Report: Worst Ever Year For TV Business

                 The number of cable TV subscribers at major providers is about to dip below 40 million.

Audience ratings have collapsed: Aside from a brief respite during the Olympics, there has been only negative ratings growth on broadcast and cable TV since September 2011, according to Business Insider.

Media stock analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson recently noted, "The pay-TV industry has reported its worst 12-month stretch ever." All the major TV providers lost a collective 113,000 subscribers in Q3 2013. That doesn't sound like a huge deal — but it includes internet subscribers, too.

Broadband internet was supposed to benefit from the end of cable TV, but it hasn't.

In all, about 5 million people ended their cable and broadband subs between the beginning of 2010 and the end of this year.

Time Warner Cable, for instance, lost 306,000 TV subscribers in Q3, and 24,000 broadband web subscribers, too.

And Tom Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications, told Wall Street analysts he was "surprised" that 1.3 million of his 5.5 million customers don't want TV — just broadband internet. "Our broadband-only growth has been greater than I thought it would be," he said.

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Report: Advertisers Should Wise Up

AARP Ad

Hip young ad buyers think of potential customers over 50 as clueless oldsters yelling for the sound to be turned up or baffled by any technology more recent than the typewriter.

Marketers spend only about 5% of their ad budgets on viewers over 50, according to the senior-marketing firm Coming of Age.

But, writes Kyle Smith at The NY Post,  here’s the rub: Americans 50 and up buy nearly half of all consumer packaged goods.

So why isn’t the advertising industry recognizing the importance of people over 50? How much longer can it continue to ignore empirical evidence and hard number crunching in favor of superstition, hunches and ill-informed prejudice?

According to Smith, to put it another way when will marketers realize that 55-year-olds whose houses are paid off and whose kids are out of college have a lot more money to spend than 25-year-olds staggering under the weight of their student loans and struggling to hold onto their McJobs?

Even if your hair is gray, your money is still green.

Compare the situation seniors are in to that of the fast-growing Latino market. No one would ignore such a lucrative group, much less offend them, right?

Seniors aged 65 and over are outnumbered by Latinos (by 10- million) — but they spend more. A lot more. Last year they spent nearly a trillion dollars more than Latinos. Online? Seniors spend more than $7 billion on the Web each year, and they make up more than a third of all social media users, Coming of Age reports. Some 39 million Americans 65 and older are using Facebook, Twitter and/or Skype.

The median age of an American head of household is now over 50. So marketers focused on the 18-49 demographic are now ignoring most American heads of household.

Households headed by seniors have more than 20 times the net worth of those headed by those 35 and younger. That ratio has only grown over time: In 1984 that ratio was close to 10-to-1. Are they really worth only 5% of the advertising? And seniors are the only age group in which inflation-adjusted income has increased since the 2007 recession began.

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FCC Wheeler: Airlines Get Final Say On Cellphones

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler tried Friday to tamp down the backlash against his agency’s proposal to look at relaxing the restrictions on cellphone use on planes — while saying the airlines will make the final call, according to Politico.

“We understand that many passengers would prefer that voice calls not be made on airplanes,” Wheeler said in a statement. “I feel that way myself. Ultimately, if the FCC adopts the proposal in the coming months, it will be airlines’ decisions, in consultation with their customers, as to whether to permit voice calls while airborne.”

Wheeler added that the FCC proposal “recognizes that there is no technical reason to prohibit mobile devices from interfacing with the onboard wireless data systems being installed on many aircraft. … There is nothing in the proposal that prohibits airlines from developing whatever in-flight phone usage policy they may wish.”

But that may not be enough to calm the pushback that began immediately after the FCC announced its proposal Thursday.

On Friday, Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) sent Wheeler a letter urging him to withdraw “this ill-advised proposal.” Among other issues, Begich said he was concerned about the potential for cellphone calls to cause “air rage” among passengers.

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New App To Make News Available By Subject

With a goal of overhauling the traditional radio news model for an era of Pandora, Spotify, Flipboard and Zite, a Chicago-based startup has assembled a team led by cutting-edge technologists and veteran journalists to reinvent news delivery for the mobile age.

HearHere Radio is planning to launch the H2 Radio app, giving listeners unprecedented control over what kinds of news they hear and when they hear it, and customized for wherever a listener happens to be.

"H2 Radio is everything on-the-go news enthusiasts love, and none of the stuff you hate. It's news on your schedule: The latest traffic, weather and breaking news reports are waiting for you whenever and wherever you turn on the app," said John MacLeod, founder and CEO of HearHere Radio, the early stage startup behind H2 Radio.

"It's 'the top of the hour' whenever you launch H2 Radio."

