Radio History: Jan 19

➦In 1903..the first Transatlantic Radio broadcast took place. King Edward VII and President Theodore Roosevelt spoke with one another in a coded radio transmission between Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Cornwall, England.

➦In 1905...Anne Hummert Schumacher born  (Died  at age 91 – July 5, 1996) was the leading creator of daytime radio serials or soap opera dramas during the 1930s and 1940s, responsible for more than three dozen series.

With her husband Frank she produced some of radio’s most memorable melodramas, including Our Gal Sunday, The Romance of Helen Trent, Mr Keen Tracer of Lost Persons, Betty & Bob, and Backstage Wife.  The Hummerts also produced several simple down-home musical series, like Waltztime and The American Album of Familiar Music. Their “radio factory” produced as many as 125 series, 61 of them soap operas.

➦In 1908...comic singer Ish Kabibble was born Merwyn Bogue in rural Pennsylvania.  He sang and played trumpet with Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge on radio & record in the 30’s and 40’s. His dim witted characterization was said to be a later inspiration for Jerry Lewis. He died June 5, 1994 at age 86.

➦In 1922..Radio, TV Actor Guy Madison born Robert Ozell Moseley( Died at age 74 – February 6, 1996) was an American film, television, and radio actor. He is best known for playing Wild Bill Hickok in the Western television series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok from 1951 to 1958.  During his career, Madison was given a special Golden Globe Award in 1954 and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

George Klein

➦In 1923...WMC 790 AM in Memphis, Tennessee signed-on. WMC was first owned by The Memphis Commercial Appeal and its call letters reflect the M and C from its owner's initials. In the 1930s, WMC carried the NBC Radio Red Network, while rival WMPS, owned by the Memphis Press-Scimitar, aired the NBC Blue Network. Starting in the 1930s, the station used a riverboat whistle as its sounder, a nod to Memphis' location on the Mississippi River—a practice that continued well into the 1990s.  The station currently airs ESPN and Fox Sports Radio.

In addition to sports talk shows, WMC-AM features longtime Memphis disc jockey George Klein's weekly tribute program to Elvis Presley. Klein and Presley were close friends and confidantes during the latter's lifetime and the former's long stint on WHBQ-AM.

Now, airing sports the license is currently held by Audacy Inc, which it purchased from CBS in September 2006.

➦In 1927...KGRC-AM (now KONO) San Antonio signed-on. KONO is the fourth-oldest radio station in San Antonio, officially signing on in January 1927. KONO began as a hobby for Eugene Roth in a room over his garage in downtown San Antonio. As the broadcasting industry grew, Eugene Roth's son, Jack Roth, began working with his dad, later inheriting the station. At first, KONO was powered at only 100 watts, broadcasting on 1370 kilocycles and having to share time on the air with other stations. It later moved to AM 1400 before relocating to its current home on AM 860.

Trump 'Most Likely' To Give TikTok a 90-Day Extension

President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in a phone interview Saturday that he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a potential ban in the U.S. after he takes office Monday.

Trump said he hadn’t made a final decision but was considering a 90-day extension of the Sunday deadline for TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell to a non-Chinese-buyer or face a U.S. ban.

“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump said in the phone interview.

“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he said.

A 90-day extension under specific conditions is explicitly allowed for in the bipartisan law passed last year. But an extension Monday may not be enough to avoid the app going dark for at least a day, because the current deadline for compliance is Sunday.

Trump says he will 'most likely' give TikTok a 90-day extension to avoid a ban https://t.co/dphOC6VMJZ via @nbcnews

— Tom Benson (@Tombenson1) January 18, 2025

The fate of TikTok is one of the subjects that has consumed the final days of the Biden administration, and many of the app’s millions of U.S. users are eagerly awaiting a resolution.

TikTok To ‘Go Dark’ on Sunday

TikTok said late Friday that its service would “go dark” for its 170 million American users on Sunday because of a ban in the United States over fears that its Chinese ownership poses a threat to national security.

The NYTimes reports the company said in a statement that “unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19” unless the Biden administration assures Apple, Google and other companies that they would not be punished for delivering TikTok’s services in the United States.

The statement was TikTok’s latest attempt to pressure the administration to grant it a reprieve from a law, upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday, that would effectively ban its service starting Sunday.

The law says that app stores and major cloud computing providers cannot deliver TikTok to U.S. consumers unless the company is sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to a non-Chinese owner.

