December 2002 Archive
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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 December comment considers whether in view of recent US complaints about talk radio and media bias, the US needs to reintroduce some form of "fairness doctrine" for broadcasters.
RNW November comment considers whether the US adoption of iBiquity's IBOC digital radio system will prove to be a step forward or one sideways to a technology inferior to that adopted by the rest of the world and offering insufficent benefits to other options including sticking with conventional analogue systems.
RNW October comment looks at the responsibilites of democratic societies and their broadcasters in ensuring adequate and fair news and information broadcasts.
2002-12-31: 2003 is almost certain to see increased de-regulation in broadcasting and further media consolidation under plans being pushed by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, Michael K. Powell, now strengthened by Republican domination of the US.
In particular, the Senate Commerce Committee is now chaired by Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, who recruited Powell as an FCC Commissioner in 1997 and replaced one of Powell's harshest critics, South Carolina Democrat Senator Ernest F. Hollings.
Powell's hand has also been strengthened by a number of court rulings that struck down, or queried, a number of FCC rules, both concerning ownership and matters like Equality of Opportunity regulations.
Most of the attention is directed to television and cable plus cross-ownership restrictions, although Clear Channel has been lobbying for an end to the eight-station cap on ownership of radio stations in a single market.
There is however general consensus that the year will bring in the most wide-ranging changes to be seen in the US since the 1996 Telecommunications Act allowed consolidation that led to many of today's media giants.
As so often happens, those lobbying for changes conveniently forget some of the reasons for original legislation or systems, pointed out succinctly by the Los Angeles Times in an editorial on regulation, which begins, "In the 1920s, so many budding broadcasters were trying out a growing technology called radio that stations cancelled out one another in a mess of howls, screams and whistles. Leaders of the infant industry were forced to implore then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover to "bring order out of chaos," as one journal put it, "so at least some of us can be heard."
After noting some of the changes since 1996, the Times comments that they do not mean, "Powell should accept deregulation at any cost, surrendering the last of the agency's public-interest provisions."
"For instance, Clear Channel Communications, a conglomerate that owns more than 1,000 radio stations, wants the FCC to eliminate the eight-station cap on radio ownership in a single market. The previous loosening to eight helped bring U.S. listeners homogenized, formatted-from-afar commercial radio, the bulk of it aimed at 18-to-34-year-old males. A proposal to allow one company to own two or more television stations in a single market could have a homogenizing effect on local TV as well."
"Powell should defend grass-roots communications like very low-power radio stations run by high schools or the local garage band, and require broadcasters to set aside a modicum of free air time for political candidates. His encouragement of new technologies and media expansion can be healthy. But deregulation that doesn't keep consumers in mind is no public service."
RNW comment: Noting the history of "honesty" in almost all institutions concerned primarily with monetary returns, from the City of London to Wall Street, we remain concerned about the effects of allowing over-concentration of power in any area of life
We are particularly concerned where it is a matter not just of increased powre to gouge out extra financial benefits from monopoly ( a history running from Standard oil through to Microsoft) but more imporantly of the power to manipulate information to the public, the very heart of any genuine democracy.
From regular reading of and exposure to US and other media from round the world, it is clear to us that the US public is already ill-served in many areas; in particular the pressures for blandness in attracting only a very broad audience or of confirmation of prejudices in targeting narrow niche audiences by broadcasters seem to us to have been poorly addressed in the US.
It is also crystal clear that businesses in US broadcasting are in general more concerned to holding and expanding what they have than giving any ground to developments like low power FM or paying some dues to democracy that could hit balance sheets when it comes to political campaigning.
We expect Powell to get his way but we fear that it will be to the benefit of US business not the people of the US. To paraphrase the old saw, "What is good for GM or US media businesses is not guaranteed to be good for the US."
Previous Clear Channel:
Previous FCC:
Previous Powell:
Los Angeles Times editorial:
2002-12-31: The BBC is finally doing away with discs on Radio 1, by switching over to its VCS computer system that stores around a full day of music and is now claimed to be "glitch-free".
Selections will be loaded into the computer when the records have been approved by the channel's play list committee, and the system, which cost around GBP 2million, has already been tested live on air. By the end of 2003, says the corporation, all its national radio channels will be served off computer.
It also says it will not allow the system to create a generation of personality-free DJs and has no plans for US style voice-tracking, the use of DJs to present a number of different shows using pre-recorded inserts.
Previous BBC:
2002-12-31: California Farsi (Iranian language) station KIRN-AM, has been spearheading protests against the detentions of immigrants with visitor status who had registered with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) earlier this month. The INS took into custody many of those who came forward voluntarily because their visas had expires, although many of them were in the process of trying to gain US resident status.
Following the detentions on December 16, the station, which is based in the Simi Valley near Burbank, went on air in 1999 to serve Iranians who had fled their country after the 1979 revolution, dropped its normal programming to concentrate on the registration, which some callers compared to the internment of people of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War.
On listener Navid Sharafatian told the Los Angeles Times, "The station is a kind of town hall. It became a clearinghouse of information. There is Farsi television and other radio, but 670 has become a meeting place for the Iranian community."
Station manager John Paley reiterated the emphasis, commenting, "We are in a major market, but the Iranian community is a small town and we are the meeting place," If a kid loses his dog, we are on the story. To be on top of [the detentions] was a natural."
The Iranian community, says the Times, was outraged at the detentions, feeling that the practice implied they were terrorists and that the U.S. could unfairly deport some to a country they left decades ago as children, although some Iranian-Americans criticised the station for encouraging a protest demonstration outside the INS offices, suggesting that a lower key approach to the INS would have been preferable.
Los Angeles Times report:
2002-12-30: The intervention of Christmas festivities seems to have given various radio columnists an excuse to take time off but didn't prohibit worthy programming nor indeed reviews of some of it.
Some attempts did not work particularly US National Public Radio (NPR)'s attempt to bring back old-time radio comedy drama (See RNW Dec 27) but others produced some memorable phraseology from reviewers.
Amongst those that we noted was a review in the UK Guardian by Elisabeth Mahoney of the BBC World Service "Arabian Nights" programme.
Of this she wrote, "There was a lot of chopping people up into quarters in the Arabian Nights, and plenty of metamorphosis from human to animal as punishment, though only the truly transgressive experienced both. And what transgressors the protagonists were in these magical tales, told by a young woman to prevent the king from killing her, as he has all his other wives."
"To save herself, Shahrazad deftly reaches the "hook" of her narrative each morning when she faces beheading. The king, desperate to know what happens next, relents."
"The fate of those in her stories was not quite so sweet. Ali Baba's brother, trapped in a cave with stolen goods he's attempting to steal again, can't remember the password to get out ("Open satsuma! Open semolina! Sultana! Sardine!) and is thus the first to be quartered."
"A woman who eats rice with tweezers in front of her husband dispenses with dainty cutlery altogether in a graveyard ("oh my ghoul!" she cries hungrily, ripping flesh from bones). Discovered, she turns him into a dog; he responds by turning her into a horse. Another husband is told his wife has given birth to a cat and believes it. None of these couples, you sense, would have exactly shone on Mr & Mrs. With all these trials to contend with, however, not one person complained."
Still in the UK, Paul Donovan in his final RadioWaves column of the year in the UK Sunday Times takes the opportunity to look back at a year that he says has been "…a veritable feast of anniversaries: 10 years of Classic FM, Britain's first national commercial radio station, which has grown so much in its first decade that it has just launched a classical version of MTV; 25 of The News Quiz and File on 4; 30 of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue; 35 of Just a Minute; 50 of the BBC Concert Orchestra; 60 of Desert Island Discs; 70 of the BBC World Service; and 80 of the BBC itself."
He also took the chance to remark on the whys and wherefores of some of the changes, noting amongst other things, "Radio 1's chart show was overtaken in the ratings by the rival Pepsi chart, which may explain why its long-time presenter, Mark Goodier, left Radio 1 shortly afterwards (and starts on the more sedate Classic FM this week). Radio 2 nurtured an increasingly confident host in the attractive shape of the soul singer Mica Paris, and made many polished music documentaries. "
"It was tarnished by the maladroit manner in which it axed Sir Jimmy Young, who, when he returned for his final fortnight, was so sharp, he sounded as if he had never been away."
"Radio 3, shamefully, killed off The Brains Trust, but mounted its first world-music awards. Radio 4 was the most popular station in London for the first time, and broadcast, among many other things, what was thought to be the first programme on grouse-shooting."
And of the major developments of 2002 in UK radio, "The year's uniqueness, of course, lay in the launch of five new national stations. The frustration lay, and continues to lie, in the dearth of digital radio sets on which to listen to them. Digital technology continues to make radio evolve: online use of the BBC World Service has grown phenomenally this year, and dozens of BBC radio shows are now available on the internet for a week after they first go out, a service thousands of people are now making use of."
