Songwriters had good reason to celebrate on Friday: BMI won a battle in court that will force Pandora to pay it 2.5% of annual income as a performance royalty. The digital service previously had to pay BMI just 1.75% of its yearly revenues, according to musicbusinessworld.com.
What that means in practical terms is that Pandora – expected to turn over $1bn this year – would have to pay US publisher/songwriter collection society BMI a total of $7.5m more than it did in 2014. It is expected to appeal the verdict.
The news came a year after a rate court ruled that Pandora must give 1.85% of its annual revenue to BMI rival ASCAP.
Sony/ATV’s CEO & Chairman Martin Bandier slammed that decision, calling it “woefully inadequate” and a “clear defeat for songwriters”.
Paul Williams
Following the BMI result last week, ASCAP President and Chairman Paul Williams said: “This decision is welcome news for music creators, but make no mistake, Pandora will stop at nothing in their ongoing effort to shortchange songwriters.
“ASCAP and the music community must continue to fight for the urgent reforms needed to enable all songwriters, composers and music publishers to obtain fair compensation for the use of our music.”
So, to recap: Pandora currently has to pay 2.5% of its annual revenue to BMI and 1.85% to ASCAP.
For its use of sound recordings, it also has to pay a separate license to artists and labels via SoundExchange: $0.0014 per ad-funded stream and $0.0024 per premium stream.
Westwood One announced today the debut of Classic Hip Hop, patterned after Cumulus radio station 93.9 The Beat in Indianapolis.
Westwood One’s newest 24/7 format will launch on four affiliated stations on Friday afternoon, May 22, to kick off the Memorial Day weekend.
Since its December 2014 debut, Cumulus Medias market leading Classic Hip Hop station WRWM 93.9 FM The Beat, has played a unique mix of hit music from the biggest stars from the early days of Hip Hop rocketed the station to #1 in its target demo of Adults 18-49, in Indianapolis. That same multi-ethnic appeal is designed into this 24-hour format, making it well suited to a broad selection of markets.
Classic Hip Hop will be hosted by veteran personalities including mornings with Adam Bomb and evening’s with WPLJ/NY personality Ralphie. As a Westwood One Total format, Classic Hip Hop will provide simple, turn-key operation, with minimum required involvement from the affiliate.
Exclusive affiliation opportunities are available by contacting Pat Crocker, at pcrocker@westwoodone.com, or calling (720) 873-5170.
Townsquare Media has announced it will launch a new syndicated program entitled "Ultimate Classic Rock Nights," airing from weekdays 7-midnight and based on the popular music brand UltimateClassicRock.com.
The show will feature interviews, performances and trends related to Classic Rock and will air across 28 Townsquare Media outlets. The program will be available to affiliates and national sponsors through Compass Media Networks.
"We are incredibly excited to leverage the Ultimate Classic Rock brand and content into a daily, nationally syndicated program," said Townsquare Media Senior VP/Programming Kurt Johnson. "We are equally excited to announce that Compass Media Networks will serve as our syndicator and look forward to working with stations across the country."
All of the pending litigation that Little Rock businessman Larry Crain was entangled with earlier this year has been resolved, opening the door to the sale of two radio stations, according to arkansasbusiness.com.
In an interview last week, Crain’s attorney, Charles Darwin “Skip” Davidson, said the most recent lawsuit against Crain and his company, Crain Media Group LLC, has been resolved. In that case, Bo Mattingly’s Sports Personality LLC argued that Crain had renewed Mattingly’s contract through the end of 2016 but had failed to follow through with honoring the contract. Mattingly hosted a sports talk show on Crain’s Little Rock radio station KKSP 93.3 FM.
Crain resolved a lawsuit filed by his former business partner, Steve Renfro, earlier this year.
Renfro filed his lawsuit against Crain, Crain Media Group and Capital City Broadcasting, the entity formed by the two partners to oversee operations at KKSP. Renfro argued that the company had become “deadlocked in the management and operation of its affairs.”
Judge Cristi Beaumont appointed a receiver to oversee operations and later admonished Crain, who, she wrote in an order, was “deliberately thwarting” the receiver’s work.
The terms of that settlement were also never disclosed, but Davidson said at the time that Crain had bought out his former partner’s interest in the station.
Davidson said that Crain has since sold KKSP and another Little Rock station, KTHE 96.5 FM, pending regulatory approval. The company, which has headquarters in Camarillo, California, took over management of the stations April 1.