John MacLeod

H2 Radio will launch on the iPhone as a free app in December 2013 for Chicago and national listeners. The startup anticipates the app will expand to other markets and platforms including Android and automotive in 2014.

Unlike traditional radio, H2 Radio will offer news content that is topic-based, not station or channel based, so you get to decide what you want to hear and when.

H2 Radio puts your news at your fingertips. Users will be able to:

• Select what categories of news you want.
• Search to find the stories that are relevant.
• Skip stories you don't like.
• Pause or rewind -- especially useful with traffic reports!
• Hear news when it's convenient for you - at home, work, in the car or at the gym. It goes with you everywhere.

"News enthusiasts will no longer have to spend significant time monitoring a multitude of news sources. The H2 Radio app is a 'simply engaging experience' that delivers up-to-the-minute, personalized news," said MacLeod.

Chicago Radio: Cubs Shopping Radio Partnerships

The Chicago Cubs will have to find their way through a complicated maze if they are going to capitalize on the media assets they believe will be franchise game-changers, according to Patrick Mooney at csnchicago.com.

That could mean the end of a long relationship with WGN-AM 720, which is searching for a new radio analyst at a time when the Cubs are looking at their radio options beyond the 2014 season.

The Cubs have also been in arbitration with WGN-TV, trying to determine the market value to those rights since exercising an opt-out clause to end their deal after the 2014 season.

Industry sources said the Cubs have met with CBS Radio Chicago, though that could be a play for leverage. The White Sox are locked into WSCR-670 AM through the 2015 season. One theory floated was the Cubs could spend a bridge year on another CBS affiliate before moving to the city’s dominant sports station.

Another source mentioned that ESPN executives from the Bristol, Conn., headquarters visited with chairman Tom Ricketts in 2010, shortly after his family bought the team, as part of a WMVP 1000 AM event. The station already has a marquee local sports property — a deal with the Bulls that runs through the 2016-17 season — but sources expect the ESPN affiliate to make a run at the Cubs.

Coming off a two-year stretch in which the Cubs lost 197 games, WGN exercised an option to re-open its contract, the Chicago Tribune reported last month, meaning the flagship radio station has only one more guaranteed season.

“Like any contract, there are periods where you do a business analysis,” WGN Radio president Jimmy de Castro told the Tribune. “Both the Cubs and WGN are looking at it. We love our partnership, and we hope it continues forever. The contract calls for us to take a look at it, and we’re going to do that.”

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Detroit Radio: WXYT-FM's Stoney & Bill To Get Prostate Exams

Mike Stone and Bill McAllister, the hosts of WXYT 97.1 FM The Ticket's "Stoney and Bill," will allow a doctor to give them on-air, in-studio prostate exams, according to mlive.com.

The exams are expected to take place 7:15 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. Wednesday and administered by Dr Ranko Miocinovic M.D., of Detroit Medical Center.

Exams will take place during the show "to remind other male listeners to make an appointment for this important test."

November is known as “Movember” when many men stop shaving to bring attention and raise funds for research into prostate cancer.

“I have had a prostate exam twice before but men find it difficult to go to the doctor and have this test," McAllister said in a press release. "There’s kind of a stigma about it, but it really is to men’s advantage to get this check-up and catch any problems early."

Stone's take: “It is so important for men to get this check-up and we want to show our listeners that it doesn’t hurt and there is really no downside to getting it done. If we can do it anyone can!”

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Dallas Police Confront Alex Jones During JFK Demonstration

Alex Jones

The bone-chilling weather undoubtedly kept many people at home, but Austin-based radio personality Alex Jones would not be deterred.

According to dallasnews.com, Jones, a hero to his anti-government listeners, was broadcasting live from downtown Dallas on Friday. And it was quite a show.

It began with a demonstration in Belo Garden Park across from the Earle Cabell Federal Building. And it ended with Jones and his followers being shoved across Main Street in the cold rain by Dallas County sheriff’s deputies who decided they’d had enough.

The rowdy Jones crowd drowned out the handful of quiet demonstrators and conspiracy theorists who set up along Main Street to get their message out.

Shortly before 11 a.m., about a hundred supporters, mostly twenty-something men, gathered around Jones in Belo Garden. He invited them to line up and say something into his microphone.

Jones and Co. marched down Main Street toward Dealey Plaza. He kept broadcasting the whole way, followed closely by his personal cameraman who recorded every movement and word.

Word spread through the crowd that Jones intended to bust through the barricades that separated him and his group from the officially sanctioned audience at the JFK commemoration ceremony.

But Jones stopped at the barricade, apparently deciding that he didn’t want to get arrested, according todallasnews.com.


