts for such a large share of this country's listening audience."
"We know it does not compete for revenue, but you cannot just leave it out there."
Capital wants "relaxation of ownership rules to allow growth"as the radio industry consolidates in ther UK.
It also wants government commitment to the switch to digital radio in which it has a large investment.
In February its chief executive David Mansfield called for a date to be set for the switch-off of analogue services to boost the take-up of digital services.(RNW Feb 14)
Previous Capital Radio;
Previous David Mansfield.
UK Guardian report :

2000-10-11: US Federal Communications Commission Chairman William E.Kennard seems likely to get more flak from the US broadcasting industry following a speech in which he proposed that broadcasters should pay fees for their use of analogue spectrum.
Although he only mentioned TV spectrum mobile companies have already paid billions for radio spectrum.
The suggestion was made in a speech "What Does $70 Billion Buy You Anyway?"delivered at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York.
Kennard noted the importance of broadcasting in people's lives as evinced by the seizure of Serbian television as the Belgrade demonstrator's first objective after they had taken the parliament.
Saying that the people of Serbia and South Africa could "could teach us a thing or two about recognising the critical importance of television and radio to democratic government", Kennard said that, "for fifty years, the solemn public interest commitment of broadcasters, borne of their role as public trustees of the airwaves, has deteriorated in the face of financial pressures and an increasingly competitive marketplace."
" Indeed, we reached a new low last week, when two of the four major networks - NBC and Fox -- chose to pre-empt the first debate of the most hotly contested Presidential election in four decades for sports and entertainment programming."
Referring to a "$70 billion" compact, Kennard said, "Unfortunately, in recent years, broadcasters have increasingly elevated financial interests above the public interest." "This is particularly galling because Congress recently gave the television industry even more spectrum to offer digital television - spectrum valued by some industry experts at over $70 billion dollars." "This gift to broadcasters stands in stark contrast to other users of the spectrum - like wireless providers - who have paid billions for licenses to use the airwaves. "
And in words that could equally apply to radio,Kennard said," Simply put, television should enhance our democracy."
"It should inform the electorate and facilitate the democratic process. It should serve the needs of our local communities and expedite democratic deliberation at the community level."
" It should empower our parents and educate our children." "Television should appeal not only to our wants as entertainment consumers, but to our needs as democratic citizens."
He then suggested," one of the best ways broadcasters could enhance democracy and the public interest in this digital era is by speeding up the transition to DTV and returning the valuable analogue spectrum to the American people."
Kennard went on to suggest that one way to push towards this would be for a change in rules so that all new television had to be digital after 2003 and broadcasters had to pay an analogue "spectrum-squatters' fee" which escalated annually after 2006 until they had returned this spectrum to the public.
RNW note: Bearing in mind the billions paid for mobile licences-and the billions paid for radio and TV stations - we might even regard a move of this kind as just retribution over NAB's opposition to Low Power FM. However we suspect all the speech will do is lead to even more heavy lobbying against the FCC.
Previous Kennard :
Kennard speech :

2000-10-11: The UK Radio Authority has fined Oxygen Fm, Oxford, £1000 for signal over-deviation.
The fine follows checks on July 26 of the station's signals, which were found to be outside limits allowed under the Authority's engineering code, thus increasing interference to other radio services.

2000-10-11: US Catholic Family Radio which started putting up its stations for sale in April and had ended most of its operations by June (RNW June 11), has now found a buyer for the first station to go from its eight stations for which it was hoping to get around $75 million.
It's to get $4.2 million from Colorado Public Radio for KKYD-FM in Denver.
The seven stations still up for sale are in Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
Another Christian Network, however, seems to be doing rather better. The non-profit Educational Media Foundation is paying $16 million to Colorado Christian University for three Colorado stations -- KWBI-FM Denver-Morrison, KJOL-FM Grand Junction and KDRH-FM Aspen-Glenwood Springs-which will now become part of its K-Love Contemporary Christian network.
And in another deal, Good News Broadcasting is doing a swapl in Tucson, Arizona, with Clear Channel. Clear gains KGMS-FM to add to its existing two FMs in the area and Good News will get $2.9 million plus KCEE-am, one of Clear Channel's two AMs.
Previous Catholic Family Radio;
Previous Clear Channel :
Previous US Deals;

