Baltimore Radio: Mike Preston To Program WPOC, WQSR

Mike Preston

iHeartMedia/Baltimore announced today that Mike Preston has been named Senior Vice President of Programming, effective immediately.

He will also serve as Program Director for WPOC 93.1 FM, Baltimore’s No. 1 for New Country, and WQSR 102.7 JACK-FM, Playing What We Want for Baltimore.

As Program Director, Preston will also work with on-air personalities and sales teams from 93.1 WPOC and 102.7 JACK-FM to oversee the stations’ day-to-day programming operations.

“Mike Preston fits this opening like a glove,” said Jeff Kapugi, SVP/Programming for iHeartMedia’s Washington, D.C. Region. “I am confident that his leadership and personality will take our Baltimore cluster to new heights.”

A radio veteran with over 25 years of programming experience, Preston most recently spent time as Program Director of KKWF and KHTP in Seattle, WA.  Early in his career he was the Assistant Program Director at ABC Radio’s WPLJ in New York, NY.  He later spent 12 years with CBS Radio including three as VP of Programming in San Francisco, CA and nine as Program Director and Vice President of Contemporary Hits Radio Programming in Seattle, WA.

WQSR 102.7 FM (50 Kw) Red=Local Coverage Area

“From Elliott Bay to the Chesapeake Bay, I’m thrilled to join the iHeartMedia programming team in Baltimore,” said Preston. “I can’t wait to join this amazing group of brands and the equally amazing and talented people who bring them to life.”

K-C Radio: 94.9 KCMO Lands Kelly Urich For Mornings

Kelly Urich

Cumulus Media announces that it has tapped long-time Kansas City radio personality Kelly Urich to anchor mornings on Classic Hits KCMO 94.9 FM. “Kelly Urich Mornings” debuts on 94.9 KCMO on Tuesday, December 26, and will air weekdays from 6AM-10AM.

Urich has been a Kansas City radio fixture or 28 years and is a two-time Kansas City Radio Personality of the Year. He was formerly with KZPT after many years with KMXV.

Donna Baker, Midwest Regional Vice President/Market Manager, Cumulus Media-Kansas City, said: “We are extremely excited to have a great talent like Kelly join Cumulus Media and 94.9 KCMO! Kelly is an iconic Kansas City ratings and revenue performer and we are delighted to add him to team Kansas City Cumulus!”

Joe Russo, 94.9 KCMO Program Director, said: “Kelly has a natural ability to communicate with listeners in an authentic and compelling way. A dynamic talent and a Kansas City icon, we are thrilled to bring him back to Kansas City radio in mornings with KCMO-FM.”

KCMO 94.9 FM (100 kw) Red=Local Coverage Area

Urich said: “KCMO-FM is the station I’ve listened to for the last decade and I’m thrilled to be joining this talented lineup. A giant thank-you to Donna Baker, Joe Russo and Lance Tidwell… This truly is my dream job. 94.9 KCMO is one of the best-sounding Classic Hits stations in the country. Kansas City listeners know I’m passionate about our city and about them. I’m excited about my return to the Kansas City airwaves.”

Cleveland Radio: iHM Promotes Joel Murphy, Keith Abrams

Joel Murphy

iHeartMedia/Cleveland announced today that “Java” Joel Murphy has been named Program Director for WAKS KISS 96.5 FM, Cleveland’s No. 1 Hit Music Station, effective immediately.

In addition, Keith Abrams, Senior Vice President of Programming for iHeartMedia’s North Ohio Region, has been named Program Director of WMMS 100.7 FM.

Murphy and Abrams will work closely with their stations’ on-air personalities and sales to oversee onair and digital programming, as well as local events and partnerships.

Keith Abrams

“Joel knows great radio and has been an important part of KISS FM for more than 10 years,” said Keith Hotchkiss, President of iHeartMedia’s North Ohio Region.

“I’m excited for him to lead KISS FM’s strategic and creative direction. We’re ready for him to take the station to the top of the Terminal Tower.” Murphy most recently served as Assistant Program Director, Music Director and PM Drive host for KISS FM. “Being handed the keys to program 96.5 KISS FM is a dream come true,” said Murphy.

“I couldn’t be more excited for this opportunity after being part of the brand for over a decade!” Hotchkiss added, “Under the stewardship of Keith Abrams for the past 10 years, iHeartMedia Cleveland has seen record growth in terms of ratings for our iconic brands.