In the US, the issue of changes to the Voice of America was aired again in the Washington Post, this time in a letter from a union representative who commented on the changes in which pop-music dominated channels are replacing more traditional VOA speech-based services.
In the letter, Gary A. Marco, President of Union local 1418, comments, "No matter what spin the Broadcasting Board of Governors puts on these program shifts, they show that the United States has disengaged itself from being involved in credible discussion of critical issues in the Middle East and Iran."
"Both Sawa and Farda insult the intelligence and cultures of Arabic and Iranian people as well as the sacrifices and risks key groups in these societies are willing to make to change their political landscapes for the better."
"American culture is already popular around the world and doesn't need to be sold. The problem that is not being addressed is an explanation of U.S. policies. That discussion has now been cut off. In the case of Sawa and VOA Farsi broadcasts, the VOA charter, which requires the explanation of U.S. policy, is being abandoned or eroded."
"It is incomprehensible that U.S. officials would allow taxpayer funds to be spent to abandon or even undermine the articulation of U.S. interests in the Middle East during a period of heightened internal and external tensions, which appear to be leading to war."
RNW comment: On which note, we think it worth considering that good old journalistic standby of the questions, "Who benefits?" and "Why now?" Suggestions to the Washington Post please, rather than us.
And finally a look at a North American media baron, Allan Slaight, the 71-years-old executive chairman of Toronto-based Standard Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's largest privately-held media company. Slaight was featured in an article in Canadian Business by Zena Olijnyk which notes of his personal fortune (of some CAD1.23 billion - USD billion) that his secret that Slaight, an amateur magician, "has the same impeccable sense of timing in business as he does when performing magic."
Among the examples his purchase of shares in Global Television at as low point in 1974, and his purchase of Standard itself. Olijnyk then comments that his latest coup, the purchase of Telemedia's radio stations, was "possibly the most brilliant media swap this country has ever seen."
In all he acquired 64 stations but only two months later sold 29 mostly rural stations at more or less their purchase price, thus quadrupling Standard's radio holdings but also pulling debt down to around half the CAD275 million it had to take on for the original deal.
Day-to-day control of Standard, she points out, is now in the hands of Allan's son Gary but the father still has his say. "I don't normally dictatorially override any decisions made by Gary and Dave Coriat, Standard's CFO," he says. "But if I really resist something, it generally doesn't happen; although it hasn't really come up yet."
Gary, 51, puts it this way: "We obviously check with him. But we're usually on the same page." Coriat, who has been with the company for 17 years, calls Slaight the "the ultimate entrepreneur." He has the "uncanny ability" to absorb information presented to him and then make a firm decision, quickly calculating the potential return while protecting his downside-a sort of "controlled risk-taking," says Coriat. "He's not about to blow the money he's worked so hard to earn."
The heart of Standard is radio and Slaight's career in the medium goes back more than half a century. His start came when his father, who had bought the Moose Jaw Times-Herald in Saskatchewan in 1946, added the local radio station CHAB-AM to his holdings a couple of years later.
17-years-old Allan did various jobs at the station, saying of the experience, "I had never been inside a radio station before. But after one short visit to CHAB, I realized radio was what I wanted to do with my life."
He subsequently worked at several stations in Edmonton and then in 1958 got a big break when he moved to CHUM in Toronto as program director, eventually working his way up to become vice-president and general manager for CHUM AM/FM. In 1970, he mortgages his house and with partners bought CFGM-AM in Toronto, adding COX-AM in Montreal a year later. By 1973 he had merged his business with IWC Communications Ltd., which soon bought a stake in money-losing Global Television and installed Slaight as chairman, president and CEO.
IWC sold its Global holdings in 1977 and Slaight took advantage of his share to become sole shareholder in IWC, which he renamed Slaight Communications in 1979. The Standard coup results from a meeting with one of Hollinger's directors whilst Slaight was on holiday in Florida in 1985. He asked why Hollinger didn't sell its Standard Broadcast division. It did and Slaight gained seven radio stations, beating off a higher bid from Selkirk Communications when Hollinger stuck to its original deal.
Of radio, Slaight says it's "never been in decline", adding, "and certainly these day's it's been very robust."
Previous Columnists:
Previous Donovan:
Previous Mahoney:
Canadian Business - Olijnyk on Allan Slaight:
UK Guardian - Mahoney:
UK Sunday Times - Donovan:
Washington Post - Marco letter re VOA:
2002-12-30: While most US government financed propaganda is aimed overseas boosts the image of the US, a new Mexican radio drama produced by the Mexican government and subject of a feature by Los Angeles Times writer Anna Gorman does the reverse.
Adapted from a novel written by Enrique Romero Moreno, a former protection officer at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles, the series is said by the Mexican government to be designed to give potential migrants an "unvarnished" view of hardships they may face rather than trying to stop migrants from moving to the US.
The 30-part series features poor workers who struggle with life in Los Angeles - from a character who contracts HIV to another who goes days without a job.
''People have visions that it's a matter of taking the bus, crossing the border, finding a good job and sending money back home,'' said Candido Morales, who heads President Vicente Fox's newly established Institute for Mexicans Abroad. ''But there are a lot of incidents that happen along the way. Some are positive and some are negative.''
Laura Diaz de Leon of the government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was more blunt: ''The American dream isn't so much of a dream,'' Diaz said. ''The reality is the opposite.''
The 30 part series is airing this month in Mexican states with high numbers of migrants and there are plans to take it to California in January by Fresno-based public radio network Radio Bilingue.
Los Angeles Times report:
2002-12-29: Despite the holiday break, the regulators kept up a reasonable flow of work over the remaining days of the past week.
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has allocated new community licenses in Gosford, New South Wales, and South Hobart, Tasmania.
The Gosford community licence has been awarded to Gosford Christian Broadcasters Ltd (Rhema FM): It was competing against Radio Yesteryear Inc (general community interested in music from 1930s to 1960s); and Wyong Gosford Progressive Community Radio Inc (minority groups) for the third community licence for the area.
The ABA had awarded two licences in October to Five-O-Plus Public Radio Association Inc and Central Coast Broadcasters Ltd but held back the award of the third licence.
The South Hobart licence went to Tasmanian University Broadcasters Inc (TUB Inc)., whose youth-service proposal had been competing against an application by and Cadence FM ,which was proposing a general community service.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has approved a reorganisation involving CHEZ-FM Inc., Rogers (Toronto) Ltd. and Rogers Radio (British Columbia) Ltd. that will in effect put the licences owned by all three under Rogers Broadcasting Limited ( RBL), which already fully owns Rogers (Toronto) Ltd. and Rogers Radio (British Columbia) Ltd.
Under the plan all the shares of the three are to be transferred to a holding company that in turn is to be amalgamated with Rogers Media and CHEZ, Rogers Toronto, Rogers BC and two unregulated corporations will be amalgamated with RBL, which remains a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rogers Media.
Ireland was quiet, but in the UK, the Radio Authority has published assessment of the award of the Swansea digital multiplex to TWG Emap Digital Ltd., the sole applicant.
It is proposing a bouquet of six commercial services, although only four will be carried when it launches in January 2004.
The Authority noted the local support the application had garnered and welcomed the fact that The Wave and Swansea Sound, the extremely popular local commercial radio services for Swansea, would now become available in digital form.
It has also advertised a new licence, for either AM or FM, depending on the successful applicant's preference, for the town of Buxton and other parts of the High Peak district, in Derbyshire.
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been involved in a mix of leniency and continuing enforcement actions. It's also being asked by the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council to ensure that Equality of Opportunity (EEO) Rules apply to part-time employees as well as full-time ones. The Council in filings to the Commission says that this is "fundamental" if adoption of any rules is to be meaningful and notes that part-time work is a prime entry route into broadcasting for women and minorities.
Let off the hook was former hacker Kevin Mitnick, who is to get back his amateur radio licence (See RNW Dec 24) and is also now going to be allowed back on the Internet.
On the same day the Commission reduced a penalty on BanJo Communications and a day later it dropped, on financial hardship grounds, a penalty of USD10, 000 on Michigan pirate operator Thomas A. Brothers (See RNW Dec 25).
The FCC also said it had issued 27 Notices of Apparent Liability (NALs) totalling USD271, 000 in November. Of those 20 related to safety-related rule breaches and the other seven concerned unauthorised operation, and main studio location.
These seven totalled USD 44,000 relating to five NALs about unauthorized operation, and USD 23,000relating to two NALs listed under the heading main studio location but including other offences.
The FCC has also issued its list of Notices of Apparent Liability issued during November (See RNW Dec 28). Most related to or included various safety-related rules including the highest penalty notice issued, of USD 21, 000 to 4M concerning various breaches by WLEE-AM, of Richmond, Virginia, including those related to fencing requirements for its antenna.