2000-10-10: The UK Guardian reports on the plight of Capital Radio in Harare, one of two stations that closed down last week following a presidential order banning independent broadcasting.
The other station, FM100, closed its facilities pending an appeal against the order but Capital was forcibly closed when police forced their way into its studios and removed equipment.
Both stations had only been on air just over a week following a ruling by Zimbabwe's High Court that the state's broadcasting monopoly was unconstitutional because it breached rights to free expression.
This decision was then overruled by an order from President Mugabe, which outlawed private broadcasting without state approval.
In Zimbabwe, the ruling party tightly controls the state television channel and four state radio stations, and in many poor rural areas state radio is the only source of news.
The High Court has subsequently ruled that the police raid was illegal an ordered the country's police chief and his deputy to appear in court to explain why they breached an order forbidding them to raid the Capital radio.
The court also ordered the return of Capital's equipment but as the Guardian reports, this hasn't happened.
It reports that the mainly-white directors of Capital, led by Gerry Jackson, whose house was also occupied by police, had owned a shell broadcasting company since 1996 but did not broadcast because it was an imprisonable offence to own a transmitter.
That changed after a black businessman successfully opposed the ruling and was able to set up a mobile phone company and Capital rode on the tails of the earlier decision to get the ban on private broadcasting overturned.
A transmitter was brought in from South Africa and Capital went on air, broadcasting music.
Then it put out its first news and current affairs programme at the beginning of October, a move which the Guardian reports seemed to have prompted the government to act.
It quotes Jackson as saying, "In Zimbabwe, radio is the only medium that reaches rural areas," Jackson explains. "It was the rural vote that stopped Mugabe getting thrown out at the last election. We wanted to set up a soft-rock music station, but we also wanted to provide independent news. Once we started reaching the rural communities, it became clear to the government that they couldn't keep transmitting lies to the electorate so they had to do something."
UK Guardian report :

2000-10-10: US giant Clear Channel still hasn't lost its appetite for more deals; it's now revamped a deal with Nassau Broadcasting which was to have given it $30 million in cash for WEEX-AM and WODE-FM Allentown, Pennsylvania to instead end in Clear paying Nassau $12 million but get four of Nassau stations.
The stations Clear will now acquire are WNNJ (AM), WNNJ (FM), WSUS (FM) and WHCY (FM), all in Sussex, New Jersey.
In addition Clear has a $2 million option to obtain the Local Marketing Agreement (LMA) and option to acquire two more channels, WTSX (FM) and WDLC (AM) in Port Jervis, New York.
Clear Channel has also been buying in debt left from two of AMFM's predecessors, Chancellor Media and Capstar. Clear had to offer to do this as part of the acquisition of AMFM.
It has now paid out around $240 million for several of Chancellor's notes.
So far, however, holders of Capstar securities, which pay 12.65%, have been hanging on to them.
Another large US radio company Emmis Communications has now announced completion of its previously announced acquisition from Sinclair Broadcast Group of six St. Louis radio stations for $220 million(see RNW June 24) .
It's also completed its ' swap with Bonneville International Corporation of four EMMIS' St. Louis station in exchange for KZLA-FM, Los Angeles.
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous Emmis:
Previous Nassau:
Emmis web site;
Nassau web site;

2000-10-09:A rather disappointing week for radio columns, not helped by the absence from the UK Times of Peter Barnard's Saturday column nor indeed by the seeming inability for the UK Observer to make its Sunday radio column available on the Internet (it may be there but if so was well hidden when we checked).
A pity in both cases as Barnard was invariably worth a read and in her Observer column this week Sue Arnold makes some good points about another area where radio has advantaged over TV.
Arnold compares a history series currently on British TV and Christopher Lee's award winning "This Sceptred Isle" on BBC Radio 4.
As Arnold says, "History on radio is more subtle in every sense."
She points out that the radio version of the Battle Hastings was "definitely better on radio" because it " gives you all the facts while still allowing your imagination to work."
Arnold continues," History works on radio because it's not confined to or by visual images. It's also the perfect platform for opinion, which is, after all, what make sit so interesting."
In the UK Sunday Times, Declan Burke, after reviewing some drama programmes turns to some of the realities of Ireland and in doing so touches on some important general issues.
One of these is the individual's right to protection against exploitation or prurient public interest. In this instance a newspaper editor was pilloried by radio show callers about his paper's "lurid and insensitive coverage" of a Kilkenny murder.
On the other side of the coin, was an instance in which the Irish Minister for Justice was pursued by the media after his ministerial car was stopped for speeding.
The persistence of a radio reporter resulted in the Minister, whose wife and children had been improperly using his official car, into making repeated apologies and admitting responsibility.
As Burke says, in itself this was "a nothing story, but as it concerned a public representative misusing public property, the public had a right to know the details."
Still in a sense on public interest as opposed to just what the public wants, Frank Ahrens in the Washington Post takes up the audience and financial ratings pressures which have led Washington Public Radio Station WETA-FM to cut back on its classical music output.
Ahrens writes, "Perhaps the justifications hold merit: that public radio listeners have demanded more news; that folks driving home at night want news and not music, certainly not classical music; and that classical music listeners aren't the best pledge donors. "
The move is part of WETA's shift from being a classical station to a mixed format one combining classical music with news and talk.
In WETA's case the station which last year dropped its morning show in favour of US NPR (National Public Radio) "Morning Edition" has now trimmed music in the evenings when it is cutting back on NPR's classical music show "Performance Today" in favour of a simulcast of the audio from the Public Broadcasting Service evening television show.
News shows on public radio are the largest pledge-getters and that may also be a factor in other pressures on public radio in the US to increase its news and talk output, an issue dealt with in the current edition of "Current Magazine" which reports on a push for midday public radio changes.
And on a different but much more commercial tack, Robert Feder in his Chicago Sun-Times column reports that Steve Dahl's position as afternoon host on WCKG-FM may be under threat.
Feder says sources have said that Jonathan Brandmeier has been offered a five-year multi-million dollar contract to move back to Chicago and take over the slot when Dahl's contract expires in July next year.
Dahl's relations with the Infinity-owned station hit a low in April when the host "resigned" over a week's suspension(RNW April 19), a resignation which was later rescinded.(RNW April 26).
Brandmeier has been hosting middays for WCKG-FM from Los Angeles since 1998.
The cynical note at RNW is to wonder how far this is another "contract negotiation" ploy: Time will tell.
Previous Ahrens :
Previous Arnold;
Previous Brandmeir :
Previous Burke:
Previous Columnists :
Previous Dahl :
Previous Feder :
Ahrens Washington Post column:
Burke Sunday Times column :
Feder Sun-Times Column :