Philly Radio: WXPN Adds Stephen Kallao To World Cafe

Stephen Kallao

WXPN, the member-supported public radio station of the University of Pennsylvania and producer of the NPR-distributed daily music program World Cafe, announced that Stephen Kallao has joined the program as Contributing Host, as of today.

As Contributing Host, Kallao will assist in producing the program’s radio and digital special features and conduct interviews with a wide variety of musicians. He is based in Philadelphia.

Kallao is a Chicago native with 20-plus years’ experience in hosting, programming, copywriting, and production for commercial and noncommercial radio stations, including WYMS and WLUM in Milwaukee; KUFO and KNRK in Portland, OR; and 91X in San Diego. He received multiple Wisconsin Broadcasters Awards, including two for Best Radio Show, among others for Best Interview, Best Specialty Programming, and more. Recently, he was Director of Imaging, Radio Content for online music service Slacker, Inc., in San Diego.

“I’m so excited to welcome Stephen to the team here at World Cafe,” said host Talia Schlanger. “Not only is his passion for music infectious, but he has the experience, chops and drive to bring that passion to life on the radio. I know our listeners will love sharing in Stephen’s musical taste, and I can’t wait to do the same!”

WXPN 88.5 FM (2.65 Kw) Red=Local Coverage Area

“When I worked at Radio Milwaukee, we constantly name-checked WXPN and World Cafe as examples of ‘the right way to do things,’ said Kallao. “To be extended an invite from a group that ‘gets it’ is unbelievably humbling. I’m excited to work with an undeniable talent like Talia Schlanger, and to learn from her, Executive Producer Bruce Warren, and the entire team at WXPN. Thanks to Kevin Stapleford and Slacker Radio for giving me a near unlimited runway to build some great things. Can’t wait to get started building again at WXPN.”

PPMs Released For Las Vegas, Orlando, 10 Other Markets

Nielsen on Friday 12/1/17 released the third batch of November PPM Data for the following markets:

 22  Portland OR

 24  Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill NC

 26  San Antonio

 27  Sacramento

 28  Pittsburgh

 29  Salt Lake City-Ogden-Provo

 30  Las Vegas

 31  Orlando

 32  Cincinnati

 34  Cleveland

 35  Kansas City

 36  Columbus OH

Click Here for the topline numbers for subscribing Nielsen stations.

Sexual Harassment Claims Could Affect the Morning Shows

Bill O’Reilly, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose.

New names are being added to the pantheon of disgraced media celebrities at an unheard-of rate.

So how do these media companies, which have banked so much on star talent with the hopes of continuing to reap advertising riches—some $500 million in annual revenue in the case of the Today show—move forward?

“From an advertiser perspective these things are, for the most part, surprises. So there’s not a lot an advertiser could do to prepare for that,” said David Campanelli, evp and director of video investment at Horizon Media told AdWeek. “Most advertisers will look at this as an incident that was taken care of and are going to move on. That’s assuming there are no more surprises.”

America’s First Family, as the Today show once marketed itself, has broken up. But breezy morning shows are also far different from opinion shows that are a staple of cable news prime time. Cable’s biggest draw, Bill O’Reilly, lost his show earlier this year following a review of allegations of sexual harassment against him.

Morning TV is still important for advertisers, as it skews younger than other TV news dayparts. It remains a compelling platform for several advertising categories. Ad buyers contacted by Adweek agree that CBS and NBC mitigated any potential advertiser erosion by acting as quickly as they did.

“Matt worked there for a really long time, but I think that the time slot can weather the situation,” said Barry Lowenthal, president of full-service media agency The Media Kitchen. “Is this going to hurt NBC? Absolutely. Is it going to accelerate the migration of viewers? That’s already happening.”

In fact, the three network morning shows have been losing audience share and viewership by the hundreds of thousands in recent years.

For the 2016-2017 TV season, the combined average for NBC’s Today show, ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS This Morning was 12.18 million viewers, down 6 percent from the 12.90 million during the 2015-2016 season, which was already down from 13.25 million viewers in 2014-2015.

And that, more than the sexual harassment dismissal of a high-profile figure, could lead to advertisers going elsewhere.

Dismissal Of Radio Suit Could Bring More Money To Songwriters

Songwriters won a victory in their fight to collect more money from radio stations last week when a judge recommended the dismissal of a suit stations filed in Pennsylvania.

The state has no jurisdiction over Los Angeles-based Global Music Rights, which represents top songwriters Jon Bon Jovi, Drake and Pharrell Williams, Magistrate Judge Lynne Sitarski wrote to a federal judge.