If the sale receives regulatory approval, Salem Media will own and operate three stations in Little Rock, including KDIS 99.5 FM, 99.5.
On March 17, 2015, it was announced that Salem Media Group, would take over operations of KHTE and KKSP through a local marketing agreement with Crain. On April 2, 2015 KHTE-FM rebranded as "96.5 The Answer", matching the names of fellow stations owned by Salem.
Management of a month-old Colorado Springs radio station dedicated to all things marijuana said technical problems Friday forced it to substitute other types of programming, but assured that all-things-pot programming would return Saturday.
But a few hours later, KHIG-AM / K-High owner Mike Knar sent an email to The Gazette to say the marijuana format has gone up in smoke, at least at 1580 AM.
He said the station's format is changing to include "lively music, a shopping show and information and news under the new moniker KFCS - Colorado Springs Own."
The KHIG format will continue online, he said, because that's how most of the audience tunes in.
"I have made the decision tonight to move our marijuana awareness-educational and at times 'stoner' fun from 1580 AM to exclusively the World Wide Web with K-high," he said in the statement.
He said the audience largely was listening online and from around the world.
Knar said that KHIG's 24/7 staff and lineup would continue at letstalkpot.com.
KHIG began broadcasting April 13 on a range of topics related to medical and recreational marijuana, with some programming on alternative medicine, yoga and related subjects mixed in.
But on Friday, the station began broadcasting music and a radio shopping show that plays on other stations owned by KHIG's parent company, Southern Colorado Radio.
Eric Deters, the controversial Northern Kentucky attorney and sometimes radio personality, was suspended again Friday by the Kentucky Supreme Court – and he doesn't care.
"I'm not practicing (law) in Kentucky and Ohio right now so those (suspensions) are meaningless," Deters told cincinatti.com.
Kentucky's high court suspended Deters for 60 days, 30 days each for ethical violations in two cases dating back years.
The court confirmed earlier findings by the Kentucky Bar Association finding Deters guilty of making "frivolous or unsubstantiated filings" in a 2006 civil case Deters filed against several Kenton County officials involving his jailed client. That led to a guilty finding against Deters. He was ordered to pay $29,381 to the opposing parties' attorneys.
In a 2011 case, an appeals court found Deters "knowingly and vexatiously" extended court proceedings with frivolous claims. He was ordered in that case to pay $12,765 in attorneys fees to the other side.
"The evidence of Deters' misconduct is rather clear" Friday's ruling noted.
Wrong, Deters said.
"Those are old issues which I already knew were in the pipeline," Deters said. "I'm going to appeal them to the U.S. Supreme Court."
I just wanted you to know that the Kentucky Supreme Court just entered an Order suspending me 30 days on a 2006 case and...
Posted by Eric Deters on Friday, May 15, 2015
Radio personality Mark West, who had been fighting to keep his morning oldies show on the air on WALL 1340 AM, has lost his battle.
The Times Herald-Record reports, West signed off for good at 10 a.m. Friday.
West had been working under a cloud since January, when communications giant Townsquare Media, which leased West his morning drive-time slot, switched the other 20 hours of WALL’s broadcast day to a Spanish-language-music format.
West, a 37-year radio veteran, found himself in the odd position of doing an oldies and community-oriented talk show for four hours, five days a week, with the rest of the broadcast day filled with Spanish-language music. Previously, WALL had aired an oldies feed during the day, so the formats matched.
As word got out about West’s predicament, loyal listeners bombarded Townsquare with petitions and emails. West said the decision to end the show evolved out of an email exchange he had with Townsquare in March, when Townsquare wanted him to go month-to-month on their lease agreement, starting in May. As an independent contractor, West said, he couldn’t work with his sponsors on a month-to-month basis, so he ended the show.
Only 25 years ago, The Daily News had more weekday readers than any other newspaper in America, with a daily paid circulation that easily exceeded one million. As of March, that number had dropped to 312,736.
These days, a struggling newspaper hardly qualifies as news; dozens of papers around the country have shut down in recent years. But the fate of The Daily News carries a unique symbolic weight. The News is the model of the big-city, elbows-out tabloid, a local paper with a national profile. Superman worked there, or Clark Kent did, anyway: The lobby of the Daily News Building on 42nd Street, with its massive, rotating globe, was the basis for the headquarters of The Daily Planet in the movie “Superman.” The paper was the inspiration for “The Paper.”