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Rainbow Map Shows Nation's Public Radio Stations

The Atlantic.com has an online map of public radio stations across the United States. 

Created by Seattle-based photographer and designer Andrew Filer, it shows the broadcast range of every American public radio station—and not just NPR affiliates, but classical, pop, and other non-profit broadcasters.

Filer took his data in part from the FCC’s frequency search. The interactive version of the map is available, Click Here.

It’s an interesting dataset to stroll through. On the eastern seaboard, for instance, you can see the outsize reach of WHYY, the Philadelphia-based NPR affiliate, which is in orange above.

 Tom's Take: I would love to see someone produce maps like this for every FM frequency.

Crosley Still In The Radio Business After All These Years

Bo LeMastus

“We fly under the radar,” said  Crossley CEO Bo LeMastus, 50, who notes that most of his business dealings are outside it homebase of Louisville.  He told the courier-journal.com, “One minute you’re in Minneapolis talking to Target, and then you’re in Philadelphia with Urban Outfitters. It’s not by design that we fly low. We just do.”

Yet, beyond manufacturing, which is done in China, the vast majority of Crosley’s business, is done by a staff of 64 in Louisville — including design, marketing, sales, customer service and distribution. The company recently broke ground on a new 260,000-square-foot distribution center in nearby Simpsonville, which should open early next year.

Crosley currently offers 50 models of turntables, table radios, jukeboxes and telephones, in addition to a growing line of furniture. And its products are sold in hundreds of retailers throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South America.

Crosley Radio CEO Bob LeMastus: Crosley Radio CEO Bob LeMastus sheds light on the long-time Louisville based company's history and future as they plan to expand in to a new facility.



Crosley Radio’s story began in early 1920s Cincinnati, when Powel Crosley Jr. built a table radio from scratch for his son, after becoming annoyed by the prices stores were charging.

Crosley was already a successful inventor and businessman, mostly in the automobile industry, but he was enamored by radio’s potential for connecting people on an unprecedented scale. He turned that first radio into an industry.

By 1924, Crosley Radio was the world’s leading manufacturer of radios, and by 1934 the Crosley Broadcasting Corp. was blasting programming nationwide with a 500,000-watt transmitter on station WLW out of Cincinnati.

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Back in 1932 WLW increased their power from 50,000 watts to 500,000 watts. They were the only AM broadcasting station in America ever to operate at 500,000 watts. Much of the old transmitter still exists. It is really a high power amplifier with a high level modulator (360,000 watts). The amplifier was driven from their existing 50,000 watt Western Electric transmitter. The system used 20 100,000 watts tubes ($1,600 each in 1932) that required water cooling that used a cooling pond located outside the station. Tons, and tons, of hardware was required to achieve the 10 dB gain.

Need A Stocking Stuffer? Consider A Radio Tower Site Calendar

When one think of good photos for a calendar, you migh think of cheerleaders, dog of the month, kittens, Cape Cod shoreline shots.

But, according to writer Aaron Nicodemus at telegram.com, Scott Fybush, a radio journalist based in Rochester, N.Y., has been making a side living since 2001 printing a calendar chock-full of beautiful shots of ... radio and television towers.

It's a real business. In his best year, Fybush sold 1,000 calendars, to radio enthusiasts all over the world. He usually sells about 800.

Pretty radio towers, huh? It's an eye-of-the-beholder thing, writes Nicodemus.

Fybush has gone all over the country to find unique and different transmission towers to photograph.
Nicodemus says he's written many stories over the years about neighbors vehemently opposing the construction of towers in their backyards. But those are cell towers, Mr. Fybush argued, not AM transmission towers.

Scott Fybush

"To my eye, a lot of cellphone towers are really ugly," he said. "A lot of (cellphone) towers, they are just antennas slapped onto a metal pole. These towers, they have some grace to them."

He also argued that these towers add something to a neighborhood, not detract from it.
"When they're working in harmony with the neighborhood, they can provide open space in places that would otherwise be overrun with development," he said. "There's usually plenty of room around the towers; people can use that space as a kind of park. And there's no traffic. They are more than just a necessary evil."

Towers in the 2014 Tower Site Calendar include the former site of KBRT, an AM station that broadcast from California's Catalina Island until this year; the home of Chicago AM 1160's four-tower array in Des Plaines, Ill.; a master antenna system built in 1986 in Crestwood, Mo.; and the city of Tulsa, Okla.'s oldest surviving radio station, KFAQ, which launched Tulsa native and radio legend Paul Harvey.

You can order your very own 2014 Tower Site Calendar, with the WTAG site posing provocatively as Miss May, for friends and family for $18.95, plus $3.50 shipping and handling. Click Here.