The NYPost reports the legal fight could have consequences for radio listeners, since the songwriters group has threatened to pull music off the airwaves if stations don’t pay a higher rate to its artists.

RMLCvGMR by Eriq Gardner on Scribd

“The magistrate’s recommendation is a vindication of what we have said all along,” Irving Azoff, co-founder of GMR, said in a statement.

Azoff, manager of the Eagles and Christina Aguilera, founded GMR with fellow industry veteran Randy Grimmett to increase how much songwriters get paid by the radio business.

GMR operates out of California and argued in the Philadelphia court that there’s no logical reason the case should be heard in Pennsylvania. The RMLC countered that GMR is a national organization and Philadelphia works just fine for this lawsuit. This week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lynn Sitarski sided with GMR. “I find that the assertions of Plaintiff RMLC, even if viewed as true, do not establish personal jurisdiction over GMR in the forum state, Pennsylvania or venue in this judicial district.”

In a statement Thursday night, Azoff said “The Magistrate’s recommendation is a vindication of what we have said all along: the RMLC had no business filing a lawsuit in Pennsylvania, a state that has nothing to do with this dispute. We look forward to Judge Jones’ review of the order and continuing our efforts to protect the rights of songwriters to be paid fairly by the $18 billion commercial radio industry.”

The RMLC plans to appeal, according to RadioInk.

ABC News Suspends Brian Ross

Brian Ross, the chief investigative correspondent for ABC News, has been suspended for four weeks without pay after incorrectly reporting that Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, would testify that President Trump had directed him to make contact with Russian officials while Mr. Trump was still a candidate, the network announced on Saturday.

Mr. Trump directed Mr. Flynn to make contact after the election, as president-elect, the network said.

ABC initially issued a clarification after Mr. Ross made the statement during a live broadcast on Friday but later called it a correction.

.@ABC News statement on Michael Flynn report: https://t.co/sd9TeFiiLQ pic.twitter.com/UtHFHeuwcM

— ABC News (@ABC) December 2, 2017

Ross’s initial report, which he said was informed by a confidant of Mr. Flynn’s, would have been a bombshell revelation in the continuing investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the presidential election.

The network’s tweet about the claim was shared more than 25,000 times before ABC deleted it, according to The Washington Post.

Kathleen Culver, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the mistake would give fresh ammunition to Mr. Trump and other conservatives who have attacked the credibility of news organizations, especially those that have reported negatively on the administration.

Congratulations to @ABC News for suspending Brian Ross for his horrendously inaccurate and dishonest report on the Russia, Russia, Russia Witch Hunt. More Networks and “papers” should do the same with their Fake News!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

“This error plays right into the hands of people who callously try to say that news media all just lie,” Ms. Culver said in an interview on Saturday night.

Disney Renews Interest In Fox Hunt

Walt Disney Co. has re-engaged in discussions with 21st Century Fox to purchase some of the media giant’s assets, and Comcast Corp. remains in the mix, with deal talks gaining momentum.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the talks center on the Twentieth Century Fox movie and TV studio, international assets such as Fox’s 39% holding in U.K. satellite TV provider Sky and India’s Star TV, along with some U.S. cable networks.

Fox News, the Fox broadcast network and sports network FS1 aren’t expected to be sold in any transaction.

Rupert Murdoch and his family, who hold 39% of 21st Century Fox’s voting shares, expect to make a decision by year’s end on whether to pursue a transaction, the people said.

Disney first reached out to 21st Century Fox about a possible deal several weeks ago, but the talks cooled after the two sides couldn’t agree on price, among other issues, people familiar with the matter have said.

Once news of those initial talks surfaced, other potential acquirers began emerging. Comcast, Sony Corp.’s entertainment unit, and Verizon Communications Inc., are among firms that have expressed various levels of interest, the people familiar with the situation say. The extent of discussions with Sony and Verizon is unclear. A top Verizon executive last week played down the need for the company to do a big content acquisition.

With the Twentieth Century Fox studio, they would also get a premier Hollywood content factory and strengthen their position as media consumption shifts to digital platforms.

A sale would mark a significant turn for 21st Century Fox, which has long been viewed as a potential buyer in the media industry, not a seller. Media companies across the board are considering new business models and strategic options as they confront a rapidly changing landscape, with consumers cutting the cable TV cord, big programming distributors flexing their muscles, and advertising revenue growth uncertain.

MSNBC's Joy Reid Apologizes For LGBT Blog Posts

MSNBC host Joy Reid issued an apology on Sunday for a series of blog posts nearly a decade ago, mostly critical of former Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, that have been criticized as homophobic and “anti-gay.”