The next highest penalty notice, of USD20, 000 to Westshore Broadcasting regarding various antenna-related breaches including warning light illumination failures at WOCA-AM, Ocala, Florida; and the third highest went to of USD 19, 000, went to Pilgrim Communications regarding various breaches in relation to KWYD-AM, Colorado Springs, Colorado, including Emergency Alert System equipment readiness.
The Commission also issued four USD 10, 000 penalty notices concerning unauthorised operation and another of USD 4, 000 regarding unauthorized operation.
Previous ABA:
Previous CRTC:
Previous FCC:
Previous Licence News:
Previous UK Radio Authority:
ABA web site:
CRTC web site:
FCC web site :
UK Radio Authority web site:
2002-12-29: Although digital radio now looks as if it may take off with the UK as cheaper receivers come on the market, its future seems less certain in North America where there is a split between the US, which has opted for iBiquity's IBOC system, and Canada, which has gone for separate digital channels along with most of the world.
The US system recently re-named HD radio in a marketing move, crams the digital signal into the same frequency as existing Fm and AM signals and thus may deliver lower technical quality but has the benefit of backing from some two thirds of the top 20 US radio companies.
It could, however, come under threat from software developments that digitise analogue systems and reconstitute them so as to reduce significantly the effects of interference and are claimed to approach the same quality as Ibiquity's system from existing signals once a suitable receiver has been purchased. It would not however be able to offer the same amount of other data information as other systems.
In Canada, the US system is regarded by many in the radio business as having only minor advantages over existing FM signals and being in the "why did they bother?" category but its existence is having an inhibiting effect on the take-up of digital since the US and other DAB systems are incompatible.
Canada, which like Europe adopted the Eureka 147 Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) system, now has some 60 stations in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Windsor, Ontario, simulcasting digital signals with another 16 stations in Ottawa expected on air in 2003.
There are very few listeners, however, as receivers remain expensive with the main supplier, InterTan Inc., the Barrie, Ont.-based parent of Radio Shack, offering models at CAD 299 (USD 190) or CAD 399 (USD 250) for a model with a built-in MP3 player; this compares with a current UK low-end receiver price of GBP99 (USD 150) for which there was more demand than supply in the run-up to Christmas this year.
The UK however has an additional advantage of extra channels, partly because of a government policy that gave automatic renewal to analogue licence holders if they provided a service on the relevant local digital multiplex.
In Canada, adding a single-channel transmitter to simulcast an existing programme costs a station some CAD 300, 000 (USD 190,000) and with audiences that the CBC estimates at around 500 for its four English-language channels in Toronto, broadcasters see this as a high price.
Some, like CHUM's vice-president of industry affairs and digital radio operations Duff Roman see adoption of digital as unavoidable in a digital age.
He told the Toronto Globe and Mail that it was a matter of "as long as it takes", adding, "There's a whole sort of inertia that we have got to deal with. . . If you tell people about DAB, their first reaction is to find a way of getting out of it rather that making a commitment. You have to break that down."
On the other side of the fence is Standard Broadcasting president and chief executive officer Gary Slaight, who is reluctant to invest and points out there are virtually no listeners. He is also an investor in Internet audio services and told the paper, "When this [digital radio] all started, there was no Internet. There were no kids on computers listening to the radio and downloading files. It wasn't happening then and it's happening now. I think we maybe missed the boat."
"Before we spend millions and millions of dollars as an industry . . . let's make sure we're not going to be sitting here in two years saying 'This is a stupid thing to do, nobody is really interested in it.' "
Previous CHUM:
Previous iBiquity:
Previous Standard Broadcasting:
Toronto Globe and Mail report:
2002-12-28: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued 27 Notices of Apparent Liability (NALs) totalling USD271, 000 in November according to its list just released. Of those 20 related to safety-related rule breaches and totalled USD 204,000 and the other seven concerned unauthorised operation, and main studio location.
These seven totalled USD 44,000 relating to five NALs about unauthorized operation, and USD 23,000 relating to two NALs listed under the heading main studio location but including other offences.
Previous FCC:
2002-12-28: Clear Channel has fired Steve Smith, the second ranked executive at its entertainment division, and also the four-strong public relations staff art the division including chief spokesman Howard Schacter according to the New York Post, which speculates that the radio giant may be preparing to sell off its entertainment division.
The paper says the cuts were part of a cost-cutting exercise at the division but had gained no confirmation from Clear Channel and the paper notes that it did not issue a news release on the cuts, adding that Clear Channel has "been criticized in some quarters for being less than candid with investors."
"Recently," it notes, "the company opted not to announce its acquisition of New York concert promoter Metropolitan Entertainment for roughly $10 million, although news of the deal eventually leaked to the press.
In the most recent quarter, Clear Channel's entertainment business - mainly the former SFX Entertainment that it bought two years ago for USD 4 billion and which includes artist representation as well as concert promotion - saw revenue plunge nearly 18 percent, while cash flow fell 20 percent, although its figures filed for the nine months to the end of September showed operating profit of $100.4 million compared to a loss of $42.4 million for the same period of 2001.
The Post says that the division's performance has led to speculation that Clear Channel may sell the division but the company has denied this.
Previous Clear Channel:
New York Post report:
2002-12-28: The BBC, which has been having a busy period of anniversaries recently, including the 70th anniversary of the World Service (See RNW Dec 19) and its own 80th anniversary (See RNW Nov 14 ) has also announced a series of programmes on BBC Radio 4 to march the 80th anniversary of religious broadcasting on the BBC.
They include the broadcast on January 1 of a specially commissioned poem, Keeping The Feast by Michael Symmons Roberts that examines the idea of ritual and celebratory meals across different religions. Interspersed with the poem are the voices of Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs, talking about the significance of both feasting and fasting to their faiths.
In addition the January 5th edition of the channel's Sunday Worship programme will include a musical composition by John Dankworth that combines jazz idioms with the choral harmonies of the St Martin-in-the-Fields Choir as a musical accompaniment to the words of the BBC motto - Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation.
The first religious broadcast on the BBC was a radio talk given by the Revd J A Mayo, Rector of Whitechapel, on 24 December 1922 and radio's longest running daily programme, the Daily Service marks its own 75th anniversary on January 2; its history is examined in a programme, The Lady Behind The Daily Service, to be broadcast that day, which takes a look at how the work of Miss Kate Corduex led to the start of the programme. She first wrote to the BBC in 1926 asking for a daily evensong to be aired and persisted until she got her way two years later.
Previous BBC:
2002-12-28: In another US radio deal, Lakeshore Media LLC is to pay USD 4million for WKLN-AM and WSOS-FM, owned by Westshore Broadcasting and WSOS-FM Inc. and licensed to St. Augustine Beach and St. Augustine.
The AM is currently not on air but has a construction permit for an upgrade; it will become WSOS-AM when it goes on air.
2002-12-27: MUSICMATCH had two Christmas channels and also kept its top station rank in the Arbitron-MeasureCast ratings for the week to December 15 just released; MUSICMATCH Traditional Christmas Channel was eighth with 117,880 hours of Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) and MUSICMATCH Contemporary Christmas Channel was ranked tenth with 93,564 TTSL.
Clear Channel was top network. Listening was down slightly over the week.
For the week to Dec 15, Arbitron-MeasureCast's top five stations ranked by Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) with (in brackets) TTSL and Cume persons (a measure of the cumulative audience -CP) for the previous week - were:
1: Internet only artist-match MUSICMATCH - TTSL 321,494 (292,187); CP 145,002 (112,330). Same position with higher listening and reach.
2: Adult alternative Radioio - TTSL 262,458 (243,866); CP 53,759 (52,024) Up from fourth with higher listening and reach.
3: Jazz format Jazz FM - TTSL 223,280 (285,255); CP 53,812 (83,668): Down from second with lower listening but higher reach.
4: Classical format WQXR-FM- 220,250 (187,505); CP 35,678 (34,353). Up from sixth with higher listening and reach.
5: Hot Adult Contemporary Virgin FM - TTSL 178,533 (238,961); CP 32,187 (38,138). Down from third with lower listening and reach.
The top five networks for the week to December 15 (Previous week's figures in brackets) were:
1: Clear Channel Worldwide TTSL 1,508,860 (1,397,207); CP 326,379 (330,845) - Same rank with higher listening but slightly lower reach.
2: MUSICMATCH Inc. TTSL 1,392,257 (1,304,343); CP 417,349 (403,898). Same rank with higher listening and reach.
3: StreamAudio TTSL 1,038,810 (1,039,225); CP 151,393 (154,427). Same position with slightly lower listening and reach.
4: Radio Free Virgin TTSL 622,614 (701,852): CP 102,048 (120,784) Same position with lower listening and reach.
5: WARP Radio TTSL 610,857 (432,791) hours: CP 109,407 (117,654) - Same position with higher listening but reach was down.