So who wants to buy this journalistic institution? According to the NY Times today, the most likely candidate once appeared to be Mr. Murdoch, the assumption being that he would simply shut it down. But Mr. Murdoch, 84, already loses tens of millions of dollars a year on The Post. And judging from the most recent acquisitions of the Murdoch-controlled media company News Corporation — a real estate listings site and a romance novel publisher — his interest in newspapers is limited.
Last week, Reuters reported that James Dolan, the head of Cablevision and Newsday, had withdrawn his $1 bid for the paper. (A Daily News spokesman said Mr. Dolan never made a formal bid, so there was nothing to withdraw.)
That leaves three likely bidders: John A. Catsimatidis, the supermarket magnate; Jimmy Finkelstein, a New York entrepreneur; and Jon Peters, a hair stylist-turned-Hollywood-mogul. None have ever run a daily newspaper. The closest is Mr. Finkelstein, the owner of The Hill, which reports on Congress.
Final bids are due this week, though this is less a bidding war than a matter of how much liability a potential buyer is willing to assume. Interest seems light. Wealthy people are typically drawn to media properties as a means to expand their influence.
Counting down the days until she leaves, WFLA-TV news anchor Gayle Sierens says she is trying not to have a plan for retirement, according to The Tampa Tribune.
“Isn’t that what retirement is all about — not having a plan every day?” says Sierens, who exits the News Channel 8 anchor desk on Wednesday after 38 years and five months at the NBC affiliate.
After nearly four decades of living by deadlines, she’ll be off the clock.
She says that for the next year she may come back on air at WFLA for some special reports. “The details haven’t been worked out, and I don’t know what my title would be or how it will work, but for at least a year I will be available,” she says.
Sierens young
“I’ve been lucky to be along for a great ride, and I can’t tell you how blessed I feel to have had this kind of career, all in the same place,” says Sierens, who was 22 when she joined WFLA in 1977 fresh out of Florida State University.
Sierens, who turns 61 in June, is the hometown kid next door who made good.
Popular with viewers almost from Day One, Sierens spent nine years covering sports and just over 29 years anchoring the station’s key newscasts at 5, 5:30, 6 and 11 p.m. She worked with three different male co-anchors, including the late Bill Ratliff, the retired Bob Hite and current co-anchor Keith Cate.
Sally Hille has been awarded a certificate from the Guinness Book of Records naming her the oldest disc jockey in the world.
According to the Charleston Daily Mail, Hille, who turned 95 on April 30, does a podcast for WMOA 1490 radio in Marietta, Ohio, called “News for Seniors.” The show is geared to ages 70-plus and covers a variety of topics. This marks the fourth year for the program that is done on her home computer and sent to the station on a weekly basis.
Because the Guinness Book had no category for oldest woman in radio, Hille applied under the DJ section and went through a complicated process to collect information for officials. To make her selection even more official, her boss put her on the air as a DJ on Mother's Day weekend.
“I am proud of this,” Hille said of her certificate. “I want everyone to know I am a DJ, really and truly.”
Fontana had just returned with his wife, Mary, after an evening out. She found him dead in his study, according to family members.
Fontana was a bold risk-taker whose ventures sometimes wound up in bankruptcy court.
In 1985, his chain of 19 shoe stores went belly up. He had guaranteed the loans personally.
He turned his interest in the stock market into a job as a broker and earned the money to pay back his debt. It was the beginning of the bull market and a ride to riches.
In 1991, he started doing economic commentary on WBT 1110 AM. In 1995, the station gave him an afternoon show that lasted until 1999. In 2000, he joined host Al Gardner on WBT’s “Charlotte Morning News” and had the ear of Charlotte’s mover-and-shaker crowd.
After the broadcast, he would head to his day job, running Wachovia Securities’ uptown brokerage office.
In 2005, Fontana bought WDYT-AM through his CRN Communications Ltd. and turned it into a talk radio station. But when the economy soured during the recession, the station lost money and closed in 2009.
In 1966...there's a Top40 battle in Denver between KIMN 950 AM and KBTR 710.
Listeners were tuning in to hear Gary Todd, Robert E. Lee, Jim O’Brien, Chuck Buell, Hal Moore, JayMack, Johnny Presley, George Michael.