“This note is my apology to all who are disappointed by the content of blogs I wrote a decade ago, for which my choice of words and tone have legitimately been criticized,” Reid said in a statement shared with NBC News, which, like MSNBC, is owned by NBCUniversal.

The blog posts were unearthed on Thursday by Twitter user @Jamie_Maz.

1/x From 2007 to 2009 @joyannreid authored a dozen homophobic posts not only attempting to out Charlie Crist as gay, she attacked & mocked him for being so.

She repeatedly referred to him as "Miss Charlie" and tagged posts about him under "gay politicians." (thread) pic.twitter.com/tRYvJ3lTc8

— Jamie M (@Jamie_Maz) November 30, 2017

The Twitter user noted Reid repeatedly referred to Crist as "Miss Charlie" in her posts and speculated that his 2008 marriage to a woman was a fraud and part of a “veep marketing strategy.”

During the time she wrote those blog posts, Reid was a morning talk radio host and blogger covering Florida politics.

"Among the frequent subjects of my posts was then-governor Charlie Crist, at the time a conservative Republican, whose positions on issues like gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples in Florida shared headlines with widely rumored reports that he was hiding his sexual orientation," Reid wrote in her apology.

"At no time have I intentionally sought to demean or harm the LGBT community, which includes people whom I deeply love. My goal, in my ham-handed way, was to call out potential hypocrisy," Reid added.

Crist, who served as Florida’s governor from 2007 to 2011, supported a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in 2008. He later apologized for supporting the amendment, telling Watermark Online, an online LGBT publication based in Orlando, "I’m sorry I did that. It was a mistake. I was wrong. Please forgive me."

Now, it is Reid who is seeking forgiveness for, as she put it, “insensitive, tone deaf and dumb” comments.

Analysis Questions Authenticity Of FCC Comments

For the second time in less than four years, the FCC is considering regulations regarding net neutrality – the principle that internet service providers must treat all data the same, regardless of the origin or purpose of that data.

Opponents of net neutrality regulations argue that ISPs should have the right to prioritize traffic and charge for their services as they wish. Meanwhile, supporters of net neutrality suggest that so-called fast lanes are anti-competitive and would prevent start-ups and smaller companies from competing with more well-established companies that can afford to pay for prioritized web traffic.

From April 27 to Aug. 30, 2017, the FCC allowed members of the public to formally submit comments on the subject. In total, 21.7 million comments were submitted electronically and posted online for review.

Pew Research Center set out to analyze the opinions of those who had taken the time to submit their thoughts to the FCC. The Center’s analysis of these submissions finds that the comments present challenges to anyone hoping to understand the attitudes of the concerned public regarding net neutrality. It also highlights the ways in which individuals and groups are using modern digital tools to engage in the long-standing practice of speaking out in order to influence government policy decisions. Among the most notable findings:

• Many submissions seemed to include false or misleading personal information. Some 57% of the comments utilized either duplicate email addresses or temporary email addresses created with the intention of being used for a short period of time and then discarded. In addition, many individual names appeared thousands of times in the submissions.
• There is clear evidence of organized campaigns to flood the comments with repeated messages. Of the 21.7 million comments posted, 6% were unique. The other 94% were submitted multiple times – in some cases, hundreds of thousands of times.
• Often, thousands of comments were submitted at precisely the same moment. On nine different occasions, more than 75,000 comments were submitted at the very same second – often including identical or highly similar comments.

The Center conducted its analysis by downloading all the comments from the FCC’s publicly available API. All data and comments used in this report are stored on the FCC’s site and are freely available to the public.

Report: FCC Official Resigns Over Porn-Viewing

A senior FCC official quietly retired this year after allegations surfaced that he had used his work computer to view pornography, the latest in a series of porn-viewing incidents that agency investigators have uncovered in the past two years. according to Politico.

An investigation that began in January found “pornographic and inappropriate images” indicating the employee used his FCC-issued computer and the agency's network in violation of commission policy, according to a new report from the FCC’s office of inspector general.

The employee, who is not identified, retired from his senior level position in June, the report said. The document says he worked at the GS-15 level, which earns as much as $161,900 a year.

Since 2015, internal affairs investigators have alleged that at least six FCC employees have accessed porn using work devices, according to IG reports. One investigation last year found “images appearing to be child pornography” on an employee’s FCC-issued computer as well as other pornographic material. The agency contacted the FBI in that case.

The revelations come amid heightened scrutiny of sexual misconduct across the media, entertainment and tech industries as well as the federal government.

Read More Now