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Milestone: Mick Jagger To Become A GREAT-Grandfather

Assisi Jagger

Sir Mick Jagger is to become a great-grandfather at the age of 70, his daughter has revealed, according to Sky News.

Jade Jagger, 42, confirmed her daughter Assisi Jackson is expected to give birth in the New Year, saying: "It is true. I am going to be a grandmother."

Although there have been rumours Ms Jackson, 21, was pregnant, this is the first time the news has been confirmed by a member of her family.

In the article to be published in The Sunday Times' Style magazine next weekend, Jagger said her father shrugs off suggestions he is getting too old for rock 'n' roll.

She added: "I think making Mick a grandfather obviously had a big impact whereas, now, making him a great-grandfather is no longer particularly fascinating."

Nashville Police Investigate Shooting Death Of Country Singer

Wayne Mills

Nashville police on Sunday said they are still investigating a fatal shooting in the early hours of Saturday morning that left a country singer dead inside a downtown Nashville bar.

According to The Tennessean, Wayne Mills, 44, was shot by Pit and Barrel bar owner Chris Ferrell, police said. Ferrell, 44, told police he shot Mills in self-defense following an argument over Mills smoking in the bar. Mills later died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

“We’re investigating Chris Ferrell’s claims of self-defense,” said Kris Mumford, a police spokeswoman. Ferrell is not in custody and there have been no arrests, she said.

Mills toured with the Wayne Mills Band, which often performed on the college circuit. The music was “outlaw/southern rock flavored,” according to the band’s website. Early in their careers, country music stars Jamey Johnson and Blake Shelton and American Idol winner Taylor Hicks had all opened for the band. On Sunday, Shelton tweeted: “Extremely sad to hear about the death of my old friend Wayne Mills.”

Extremely sad to hear about the death of my old friend Wayne Mills @WayneMillsBand... Rest in peace brother. Love you Carol.
— Blake Shelton (@blakeshelton) November 24, 2013

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November 25 In Radio History

In 1920...The first radio play-by-play broadcast of a football game was aired by WTAW in College Station, Texas. The University of Texas defeated Texas A&M, 7-3.


In 1960..."Amos 'n' Andy," in its final incarnation as "Amos 'n' Andy's Music Hall," was heard for the last time on CBS Radio. Created, written and voiced by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, the show had been heard nationally since March of 1928. It ran as a nightly serial from 1928 until 1943, as a weekly situation comedy from 1943 until 1955, and as a nightly disc-jockey program from 1954 until 1960.

In 1960...CBS ended its last five radio soap operas: "Ma Perkins," "Right to Happiness," "Young Dr. Malone," "Whispering Streets," and "The Second Mrs. Burton."

In 1976...a Viking 1 radio signal from Mars help to prove Einstein's general theory of relativity.

November 24 In Radio History

In 1890... French investor Edouard Branley coins the term (radioconductor"); the first use of the word "radio"

In 1926...KVI-AM, Seattle, Washington began broadcasting.

In 1958…

• Jackie Wilson released the single "Lonely Teardrops," co-written by Berry Gordy, Jr.
• Ritchie Valens released the single "Donna" b/w "La Bamba."
• Brenda Lee released the single "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree."

In 1963…On live national television, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, President John F. Kennedy's accused assassin, as authorities were preparing to transfer Oswald by armored car from the police basement to the nearby county jail. Ruby's 1964 conviction and death sentence were overturned in 1966 when an appellate court ruled that his motion for a change of venue before the original trial should have been granted. In December 1966, before a new trial could be arranged, Ruby died of pneumonia while suffering from liver, lung, and brain cancer.

In 1974…During his infamous "Lost Weekend," John Lennon rehearsed with Elton John for Elton's upcoming Madison Square Garden performance, at which Lennon planned to make a surprise cameo appearance.

Shotgun Tom Kelly Grand Marshal Of Mother Goose Parade

Courtesy of sandiegoradio.org

Veteran radio personality "Shotgun" Tom Kelly will be the grand marshal of the 67th annual Mother Goose Parade yesterday morning in El Cajon, according to ABC10 News.

Kelly, now the afternoon host of K-EARTH 101 FM in Los Angeles, is best known for his distinctive voice, beard and dark suit with a hat. Even though he's been on the Los Angeles airwaves for 16 years, he and his wife still spend their weekends at their home in Fletcher Hills, according to U-T San Diego.

He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame earlier this year.  The graduate of Mount Miguel High School in Spring Valley says on his website that he has broadcast on 18 radio stations in Southern California, including most San Diego outlets.

Mother Goose is the largest annual parade in San Diego County and is always held on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

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