February 2002
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Jan 2002 
March
2002 
Links- internally where there are follow-up stories we try, at the end of each story, to put a pertinent link to the top of the next relevant story. Regarding external links see note at end of page.
RNW February comment considers whether charges and regulations proposed for streaming could almost kill off the idea.
RNW January Comment takes a look at regulation and censorship in view of current US divisions concerning "indecent" broadcasts.
RNW December Comment is our wish list as the year draws to an end.
2002-02-28: More US radio results starting with the giant, San Antonio-based Clear Channel, which in 2001 had a 49% increase in revenues compared to 2000 to reach a total of USD7.97 billion but a fall in the final quarter when revenues were down 8 per cent to USD1.86 million.
It had a full-year net loss of $1.14 billion or $1.93 per share, compared with reported net income of $248.8 million, or 59 cents per share in 2000 and a fourth quarter loss of USD366 million (61 cents a share), compared to a USD192 million loss in Q4, 2000 (33 cents a share).
The company is also taking a pre-tax charge of $15 billion to $25 billion after changing accounting practices involving goodwill from acquisitions to meet new US Financial Accounting Standards Board guidelines that came into effect at the start of this year.
The losses were above analysts expectation and Clear Channel stock fell on Wednesday by some 6% despite bullish statements about prospects by CFO Randall Mays who said in a conference call after the market closed on Tuesday that the company's "radio division is currently performing better than at any point in 2001."
He predicted radio cash flow up 1% to 3% in the first quarter of 2002 on a pro forma basis.
Clear Channel President Mark Mays told analysts the company was well positioned, saying, "Even though we're starting to see a little bit of wind, you can expect us to row. We've set ourselves up for success with our programming successes and with our attention to sales focus - - you can expect us to perform."
"I think, secondarily, we have the very best management team. As I've tried to highlight to you, it's very deep, it's very talented and it's very cohesive. As I've said in the past, our assets are very synergistic and they work very well together."
"We're finding out more and more every single day. Number four is our low expense base. If there is any wind that picks up, we've done a great job in controlling costs for 2002 and we think that if the wind picks up our profits will rise faster. And finally and foremost, we're obviously focused on results for 2002 - - as everybody is throughout the company,"
Clear Channel EBITDA for the year was up 11% to USD1.92 billion but for the quarter was down 46% compared to Q4 2000 at USD1.92 billion.
Expenses in the fourth quarter included USD80 million in the radio division attributed to severance costs involved in cutting the radio division's non-sales staff by 2,000 people and hiring 600 extra sales people.
Pro forma basis, 2001 revenues were down 5 percent to US8.015 billion and for the quarter were down 11% to USD1.882 billion whilst Pro forma EBITDA was down 22 percent to $1.93 billion for the full year and down 46% for the final quarter to USD448 million.
Clear Channel's radio division, which was re-organized during 2001 into a regional structure of eight geographic divisions, increased full year revenues by 42% to USD 3.46 billion but was down in the final quarter by 7% to USD890 million; radio EBITDA was up for the year by 29% to USD1.35 billion and down 32% in the final quarter to USD344 million.
Pro-forma radio revenues were down 8% for the full year to USD3.46 billion and down 9.5% for the final quarter to USD890 million whilst pro-forma EBITDA was down 18.5% to USD1.35 billion for the full year and down 32.5% to USD299 million for the final quarter.
Commenting on the performance, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lowry Mays said, "2001 was both a very exciting and very challenging year for Clear Channel."
"We had struggles with the post-September 11 environment, which was very difficult for everyone both emotionally and financially. But we've come through it all as a stronger company, well positioned for the future. I believe we are on the right track as we have integrated our divisions and are working hard to develop ways for our customers to benefit from our varied assets. Clear Channel has a very bright and promising future."
Radio CEO Randy Michaels said, "Clear Channel Radio is positioned to exploit the synergies of scale in a way no other company can duplicate."
"We reach over 110-million listeners every week, across all 50 states and through nearly every format, including branded, Clear Channel networks."
"No other company in the world can offer advertisers targeted footprints that match their trade area, whether it's local, regional or national."
"During 2001 we fine-tuned the organizational structure. During 2002 we're implementing our best practices across sales and programming functions. And most importantly, we're doing it all while we stay in touch with our local communities."
In other results, Denver-based NextMedia reported full year revenues, boosted by acquisitions, up 75% to USD73.3 million and final quarter revenues up 23.3% to USD21.2 million; On a pro-forma basis, however, full year net revenues were flat at USD86.2 million and final quarter revenues were down 9.2% to USD21.6 million.
Operating expenses were up for both the year, from USD27.7 million to USD 48.8 million, and quarter, from USD10.9 million to USD14.7 million and Broadcast cash flow (BCF), which was up 70.1% for the full year at USD24.5 million, slowed down in the final quarter when it was up 3.2% to Usd6.5 million.
Net loss for the year was up USD8.1 million on the full year 2000 figure to USD10.9 million and for the quarter net loss was up USD2.9 million to USD3.3 million.
Carl E. Hirsch, Executive Chairman and Steven Dinetz, President and CEO commented, "2001 was a landmark year in the development of NextMedia."
"Despite facing one of the most challenging economic periods in our thirty-five years in the business, we substantially improved the strategic position and operational performance of our company."
"We raised over $340.0 million in financing and completed approximately $130.0 million in acquisitions, firmly establishing NextMedia as one of the leading out-of-home media companies in the U.S.With one of the most talented management teams in the industry at the helm and a strong cash position enabling us to move quickly on acquisition opportunities, we are well positioned for strong growth when the advertising market rebounds."
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous Lowry Mays:
Previous Mark Mays:
Previous Randall Mays:
Previous Michaels:
Previous NextMedia:
Clear Channel web site:
2002-02-28: To the accompaniment of a wide range of tributes from politicians, fellow broadcasters and various listeners and celebrities, Sue MacGregor ended her 18 year sting at one of the hosts of the flagship BBC Radio 4 breakfast show, Today, on Wednesday.
She maintained her calm to the end, telling sports presenter Gary Richardson that she would not be saying emotional goodbyes on air and, in response to his joking suggestion that she was just getting the hand of the programme, commented, "The great thing about the Today programme is that you never quite get the hang of it because every day is a different challenge.
There is always something going wrong as well as amazing ground-breaking interviews."
She said to listeners, "I am going to miss all of you so much I can't tell you."
Although she has end her Today sting, which followed 15 years on the Channel's Woman's Hour, she is still expected to be heard on the channel's airwaves again and Radio 4 controller, Helen Boaden, said it was a "dead cert" that MacGregor would be involved in other shows
Previous BBC:
Previous Boaden:
Previous MacGregor:
2002-02-28: Less than three weeks after a subsidiary of a Russian state-controlled monopoly took control of the board of the Moscow Echo radio station, the editor and many of the journalists are quitting.
The Washington Post quotes Alexei Venediktov, editor in chief of the station as saying, "I am not going to work for a radio station that belongs to the state. I prefer to keep my reputation but not my job."
Moscow Echo, which broadcasts in 70 cities and has a weekly audience of between 4 and 6 million, was the first station to broadcast in Russia without state control and built a reputation for its news and analysis. In June last year Gazprom-Media, a subsidiary of the state-controlled natural gas monopoly, took 51% of its shares but until this month the board had remained autonomous.
Venediktov told the Post he thought a change in editorial policy would come soon and the only hope for objective journalism was for the station's reporters to find a new frequency.
He and 12 journalists from Moscow Echo have bid in a state auction for two FM frequencies which they say were formerly held by the Russian military and Venediktov said he believes that a change in editorial policy is not far off, and that the only hope for him and the station's reporters to practice objective journalism is to find another frequency.
Venediktov added that 58 of the station's 98 journalists have voted to go with him if he wins. Asked how many would quit if he didn't, he said, "57."
A spokesman for Gazprom-Media, said Venediktov's announcement seemed timed to attract publicity for his bid for his a radio frequency. He added that Gazprom-Media planned no editorial changes and that Gazprom, which has said it intends to sell its media assets, would not even own the station much longer.
Previous Moscow Echo:
Washington Post report:
2002-02-28: MeasureCast and Nielsen Media Research have announced a series of road shows with media directors and planning and research executives from advertising agencies about the benefits of streaming media advertising.
The first will be held in March in Los Angeles with others to follow in Chicago, Minneapolis, and New York. MeasureCast CEO Ed Hardy commented, "We want to make sure that ad industry executives responsible for making recommendations to their clients include streaming media advertising in their media planning mix."
"The Web radio audience is growing rapidly, and numerous multinational corporations already are benefiting from their purchases of in-stream advertising on Internet radio stations. With the aggregation of multiple stations, the streaming audience is becoming large enough to be included in mass media ad buys."
MeasureCast, Inc., the Nielsen companies and NetRatings, Inc. are involved in international partnership agreements to measure streaming media from commercial websites.