Previous Arbitron-MeasureCast ratings:
Arbitron web site:
2002-12-27: US National Public Radio (NPR)'s attempt to bring back old-time radio comedy drama to the US last week (See RNW Dec 16) failed its mission according to David Folkenflik, writing in The Baltimore Sun.
He says of the play "I'd Rather Eat Pants" that, "though born of an admirable impulse", it wasn't funny, adding, "I'm not saying it failed to be uniformly funny. I'm saying that it was mirthless. My car was quieter than a Trent Lott testimonial as I drove in to the office each day last week, listening to the ostensibly humorous I'd Rather Eat Pants."
NPR's listeners, he wrote, tended to his view, with the comments from some thousand e-mails being overwhelmingly critical, and even the local NPR affiliate being less then enthusiastic about the end result.
Andy Bienstock, program director for Baltimore NPR affiliate WYPR-FM, commented, "I thought it was an interesting experiment. It was a nice try."
The play was broadcast in episodes inside NPR's Morning Edition show and its executive producer Ellen McDonnell told the paper she fell in love with the play during its evolution but didn't claim it had succeeded. "It didn't work, we needed to tweak it more," she said. "But we'll get back on the horse."
To those who had e-mailed, she responded, "Clearly our holiday gift to listeners was not a tasty treat for you. We wanted to give listeners a respite from racism, war and paedophilia as they approached the holiday season. Sorry it didn't work for you. Stay with us."
Previous NPR:
Baltimore Sun review:
2002-12-27: KKSU-AM, the station formerly operated by Kansas State University's College of Agriculture and closed down a month ago in a deal over sporting rights, is currently being featured by Current Magazine that termed it a "living relic of public radio's beginnings."
The station, which broadcast livestock reports and agricultural updates for only five hours each weekday, went silent on November 27th for just four days under its 79th year on air, when the University closed it as the result of a dispute over broadcast rights to US football games.
The station first went on air in 1924 as KSAC following early experiments in weather broadcasting at Kansas State Agricultural College; four years later it gained the powerful 580 AM frequency which it shared with Topeka commercial station WIBW-AM, which over the years tried many times to buy out the university's interest.
Ralph Titus, who worked at the station for 40 years until retiring as station manager in 1994, told Current that the struggle intensified when the family of publisher and powerful Kansas Republican Oscar Stauffer bought the station in the late '50s. They tendered legitimate proposals to take the frequency, and when those failed they tried wielding political influence, Titus says.
In the end, however, it was a deal over football that finally granted WIBW, now owned by Georgia-based Morris Communications, its dream.
In 1969, the university gave WIBW a non-exclusive time contract to broadcast its football games in perpetuity, which the school had been airing on KSAC in addition to distributing them to other stations. WIBW continued to broadcast Kansas State football and in 1997 it signed an exclusive agreement with the university that went well until Kansas State looked for other deals. It was offered USD 1.2 million a year by another Topeka network, twice the amount offered by Morris, but dependent on exclusive access.
Morris offered to ignore the agreement if KKSU was taken off-air as a quid-pro-quo and the university lost two court cases in which it tried to argue that later contracts vacated the original contract.
Morris then offered to sweeten its deal with a payment of USD800, 000 in addition to passing on the games; Kansas State asked for USD1.5 million and Morris agreed, sealing KKSU's fate.
"Part of my 40 years were spent fending off their various schemes," Titus says. "To have them finally win irritates the hell out of me."
"It's a real tragedy," he added. "It was one of the important public broadcasting stations in the U.S. for some time, and an important voice for the university which is now stilled."
In one way, however, KKSU still lives on, despite having no spectrum: The university announced a fortnight ago that commercial farm-oriented station KFRM-AM will carry KKSU's 75-year-old daily program Agriculture Today, reaching 146 counties.
Current magazine report:
KKSU web site - archive of final day
2002-12-26: Synergy that should please both US radio and outdoor companies is being tried out in the Bay Area and Sacramento according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
It reports that electronic billboards in Palo Alto, Daly City and Fremont are being equipped to pick up the radio stations being received in automobiles, assess the most popular formats and channels and then through a database put up adverts that are linked to profiles of typical listeners to the station.
The idea is to target adverts more closely to the perceived buyers and Tom Langeland, president of the Sacramento firm Alaris Media Network, which owns the 10 video screen billboards commented, "People are struggling, the world is becoming a more competitive place, and advertising dollars have been a huge, misplaced factor. Advertisers don't know where their money is going."
The system is being developed by Mobiltrak of Chandler, Arizona, to pick up radio waves "leaked" from the antennas of cars passing by and pinpoint the stations being played. They system assesses the most popular stations and targets adverts to drivers fitting the stations typical listener profiles.
"I can tell you how much money they spent on fast food in the last week. I can tell you where they are shopping," said Phyllis Neill, chief operating officer of Mobiltrak. "I can tell you what percentage of them were married and shop at Petsmart and made more than $100,000 a year and potentially could come to Office Max in the next six months."
"We have only just begun to scratch the surface of what the technology can do," she added.
San Francisco Chronicle report:
2002-12-26: The Pune-based Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), which is an autonomous body under the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, is to launch a community radio project funded by the ministry, which earlier this year started to promote the idea of stations for communities and educational institutions (See RNW Aug 31).
It is expected to be on the air with test transmissions in early May 2003 and cost around 5 million rupees (USD105, 000). Its output will focus on information, education and societal development and also give a platform for artistes. The programmes will be produced by FTII students and project coordinator Satish Kumar told the Times of India, "We will be targeting programmes for young mothers, agriculturists, non-profit organisations, teachers, commercial sex workers and general capsules on health, safety, retirement etc."
India first community station went on air in October in Andhra Pradesh (See RNW Oct 9)
Previous Indian Radio:
2002-12-25: Entravision has strengthened is hand in the greater Los Angeles market with agreement to acquire three FM's from New York headquartered Big City Radio to add to its existing cluster of three stations. It's paying USD1000 million in cash and 3.77 million shares of Entravision's Class A Common Stock, making the total price some USD137 million.
Entravision is to begin managing the stations under an interim time brokerage agreement early in January and if regulatory approval goes smoothly it expects to close the deal in the first quarter of 2003.
The stations involved are KLYY-FM, KVYY-FM and KSYY-FM and the sale more than tripled the price of Big City stock on the American Stock Exchange on Tuesday: They closed at USD 1:53 compared to a 32 cent closing price on Friday (Dec 20 ) when the stock was last previously traded. Big City has been struggling to pay its debts and defaulted on a recent interest payment; it announced a month ago that it was to auction all of its 12 remaining stations (See RNW Nov 6), warning that it might face bankruptcy if it failed to make a sale.
Entravision currently owns KSSC-FM, KSSD-FM and KSSE-FM in the Los Angeles market, the largest Spanish-language media market in the US, and Chairman and CEO Walter Ulloa commented, "This transaction represents an important strategic step in broadening our presence in the nation's largest Hispanic market."
"The addition of these three stations will expand our Los Angeles presence, giving us a larger platform to drive ratings and revenues through our Super Estrella (music-driven, pop and alternative Spanish rock format ) format. We also expect to benefit from Big City's exit from the Los Angeles market. Finally, our six-station cluster will provide us with ample flexibility in developing formats aimed at our target audience."
In Illinois, Triad Broadcasting Company has agreed to pay JMP Media USD37 million for four Peoria stations, "Lite Rock "WSWT-FM, oldies WPBG-FM, News WMBD-AM, and sports WWFS-AM.
Triad will begin operating the stations on January 1 under a local marketing agreement; JMP Media president Mike Wilde will continue to manage local station operations and will become Vice President and Market Manager of Triad Broadcasting. He will also take an equity holding in the group.
In Georgia, Archway Broadcasting Corp. is paying McClure Broadcasting USD 15 million for four stations, adult contemporary WCGQ-FM, country WKCN-FM, news/talk WRCG-AM and oldies WRLD-FM.
In California, Hi-Favor Broadcasting is paying Chase Radio Partners USD 10 million for talk-format KSDO-AM, San Diego. The station is currently operated by Clear Channel under a joint sales agreement.
Previous Big City Radio:
Previous Entravision:
Previous Triad Broadcasting:
Previous Ulloa:
2002-12-25: Michigan pirate operator Thomas A. Brothers has escaped a USD10, 000 penalty from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for operating an unlicensed FM station because he couldn't afford to pay.
Brothers had not denied the offences, but had provided financial documentation to show that he was unable to pay the penalty.
Previous FCC:
2002-12-24: XM Satellite Radio says it has now arranged finance totalling USD450 million to keep it going until it breaks into a positive cash flow; USD 200 million will come from new funding and USD250 million from payment deferrals and related credit facilities from General Motors (GM).
The new funding is in the form of 10% Senior Secured Discount Convertible Notes due in 2009 and a small concurrent common stock sale; among the purchasers of the notes, which are convertible into common stock at USD3.18 per share, are American Honda Motor Co., Inc. and Hughes Electronics Corporation.