KEWB Playlist - circa 1960
In 1966...KEWB 910 AM San Francisco switched to easy listening, from Top40. The station was probably anticipating the arrival of Drake-formatted KFRC 610 AM. KEWB switched its call letters to KNEW and will mimic sister station WNEW in NYC.
In 1966..93 KHJ, Los Angeles was a solid #1. The station has just raised its advertising rates for the fifth time to about $70.00 a spot.
WMID Playlist -circa 1967
In 1969...WMID 1340 AM Atlantic City, NJ sounding a lot like WABC-New, gets a 42 share in the latest Pulse ratings.
In 1969...KNEW 910 AM is flipping formats again. It was talk, but is now presenting a hip, easy listening music format featuring Simon and Garfunkle, Dionne Warwick, Gary Puckett, Frank Sinatra etc. The only talkhost staying is Hilly Rose, which airs from 10pm to 2am. KNEW had tried a low-key music format in 1966, when the station flipped to KNEW from KEWB.
In 1969...“Love” - the new syndicated album rock format from ABC Radio, launched amonthly album list. It will be available in area record stores in all markets offeringthe show. Call letters of the individual stations will be on the list. It was about 21 inches long on heavy stock paper. ABC says it will not be based on sales of albums, but on the total number of cuts from each album played each month on “Love.” The format is hosted by John Rydgren.
In 1969...Top-40 started airing more oldies. First on WOR-FM, WMCA NYC. Also WHK, Cleveland and WEEL,Washington. Drake formatted stations like KHJ, Los Angeles and WRKO, Boston featured “Million Dollar” weekends.
In 1969...Clark Race. highly-rated evening deejay on KDKA, quits. Race claims that radio in Pittsburgh has become boring because he no longer has a say in the music. He has a TV pilot pending at NBC and ended-up on KMPC 710 AM Los Angeles
In 1979...Rick Dees joins 93 KHJ Los Angeles for mornings… Dusty Street is doing mornings at crosstown KROQ. M.G. Kelly departs Top40 KTNQ 1020 AM L-A and says he’s leaving radio to concentrate on television. He has a new 30-minute “The M.G. Kelly TV Show,” now in production.
In 1979...Speaking at an advertising seminar...Rick Sklar argues that disco played on a contemporary station doesn’t make that station a disco station. Sklar pointed to “unheard of skews of demographics” among disco stations. He was talking about WKTU-FM – a station that was now beating WABC, Sklar went on to say that the station has a 21 share among single listeners and a 17 share among divorced listeners.
In 1979...Steve Marshall leaves KNX-FM L-A as program director to join “WKRP In Cincinnati” as writer and story editor.
In 1979...Matrix Communications signed Charlie Tuna to voice something called “The Radio Picture Show” – six 90-minute TV music specials. The show will feature video performances by leading pop-rock-disco artists in a top-40 rotation. A series of jingles and mini-features with visual accompaniment have been produced to be interspaced throughout the musical countdown.
Ruth Meyer with Jack Spector, Barbara Mandrell
In 1985...Ruth Meyer is now station manager of WHN, New York. Her boss is Gary Stevens, President of Doubleday. She was once Gary’s boss when he was a WMCA Good Guy during the 1960’s. She programmed WHN when is switched to country in 1973.
In 1986...Bobby Jay starts full time at WCBS 101.1 FM NYC.
In 1989...New York ratings...Z100 – 5.2...Oldies WCBS-FM 5.0...WPLJ-3.5…WXRK mornings with Howard Stern – 5.8.
In Los Angeles...KIIS-FM 6.2…Pirate Radio is flat at a 2.7. Rick Dees mornings at KIIS AM/FM – 7.4 share. Rival Jay Thomas at KPWR 5.7.
In 1989.... John Rio, the voice of “Mr. Leonard” on WHTZ, the Z-100 morning zoo singed a new, exclusive five-year deal with Malrite, Z100’s owner and will work out a separate contact to keep working with Scott Shannon’s “Rockin’ America” countdown and perhaps with Shannon’s “Pirate Radio” in Los Angeles.
In 2005..."Crazy Cabbie” ( Lee Mroszak) - best know to Howard Stern listeners - is sentenced to a year in prison for income tax evasion. He had pleaded not guilty - but admitted to doing so on the Stern show (opened his mouth).
In 2011…Worcester, Massachusetts radio legend Dick Smith, who spent 30 years as a broadcaster for WORC, died at the age of 84.