Previous Hardy:
Previous MeasureCast:
MeasureCast news release:
2002-02-27: US broadcasters seem likely to be in for a tougher time regarding indecency complaints according to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Enforcement Bureau Chief, David Solomon.
He told a National Association of Broadcasters conference that the FCC is likely to presume a complainant's description of a programme to be correct unless the station can refute them but denied that the stand was a backdoor route to forcing stations to keep tapes or transcripts. He also said that the commission was not tightening up its indecency enforcement regime.
RNW comment: The denials seem to fly in the face of the evidence but, as we have said before many countries already require broadcasters to keep records as part of the licence conditions.
We don't see this as a particularly onerous requirement with modern technology and would certainly much prefer this route to either presuming a complainant correct or requiring a complainant to produce a recording (how many drivers, for example, are in a position to record a broadcast or indeed how many people are there likely to be recording a broadcast before they find it offensive).
If there are to be rules, we would prefer them to be enforced on the basis of fact not supposition.
Previous FCC:
Previous NAB:
Previous Solomon:
2002-02-27: After the boar killing, the Bubba Army rally and dwarf tossing likely to come soon in Florida.
The latter relates to a federal court case in which 3 foot 2 inch (just under 1 metre) tall Tampa radio personality David Flood, "Dave the Dwarf" is challenging the state's ban on dwarf tossing. The St Petersburg Times reports that the suit is likely to be thrown out on the basis that the 1989 law is not being forced.
This would leave Flood able to stage a bar "dwarf tossing" show.
In the Bubba the Love Sponge (Todd Clem) case, the army refers to his fans who staged a noisy demonstration of support outside the courthouse as jury selection was held for his trial on charges of animal cruelty relating to the February castration and killing of a wild boar as a stung in connection with his show.
Also facing animal cruelty charges are Brent Hatley, a producer at Clear Channel's WXTB-FM (98 Rock); Paul Lauterberg, a listener who brought the boar to the station and performed the castration and slaughter; and Daniel Brooks, a listener who helped hold the boar.
The paper reports that, as well as Bubba supporters, who claim that the State Attorney was bowing to political pressures from animal rights' activists in bringing the charges, there were also some of the activists demonstrating.
One of them Cynthia Harris, 49, who runs a pot-bellied pig sanctuary in Fort Myers, wore photos of the boar -- before and after its death -- on her handbag and her shirt.
She said there would have been more animal rights activists present but they were intimidated.
Some Bubba supporters called Harris a "witch," and worse and one offered to buy her a barbecue sandwich.
In an item on the scene inside the court Times Columnist Mary Jo Melone wrote that the shock jock's appearance in court "may have marked the first time Tampa's No. 1 radio slumlord kept his mouth shut and his head down."
"He looked like the Pillsbury doughboy in a suit, only much less cheerful. He hardly cracked a smile."
She notes that "the would-be jurors were asked if they were hunters, did they own handguns, had they ever lived on a farm, were they vegetarians, did they have pets, did they listen to Bubba on the radio?"
Obviously not a fan herself, she later comments, "The subject is obnoxious, offensive, distasteful, and in a way, insignificant."
"I struggled with myself over whether to go to the trial. Bigger issues are out there. A pig is only a pig. To cover the trial was to give this small, childish man more of the publicity he craves."
"But ignoring the trial would be wrong. Bubba exerts an enormous, negative influence on Tampa Bay, and you have to wonder what kind of community we are that we would find the likes of Bubba so appealing."
(She adds later that "Only a handful out of the hundred would-be jurors said they were listeners of his. The others have better taste than that".)
The jury has now been selected for the tiral to be held under Judge Ron Ficarrotta
Previous Bubba:
St Petersburg Times site:
St Petersburg Times - Melone column:
2002-02-27: Two Tasmanian radio services owned by RG Capital Radio Network Pty Ltd. have each been allocated second commercial licences by the Australian Broadcasting Authority(ABA).
North East Tasmanian Radio Broadcasters Pty Ltd, licensee of 7SD Scottsdale, and Burnie Broadcasting Service Pty Ltd, licensee of 7BU Burnie each gain FM frequencies covering the same areas as existing AM ones.
Previous ABA:
ABA news release:
2002-02-27: Latest Internet audience ratings from MeasureCast show a slight dip in listening in the week to February 17 but the top networks increased their audience as did the top station, Jazz Fm, which moved up from second to push Virgin out of the top rank.
As has consistently been the case around four fifths of listening in the US was during "working hours."
For the week, the top five by Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) and with previous week's TTSL and Cume persons (CP), a measure of the cumulative audience, in brackets, were:
1: Jazz format Jazz FM - TTSL 308,508 (267,458); CP 82,583 (74,746): Up from second with listening and reach up.
2: Hot Adult Contemporary Virgin FM - TTSL 238,704 (292,186); CP 42,562 (47,560): Down from first with both listening and reach lower.
3: Classical format King FM - TTSL 121,222 (139,103); CP 22,791 (23,651): Up from third but listening and reach each down.
4: Listener-formatted MEDIAmazing - TTSL 116,890 (189,696); CP 60,412 (70,768): Down from third with lower listening and reach.
5: Sports talk ESPN - TTSL 111,256 (108,712): 19,552 (21,054): Same position but listening up and reach down.
MeasureCast's top five streaming networks the week to February 17 were (Previous week's figures in brackets):
1:WARP Radio TTSL 680,405 (611,975) hours: Cume 128,959 (121,942) - Same position:
2: StreamAudio network TTSL 673,961 (570,308) : Cume 94,209 (98,903) - Same position:
3: Radio Free Virgin TTSL 478,165 (486,689): Cume 107,923 (106,491) - Same position
4: Virgin Radio TTSL 478,165 (406,640): Cume 66,421 (73,161): - Same position
5: Jazz FM TTSL 308,508 (267,458) : Cume 82,583 (74,746)- Up from seventh, knocking RadioCentral out of the top five.
Previous MeasureCast ratings:
MeasureCast web site:
2002-02-27: The first independent radio station to broadcast under the current Afghan government is now on air with its only daily programme, Good Morning Afghanistan, which is modelled on US breakfast shows. (See RNW Jan 29).
The first edition of the show on Radio Kabul featured male and female co-hosts, and led with a story querying why the culture ministry was pushing plans for the restoration of Kabul museum when other issues were more pressing.
The station has been funded by the European Commission and other western Non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
2002-02-26: An Arbitron report, commissioned by the Southern California Broadcasters Association, on lifestyles in the Los Angeles area makes good reading for radio as a medium if not for the lifestyles of those concerned.
Traffic congestion it says now means that a fifth of people aged 18 or above are in their cars at 6 a.m., up from 13.7% two years ago, and as a result are changing both media and spending habits. On average Angelinos now spend some 60 to 90 minutes a day in their cars, and more than 90% of drivers travel alone.
As a result said Arbitron VP/Domestic Radio Research Dr. Ed Cohen, "People are spending less and less time with at-home media, but radio is increasingly important to them in their cars and at work."
More than four fifths of those who took part in the study rank radio listening as their prime activity whilst in their vehicle and more than a third listen to radio at work. In addition more of them are stopping to shop on their way home, making radio a good medium to reach them.
Previous Arbitron:
Arbitron study:
2002-02-26: The US Broadcasters' Foundation has awarded its 2002 Golden Mike awards to Radio One founder Cathy Hughes, her son and current company CEO Alfred Liggins III and "the Radio One Family."
The awards, which were presented in New York on Monday night (25 Feb), honour individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to TV and radio and Edward F, McLaughlin, chairman of the Broadcasters' Foundation commented,"The Cathy Hughes Radio One story is one of incredible personal growth, dedication, commitment, talent, leadership, entrepreneurial spirit, service to the community and values."
"Everything about this remarkable woman, her son Alfred Liggins III and Radio One make us incredibly proud to present this family with the 2002 Golden Mike Award,"he added.
Cathy Hughes, who founded Radio One in 1980 by buying 1000 watt WOL-AM, made her start in radio at Howard University's WHUR-FM where she became general sales manager.
She struggled to get a bank loan for the purchase but eventually was funded by Chemical Bank. She then had further struggles after she switched from music to a talk format and was put under pressure to revert back when ratings did not develop, and had to cut back on staff and do a number of jobs including hosting and selling advertisements to keep going.
The station eventually went into the black after seven years and Hughes kept on expanding. Radio One, which went public in 1999, is now the largest African-American-owned broadcasting company, with 63 stations in 22 markets.
Previous Hughes:
Previous Liggins:
Previous Radio One:
Broadcasters' Foundation web site:
2002-02-26: NTL has sold its Australian Broadcasting assets, which are mainly comprised of the transmission masts used by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Special Broadcasting Service, to Macquarie bank for a total of AUD850 million (around USD423 million).
The sum is made up of AUD620 million in cash and the assumption of AUD230 million of debt.