The GM financing comprises the exchange of approximately USD115 million in fixed payments due to GM through 2006 for USD89 million of 10% Senior Secured Convertible Notes due 2009; a USD100 million Credit Facility due 2009 with an annual interest rate of 6 month LIBOR (the rate at which London Banks exchange funds between themselves) plus 10 percent to be used only for payments to GM; and the right to satisfy up to USD35 million of certain future payment obligations to GM in stock (at then current market value) rather than cash. In connection with the USD100 million Credit Facility, GM will receive 10 million common stock warrants at USD3.18 per share. The conversion price for the GM Notes varies from USD5.00 to USD20.00 per share, depending upon the future price of XM stock.
In addition to the financing package, XM today starts an Exchange Offer for all USD325 million of its outstanding 14% Senior Secured Notes due 2010 for New 14% Senior Secured Discount Notes due 2009, warrants and cash. The financing package is contingent on at least a 90% participation threshold of the outstanding Senior Notes participating in the Exchange Offer, which can be waived by the Company with the concurrence of the investors in the10% Senior Secured Discount Convertible Notes and General Motors.
Commenting on the arrangement, XM President and CEO Hugh Panero said, "With this financing package, we believe we have achieved full funding through cash flow breakeven. The financing also removes a major roadblock to our Company being valued based on its marketplace progress, business plan execution and future economic potential - all of which are exceptional."
XM is also adding two new members to its board on completion of the transactions; They are radio industry veteran R. Steven Hicks, co-founder of SFX Broadcasting and former President and CEO of Capstar Broadcasting who was responsible for inventing the LMA (local marketing agreement), and Thomas G. Elliott, Executive Vice President, Automobile Operations of American Honda Motor Co.
XM says that it is on target to have more than 350,000radios sold by year-end. Although some of them may be gifts that will not be activated until next year.
XM shares were 49 cents up at USD3.48 at one stage on Monday and ended the day up 19 cents (just over 6%) at USD3.19.
Previous Panero:
Previous XM:
2002-12-24: SMG, the former Scottish Media Group, has confirmed agreement to sell is publishing business to Gannett U.K. Limited, a subsidiary of the US publisher, for GBP216 million (USD 336 million) in cash.
The deal is subject to the approval of SMG shareholders and has also been referred to the UK Competition Commission, which is expected to report on the matter by March 10 next year.
SMG, which was saddled with around GBP400 million (USD 623 million) of debt and had to renegotiate its banking covenants (See RNW March 16), will use the funds received (Some GBP212 million -USD 330 million net after transaction costd) to reduce its debt as it moves to concentrate e on its broadcasting business (See RNW Sept 11).
Commenting on the announcement, SMG Chief Executive Andrew Flanagan, said, "The sale of our publishing business, in a relatively short space of time, is to the benefit of everyone involved - readers, advertisers, staff and shareholders. This is an excellent price, for an excellent business and I'm confident that it will continue to thrive under its new owner."
SMG, which had in September deferred a decision on the payment of its interim dividend until the outcome of the sale of SMG Publishing was known says it will now pay combined interim and final dividend for 2002, of 2.5 pence per share when the sale is successfully completed: this will compare with a 2001 total dividend of 3 pence a share.
Previous Flanagan:
Previous SMG:
2002-12-24: Former computer "hacker" Kevin Mitnick is to get back his amateur radio licence under an "initial" decision by Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard L. Sippel.
The restoration of the licence to Mitnick, who had held a ham radio licence for a quarter of a century until it was removed a year ago, was supported by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforcement bureau and the judge commented in his decision that Mitnick "has been sufficiently rehabilitated to show that he now possesses the requisite character for the renewal of his licenses in the amateur radio service."
Mitnick received his first "ham radio" licence as a General Class Operator under call sign WA6VPS in 1976 and surrendered it at the urging of his juvenile parole officer who had received a complaint from another amateur operator alleging that Mr. Mitnick had interfered with his station signal, allegations that Mitnick denies and were not proven. In 1986 he was issued with call sign N6NHG in 1986, the licence that was removed because he was not "morally fit" to be a ham radio operator.
In part the removal of the licence was on the grounds that in a renewal application made in 1999 before his release from prison (He was arrested in 1995 and finally released in January 2001 but is still on probation until January 2003) Mitnick had given not his prison address but the address and phone number of his grandmother, who had been accepting messages for him.
The judgement notes that Mitnick has said he had not given the address to hide the fact that he was in prison but had thought that this was well known and details support for his application for the licence restoration from various quarters including his probation officer and David G. Hall, SVP in charge of programming at Premiere Radio Networks.
Also benefiting from a court ruling has been Scott Ginsburg, DG Systems chairman and former Evergreen Media CEO, who was found in April to have violated US securities laws by providing insider information about potential acquisitions of EZ Communications and Katz Media Group to his brother and father.
In July he was ordered to pay USD 1 million by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp, who has now accepted that the decision was based on speculation and struck down the decision of a West Palm Beach jury on the basis that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did not come up with enough evidence.
Ginsburg's brother Mark and his father Jordan agreed in April to pay USD4.7 million in connection with the period in 1996to 1997 when Scott Ginsburg headed Evergreen.
Less fortunate were two companies issued with penalties by the FCC, BanJo Communications Group of New York and Alpha Ambulance, Inc. of San Juan, Puerto Rico, although the former did gain a reduction in penalty.
Banjo, licensee of WCHN-AM, WBKT-FM, and WKYZ-FM, Oneonta, New York, was issued with a USD12, 000 forfeiture to Emergency Alert System (EAS) related offences, reduced from an initial order for USD23, 000 issued in June after a March inspection showed that the three stations did not have an operational EAS system.
The original penalty included forfeitures of USD 4,000 for violations by each of the stations and, although the FCC rejected most of Banjo's submission it accepted that the offences related to one set of EAS equipment shared by the three stations and thus the forfeiture amount for the three violations from $12,000 to $4,000.
It also reduced the total forfeiture by another USD3, 000 on the basis that this was the first and only time Banjo had been found in violation of FCC rules.
Alpha had been issued with a USD10, 000 forfeiture order in June for operation of radio transmission equipment without authorization. Alpha had argued that it could not afford to pay but the Commission disagreed and confirmed the penalty.
Previous FCC:
2002-12-23: As the BBC World Service celebrates 70 years of broadcasting, it seemed appropriate in our look at print comment on radio this week to consider some of the comments on the service: Disappointingly to us, albeit not unsurprisingly, chauvinism ruled with the comment coming from British papers whilst the US ones gave the event a big miss but did carry stories about the latest US propaganda radio efforts (also carried in the UK).
Commenting on celebrations by the World Service, Vanora Bennett in the UK Times, commented, "Size definitely counts on this birthday. The knees-up is going on for two weeks, as the World Service shapes up for the 21st century."
She then noted that developments in some ways have hit the service with for example, listening plummeting in India as the fraction of people who could watch TV increased from less than a fifth to more than two-thirds over a decade; despite its audience in India falling by nearly a half, however, the World Service still reached 150 million listeners a week, some three million down from its peak.
On the positive side, Bennett noted, "…the scope of Sunday's global music party was a reminder of how far the World Service has come since it was born as the British Empire Service in 1932. On Sunday it was broadcasting from Dakar, Kabul, Mexico City and Bombay as well as London, making the point that it has long stopped being the organ through which London talked to the Empire - and become the medium through which the peoples of the former Empire can talk back… It might have been turned to a post-Imperial purpose, but the World Service is still offering radio with a pure, old-style mission: to improve and uplift as much as to entertain."
The introduction to the service we couldn't omit was that of the then Sir John Reith, made about the then Empire Service in December 1932, and quoted in an Elisabeth Mahoney review in the UK Guardian. The service, he said, for some time would "transmit comparatively simple programmes to give the best chance of intelligible reception"." He then added a comment that could never make it to air today either in the UK or US, saying the output would be "neither very interesting nor very good".
As Mahoney commented, "A special 70th anniversary edition of Pick of the World (World Service, Saturday), which included Reith's comments, showed how wrong he was."
"Featuring some delicious antique material, it also showcased the geographic, cultural and linguistic diversity that distinguishes the World Service and, quite properly, had plenty of non-English output that wasn't translated: the Service regularly broadcasts in 43 languages worldwide."
And as she ended the review, "Reflecting a feeling that many of us have had especially since 9/11, Annan (UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan) described the World Service as a first port of call in bewildering times."
"'We don't need a weather man to know which way the wind is blowing,' he said. 'The World Service will already have noted it, and given the fullest, freshest global perspective.'"
