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by Tom Taylor | tom@in3media.com | 609.883.3321
Tuesday, May 19th 2009
Smooth jazz loses a landmark
 Pioneering smooth jazz KKSF, San Francisco is the latest to die.
In its place, Clear Channel pops a classic rock format named “103.7 The Band”, which actually felt pretty classic hits – Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Doobie Brothers, Eagles – in its first hours yesterday afternoon. Early KKSF programmer Steve Feinstein was one of the first folks to figure out that the format then tagged as New Age/Jazz had identifiable hit tracks, just like other music formats. And if you played them correctly, you’d have a devoted core audience that would give you extended Time Spent Listening and nice Arbitron shares. But the Arbitron PPM often isn't kind to smooth jazz. KKSF was tied for 15th place in the March book, age 6+ and dropped as low as a 2.1 share last November. Since early 2008, the format has lost champions in markets from Atlanta, Philadelphia and D.C. to Houston and Denver – and now San Francisco. There have been rumors about the fate of some other major-market smooth jazz stations, like Detroit’s WVMV and even L.A.’s “Wave.” But the latest casualty is the iconic KKSF – and the Bay Area radio scene just got a bit less interesting. Check the new “Band” website here. See what the Smooth Jazz Board at Radio-Info.com is saying about KKSF, then and now. 
 
Church-owned Bonneville stations put the “Mormon Channel” on their HD channels.
EVP Bob Johnson says “We’re deeply pleased to offer Bonneville’s broadcasting resources and industry reputation to further extend the reach and impact of Mormon Channel.” (No “The” in “Mormon Channel.”) They’ll use Bonneville International’s 29 HD-capable stations in eight markets, starting this week. This is the first time I can remember the LDS Church making the ownership connection so explicit, much less putting a 24/7 programming lineup on a dedicated HD Radio channel. Programming will feature interviews with church leaders, Mormon-related news, and religious teaching. Church director of digital media Chris Twitty says “We have the responsibility to extend the messages of the church in yet another way with the new station” – meaning an HD Radio multicasting channel. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints already communicates with the faithful on satellite TV and the Internet. But you wouldn’t recognize that a general-market station like L.A.'s adult alternative “Sound 100.3” KSWD is owned by the church. Though if you listened long enough, you might notice that you don't hear any beer ads. Or state lottery advertising.
Call it Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps’ Summer project – investigating Arbitron.
This Notice of Inquiry about the People Meter wasn’t launched by previous Chairman Kevin Martin, who questioned the FCC’s authority to do it. And the People Meter won’t be a priority for incoming Chairman Julius Genachowski, a technocrat at heart. No, this Notice could only come from the heart of Michael Copps, who’s enjoying his time as Acting Chairman to the utmost. There are legitimate issues about the Arbitron People Meter – sample size, according to many - and Arbitron’s even saying it welcomes the opportunity to explain the benefits of electronic measurement. But the loudest complaints have been coming from minority broadcasters involved with NABOB (National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters) and the Spanish Radio Alliance. Specifically, there’s the PPM Coalition, which has tried to swing the FCC’s attention to the alleged undercounting of minority listeners. There’s even a state broadcasters association (New Jersey), which alleges the PPM is creating “unique and urgent circumstances” with serious sample issues in some counties. So Copps gets his way, and there will an Inquiry, though not the full-blown investigation requested by the PPM Coalition. Comments will be due 30 days after publication of the Notice (read it here) in the Federal Register and reply comments 30 days after that. Which is “fast-track”, as far as the FCC is concerned. But if new Chairman Genachowski is in place – the inquiry may not stay on track very long.
Could this affect Arbitron?
Stock-wise? “ARB” was up nearly a dollar (97 cents) to $19.76 yesterday, probably swept along by the overall market’s 235-point gain on the Dow. But the after-market trading was down 45 cents, and perhaps investors are now wondering about the cost of a drawn-out FCC inquiry. Heaven knows Arbitron has spent a bundle on lawyers already, defending the PPM against the attorneys-general of New York, New Jersey and Maryland. It’s also spent a small fortune supplying the Media Rating Council with the data that it prays will lead to accreditation. If Arbitron’s able to wave around the parchment with the MRC double checks, that will go a long way toward quieting the controversy.
 The Washington Times premieres a top-of-the-hour news service at hometown WHFS (1580).