NTL's US parent bought the transmission network in 1999 for AUD 650 million and put them up for sale last year as it struggled under a debt burden of around USD17.5 billion.
2002-02-26: Susquehanna Media has reported final quarter revenues in 2001 down 8% to USD80.5 million but radio revenues were 18% down on Q4, 2000, to USD50.1 million with a particularly steep drop in San Francisco where they were down more than a third.
Radio broadcast cash flow for the quarter was down 26% to USD20.2 million and same station radio BCF was down a fifth and same station radio revenues down 13%.
Previous Susquehanna:
2002-02-25: For our look at newspaper comment on radio this week, we have decided to concentrate on a personality who is something of an institution within an institution within an institution.
The personality is Sue MacGregor, who retires as a presenter of the BBC Radio 4 flagship breakfast programme "Today" this week after 18 years with the programme. Before that she'd spent 15 years on Woman's Hour on the same channel.
The departure has been the subject of articles in most of Britain's broadsheet newspapers, including the Sunday Times where Paul Donovan devoted his weekly radio column to her.
"The Today programme will sail on, " he writes, "for it is much more than the sum of its presenters. But it will not be as subtle a programme."
"MacGregor's equally long-serving colleague John Humphrys, a more persistent and pugnacious journalist but not someone with the same verbal delicacy, described her to me, rightly, as 'an absolutely consummate broadcaster'. "
"First, there is the voice itself - the one you would most like to hear shepherding you to higher ground if ever the Thames Barrier broke down, as someone once said. Calm, authoritative, perfectly cadenced, pleasant without being soporific, it is the acme of Radio 4 voices. "
"MacGregor's manner at the microphone," he continues, "complements it perfectly: polite but not unctuous, friendly but not familiar, smooth but not slick, inquisitive but not intrusive, sometimes sharp but cutting only when absolutely necessary. She wields a foil, not a sabre."
" And precisely because MacGregor is such a class act, she has always been in demand: not just on Today, but also Woman's Hour for 15 years, Tuesday Call and her own series of 25-minute interviews, Conversation Piece, which just withered away in the way that programmes sometimes do."
The UK Independent printed a question and answer session with her, some of which was gossipy but other parts took up more serious points.
One was the response to the question, "What is the best way to deal with a large male ego?
The response: "Large male egos are almost impossible to deflate. Clever women flatter to deceive - and get their way, which is a technique that is normally beyond my powers of patience. But there are charming male egos and dreadful ones. Most of those near me are of the former kind, stimulating to be with and not worth losing much sleep over."
And on another as to why she never moved to TV the response was, "I have done a little TV, by the way, and still do - mainly on BBC News 24. In the past, in my late twenties and well into my thirties, I was offered the chance more than once to join a television current-affairs team."
"Friends thought I was mad to turn them down. One reason was caution: shelf lives on TV are shorter than those on radio, and for much of that time I was very happy fronting a long-running and well-respected daily radio programme [Woman's Hour]. "
" Another reason was a reluctance to lose my anonymity and gain the high recognition factor of a TV face. I imagined that I would end up dodging all kinds of unwelcome attention. Probably I exaggerated the difference it would have made to my life. But (despite some of the questions and answers I've given) I have on the whole felt happier as an essentially private person."
Still in the UK, we valued Sue Arnold's radio column in the Sunday Observer in which, amongst other things, she comments on BBC Radio 3's Baltic Season.
"For enthusiasm, diversity and scale," she writes, " nothing can touch these all-singing, all-dancing Radio 3 specials which make their equivalent on the Discovery Channel look like home videos."
"Musically we heard everything from massed choirs to fiddlers on the roof. This is the home of that strain of infectious folk music that transforms every listener into a swirling Terpsichore in red shoes."
Indeed so, and television pictures don't always improve things.
Previous Arnold:
Previous Columnists:
Previous Donovan:
Previous MacGregor:
UK Independent on MacGregor:
UK Observer - Arnold:
UK Sunday Times - Donovan:
* Sunday Times requires registration.
2002-02-25: US Sports talk host Jim Rome, whose show is syndicated to some 200 markets in the US and Canada by Premiere Networks, is to pull back on his television work and concentrate on radio.
He's not dropping television and will continue with his nightly show for Fox TV until the contract runs out at the end of the year but after that will have a reduced TV presence.
Rome, who is 37, has been saying for a while that he would have to choose and wanted to spend more time with his wife and ten-month-old son. Premiere, he adds, made him an offer he "couldn't refuse."
Previous Premiere:
2002-02-24: It was quiet in the US on the licence front last week, although the most momentous decision may have been the court decision that nullified the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) cross-ownership rule that prohibited ownership of a cable system and local broadcaster in the same market as well as holding that the FCC had not offered enough justification for the cap that stops a company owning TV stations that reach more than 35% of US households.
It did reject claims that the rules were inherently unconstitutional and RNW feels that thought does need to be given to ensuring diversity in media sources for the US.
To actual licence news, and Australia was quiet with nothing on the radio front whilst in Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was mainly involved in amendments rather than substantive decisions.
The Commission also allowed Entreprises Radio Etchemin inc. to increase the power of CFOM-FM Lévis, Quebec, from 3,597 watts to 16,800 watts; the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to add a transmitter at Deer Lake for CBN-FM St. John's, Newfoundland; and the addition of a number of FM transmitters in Newfoundland and Labrador by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and the Shuswap Lakes Television Society to add a very low power FM transmitter (5 watts) to carry the CBC Radio 2 service to Scotch Creek, Sorrento, Blind Bay, Celista, Magna Bay, Eagle Bay and surrounding areas in British Columbia.
In Ireland the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland is to hold oral hearings in April concerning the new regional licence for the South-East of Ireland.
As noted in Licence News on February 3 there were two applications: from Beat 101, which is offering a music driven station for a 15 to 34 audience, and Power FM, which is offering a chart dance and dance related music format for the same group.
In the UK, the Radio Authority has received only one declaration of intent to apply for the licence for the Shaftesbury area of north Dorset for eight years from June of next year.
This was from existing licence holder Vale FM, which is being invited to apply for the licence under the special fast track procedure that applies in such cases.
The Authority has also published its assessment of the award of the Leicester Digital multiplex to Now Digital (East Midlands) Ltd.(NDEM) against competition from Emap Digital Radio ( (See Licence News Nov 25, 2001.for details of offerings).
NDEM has been asked to address concerns about signal coverage in parts of the city of Leicester but otherwise was found to have gathered substantial local support and be offering a programme bouquet that catered reasonably well for the area and "benefited from the definite inclusion of the main existing ILR services of Leicester Sound, Sabras Radio and the regional station for the East Midlands, 106 Century FM. "
Members said they were" particularly impressed by the plans for Asian Plus, a complementary locally-sourced Asian service comprising both programming for young Asians and a platform for local Asian and other community groups."
Previous BCI:
Previous CRTC:
Previous FCC:
Previous Licence News:
Previous UK Radio Authority:
BCI web site: (Has links to Beat 101 documentation - 3.6Mb PDF and Power FM - three PDF documents of 6.58 Mb, Appendix 1 of 33.8 Mb and Appendix 2 of 44.2 Mb):
CRTC web site:
FCC web site:
UK Radio Authority web site:
2002-02-24: Gavin, the San Francisco radio trade publication is to be closed at the end of the month according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The news came as radio and record company executives were gathering for the 16th annual Gavin Seminar, which had become a significant money spinner from its USD500 registration fee plus sponsorships and record label promotional spending but this year it has attracted only some 800 participants compared to some 2,800 two years ago according to the paper.
Gavin is now owned by United Business Media of Britain, which has so far failed to find buyers. Gavin has been hit by the concentration in the US radio business and amongst recording labels.
The Gavin Report was founded in 1958 by disc jockey Bill Gavin, who sold the company to some of his top executives in 1983.
United Business Media bought it in 1992 and plans to keep the Gavin name and its fax sheets and e-mail products.
San Francisco Chronicle report:
Gavin web site:
2002-02-24: The BBC has dismissed reports that agreement has been reached with Jeremy Vine, the BBC TV Newsnight presenter, to take over Sir Jimmy Young's Radio 2 programme at the beginning of next year.
Reports said that Vine, the 36-year-old favourite to take over from Young, had reached agreement with BBC2 Controller Jim Moir but both Radio 2 and the Newsnight programme deny that any final decision had been reached. Vine has already filled in successfully for Young on a number of occasions.
Previous BBC:
Previous Moir:
Previous Young:
2002-02-23: As the implications of the US Copyright Arbitration Panel (CARP) suggestions for payments and record keeping in connection with streamed music begin to sink in, the reaction seems to indicate that many stations may pull out or, in the case of some webcasters, convert to subscription services and end free streaming.
Clear Channel Director of Technology Brian Parsons told CBS Marketwatch.com that the company is likely to pull the plug on hundreds of its radio stations that only recently came back streaming after the row over advertisement charges with AFTRA (The American Federation of TV and Radio Artists - See RNW April 11, 2001).