2000-10-09: The Chicago Sun-Times, in a report by Bobby Reed considers the dilemma of country music's relationship with radio noting that mainstream country stardom needs to attract mainstream radio yet risks losing its core audience if it goes too far along the line of pop-oriented music.
Looking at the Country Music Association (CMA) Awards show on October 4, the article takes bluegrass musician Larry Cordial and pop diva, Faith Hill as representatives of the ends of the spectrum.
Cordial, along with Larry Shell, wrote "Murder on Music Row," a scathing critique that lambastes Nashville for abandoning traditional country sounds, and his fans say that the quest for wider success has polluted country music.
Hill, at the other end of the spectrum, his having huge success and her fans say that this helps to pull in new listeners who have not historically been fans of country music.
In Nashville itself, WKDF-FM, Music City 103, has been ruffling feathers by incessantly playing "Murder on Music Row" and by polling listeners to see which industry figure "killed" country music, as the song describes.
Its station's chief competitors are WSIX-FM, WSM-FM and WSM-AM, home of the Grand Ole Opry live broadcast.
WDKF, which was a rock station for two decades until its 1999 format switch to "Today's Best Country and the All-Time Country Legends" is second placed in Nashville in most demographics according to program director Wes McShay.
He says it plays roughly 40 percent current hits, 40 per cent recent gold and 20 per cent classic gold hits from the 60's to 80's. WKDF morning host is Carl P. Mayfield, who gained popularity as an afternoon jock at WSIX and instigator of the "Murder on Music Row" movement.
He began playing the song after Shell delivered a tape of the song, which won the Country Music Association award for best song, to WKDF.
Chicago Sun-Times report :

2000-10-09: Despite attempts by the Vatican to claim diplomatic immunity for its radio station in a northern suburb of Rome, three executives from Vatican Radio look likely to face trial over harm its emissions have allegedly caused.
Investigations were started after complaints from residents of Cesana, which is near the Vatican's antennae at Santa Maria de Galera. Investigations showed a higher incidence of tumours and leukemia than average and electromagnetic energy in the area was three times the legal limit. (RNW April 23).
Italy has no specific laws on electromagnetic radiation so the three -- Vatican Radio's president, director-general and technical director - - are to be charged with "dangerous throwing of things."
Previous Vatican Radio :