After views of the World Service in general, a UK Observer review by Sue Arnold, of one series in particular, "The Battle for Influence" that included reporting from Oklahoma by Simon Cox, presenter of the series. "The hawks believe Iraq was behind the 1995 Oklahoma bombing that killed 171 people and for which Timothy McVeigh was subsequently prosecuted," writes Arnold, continuing, "Cox went to Oklahoma to talk to Iraq Connection supporters, including the owner of Randy's Motel, where McVeigh stayed the night before the bombing."
"Randy told Cox he saw McVeigh talking to a Middle Eastern man 'with black frizzy hair that looked like it had just been washed and a very, very extremely evil look on his face'. It was because of this facial evilness that Randy connected him later with the bomb blast, whose concussions Randy could feel right here in his motel."
Arnold then comments, "The American Midwest is a strange place. Cock fighting was legal in Oklahoma until last month. And before you mutter about blinkered parochialism, the lead story in one of those rolling digital news channels last Wednesday was that a couple had held their wedding ceremony in Selfridges. Thank God for the World Service and the bigger picture."
After which, to the contribution from the world's dominant economic and military power; The US has been stepping up its propaganda broadcasts with a new radio service to Iran and, in Iraq, more broadcasts from the US Defence Department of the type used in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
This time the Lockheed aircraft have been broadcasting messages to both the military and civilian populations of Iraq.
They carry messages saying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein uses his soldiers as puppets and had, for example, put landmines in the path of his retreating army during the Gulf War and, for civilians, messages saying that he uses oil sales for weapons rather than to feed the population or provide medicine for them. (RNW: The latter is certainly true - of both Iraq and the US, as a look at the amounts spent by the Pentagon and on state medical services would show for the latter, with US politicians from Vice-President Cheney down arguing the case for the drug company lobby quite effectively both at home and wider in terms of allowing the supply of cheap generic versions of drugs to the third world. Parochialism, we would suggest, exists in the Beltway as much as the Mid West.
For a recent report on the way drug companies in the US increase their profits, a Boston Globe item in mid November on "The Costly Case of the Purple Pill" is well worth a read.)
The matter of changes in broadcasts to Iran, however, did prompt some wider thinking.
In the Washington Post, Jackson Diehl gave some background on current politics and then commented on the dropping of Radio Freedom, which had broadcast a nightly roundtable discussion between students and journalists in Iran and exiled opposition leaders, in favour of Radio Farda (tomorrow) with a diet of pop songs modelled on Radio Sawa, another pop music station that replaced the Voice of America's Arabic service.
"How," asks Diehl, "did the mullahs pull off this well-timed lobotomy? They didn't: The U.S. government, in the form of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, did it."
"In an act that mixes Hollywood arrogance with astounding ignorance of Iranian reality, the board has silenced the most effective opposition radio station in Iran at a time of unprecedented ferment. In its place, at three times the expense, the United States now will supply Iran's revolutionary students with a diet of pop music -- on the theory that this better advances U.S. interests."
"…." Never mind that "freedom" is what thousands of young Iranians have been risking their lives to shout every day on the streets. 'The assumption of the people who did this back in Washington is that Iranian young people, like young people in most places, don't want to hear news,' says Stephen Fairbanks, the ousted director of Radio Freedom."
"But this is not most places -- this is Iran, where young people are leading a rebellion against a dictatorship that has stifled opposition media. The student leaders who used to phone in, Fairbanks says, now tell him that 'they are losing their voice.'"
After more comment on those responsible and their contention that it will be productive to increase the audiences and gradually introduce more news, Diehl suggests the policy may have a value in the Middle East but that it is inexplicable to extend that logic to mullah-ruled Iran.
Responding to the Diehl op-ed article, former Radio Liberty staffer James Critchlow commented that the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, "cited its Radio Sawa, another pop music station that replaced the Voice of America's Arabic service, as being listened to by 41 percent of a youth sample in Amman, Jordan, as opposed to 10 percent who listened to the British Broadcasting Corp. The board should ask itself which group is more important to the Arab future -- those who tune in to hear Eminem and Britney Spears or the smaller number who seek out the news and thoughtful commentaries of the BBC."
"The board dismisses the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty during the Cold War as "propaganda." In fact, they were not propaganda, because they reflected reform ideas emanating from the audience, not U.S. government positions. Why not offer the same service to people in the Middle East?"
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, responded," Mr. Diehl also did not tell The Post's readers that as of Dec. 18 our broadcasts aimed at Iran's young population -- based on Radio Sawa's success in using popular music to attract a huge audience in the Middle East -- will increase by more than three times and that our signal will become available on AM in addition to shortwave. At the same time, the Voice of America will continue its radio and television broadcasts aimed at Iran's older audiences." (RNW comment: We assume Mr Tomlinson's use of English here is carefully chosen so as not to embarrass his Commander in Chief!
Or maybe his letter was edited badly by the Post?).
Tomlinson also says that,"… dissident Iranian students remain in close and useful contact with the broadcast efforts the United States is aiming at Iran's young people."
"As we complete the transition to greatly increased programming aimed at Iran's under-30 audience, the voices of student protesters who use their cell phones to reach us are being heard daily on our broadcasts beamed into Iran."
"We are giving these brave young people what their own government denies them: a way to speak to their fellow citizens. Our new service will also increase news and current affairs programming by 135 minutes, to 315 minutes each day."
RNW note: All is well of course, since US President Bush in a broadcast made at the weekend on Radio Farda told his audience, "If Iran respects its international obligations and embraces freedom and tolerance, it will have no better friend than the United States of America… We continue to stand with the people of Iran in your quest for freedom, prosperity, honest and effective government, judicial due process and the rule of law…' And we continue to call on the government of Iran to respect the will of its people and be accountable to them.''
We would be remiss however not to add that an Iranian friend, no supporter of the Mullahs, with whom we worked at the time of the Iranian revolution and US hostage crisis in Tehran, reacted to the Bush speech with comments of which "hypocrite" was perhaps the most pleasing from a White House perspective.
Previous Arnold:
Previous Bennett:
Previous Columnists:
Previous Mahoney:
UK Guardian- Mahoney on World Service:
UK Observer - Arnold on World Service:
UK Times - Bennett on World Service:
Washington Post - Diehl op-ed:
Washington Post - Critchlow/Tomlinson letters:
2002-12-23: Irish national commercial station Today FM, owned by Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH) is expected to make a profit of around Euros2.5 million (USD 2.45 million) in the year to the end of September next year according to its chief executive Willie O'Reilly quoted in the UK Sunday Times.
He says the figures will be helped by a 15% rate card hike to be introduced on January 1.
Today changed its financial year to march that of its parent, which took complete control in March in a deal that was announced in November 2001 (See RNW Nov 15, 2001).
Recent figures from SRH showed the station making Euro1.3 million (USD 1.27 million) in the six months to the end of September this year.
Previous SRH:
UK Sunday Times report:
2002-12-22: Canada was again the busy country in terms of licence activity over the past week with a steady level of activity elsewhere.
In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA has allocated a new community radio licence for the external Territory of Christmas Island to Radio VLU2-FM Announcers Association Inc., which is currently broadcasting on the relevant frequencies under a temporary licence. It was the only applicant.
The ABA has also released for comment plans for various technical changes to radio services in the Gold Coast affecting both commercial and community stations.
The Commercial station involved is new service Hot Tomato that had proposed to transmit from Mount Tambourine following its award of the licence in August this year. It could not be accommodated on Transmission Australia's existing antenna and the ABA proposes to now move it to an alternative site on Mount Tambourine. The community services involved are 4MET, 4RHI and 4CAB, which have all requested moves to alternative antenna sites.
The plans are for:
4MET to change its transmit antenna from the nominal site at Mount Tambourine to an alternative site at Lower Beechmont, and increase its maximum power from 10 kW to 25 kW.
4RHI to change its maximum transmit antenna site from the nominal site at Mount Tambourine to an alternate site on Mount Tambourine and increase the antenna height from 22 m to 63 m.
4CAB to change its maximum transmit antenna from the nominal site at Mount Tambourine to either an alternate site on Mount Tambourine, increase the antenna height from 22 m to 63 and increase its maximum power from 10 kW to 25 kW or change its transmit antenna site to the alternate site at Lower Beechmont site, increase the antenna height from 22 m to 30 m and increase its maximum ERP from 10 kW to 25 kW.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), was again involved in a significant number of radio decisions including licences for new stations, new transmitters and a number of conversions to FM.
They includes, by province:
Alberta:
*An application by Sask-Alta Broadcasters Limited for a new English-language FM to replace its current country music format CKSA-AM, Lloydminster; in addition to a main 100,000 watts transmitter in Lloydminster, the CRTC approved an additional 25,000 watts transmitter in Bonnyville.
*An application by CKUA-FM Edmonton, to use an SCMO (Subsidiary Communications Multiplex Operation) channel to broadcast a predominantly East Indian-language radio service operated by Guldasta Broadcasting Inc.