"We began crunching the numbers last night, and given the new royalty rates, the softness of the ad market, and the technology costs, this just isn't a viable business," he said.
The view from the US National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) was similar: CEO Eddie Fritts issued a statement saying, "The ruling from the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel may have the effect of unintended consequences, in that many radio broadcasters may re-evaluate their streaming strategies."
"If the powerful record company interests' goal was to strangle a fledgling new service to radio listeners, it may have succeeded beyond its own expectations."
So was that from Dan Halyburton, Susquehanna Radio SVP, who told the New York Times, "I just don't know how we could have been any more clear about how expensive and about how little-to-no money we're making in this area. You just may have witnessed the end of commercial streaming on the Internet."
There was similar reaction from webcasters: Kevin Shively, director of business development for Beethoven.com, said the data collection requirement was the real killer. In a post to RadioHorizon.com he commented, "Even with automation and database capabilities, we simply cannot do what is being asked of us."
In another comment to the Associated Press, Bob Ohlweiler, senior vice president of business development for MusicMatch, a webcaster that offers subscription and free services, said that if the rates were applied to them free radio streaming would vanish.
MusicMatch is among the organisations that currently has a separate licence with the recording industry but, said Ohlweiler, "If and when MusicMatch is affected by the rates, we certainly couldn't afford to keep free radio up and running.''
RNW note: In anticipation of the CARP ruling we had held over this month's comment. For once we don't think that the broadcasters and webcasters are crying wolf as the figures just don't add up for advertising-funded web services on this basis, never mind the record keeping requirements, which we think are unreasonable.
We will be interested to see how lobbying goes on this one -as we say we think it would be "just" if a decision was taken that if any webcaster or broadcaster can trace only one song they have used for which the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) cannot provide the information they say is reasonable, then they should lose all past royalties from the station concerned!
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous Fritts:
Previous NAB:
Previous RIAA:
Previous Susquehanna:
MusicMatch web site:
NAB web site:
New York Times/AP report:
RadioHorizon web site:
RIAA web site:
2002-02-23: A slight up, a slight down, and some more significant falls in the latest US radio results, this time from Hispanic Broadcasting.
The slight up was for Hispanic's net revenues, which increased by 1.4% to USD240.8 million for the full year to the end of December 2001, and in same station net revenues for the final quarter: They were up 0.5% to USD57.5 million; the slight down was a fall of only 0.1% in net revenue for the final quarter to USD61.3million.
Other figures were down more: For the full year Hispanic broadcast cash flow (BCF) was down 12.4% to USD89.8 million, EBITDA was down 14% to USD81 million, after-tax cash flow was down 8.2% to USD77.3 million (71 cents a share compared to 76 cents a share).
For the final quarter, BCF was down 9.2% to USD23.3 million, EBITDA was down 11.2% to USD 21.0 million and ATCF was down 10.8% to USD21.4 million (20 cents a share compared to 22 cents).
CFO Jeff Hinson said Hispanic, which exceeded expectations, had been hit like everyone by he aftermath of September 11 but "the impact was less severe than originally thought."
Bucking the trend of limiting forecasts to a quarter ahead, Hispanic says it expects full-year revenue to increase 4-6% this year.
Previous Hispanic:
Hispanic web site:
2002-02-23: According to the UK Guardian, the Daily Mail and General Trust, is considering a plan to re-brand LBC, the AM station in London News Radio (LNR) in which DMGT has a small holding and that has been put up for sale along with sister FM station News Direct by parent group London News Network (See RNW Dec 21, 2001 ).
DMGT sold all but 1% of its stake in LNR to GWR but they have now approached GWR with a plan under which GWR would hold on to it stake and DMGT would invest in return for the station's re-branding as LBC-Metro to tie in with the free newspaper it distributes at outlets like London underground stations.
The new deal would tie in with a separate sale of the FM station to US information group Bloomberg which is also under consideration (See RNW Feb 13):
Previous DMG:
Previous Bloomberg:
Previous GWR:
Previous LNR:
UK Guardian report:
2002-02-23: Infinity stations are now operating without Arbitron's Arbitrends data as the standoff in contract talks continues.
Infinity can currently use the Fall ratings but will have no access to the new Winter ratings when they come out.
As with a similar situation with Clear Channel last year (See RNW Aug 7, 2001), a deal is expected but probably not until the last minute.
Previous Arbitron:
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous Viacom-CBS-Infinity:
2002-02-22: Internet audio channels whose content includes music, whether they are Internet-only channels or radio stations streaming their broadcast signal, seem to be facing a double-whammy from the combination of charges and details they will have to provide to the recording companies.
The US Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP), which was appointed to recommend the details, has gone further towards the record labels than the broadcasters and webcasters in making their recommendations, which may lead many organisations to cease streaming.
Last year many US stations ceased to put their stations on the Internet following a dispute over fees for adverts that were made for terrestrial broadcast but then used on the Internet as well: this dispute was eventually solved, in many cases through technology that allowed different advertisements to be inserted into an Internet stream.
In December last year, the broadcasters and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA-the organisation that represents the recording companies.) had reached agreement on a deal that would set royalties for streaming radio companies' terrestrial broadcasts but that deal, no details of which were made public, was blocked by the Copyright Office.
The latest recommendations, if confirmed, will provide a much more intractable problem leading many streaming organisations to complain that the US Copyright Office has accepted too much of the testimony of the RIAA.
In charge terms, the recommendations are around a third of what the RIAA wanted and around ten times that suggested by webcasters - broadcasters argue that they should be covered by the fees they pay for airing the music terrestrially - and would leave a number of organisations liable to back-payments (to 1998, when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was passed), amounting to hundred of thousands, if not millions of dollars.
Record companies wanted 0.4 cents per song per listener and webcasters had suggested 0.15 for each hour a listener was logged onto their service.
The fees suggested by CARP are 0.14 cents per song streamed for webcasters and half that for terrestrial broadcasters.
In addition stations or webcasters would have to keep a log of 17 items of information about every song broadcast including its date and time of transmission with the location and time zone of the listener, and the
The ISRC code of the recording, release year of the album per copyright notice and in the case of compilation albums, the release year of the album and copyright date of the track, UPC code of the retail album and its catalogue number.
The suggestions were welcomed by the RIAA, although they said they had hoped for greater payments but not by the others involved and many suggested the effect would be to lead many companies to end their webcasts.
The Digital Media Association (DiMA), which represents webcasters, said it was "extremely disappointed " and that "A lower rate would more accurately reflect the marketplace for music performance rights and the uncertain business environment of the Webcast industry."
Previous RIAA:
CARP on recommended rates ( 13 kb PDF):
CARP on information required (77 Kb PDF):
DIMA web site:
RIAA web site:
2002-02-22: Results from Radio One Inc and Cox Communications in the US, show the both continuing to outperform the US radio industry average in the final quarter but the general downturn and effects of September 11 hit both.
Radio One said that its earnings were hit by a "less than friendly advertising environment."
It had a loss of USD15.4 million (22 cents a share) for the final quarter of 2001 compared to a loss of USD7.9 million for Q3, 2000, partly because expenses were up by more than 25% because of the impact of acquisitions and costs associated with a partnership to launch five channels on XM Satellite Radio.
Broadcast cash flow (BCF) was up 10 percent to $32.9 million for the quarter and revenues were up 16 percent to USD 67.4 million. After-tax cash flow per share was down four cents to ten cents.
On a same station basis, revenues were up 4% and BCF up 5% and the company also reported same station cash flow margin up from 51.6% to 52%.
For the full year, including acquisitions, Radio One's 2001 revenues rose 57% to $243.8M and BCF also rose 57% to $123.3M.
Scott R. Royster, chief financial officer, told analysts that the quarter "may not have been the most difficult quarter in our industry's history, but it had to be pretty close", but then added, "Things appear to be improving and we are hopeful the worst is behind us."
Looking ahead Radio One is expecting first quarter revenues of USD56 million and BCF of USD23.5 million with same station revenue growing in the mid single-figure digits.
CEO Alfred Liggins III said, "While we certainly can't predict the future, it seems that the industry has bottomed out and we're starting to see some signs of life. It doesn't feel like a false start, but - - you know - - the false start that we had before didn't feel like one either."
"As we continue to execute on our game plan, which is staying focused on our target demographic of Urban or African-American programming, and also specializing in turnarounds, we still expect to again lead the industry in terms of revenue and BCF growth."
Cox had fourth quarter revenues down on the year before but CEO Bob Neil noted that it still beat the industry average and had record revenues and cash flow for the full year.
For the final quarter, revenues were down just over 1% to USD101.7 million and BCF was down 12.6% to USD37.7 million: Same station results for the quarter showed revenues down 2.3% and BCF down 13.5%.