But the Times – searching like all newspapers for revenue beyond the daily printed page – hopes to have its new two-minute newscasts cleared on plenty of stations outside of D.C., too. The Times says they’ll have a special focus in their news selection –“national security, faith and family issues.” Executive editor John Solomon says “our take on culture and media is also original.” First affiliate is CBS-owned “Big Talker” WHFS, which leans on talkers like Glenn Beck, Michael Smerconish, Fred Thompson, Lou Dobbs and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. The Times will also create a :30 news feature for the bottom of the hour. Wally Hindes, former radio editor for the AP, will be featured on the newscasts. And what’s the latest on the Washington Times’ other new radio venture, its three-hour morning show in cooperation with Talk Radio Network? That’s being prepped for a soft launch on June 1, with a bigger push in mid-July, my sources tell me. It’s designed to showcase the paper’s reporters, again focusing on national security (terrorism, border security, immigration) and “the culture wars.”
Is Clear Channel edging away from Less Is More – adding more spot inventory?
That’s what I hear, and in some cases, where there’s pressure on inventory, it probably makes sense. T-R-I hears that Bain Capital’s Blair Hendrix and new Clear Channel CFO Mitch Goldstein favor adding more spots in selected situations. Less Is More was John Hogan’s idea to cut the total number of minutes and seconds given over to ads, by getting sellers to concentrate on shorter-length spots. The concept was to push :30s instead of :60s, and sometimes even :05 spots and “blink” instead of half-minute spots. In practice, the number of units probably didn’t change much (and listeners tend to perceive each interruption as a “spot”). But it did make some spot sets seem to go faster. Many Clear Channel managers, GSMs and PDs have told me they’d love to have been able to custom-fit Less Is More to their particular stations and advertising environment. But the first pronunciamento about LIM was a one-size-fits all decree about how spots would be sold and how spot sets would be assembled. Less Is More did bring a greater degree of recognition about the need to improve radio creative. And San Antonio created a new department to help support its local stations – commendable. But LIM was sprung near the end of a calendar year, and many advertisers had already laid down their media plans for the next year.
Pittsburgh’s WAMO-FM goes to a lay-Catholic group from Latrobe, PA.
Details about St. Joseph Missions are still sketchy, but it intends on putting Catholic programming on all three signals it’s acquiring from Sheridan Broadcasting for $8.9 million. The city’s still a bit stunned by the impending loss of the market’s only urban stations (WAMO-FM/106.7, WAMO-FM/860 and WPGR/1510). Meanwhile, several T-R-I readers couldn’t wait to email me, to share the origin of the WAMO calls letters. “AMO” comes from the names of the famous three rivers that flow together at Pittsburgh – Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio. Also - readers like John Garry point out Sheridan’s strategy in swapping the original home of WAMO-FM at 105.9 for the lesser signal of 106.7, back in the mid-1990s. They were going to simulcast the Beaver Falls-licensed 106.7 with the Greenburg-licensed 107.1, from east of the Burgh. But it never worked as planned. Finally, broker Bill Schutz handled the sale between Sheridan and St. Joseph Missions.
The rest of the story on Connecticut School of Broadcasting – founder Dick Robinson gets to buy it back.
This is as happy an ending as there can be, to a tale of bankruptcy and dreams deferred. WTNH-TV clears up the story we started to get late last week – that the training school for broadcasters with campuses in multiple states will re-open soon. Robinson dreamt up CSB in 1964 and sold it in 2006 to an equity-backed group with big plans. But things crashed in early March when the doors were abruptly locked, just before final exams. The schools were later allowed to re-open, briefly, to finish up with that class of students. Now Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal says Dick Robinson is “not only returning to the schools, but he is going to significantly upgrade them and make them state of the art.” Dick’s paying $1 million, but will reduce the number of teaching locations from 26 to 10. He figures to be operational by mid-June.
Fox buys all the space on Clear Channel’s iheartradio app for tonight’s debut of “Glee.”
Fox TV and Clear Channel have a history of cutting-edge ad campaigns, such as the coordinated hourly countdown for “24” several years ago. This time, Clear Channel mobile gets the buy, as CC Radio Sales president Jeff Howard pitches a “roadblock” strategy. If you get anywhere near iheartradio yesterday or today – you’ll hear about “Glee”, the new comedy about a high school glee club that debuts after American Idol. Fox gets a “gateway” ad as the app loads and then additional exposures. Fox has previously experimented with radio novelties like ultra-short “Blink” ads and website takeovers.