New Brunswick:
* An application by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for a new 3,200 watts English-language FM to replace CBZ-AM, Fredericton. The new station will carry CBC Radio One and the Commission noted that the transmitters CBAM Edmundston, CBAX McAdam, CBZB-FM Boiestown, CBZC-FM Bon Accord, CBZD-FM Doaktown and CBZW-FM Woodstock, New Brunswick, presently authorized as transmitters of CBZ Fredericton, would be part of the new FM licence.
Nova Scotia:
*An application by Radio CJLS Limited for a new 18,000 watts English-language FM licence to replace its current musical format CJLS-AM, with existing transmitters CJLS-FM, Barrington, and CJLS-FM-1, New Tusket, continuing to operate as repeater stations for the new FM,
Ontario:
* An application by Raedio Inc., which currently operates CJCS-AM in Stratford, for a new adult contemporary format 2805 watts English-language FM in Stratford.
*Applications by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to amend the licence of CBL-FM, Toronto to add transmitters in Owen Sound, Orillia and Huntsville to rebroadcast the programming of its national English-language network service Radio Two. The transmitter powers would be 17,500 watts in Owen Sound, 4,800 watts in Orillia and 70,000 watts in Huntsville.
*An application by CKLN-FM Toronto to use an SCMO (Subsidiary Communications Multiplex Operation) channel to broadcasts a predominantly Farsi-language (Persian) radio service operated by Persian Vision Media Group. This service would replace a Greek-language SCMO service previously approved.
* An application for CING-FM, Hamilton, to use an SCMO channel to broadcast a predominantly Farsi-language radio service operated by Sedaye Rooz.
*An application by CFNY-FM Brampton, to use an SCMO channel to broadcast an Urdu-, Hindi-, Punjabi- and English-language service operated by AJIT Newspaper, Advertising, Marketing and Communications Inc.
Quebec:
*Linked applications by Radio Haute Mauricie inc. to amend the broadcasting licence for CFLM-AM, La Tuque, to remove the requirement to operate as an affiliate of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) national French-language radio network and by the CBC to add a new 11,300 watts transmitter in La Tuque for CBF-FM-8 Trois-Rivières, which broadcasts La Première Chaîne. The Commission noted that CFLM was currently only carrying CBC programming for a tenth of its airtime.
Saskatchewan:
*An application by Central Broadcasting Company Limited to add a 2,500 watts transmitter at Waskesiu Lake to carry the programming of CHQX-FM Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.
In Ireland the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has announced the awards of capital grants totalling Euros635, 000 (USD 620,000) towards transmission costs; the allocations were to aid stations improve the quality of their transmissions and ranged fro Euros 11.000 to 52,000 in the commercial sector and from Euros 1700 to 12,000 for community sector stations.
In the UK, the Radio Authority has announced that Chrysalis's takeover of London News Radio, comprising ITN News Direct and LBC, is not against the public interest. Chrysalis already owns the Heart FM licence in London.
The authority also announced that it had received only one declaration of intent to apply for Heads of South Wales Valleys AM licence following its pre-advertisement; the application was from The Wireless Group's Valleys Radio, which is now invited to re-apply under the authorities fast-track procedure.
It also announced that the same situation applied for the Crawley and Reigate FM licence, currently held by GWR's Mercury FM, which is also being invited to submit a fast-track reapplication.
The current holder of the AM licence in the area, Classic Gold Digital Ltd., opted not to submit an application under the fast track procedure but the authority notes that, because it is currently providing a programme on the relevant digital multiplex it is entitled to apply for automatic renewal of the licence.
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is coming under a challenger from consumer, civil-rights and minority groups over plans to ease media ownership restrictions, thus allowing more consolidation in media. The Consumer Federation of America, acting for more than 30 groups, claims that the FCC has asked the "wrong questions" because, instead of concentrating on diversity of information, it has explored variety of entertainment and ignored the size and diversity of population served by the media. Major media unions challenged news organisations to give the issue full cover and also sponsored a critique of the FCC's media ownership studies by Dean Baker, co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Analysis.
RNW note: Baker presented his critique last week in DC: The amount of cover it received that we could find would indicate that US media failed the challenge. We would also suggest that, in terms of a functioning democracy, the ability to gain factual information is far more important than access to a thousand repackaged versions of less information from one or two sources.
We would challenge FCC chairman Michael Powell to name any organisations other than the Associated Press and Reuters that provide a consistent source of worldwide information to a US audience and in so doing note a comment from an Australian Broadcasting Corporation executive to a colleague recently that in examining BBC TV reports they had received over a recent two week period, only one report of interest did not contain material from one or both of the major news agencies.
Some diversity of original reporting would appear lacking in many areas.
Previous ABA:
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2002-12-22: BBC World Service listeners voted the Irish song, A Nation Once Again, by the Wolfe Tones, their global favourite in a poll organised by part of the service's 70th anniversary.
It gained 150,000 votes from 153 countries and islands, pushing into second place an early favourite, Vande Mataram, a patriotic Hindi song from a poem by Bankim Chandra Chatarji that was featured in a 1950s movie Anan Mutt, by Lata Manjeshkar who is the most recorded person ever in India.
The final top ten, which was broadcast in Steve Wright's weekly World Service programme Wright Round the World on Saturday, was:
1. A Nation Once Again - Wolfe Tones
2. Vande Mataram - various artists
3. Dil Dil Pakistan - Vital Signs. A 1987 song considered a kind of pop national anthem.
4. Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu - Ilayaraja - a Tamil song from the 1991 Bollywood movie Thalapathi.
5. Poovum Nadakkuthu Pinchum Nadakkuthu - Thirumalia Chandran from a Tamil Tiger film, Mugungal.
6. Ana wa Laila - Kazem El Saher - a love song from one of Iraq's biggest pop stars.
7. Reetu Haruma Timi - Arun Thapa - a love song from one of Nepal's top pop stars.
8. Believe - Cher.
9. Chaiyya Chaiyya - A R Rahman, a music for cinema composition.
10. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
Commenting on the poll, Wright said, "Only on BBC World Service could you get a music chart with such variety. Tens of thousands of listeners have taken part in this unique venture to find the world's favourite song."
"They've all had great fun with this poll and it has generated tremendous debate and interest amongst all the listeners of the World Service."
"The World's Top 10 inspired fans around the world to organise themselves and get their favourite song to the top of the chart."
In all some 7,000 songs were nominated in the poll but some artists, like the Beatles who had 55 songs in the contest, suffered because their vote was split amongst a number of songs. The same problem hit Iranian artist Googoosh had 40 songs chosen and Bob Marley who had 29 songs nominated
Regionally, the top songs were
Africa - Swahili classic Malaika.
The Americas and Caribbean - Girl from Ipanema by Antonio Carlos Jobim.
Australia and New Zealand Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House.
Europe - Wind of Change by the Scorpions.
Latin American - Solo le Pido a Dios by Argentinean singer Leon Geico.
Middle East Gharib-e-Ashena by Iranian diva Googoosh.
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2002-12-22: The body of the mother of conservative "tough-love" US radio host Dr Laura Schlessinger has been found in her Beverley Hills condominium; police say 77-years-old Yolanda Schlessinger, long estranged from her daughter, had died possibly as long as two months ago but did not say how. They are treating the case as homicide.
Schlessinger confirmed the death on her radio show, saying she was "overwhelmed by sadness." In a statement, the host said she was "horrified by the tragic circumstances of my mother's death, and so sad to learn that she died as she chose to live - alone and isolated."
"My mother shut all her family out of her life over the years," she added, "though we made several futile attempts to stay connected. May God rest her soul.''
Previous Laura Schlessinger:
Los Angeles Times report:
2002-12-21: BBC veteran Sir Jimmy Young bit back at Corporation executives when he hosted his last lunchtime show on BBC Radio 2 on Friday after half a century in broadcasting.
Responding to messages from listeners regretting his departure, the octogenarian, who has been signed up to write a column for Britain's Sunday Express newspaper, said, " It's the last programme - it's not what I want but that's what's been decreed so that's what we have to do."
"Just so that we're all singing from the same hymn book, it was not my idea to go - I didn't want to leave you at all and I know from your messages that you don't want me to go either."
Young, who has been off the air for around five months recovering from a hip operation and had returned only a fortnight ago, had been getting audiences of around five million for his lunchtime show.
Towards the end of the show, he told his audience that he was writing his autobiography and had received offers to appear in a one-man stage show, then played his last track, of then plain Jimmy Young in 1955 singing "Unchained Melody".
As it was faded down, he commented, " The song's fading away and indeed so am I."
Then after comments about the move not being what he wanted, he said, "I'm looking forward to hearing you and seeing you at the theatre. Thank you very, very, much for the last 30 years - I've loved it all."
"God bless, take care, and for the very last time I fear, bye for now."
Young, who began broadcasting for the BBC in 1949 also topped the British charts ten times in the 1950s including successive chart topping singles in 1955, Unchained Melody and The Man from Laramie.