For the full year, however, revenues were up 7% to USD395/3 million and BCF was up 8% to USD148.9 million although same station revenues were down 1.5% and same station BCF was down 4.9%
For the first quarter, Neil said revenues excluding the format change at WTMI-FM Miami were up nearly 4%, just over 2.5 % overall but business continued to be placed very late and February was down nearly 5%, mainly because of the shortage of TV Sweeps income.
Previous Cox:
Previous Liggins:
Previous Neil:
Previous Radio One Inc.:
Previous Royster:
Previous XM:
2002-02-22: Farid Suleman has left his posts as President and CEO of Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, the Viacom subsidiary that runs Infinity Radio and Infinity Outdoor and of Chief Financial Officer of Westwood One, the syndication company which is partly owned by Viacom.
He's to become a special limited partner at Forstmann Little & Co., the buyout firm that owns Citadel Communications, the radio group that was bought by them around USD 2 billion last year ( See RNW June 26 2001 and January 17 2001).
He's also taking on the post of CEO of Citadel Communications and will join the Citadel Board of Directors: Larry Wilson will continue as Citadel Chairman according to Forstmann Little's statement.
Suleman was first in contact with Forstmann when he approached them about purchases on behalf of Viacom from Citadel, which owns 143 FM stations and 66 AM stations in 44 US markets.
He was offered a post with Citadel but at first said no and then was made the offer, with the addition of the Forstmann Little role, he has accepted.
Suleman, who is 50, helped Viacom President Mel Karmazin, who will take on Suleman's duties on an interim basis, to build Infinity Broadcasting.
He has denied that the move has anything to do with suggestions of a rift between Karmazin, whose contract runs out in 2003, and Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone.
He received a warm tribute from his former boss. "I want to thank Farid for his 16 years of service and leadership at Infinity, where he was a driving force in the division's growth and expansion,'' Karmazin said in a statement. "We wish him well as he moves on to this entrepreneurial opportunity.''
Forstmann Little senior partner said that Suleman was a "first rate executive" who would strengthen the firm and made him the "ideal leader to expand and take Citadel to the next level as a premier media company."
Suleman himself in a statement said, "I am extremely pleased to partner with Forstmann Little, a firm with an outstanding reputation for integrity and an exceptional track record of success. This is a wonderful entrepreneurial opportunity for me."
RNW comment: The move seems to have come as a surprise to everyone and the tribute from Karmazin was warm. The cynic in us would also note that, if the rumoured but denied rifts at Viacom between Karmazin and chairman Sumner Redstone, ever came to a parting of the ways, the former would certainly not be in a weaker position if his former right-hand man were available for aid in negotiating finance for an Infinity buyout (and maybe merger with Citadel.).
And if they do not, Karmazin's hand won't be weakened at Viacom.
Previous Forstmann (Citadel):
Previous Karmazin:
Previous Redstone:
Previous Viacom:
Previous Westwood One:
Previous Wilson:
2002-02-21: Cumulus net revenues were down 10.9% to USD 203 million for last year and down 11.5% to USD50.8 million for the final quarter of 2001, due, according to the company, to a combination of a reduction in its radio station portfolio and "the overall decline in advertising revenues" during the period.
Cumulus had a peak station portfolio of 317 stations in 2000; it had reduced these to 225 stations in 46 markets at the end of that year and taken the total down to 221 stations in 45 markets by the end of last year.
On a same station basis net revenues for the 163 stations in 32 markets operated since January 1, 2000, was down
10.2% to USD33.2 million in the final quarter of last year and down 5.4%, to $131.7 million for the full year.
Basic and diluted loss per common share was 48 cents for the final quarter of 2001 compared to 32 cents loss a year earlier and USD1.37 for the full year compared to 49 cents for the year to December 2000.
The increased loss per share came from a combination of a USD28.2 million, or 172%, increase in EBITDA to USD44.5 million offset by a USD63 million decrease in other income related primarily to station sales. Cumulus says that if the effect of this other income were removed for each of the years net of related tax effects, it would have cut its loss per share for last year to USD1.38 compared to USD1.74 in the year to the end of December 2000.
Cumulus President/CEO Lew Dickey noted that it had made an error in not allowing for a loss in TV advert revenues during the Winter Olympics and expects to take a hit of around USD700, 000because it was difficult to compete against the network with the Games. He said they had enjoyed an increase in advert sales in January and hoped that there would be a rebound in May for TV sales.
He added that Cumulus had worked hard to cut costs, had made a great deal of progress and was now poised for expansion. He said the recent deals to acquire Aurora and Dickey Brothers stations on a share basis had helped to boost Cumulus stock and ease its cash flow.
Previous Cumulus:
Previous Dickey:
Cumulus web site:
2002-02-21: The BBC World Service has won the 2001 George Polk Award for television and radio reporting for its coverage of the September 11 attacks and the war in Afghanistan. Its reports included one from a correspondent who was inside the World Trade Center when it was hit by the first airliner.
The award, sponsored by Long Island University was set up in 1949 in honour of the memory of CBS correspondent George Polk who was killed in Greece the previous year whilst trying o reach insurgent leaders for an interview. In all there are 13 categories.
Previous BBC:
Polk Awards web site:
2002-02-21:Following the rush by thousands to apply for Low Power FM licences that were supposed to put part of the US airwaves into the hands of local communities, only six stations are on the air according to a report in the Washington Post.
In all says the Post, 3400 applications were made over the past two years, many falling by the wayside for a variety of reasons from resources problems to shifting regulatory rules, most significant of which was adoption by Congress of the third-adjacent channel protection requirement for which the US National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and National Public Radio (NPR) had lobbied (See RNW Dec 19, 2000 ).This kept LPFM out of most cities and urban areas.
Others are failing for practical reasons: The Post quotes Richard Snyder, a retired Montgomery County Orphans' Court judge who has applied for a license to operate an educational station on Kent Island as saying, "A lot of the people applying for these licenses will fail. A lot of these people are altruistic -- they're a little more dreamers than schemers."
The article then centres on the latest, LPFM to go on air, WRYR-FM, which this week started its inaugural broadcast by transmitting the "the banjo strumming of the Good Deale Bluegrass band from a 12-by-7-foot studio in microscopic Churchton in southern Anne Arundel County."
The station's signal radiates across the Chesapeake Bay, reaching the western tip of the Eastern Shore, the southern fringes of Annapolis and parts of Calvert and St. Mary's counties and the station is run by an environmental group South Arundel Citizens for Responsible Development, and its founder, Michael Shay, that is best known for its fight against a supermarket development.
Shay is being helped by former radio pirates and over the past weekend they brought, says the paper, " an eclectic mix of radio aspirants to Deale this weekend for a three-day gathering they dubbed a "Radio Barnraising."
The barn-raising's seminars had titles indicating the lack of experience of those present -- "Using a mini-disc recorder," "The fine art of deejaying," "Introduction to radio engineering
They and Shay, however, are confident that the details will take care of themselves, but that won't be for a while yet. After WRYR's first broadcast day, the station is going silent, except for periodic tests, for at least six weeks whilst Shay trains volunteers and fine-tunes equipment.
Previous LPFM:
Previous NAB:
Previous NPR:
Previous WRYR:
Washington Post report:
2002-02-20: Austereo has come under renewed pressure from DMG Radio in the AC Nielsen McNair Australian ratings just released.
DMG's three new metropolitan stations all had good ratings with the Nova 100 Melbourne station taking a 10.5 share and Austereo's Fox and Triple M dropping large chunks of their audience although in Sydney Austereo has pulled back against DMG.
There was also some worrying news for Southern Cross with MacQuarie's 2GB, soon to take over top rated Sydney talk host Alan Jones from its own Sydney 2UE station, already seeing a boost to its breakfast audience from January when another host imported from 2UE, Ray Hadley, almost doubled the audience with the benefit of strong cover of Sydney's bushfires and helped by Jones' absence from the 2UE airwaves.
2UE's stand-in breakfast host John Stanley lost some 13,000 listeners a week but still took more than twice Hadley's audience with a 16.2 share compared to 7.1 for Hadley.
In Sydney, Austereo's 2_Day held on to the top spot with a 13.8% share, up from 10.6% helped by an aggressive marketing campaign; 2UE was second with an 11.9% share, down from 13.2% ; and Triple M was third with a 9.1% share, down from 10%. DMG's Nova FM dropped share from 9.3% to 8.6% to stay in fourth position.
In other Australian main cities, the top three were as follows (previous % share in brackets):
*Adelaide: SAFM with 26.5(26.1); 5MM with 13.1(13.8 *14.6 in the ratings before that) 5AA with 12.3 (12.3);
*Brisbane - B105FM with 18.8 (21.1 *23.5 in the ratings before that); Triple M with 12.6 (13.0 *16.4 in the ratings before that); NEW97.3FM with 11.8 (9.1 and fourth in the previous ratings when 4KQ was in third position):
*Melbourne -3AW with 12.1(14.3 and second in the previous ratings); Fox FM with 11.6(17.6 and first in the previous ratings); 3LO with 11.1 (9.6): * New DMG station Nova was fourth with 10.5 and 3MM, which was second in the previous ratings with 12.0 fell back to fifth equal with Gold and an 8.5% share.