2000-10-08: Licence news this week. A little busier than recently with Low Power FM topping the agenda in the US as the lobbying has intensified as the current session of Congress draws to an end (RNW Oct 7).
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has invited applications for new commercial licences for Melbourne and Gosford in New South Wales.
The reserve price for the Melbourne licence is Aus$500,000 and for Gosford is Aus$100,000.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has rejected two bids on behalf of AD Communications, a company to be incorporated, for new English language low power FM stations in Ontario.
Both were for pop, rock and dance" music format, one at Kapuskasing, the other at Timmins and the commission in its decision said that it felt that the budgets proposed would not be enough to produce programming of an high enough quality.
The commission has also rejected an application by Golden West Broadcasting to change its frequency and move the transmitter for its new FM station in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, to on Global Communications Limited's television tower at Disley, Saskatchewan.
The move would have saved around $10000 in construction costs but the Commission said the change would not have extended coverage within the Moose Jaw market but rather would have improved the signal to Regina and Lumsden, within the Regina radio market.
The change was opposed by HDL Investments Inc., licensee of CKRM and CHMX-FM Regina, who argued that the proposal was essentially an application for a Regina radio station.
Among other applications listed by the commission is one by Radio-Classique Montréal Inc. to allow CJPX-FM Montréal a second Subsidiary Communications Multiplex Operations (SCMO) channel for 168 hours of programming per week comprising 161 hours of programming in Creole and 7 hours in French originating in Haiti and Montreal.
In the UK the Radio Authority is to double its fees to applicants for analogue licences from the start of next year and increase the annual analogue licence fee for both local and national licences by 3%.
For a new FM licence in an area covering 4.5 million adults or above, the application fee will now be £21,500 and for a national analogue licence it will be £100,000.
The authority has also announced the award of the digital multiplex licences for Central Scotland and Northern Ireland.
That for Central Scotland has gone to Switchdigital (Scotland) Ltd which was the sole applicant.
Switchdigital which is owned by amongst others the Wireless Group, Clear Channel International and Capital Radio, is proposing eight commercial services; it will also carry the BBC Gaelic radio service for Scotland, Radio Nan Gaidheal.
The Northern Ireland licence has gone to another sole applicant, Score Digital Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Scottish Radio Holdings. Score is planning nine commercial services; it will also carry the BBC national regional radio service, BBC Radio Ulster.
The authority is also pre-advertising two local FM licences, those for the Isle of Wight, currently held by Isle of Wight Radio Ltd, and for the Tendring area of Essex, currently held by Audio Management Ltd., broadcasting as Dream 100 FM.
Concerning applications, the authority has announced that it received two applications for the new small-scale Independent Local Radio licence for Kendal and Windermere in Cumbria.
They are from Lakes Fm (Carlisle Radio Ltd.) which proposes a service of personality radio with hits and oldies, news and information and Mint Fm (Westmorland Radio Ltd.) proposing a mix of popular music from the past forty years plus a substantial information service.
In addition th authority has called for public interest comment concerning an application for the new West Midlands regional licence from Variety FM Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian Media Group plc.
This is necessary as regulations prohibit the award of a licence to a national newspaper group who has a national market share of 20% or more unless it can be shown that the licence would not be expected to operate against the public interest in terms of such factors as diversity of ownership and variety of information sources.
Previous Licence News;
ABA website :
CRTC website ;
FCC website;
UK Radio Authority website:

2000-10-08: The Flood Tribunal into the award of Ireland's first national commercial broadcasting licence to Century Radio has heard testimony from broadcaster Gay Byrne on why he turned down a million-pound offer to join Century.
It's also heard from a retired Bank of Ireland senior official about his reaction to a 1989 meeting with the then minister for communications, Ray Burke, and promoters of Century.
Byrne, as the star witness, added glamour to the proceedings but little new in terms of information.
He said that he did not want the responsibility on his shoulders of ensuring the success of Century Radio with his own programme.
Byrne added that he began to doubt the viability of the operation as a national licence-holder and felt that too much store was being placed in having his name.
He thought they would want an extraordinary delivery of listeners and when eventually he did not succeed in that he would get the blame.
The tone of evidence from Joseph Maguire, general manager of the Bank of Ireland in 1988-89, was in a different league.
His bank was pressing Century over its debts when he, along with two other bank officials, was invited to a meeting with Burke.
Maguire said the minister gave them a broad assurance of his commitment to independent radio in general and Century in particular and spoke of capping the advertising income of state broadcaster RTÉ.
"He left us in no doubt that his commitment to Century was strong," Maguire said, adding that never before had he been given assurances by a government minister over a particular client or over legislation.
Previous Ray Burke;
Previous Byrne :
Previous Flood Tribunal;
RNW note: Most of our report is culled from The Irish Times which has been carrying full reports on the Flood Tribunal. For their reports follow the link below:
Irish Times --search page
(go for radio and October 2000).

2000-10-07: Radio Business Report says that 54 Senators have now signed up to oppose US Low Power FM plans, increasing the chances of being apple to attach the Senator Rod Grams bill requiring third adjacent channel protection to an appropriations bill.
The commercial radio industry organisation, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), has been lobbying strongly against Low Power FM.
And in another action against the Federal Communications Commission, NAB has joined with the Radio- Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), to as a federal appeals court to end "fairness" rules that require them to give candidates a chance to respond to personal attacks and political endorsements.
The rules were already out of action as the FCC suspended them on October 4 for 60 days to assess what effect this would have before the year 2000 US elections.
The FCC wants stations to give it information at the end of the period on the number of political editorials run compared with previous election cycles and also concerning complaints about personal attacks.
The two broadcasters' organisations, however, want the rules scrapped completely as they say they have a "chilling effect " on free speech an

October 2000 Archive

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