He was one of the launch DJs at BBC Radio 1 in 1967 and switched to Radio 2 in 1973. He has interviewed every British Prime Minister since 1964 and his show has been broadcast live from locations round the world including the former Soviet Union, Israel, Japan and Hong Kong.
The BBC had been embarrassed last year when Radio Five Live's Nicky Campbell said he had been approached to take over the lunchtime Radio 2 slot at a time when no public announcement had been made by the corporation (See RNW Nov 2, 2001); the post eventually went to BBC TV Newsnight presenter Jeremy Vine, who is to take over in January, and Young was to have hosted a new weekend slot but he changed his mind and decided to leave the BBC.
To mark Young's departure, BBC Radio 2 is to broadcast on Christmas Eve a two hour retrospective of his career with the channel hosted by Independent Television News (ITN) presenter Sir Trevor MacDonald and including contributions from current British Prime Minister, Tony Blair and former PM Margaret Thatcher.
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BBC Report on Young departure:
2002-12-21: Nova Scotia broadcaster Brian King has been sentenced to six years in jail for a series of robberies at Cape Breton gasoline stations according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.
The paper says that it is believed that a drug addiction let the 37-years-old on-air announcer at CHER Oldies 950 to commit the robberies. He was also banned for life from owning weapons.
Also in Canada, top Quebec city radio host Robert Gillet is among those arrested during a crackdown on a juvenile prostitution ring run by a local street gang known as the Wolf Pack, which has direct ties to the Hells Angels biker gang.
The paper says that the group has established a similar underground juvenile sex trade in Toronto and Montreal and according to police, the men paid up to CAD500 (USD ) to have sex with girls as young as 14.
The police also said when the girls turned 18, they were moved out of the prostitution ring and often became strippers.
"They wouldn't stay in the ring because that's not what the clients wanted," said Lieutenant-Detective Sylvain Gagné "They wanted girls under 18."
Gillet, who works at CJMF-FM says he is innocent of the charges.
Toronto Globe and Mail on King sentence:
Toronto Globe and Mail repor on Quebec scandal:
2002-12-21: In more US radio deals, Salem Communications has closed its USD 5.6 million acquisition of Nashville, Tennessee, stations WRLG-FM and WYYB-FM from Tuned In Broadcasting Inc. Salem, which already owns and operates Southern Gospel format WBOZ-FM and WVRY-FM in the Nashville market, has been operating WRLG-FM and WYYB-FM in a Contemporary Christian Music format under a Local Marketing Agreement since August 5 this year.
In Kentucky, Radio 1 Inc. is paying USD2 million for WBLO-FM, a CHR/Rhythmic station it had been operating under an LMA it inherited when it took over Blue Chip Broadcasting (See RNW Feb 9, 2001); the 1998 LMA deal with New Albany Broadcasting included an option to purchase the station outright.
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2002-12-21: Latest Internet ratings from Arbitron-MeasureCast show two holiday music stations making it into the top 25 but otherwise little change at the top of the ratings although Clear Channel regained its top network ranking, pushing MUSICMATCH to second place; the two holiday channels in the rankings were from MUSICMATCH, its Traditional Christmas channel, which was ranked number nine with 96,254 hours of Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL), and Contemporary Christmas channel, which was ranked number 15 with 77,188 TTSL.
For the week to Dec 8, Arbitron-MeasureCast's top five stations ranked by Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) with (in brackets) TTSL and Cume persons (a measure of the cumulative audience -CP) for the previous week - were:
1: Internet only artist-match MUSICMATCH - TTSL 292,187 (259,244); CP 112,330 (111,495). Same position with higher listening and reach.
2: Jazz format Jazz FM - TTSL 285,255 (208,216); CP 83,668 (76,497): Up from fourth with higher listening and reach.
3: Hot Adult Contemporary Virgin FM - TTSL 238,961 (242,733); CP 38,138 (39,707). Down from second with lower listening and reach.
4: Adult alternative Radioio - TTSL 243,866 (221,128); CP 52,024 (52,008) Down from third despite higher listening and reach.
5: Classical format WQXR-FM- TTSL 187,505 (223,770); CP 34,353 (39,014). Up from sixth despite lower listening and reach.
*Sport-talk ESPN, which was fifth in the previous week with TTSL 154,771 and CP 38,027 fell to 22nd with TTSL 52,600 and CP 52,024.
The top five networks for the week to December 8 (Previous week's figures in brackets) were:
1: Clear Channel Worldwide TTSL 1,397,207 (1,024,355); CP 330,845 (289,007) - Up from second with higher listening and reach.
2: MUSICMATCH Inc. TTSL 1,304,343 (1,069,544); CP 403,898 (384,026). Down from first despite higher listening and reach.
3: StreamAudio TTSL 1,039,225 (717,063); CP 154,427 (134,935). Same position with higher listening and reach.
4: Radio Free Virgin TTSL 701,852 (673,900): CP 120,784 (121,521) Same position with higher listening but lower reach.
5: WARP Radio TTSL 432,791 (488,281) hours: CP 117,654 (98,644) - Same position with lower listening but reach was up.
Previous Arbitron-MeasureCast ratings (for Nov):
Previous Arbitron-MeasureCast weekly ratings:
Arbitron web site:
2002-12-20: US radio giant Clear Channel is reported by R&R to have added yet another channel to its US radio station holdings; it's Seattle KNFK-FM, which Clear Channel has already been operating through a joint sales agreement with Rock on Radio that it took on when it closed on its purchase of Ackerley earlier this year.
Rock on Radio is subsidiary of Bedrock & Associates, which has declined comment, but the station's program director Bob Case told R&R that Clear Channel is paying USD4.5 million for the station.
In Honolulu, the Star Bulletin reports that Georgia-based Real Radio of America LLC is paying USD5.2 million for Maverick Media's cluster comprised of KUMU-AM, KUMU-FM and KAHA-FM.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year according to the paper, which said that no format changes are planned for KUMU-FM or KAHA-FM according to Dan Bradley, one of Real Radio's three managing partners.
"I would be an incompetent to change (KUMU's light rock) format," he said, "That is one of the strongest radio stations on the island. It has tremendous heritage. It's one of the reasons we were very interested," he said. He also said that he saw "nothing but tremendous growth" for classic rock KAHA-FM, 'The Big Kahuna."
Of KUMU-AM, he said it needs a new transmitter to combat a "deficiency" in its signal. He said the 10,000 watts station has "a wonderful heritage dating back to the '50s,"adding," We'll have to go and see what needs to be done."
In another deal, Media Services Group has announced the closing of a USD3.75 million sale of WKCD-FM in Pawcatuck, Connecticut by AAA Entertainment LLC to Red Wolf Broadcasting Inc.
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Star-Bulletin report:
2002-12-20: The British Government has warned of stiff penalties for anyone offering support to pirate radio stations, including nightclubs that host parties for them.
The warning led to a Manchester club cancelling a party for pirate Buzz Fm after a warning from the UK Radiocommunications Agency, which says that between 80 and 100 pirate stations are operating in the UK at any one time.
It accuses the pirates of risking lives through interference with air traffic and emergency frequencies and Radio and Telecoms Minister Stephen Timms commented that that," Those who support them, by supplying premises or advertising with them, are just as bad."
Penalties range up to unlimited fines or up to two years in prison for pirate station operators and those who support them by advertising or supplying premises for their operations.
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2002-12-20: The UK Radio Authority is considering complaints about a late-night "Shock-jock" recently hired by Chrysalis for its Friday through Sunday night show on LBC.
Adrian Allen, who hosts the "Through the Night Show" took over the slot from Mark Mendoza; he had been reprimanded previously in 2000 for making offensive comments on air whilst working for Century in the East Midlands when he made comments derogatory suggesting the Romanian could not put together a soccer team because the members were claiming benefit in the UK and also for giving inaccurate information about benefits given to asylum seekers.
Allen was also subject to a complaint from a listener to Real Radio a year later for making comments about asylum seekers.
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Previous UK Radio Authority:
2002-12-20: Cumulus-owned Oregon radio station KUGN, the "Voice of the Ducks," in Eugene, is to replace Michael Savage's syndicated talk show with a locally produced talk show featuring veteran broadcaster Dan Carlin following complaints by Oregon University students and faculty who have argued that their football and basketball broadcasts shouldn't share the air with so-called "hate radio" hosts.
Savage, whose show aired from 1600-1800 weekdays, was said to have commented disparagingly about women, immigrants, Hispanics and Jews, but the station, which is owned by Cumulus, said the complaints had no influence on their decision.
Cumulus owns seven stations in Eugene and its market manager there said they had been looking for months for a local replacement for the show.
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KATU report:
2002-12-20: The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has awarded the GBP252 million (USD 390 million) contract to refurbish its Broadcasting House premises in Portland