*Perth - 94.5FM with 22.4 (21.5); All New with 16.3 (18.9 and second in the previous ratings):; 96FM with 15.2 (13.1 and third in December):
Previous 2UE:
Previous Austereo:
Previous Australian ratings:
Previous DMG:
Previous Jones:
Previous Hadley:
Previous MacQuarie:
Previous Southern Cross:
2002-02-20: US radio and TV veteran Howard K Smith has died aged 87 at his home in Bethesda, Maryland.
His later career was with ABC TV but he began his broadcasting career with CBS radio in Berlin in spring 1941, joining the broadcaster after a spell there with the United Press, then one of the major news agencies.
In November that year, he was barred from broadcasting after refusing to include in his broadcasts material that Nazi officials had written and on December 6, the day before Pearl Harbour, he left for neutral Switzerland.
As a member of Edward R. Murrow's famous wartime team of CBS radio correspondents known as "the Murrow Boys," Smith broadcast from Berne for two years and then accompanied American airborne troops in the Battle of the Bulge, covered the Allied crossing of the Rhine and witnessed the Germans' surrender to the Russians in Berlin in May 1945.
In 1946 Smith took over from Murrow as the London-based chief correspondent for CBS in Europe and remained overseas until 1957. By now he was firmly ensconced in CBS but he repeatedly clashed with CBS executives over his editorial views and eventually, following a row over a 1961 broadcast after Ku Klux Klan members viciously beat a small band of Freedom Riders arriving to test new Federal laws banning segregation in interstate travel.
Smith, who had taken over from Murrow a CBS documentary "Who Speaks for Birmingham " (Birmingham, Alabama, was at the centre of segregationist violence), wanted to end the documentary with the words of the 18th-century British statesman Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
He was told he was not to do any more "editorialising" and his 20-year career ended after he had taken the matter up at a lunch with William S. Paley, CBS founder and board chairman.
Smth joined ABC and remained with them until 1979, being best known for his spell as co-anchor of the ABC evening news with Harry Reasoner. In April 197, he resigned over the curtailment of his commentary, after which he and wrote his autobiography.
In Canada, another radio and TV veteran, Harvey Kirck, has died aged 83.
Best known as a CTV news anchor, he began his broadcasting career as a news announcer at radio station CJIC, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario in 1948 and worked for some 12 years in radio stations before first moving into TV.
2002-02-20: The UK Wireless Group has sold yet another station having already cleared its debt by earlier dispositions (See RNW Nov 6, 2001); this time it's a fairly small deal with Capital Radio paying GBP250, 000 for the analogue and FM licences of Big AM which broadcasts to Greater Manchester.
Big AM also has a corresponding digital radio licence broadcasting on the CE Digital multiplex, Capital Radio's joint venture multiplex with Emap.
The licences will be re-branded as Capital Gold and Capital chief executive David Mansfield commented , "The acquisition of Big AM is the latest development in our strategy to build our national presence in UK radio and strengthen our brands."
"This deal allows us to build Capital Radio's presence in the lucrative North-West region and also enables us to expand our successful Capital Gold format."
Big AM currently has a format pop and rock from the last four decades, similar to that of Capital Gold and the new format will also carry local news and information supplied by Capital Radio's Century radio station in Manchester.
Capital Gold already airs in London, Birmingham, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and South Wales
Also in the UK, student radio broadcasting group Campus Media says it hopes to raise around GBP2.5 million through a listing on the Alternative Investment Market.
The listing is part of a transaction under which music entertainment group Channelfly's national student radio network, SBN, which already supplies content to some 50 analogue student radio stations, will go to Campus Media in return for a significant minority shareholding in Campus Media (See RNW Feb 3).
SBN claims to reach more than 500,000 students a month through its existing network and, as well as analogue radio, is also involved in digital radio through a contract with GWR for its programmes to be carried on some of GWR's digital multiplexes and, via SBN (London) Ltd is also part of the consortium that was awarded the third London digital multiplex.
Channelfly acquired SBN some two years ago for GBP One million and in the last financial year SBN lost around GBP 500,000 on a turnover of around GBP420, 000.
In the US, Saga Communications of New England Inc., a subsidiary of Saga Communications, is buying four stations from Tele-Media Company of Vermont LLC for USD9 million; they are WKNE-AM and FM of Keene, New Hampshire and WKVT-AM and FM of Brattleboro, Vermont. Saga already has stations nearby in Manchester, New Hampshire and Springfield, Maine.
And in another US deal, Commonwealth Communications is paying USD4.125 million for KONA-AM and FM in the Tri-Cities market from Tri-Cities Communications.
Previous Capital:
Previous Channelfly:
Previous Mansfield:
Previous Saga (US):
Previous Wireless Group:
2002-02-20: Yet another increase in internet listening has been recorded by MeasureCast whose Internet Radio Listening Index was up 2% in the week to February 10: 16 stations in the MeasureCast Top 25 ranking increased their total number hours streamed, and 17 stations saw an increase in audience size.
At the top end of the rankings, there was again no change apart from a position flip between the fourth and fifth ranked stations.
For the week, the top five by Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) and with previous week's TTSL and Cume persons (CP), a measure of the cumulative audience, in brackets, were:
1: Hot Adult Contemporary Virgin FM - TTSL 292,186 (277,736); CP 47,560 (47,005): Same position with both listening and reach higher.
2: Jazz format Jazz FM - TTSL 267,458 (244,934); CP 74,746 (71,045): Same position with listening and reach up.
3: Listener-formatted MEDIAmazing - TTSL 189,696 (182,774); CP 70,768 (66,668): Same position and listening up but reach down.
4: Classical format King FM - TTSL 139,103 (134,654); CP 23,651 (22,833): Up from fourth with listening and reach each up.
5: Sports talk ESPN - TTSL 108,712 (136,167): 21,054 (25,228) Up from fourth - listening and reach each up.
MeasureCast has also listed its top networks for the week to February 10:
The top five streaming networks were:
1:WARP Radio TTSL 611,975 hours: Cume 121,942 :
2: StreamAudio network TTSL 570,308: Cume 98,903 :
3: Radio Free Virgin TTSL 486,689: Cume 106,491
4: Virgin Radio TTSL 406,640: Cume 73,161:
5: RadioCentral Networks TTSL293,835: Cume 40,805
Previous MeasureCast ratings:
Previous MeasureCast weekly ratings:
MeasureCast web site:
2002-02-19: BBC Radio 1,the Corporation's popular music channel, has apologised over swearing by comedian and spoof-rapper Sacha Baron-Cohen (Ali G) during an interview with breakfast show presenter Sara Cox.
He was on the programme to promote a new song and the interview contained was ended abruptly when, commenting on words edited out of a radio version of the new track before the BBC would allow its broadcast, he said, "we're also not allowed to say motherfucker".
Before that Cox, whose own lewd on-air behaviour has become a trademark, had allowed him to get away with expletives and innuendos referring to genitals, lesbian sex, anal sex and the DJ's breasts.
After Sacha-Cohen was off air, Cox said, "I do apologise if you've got any children in the car with you because I know it's half term in some parts of the country. I do apologise, it is live radio."
Station controller, Andy Parfitt, ordered the presenter to apologise after the interview had been halted, and presenters and production team are to face a grilling about the matter and how to avoid such incidents in future. The BBC said it received around 20 complaints about the interview.
Previous BBC:
Previous Cox:
Previous Parfitt:
2002-02-19: The US National Religious Broadcasters Association (NRB) has accepted the resignation of its President and COO, Wayne Pedersen, who took up the post in October last year after the death of long-time President E. Brandt Gustavson, who died of cancer in May last year.
Pedersen had been embroiled in a month-long debate over the future of the NRB, which is an association of nearly 1500 Christian communicators. In January he was reported as having told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, in which he seemed to question whether NRB as an organization of his concerns that the association was identified too much with the right in politics, saying that when people thought of the NRB, "they think of the political right, and I think that's unfair."
"We missed our main calling with that," he added. " But what's probably more disturbing to me is that evangelicals are identified politically more than theologically. We get associated with the far Christian right and marginalized. To me the important thing is to keep the focus on what's important to us spiritually."
The comments attracted criticism from Donald Wildmon, President of the American Family Association, which is both a large radio group owner and an NRB member.
New NRB chairman, Glenn R. Plummer, who is chairman of the Christian Television Network and the first African-American chairman and CEO for the organisation, said anxieties about a change in direction for the organisation were unfounded.
Ironically the lead story still on the NRB web site is an interview with Pedersen and its latest news story is still about his selection as President.
NRB web site.