 CBS Radio keeps expanding distribution for its stations – this time to AT&T Wireless, through mSpot.
The deal also covers CBS-owned music discovery site Last.fm, and it puts terrestrial stations such as modern rock star KROQ, Los Angeles and all-sports “Fan” WFAN, New York within earshot of four million more mobile users. CBS believes that Last.fm is a complementary service to its radio stations. mSpot has relationships with AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Bell Mobility, Telus, U.S. Cellular and Boost. It’s also a prolific producer of its own commercial-free music channels (over 100 of them). And it distributes many local radio stations plus content from ABC, Fox Sports, NPR, PRI, Disney, Sporting News, Clear Channel, MarketWatch, AcccuWeather and Traffic.com. CBS Mobile EVP/General Manager Jeff Sellinger sees mSpot as “an opportunity to expand our CBS Radio and Last.fm distribution to handsets that we might not otherwise reach.”
 “Quu” – you pronounce it “Queue” – gets its first rollout from Sandusky in Seattle.
CEO Joe Harb tells me he’s an engineer who loves radio, but was frustrated trying to trace the identity of a piece of music he once heard on the radio. (He phoned the station, bought the CD, and found out they’d given him the wrong info.) So what is Quu? Harb says it gives radio new attributes such as interactive advertising and couponing, content tagging and social media applications. He says “Radio was one of the earliest aspects of social networking, but it stayed frozen”, technology-wise. The Sandusky stations run by Marc Kaye will be the first to launch the new interactive platform that “makes all commercials and programming fully interactive, creating an Internet-like experience” and on-demand content. The Sandusky group includes soft AC “Warm 106.9” KRWM.
Cox Enterprises needs another 3% of Cox Radio shares to go for the buyout – but warns “this is it.”
A patient Cox Enterprises is forced to extend the buyout offer of $4.80 a share yet again, until 5pm today. Going into last weekend and the end of its first two-day extension, it had 97% of the shares it needs for a “majority of the minority.” Cox Enterprises CFO John Dyer says another two million shares of “CXR” were tendered last Thursday and Friday – but that’s not quite enough. It’s at 8,472,000 shares and counting. But this time the Atlanta-based parent says “if the condition is not satisfied as of the new expiration date” – this afternoon – “Cox Enterprises does not intend to further extend the offer.” CE originally dangled an offer of $3.80 a share, but the daily trading price quickly shot up past $4 and Cox had to improve the deal by a buck. Cox Enterprises spun out a minority stake in its then-booming Sunbelt-based radio operation in the 1990s and the stock hit nearly $35 a share in 2000 and was trading at $25 in 2004. Yesterday it closed at $4.83 - still a smaller percentage drop than many of its peers.
» Wheeling & Dealing
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Cincinnati now has oldies at two spots on the AM dial - but no smooth jazz. That's thanks to Alchemy Broadcasting. It's just begun simulcasting the oldies programming on the station it's LMAing (WDJO/1160) on the station it's buying. That's WCIN (1480). And it means the end of smooth jazz on 1480 after a two-year run. T-R-I told you about Alchemy (Robert Nolan, Roger Kauffman Sr. and Roger Kauffman Sr.) back on January 15. I can now add that it's paying seller American Broadcasting $600,000 for WCIN. The station's got 4,500 watts daytime and 300 watts when the moon shines. John Kiesewetter at the Cincinnati Enquirer adds that the talent on the oldies station includes local personalities Dusty Rhodes, Ted McAlister, Jack Stahl and Rodger Kay. The AM/AM simulcast will likely end on June 15 (the signal overlaps won’t allow fulltime simulcasting). The WCIN smooth jazz format does survive, in another dimension, though. It’s online at SmoothJazz1480.com. The Discussion Board at Radio-Info.com is on this story – the Smooth Jazz board.
In the Rochester market, the construction permit for a new AM at 1330 sells for $60,000. The facility currently known as WMJQ (echoing the calls once associated with an FM there) will have 1-kw days and 2-kw nights. Seller of the Ontario, NY-licensed permit is Charles Williamson’s Digital Radio Broadcasting and the buyer is 21st Century Broadcasting (Michael and Norma Augustus). Broker – George Kimble of Kozacko Media Services.