2002-02-19: UK Virgin radio will need at least six months to recover from the effects of the clash with its former breakfast host Chris Evans according to the company's managing director says a report in the UK Financial Times.
Evans, who is involved in legal actions against Scottish Media Group (SMG), which took over the station when it bought his Ginger Media Group for GBP225 million, remains a large investor. He is claiming that he is still due to receive share options which SMG say were forfeited when he was dismissed.
The paper quotes MD John Pearson, commenting on the station's audience fall in the latest UK ratings (RNW Feb 1) as saying, "The recovery of this isn't overnight "It will take six to nine months to build from now."
Pearson said part of the problem was that Evans' celebrity dominated the station and added, "The biggest mistake for us after that would have been to go out and get another celebrity. The station is more important than any single presenter."
He also said of the station's loss of market share that Virgin had, "lost more listening hours than listeners," adding," We are still unique as a national station with a 20 to 44-year-old male bias. There is no-one in the country that plays the kind of music we do in the volumes we do."
Previous Evans:
Previous SMG:
UK Financial Times report:
2002-02-19: Seattle-based Fisher Communications has reported a drop of 30% in broadcasting revenues for the final quarter of last year to USD38.4 million and a full year fall of 26% to USD145.5million.
The drop produced a loss for continuing operations in a year that was termed by CEO William Krippaehne Jr, "unprecedented in terms of change, challenges, and the need to adapt quickly." Overall Fisher lost USD7.9 million, 92 cents a share, on its continuing operations compared to a profit of USD31.9 million (USD3.71 per share, in 2000 when the company benefited form the dot.com boom.
In 2000, Fisher also had non-recurring gains totalling USD10.3 million after tax compared to a loss from discontinued operations of USD327, 000 taking the consolidated net loss for the year to December 31 up to USD8.26 million.
Previous Fisher:
Fisher web site:
2002-02-19: Jonathan Shier, the former Managing Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), was paid AUD1 million (around USD500, 000) to leave his job early according to figures given to the country's Senate. Shier, who had been hired with a five-year contract and moved into his post in March 2000 (See RNW March 16, 2000), left in November after taking his accrued leave rather than staying in his post. (See RNW Nov 14, 2001).
Shier had been paid around AUD270, 000 a year excluding his car, superannuation and bonus.
Previous ABC, Australia:
Previous Shier:
2002-02-18: Taking a cue from the title of a profile in the UK Daily Telegraph, "The woman who makes things happen on Radio 4", we start this week's look at print media content on radio by looking at a couple of articles on people who have made things happen in radio.
And first the Telegraph profile by Tom Leonard of BBC Radio 4 controller, Helen Boaden.
She has he says," rolled a couple of sixes this week. First, the controller of Radio 4 basked in reports that her station had won record audiences." The second concerns an initiative to encourage "creativity" within the corporation but we look only at Radio 4.
the channel's trend, writes Leonard, "is unquestionably upwards" and he goes on to note that its soap, The Archers, was named "radio personality of the year" at the Royal Variety Club Awards.
After comments about the programme and various personalities, Boaden commented on the channel's audience which has an average age of 53.
"There's a stereotype of the Radio 4 listener that's older and more narrow-minded than any of the listeners I ever meet," says Boaden "They're people who are curious about the wider world - they love learning things."
Leonard points out that Radio 4 has been gaining listeners for its news programmes(controlled by BBC News, not Boaden) and also for magazine shows, such as Woman's Hour and You And Yours, and comedy shows such as Just A Minute and The News Quiz.
Boaden, he says, wants more comedy, though she is not sure where she can squeeze it in, and has seen old hits such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy been successfully re-broadcast. She insists that she is also "innovating", with new series touching on issues such as numbers and spirituality and Leonard notes that one of her more questionable innovations, the children's show Go4It, has been savaged by the critics. Boaden admits that they are "still struggling to find the right tone" but says it will stay.
Her current priority, she says, is to "convince those who think we only do current affairs and news that we actually do a richer mix than that. Lots of people really only hear Today, The World At One and the 6 o'clock news."
On the far side of the Atlantic, Michael Olesker in the Baltimore Sun profiled another broadcaster who has made things happen in public broadcasting, albeit with different pressures to face than Boaden.
He's Marc Steiner, formerly a talk show host on WJHU-FM and now not only a host but also one of the founders of WYPR (Your Public Radio Inc.), the new incarnation of the former John Hopkins University station.
Olesker notes Steiner's civil rights background and the contrast between him and AM talk shows in the Baltimore area " heavily populated by right-wing Rush Limbaugh imitators who have buried themselves so deeply in the back pockets of Republicans that they couldn't find their way out with a flashlight. "
"Steiner's whole history," he continues, " comes out of the left -- but here's the difference: He's brought a mix of voices, informed and insightful, to his midday shows virtually every day since taking it over several years back. They go at each other from all kinds of directions.
He then notes some of the guests who've been on the show and topics dealt with and quotes Steiner on his objectives. "What we aim for," Steiner was saying yesterday, "is a balanced conversation. We try to reach across the ethnic and racial and political spectrum."
The new station is pretty well all from National Public Radio except for Steiner's shows but it is to start adding local news bulletins and 5-minute local shows, In addition Steiner will begin turning his two-hour Friday slots over to new hosts, hoping to groom talk-show voices for their own full-time shows some time next year.
"We'll spice up the airwaves with some good local stuff," he said.
Praise also for another public broadcaster from Ireland, this time in Kevin Myers' "An Irishman's Diary" in the Irish Times.
"What a pleasure to hear that Lyric FM audiences are steadily increasing," he starts. "It was one of the scandals of Irish life that for so long we were without a classical music channel. We were paying our licence for public service broadcasting, to be sure, but little enough public service broadcasting did we get, and broadcasting classical music was as just about rare as Union Jacks in Crossmaglen."
"Lyric FM" continues Myers " changed that; it has become one of the great consolations of life in Ireland, not least because it has not gone down the Classic FM road of playing Nessan Bloody Dorma and the Bleeding Grand March from Ai-phuqqing-Eeda every five minutes. Indeed, thanks to Lyric FM, I have done what I once thought was impossible: I have fallen hopelessly in love with the music of Shostakovich."
There are more comments but that seems to us a good tribute to end on!
Previous Boaden:
Previous Columnists:
Previous Steiner:
Baltimore Sun - Olesker:
Irish Times - Myers:
UK Telegraph - Leonard:
2002-02-18: Iowa has now joined the list of US States considering legislation to outlaw non-compete clauses in broadcasters contracts. The measure, introduced into the Iowa legislature, is being opposed by the Iowa Broadcasters Association .
So far Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maine have adopted laws banning non-compete clauses and Arizona, Washington, Missouri, and North Carolina are considering them.
2002-02-18: The interim Report on the Flood tribunal's four years of investigation of payments to Ireland's former Communications Minister Ray Burke is not now expected to be published for several months, delaying it until after the country's general election, according to the Irish Times.
The interim report will covers allegations about planning corruption; Burke's links with Century Radio, Ireland's former first national commercial radio station which ended up bankrupt ; and his alleged receipt of massive offshore payments from builders Brennan and McGowan.
So far the tribunal under Mr Justice Flood has cost some IEP 14 million (USD15.5 million) but the paper says legal costs will more than double the figure. The judge asked eight months ago for additional judges to help with the work of the tribunal but so far no appointments have been made although the Irish Attorney General says he has now found suitable candidates and expects to make an announcement soon. Flood has emphasised that the delay in making the appointments has not held up the tribunal and Burke's lawyers have demanded that the report be written by the chairman himself.
Previous Burke:
Previous Century:
Previous Flood Tribunal:
Irish Times report:
2002-02-17: Main licence news in the past week came from Australia where the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has auctioned off the new Perth FM licence for AUD25 million to a joint venture between DMG and ARN (RNW Feb 15): Elsewhere it was quieter although the UK Radio Authority advertised a number of licences and the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has come up with proposals for rule changes that would end a current block to the auction of more than 500 licences.
In Australia, as well as the Perth award, the ABA has also presented its annual report, which includes details of complaints against broadcasters, to parliament and allocated a new community licence in Queensland.
This was the licence for Gympie that has gone to Cooloola Christian Radio Association, which is currently broadcasting on the allocated frequency under a temporary licence. The Association service will provide programs that will cover a wide range of local events, council activities, tourism, children/youth programs and Christian music that will appeal to many different people across the Gympie Christian community.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has allowed extensions of time limits for the implementation of a number of radio services, transmitter changes; it has also approved applications by CHUM Limited for broadcasting licences to carry on four new transitional digital radio undertakings (DRUs) to serve Windsor, Ontario.
The transitional DRUs will simulcast the programming of CHUM's existing two AMs and two FMs in Windsor and will use the EUREKA-147 digital audio broadcasting system; this was first developed in Europe and will be the standard for digital broadcasting in Canada.
The time extensions approved include six months to June this year for a new French-language FM radio station at L'Assomption for Fabrique de la paroisse de L'Assomption-de-la-Ste-Vierge L'Assomption, Quebec; until March this year for the submission of an application predicated on the use of a radio frequency other than 90.9 MHz for the operation of a new Aboriginal-language station to serve Vancouver.
The Commission has also approved an application by Jim Pattison Industries Ltd. to amend the licence for CIFM-FM Kamloops, British Columbia, so it can move the transmitter for CIFM-FM-3 Merritt to a site on Iron Mountain, 22 km southeast of the authorized site and increasing its power from 12 watts to 40 watts and an application by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to amend the licence for CBMT-FM Montreal so it can move its transmitter CBMT-FM-1 Trois-Rivières, Quebec, to a site 1.9 km northeast of the authorized site and by increase its power from 13,000 watts to 14,000 watts;
In Ireland, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI), has announced the launching of the fourth of its programme initiatives for independent broadcasters.
It is putting EUR100,000 (UD87,000) into the New Adventures in Broadcasting scheme that is aimed at developing programming standards in the Irish independent radio sector through such activities as supporting the development of original programmes and also in developing a station's programming schedule. There are two awards, one for the development of one-off programming and the other for regular strands.
In the UK, the Radio Authority, as well as routine work, has launched a consultation exercise about the future of the AM band intended to help develop strategy for development of the band and regulation of services currently broadcasting on AM.
Richard Hooper, Chair of the Radio Authority, said, "With so much development in radio, and the prospect of digital radio becoming steadily more prominent, the Authority feels that the time is now right to carry out a review of its AM waveband strategy in consultation with the industry and other interested parties."
"We would like to hear views on all matters touching the future of AM, including the nature of regulation, the relevance or otherwise of networking, the use of AM for specialist, small-scale and access radio services, the financial viability of AM services, future prospects for existing AM services and audience potential."
The authority has also advertised a new Independent Local Radio licence for Barnsley, in South Yorkshire and announced the applications for its re-advertised Oxford FM licence and the South Hampshire digital multiplex.
For Oxford, where the existing licensee is Fusion FM, the applications have come from:
*Fusion -- a popular music based channel plus local news and information, presented as a local alternative to BBC Radio 1.
*Blue FM - offering a mix of music from the past 40 years plus local news and information.
*Juice FM - a youth-oriented music station with such genres as dance, r'n'b and hip hop.
*More FM - a full service station aimed at a 35 plus audience.
In the case of the South Hampshire digital multiplex, there were two applications. They were from
Capital Radio Digital Ltd, which is proposing seven services plus a channel shared between four providers and Solent Digital Radio Ltd, which is offering ten services. In addition each will carry the local BBC station, Radio Solent.
Capital Radio Digital Ltd is a subsidiary of Capital Radio and its offerings are:
*Adult contemporary -- Ocean FM (provider: Ocean Radio Group Ltd.)
*Contemporary hit radio - Power FM (provider: Ocean Radio Group Ltd.)
*Gold - Capital Gold (provider: Ocean Radio Group Ltd.)
*Soft rock, AC and speech - Wave 105.2 (provider: SRH plc, subject to agreement)
*Easy listening - Saga Radio (provider: Saga Regional Digital Radio Ltd.)
*Rock - The Storm (provider: GWR Group plc)
*AC/world music and speech - Passion for the Planet (provider: Passion for the Planet Ltd.)
a channel to be shared between
a).Student radio (18.00-06.00, every day -- SBN (provider: Channelfly plc));
b). Southampton local service (06.00-11.00, weekdays - SouthCity FM (provider: SouthCity FM Ltd.))
c). Under-10s -(12.00-18.00, weekdays and 06.00-18.00, weekends - Abracadabra (provider: Soundstart Radio Networks Ltd.) )
d). Hospital radio (11.00-12.00, weekdays - Southampton Hospital Radio (provider: Southampton Hospital Broadcasting Association) )
Solent Digital Radio, is jointly owned by Emap Digital Radio Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Emap Performance Ltd., and SCORE Digital Ltd.., a wholly owned subsidiary of Scottish Radio Holdings plc. It is offering:
*Music and talk - Wave 105 (provider: Wave 105.2 FM Ltd.)
Contemporary hits - Power FM (provider: Capital Radio plc)
*Adult contemporary - Ocean FM (provider: Capital Radio plc).
*Gold - Capital Gold (provider: Capital Radio plc).
*Dance - Kiss (provider: Emap Performance Ltd.).
*Popular country - Provider: SCORE Digital Ltd.
*Easy listening - Provider: to be advertised
*Rock - Provider: to be advertised
*Music and football - Providers: Angel Radio, Chaos (Digital) Media Group Ltd., and other local programme providers
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has come up with three options concerning the some 500 licences whose auction was blocked after a court ruling in July of last year against a government decision that non-commercial broadcasters had to bid for the commercial licences it requires to be auctioned.
The proposed solutions are:
*that non-commercial broadcasters be barred from holding licences on commercial parts of the waveband.
*that they may only have commercial frequencies when there are no competing commercial applications.
*or allowing new non-commercial licences only on a community-by-community basis.
The Commission is also asking Congress to amend the contradictory statutes that have caused the problem and, should it make a decision from the options put forward, is likely to face more court action from either commercial or non-commercial broadcasters, depending on the decision.
Previous ABA:
Previous BCI:
Previous CRTC:
Previous FCC:
Previous Hooper:
Previous Licence News:
Previous UK Radio Authority:
ABA web site:
BCI web site:
CRTC web site:
FCC web site:
UK Radio Authority web site:
2002-02-17: Pacifica Radio, which has debts of some USD 4.8 million following a 3-year power battle, has dismissed its national news staff in Washington, D.C., and ended the nightly Pacifica Network News programmes it has been running for some two decades. News will now only be produced on a local basis.
The financial pressures have been cited by non-profit Pacifica as the reason for the action but the company's network news director Patricia Guadalupe told the Washington Post she thought the action was part of a purge by Pacifica's news management that is dominated by former dissidents who fought the previous board.
"It's sad," said Guadalupe. "It's very sad. It's the end of an era. We were the only ones doing stories on issues that no one else in the media was paying attention to."
"This is basically 21st-century McCarthyism here."
Verna Avery-Brown, interim deputy executive of Pacifica Radio, said the dismissals would save around USD1.3 million a year and, together with other cost-cutting measures enable the organisation to keep its network intact. She ruled out the sale of any of the five stations in the network.
Sacking the national news staff will save roughly $1.3 million annually, said.
Avery-Brown said this and other belt-tightening measures will enable Pacifica to keep its network intact. She ruled out the sale of any of its stations, located in New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and Berkeley, California., as well as Washington.
Sale of a station has been strongly opposed by Pacifica and recently Interim executive director Dan Coughlin told listener's to Pacifica's KPFA in Berkeley during an interview that although Pacifica was deeply in debt, it was not penniless.
"If we sold all our assets except the licenses, we would have a $1 million surplus," he said.
He that the network would conduct national fundraising efforts attached to individual station drives.
At the time of the interview no decision had then been taken concerning Pacifica Network news but he said the new regime was working to resolve differences peacefully with station staff adding that , apart from the replacement of general managers at KPFT-FM, Houston, where Duane Bradley has been hired as the new general manager, plus KPFK-FM, Los Angeles, WPFW-FM, Washington and WBAI-FM, New York (See RNW Feb 5) they had not "fired or banned one person" and were "trying to respect everyone's rights."
He also commented on attempts by members of the former Pacifica National Board majority to challenge Pacifica's licenses, saying he thought they would be unsuccessful.
Coughlin also said he strongly supported the idea of moving the national office of Pacifica back to Berkeley.
It was taken to Washington by former executive director Lynn Chadwick after the KPFA protests against the firing of Nicole Sawaya erupted three years ago. " I think it's imperative that the national office move back to Berkeley, its historic home, where Pacifica was born," Coughlin said.
Previous Pacifica:
Pacifica web site (has link to PDF of recent audit - 863 kb and also audio reports concerning end of Pacifica Network News):
Save Pacifica site (has links to release about debts and Coughlin interview):
Washington Post report:
2002-02-17: UK Capital Radio and UBC Media Group have announced that they are to co-operate to develop data services to create a national network that will allow transmission of broadband data over an area covering every major town in England and Wales and will, they hope, boost digital radio.
The new venture will be 70% owned by Capital, and 30% owned by UBC and controlled by a board of five directors, three from Capital and two from UBC
The two companies will combine their local and regional spectrum for the plan, aimed at complementing third-generation mobile devices. Although the system will not allow return transmission of information from recipients of the data, combining it with systems that do such as mobile phones will allow requests to be sent for large amounts of data such as transmitting images, including video and graphics such as mapsor pictures. Under UK regulations a fifth of the bandwidth on a digital license is reserved for data transmission.
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