The Seneca Indian Nation is now the owner of Randy Michaels’ FM construction permit in western New York state. That’s a Class B1 at 105.9 licensed to Little Valley, and T-R-I told you that Michaels obtained Canadian help (from the CRTC) to let the magic beanstalk grow from a Class A to a B1. That made it more attractive to the Senecas. Michaels’ Radioactive LLC paid $108,000 for the construction permit in FCC Auction #62 and has just closed on the $250,000 sale of the improved facility. The deal, like all of Michaels’ Radioactive sales, was brokered by Jay Meyers of Broadcast Management & Technology.
» Sound Bites
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Bid4Spots expands from radio to cable, with Dave Newmark taking the reverse-auction technology he first aimed at radio in 2005 into the cable sector. Just as with radio, he’s looking at the unsold inventory market with an every-Thursday auction schedule. Would-be advertisers state their parameters for the buy, and cable systems compete for the business. Newmark says that even with last year’s advertising recession, his radio business doubled in '08. Now he says “we’re the first to organize cable TV advertising nationwide, down to the neighborhood, and by audience demographic.”
BIA’s first Winning Media Strategies conference opens tomorrow in Washington, and there’s lot of new media stuff on the agenda, but also some investment/money content (GE Capital’s on one panel) and some Washington policy meat-and-potatoes (former FCC Chairman Dick Wiley). I’ll be reporting from the new BIA conference the rest of this week. Got a newstip? I’m at Tom@in3media.com.
Geico, State Farm, Nationwide...sounds like a list of top national radio advertisers in the insurance category, doesn’t it? You’re right, it’s the latest Spot Ten national list from Media Monitors. This week’s Media Monitors research also features the top radio advertisers in the Hartford market, here.
Morning Show Boot Camp offers a seminar in how to get discovered, though that’s not exactly what it’s called. The panelists are all people who “discovered or launched the careers of some of radio’s most powerful and successful personalities”, and no doubt share some great stories. Boot Camp Sergeant Don Anthony asks “has there ever been a more important time to network?” The answer’s clear, about this event (July 30-August 1 at Nashville’s downtown Renaissance Hotel) and others here in the crazy year of 2009. More about Morning Show Boot Camp 21 here.
» Faces on the Radio
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Peter Bochan is back home, in a way – at independently-owned Southern Connecticut/Long Island non-com WPKN, Bridgeport (89.5) and WPKM, Montauk (88.7). Peter started his radio career there and went on to program Pacifica’s WBAI, New York City (99.5). As a programming creator, he’s responsible for the Shortcuts radio series and the weekly “All Mixed Up.” He calls WPKN “one of the wonders of the non-commercial radio world”, and following the vote at its May 17 annual meeting – he’s the new GM. Among WPKN’s upcoming features is a June 6-7 marathon named “Summers of Love: Music that Moved Us in the 1960s.” And the 2nd annual Hamptons Roots Music Festival.
Diane Warren (not the famed songwriter of the same name) clicks on the neon light for the new BounceOLOGY, Inc. It’s an ambitious marketing, strategic communications, business development, executive coaching and (this is fresh) “alliance management” firm, run by the woman who was a Senior VP of Marketing and Communications at Clear Channel and later one of the key execs at the HD Radio Alliance. Diane remains the President of Operations at the Alliance. But she'll also be doing business through Bounce, and reachable at the BounceOLOGY.com website.
Geoff Conn lands a new radio job, two months after the bizarre morning-show incident at Clear Channel’s KXNO (1480), where visiting afternoon drive talent Marty Tirrell thought the control room mic was off during a commercial break – and reeled off a string of expletives. Tirrell was fired, but so were morning co-hosts Larry Cotlar and Geoff Conn. Now the Des Moines Register reports that Conn, who was also the Assistant PD at all-sports KXNO, is the new director of sports broadcasting at Grand View University. He’ll also supervise the school’s KGVC (94.1) – and Geoff hopes he’ll be doing football and basketball games for the Vikings.
Issue #500 for T-R-I, and thanks for your support, whether you discovered this free daily newsletter in 2007, in 2008, or last week. And my thanks to Chicago-based in3media for making T-R-I possible every morning.
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