TikTok did not detail what would happen on Sunday, including whether it would voluntarily shut itself down or simply cease to function because it would lose access to services it needs to stay online.

The Biden administration had earlier signaled that federal officials would not immediately take action against Apple, Google and the other companies under the law.

President Biden signed the TikTok ban bill into law in April after it passed Congress with bipartisan support. Lawmakers said Beijing could pressure ByteDance to extract sensitive data on American users or influence TikTok content to serve the Chinese government’s interests.

TikTok has said the Chinese government has no role in the company and that it has spent billions of dollars to address U.S. security concerns. ByteDance has headquarters in Beijing and is subject to China’s control.

Trump 2.0: Inauguration Ceremony Moved Inside Capitol Rotunda

Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony and inaugural address will be moved inside the U.S. Capitol due to the freezing cold temperatures forecast for Washington on Monday, scrambling the tightly choreographed event days before the president-elect is set to take office.

Trump announced the plans on his social-media platform, citing the “Arctic blast sweeping the Country.” 

Official Trump Inauguration Photo

“I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way,” Trump posted, warning of dangerous weather conditions in Washington. 

The inauguration could be one of the coldest since Ronald Reagan’s in 1985, when the swearing-in ceremony was moved indoors. According to the National Weather Service, temperatures are expected to hover around 20 degrees Fahrenheit around noon, with 8-degree wind chills. 

Attendees will be able to watch the ceremony via live video feed from the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington. The venue will also host the presidential parade, which was previously scheduled to snake through downtown Washington. Trump said he would also make an appearance at the arena.

Dignitaries and special guests of the president will watch the ceremony from inside the Capitol, Trump said. The event will take place under the Capitol rotunda.

Plans for Trump’s inauguration have been in the works for months and require close coordination between the president-elect’s team, the White House, Congress, and city and federal officials. Security measures like temporary fencing, concrete barricades and checkpoints have been installed ahead of events around Washington.

Inauguration Day Could Be Coldest In Decades

Frigid arctic air due to a polar vortex is about to send temperatures plunging for millions of Americans across the U.S., and that could lead to one of the coldest Inauguration Days seen in decades.

President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn in for his second term Monday, and the FOX Forecast Center expects temperatures to be well below average when he takes the oath of office.

Inauguration Day could be coldest in decades as arctic air plunges millions across US into deep freeze https://t.co/LnvuGpbD2m #FoxWeather

— Tom Benson (@Tombenson1) January 17, 2025

Computer forecast models show temperatures in the 40s on Saturday. By Sunday, temperatures will be hovering right above the freezing mark with some rain and snow. That could be the warmest day for at least the few days following Inauguration Day.

Temperatures could fall into the teens on Sunday night, and by Monday temperatures aren't expected to rise above freezing.

Here's Who's Performing at Trump's Inauguration

President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn into office on Monday, has announced a lineup of high-profile musical artists, many of whom have Nashville roots, who'll perform at his inaugural events.

Earlier this week, country singer Carrie Underwood announced she would be singing "America the Beautiful" at the swearing-in ceremony, where tenor Christopher Macchio will sing the National Anthem.

"God Bless The U.S.A." singer Lee Greenwood will also perform at the ceremony, a Trump Vance inaugural spokesperson confirmed to The Tennessean.

Other performers across the inaugural events include some familiar Nashville faces: Country singers Jason Aldean, Parker McCollum, Billy Ray Cyrus, singer and rapper Kid Rock, and the country music trio Rascal Flatts.

The "Y.M.C.A." band, The Village People, singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw and Liberty University’s Praise Choir will also hit the stage.

“The Trump Vance Inaugural Committee is proud to announce that some of our nation’s most iconic musicians will be participating in the inaugural celebrations," Trump Vance Inaugural Committee Co-Chairs Steve Witkoff and Kelly Loeffler said in a press release.

"This monumental weekend will commemorate President Trump’s historic victory and the 60th Presidential Inauguration with a celebration of music, unity, and patriotism, ushering in America’s new Golden Age."

Here's who will be performing at which inaugural events:

The Swearing-in ceremony

• Carrie Underwood – “America the Beautiful”
• Tenor Christopher Macchio – National Anthem
• Singer-songwriter Lee Greenwood 

The Make America Great Again Victory Rally

• Singer-songwriter Kid Rock
• American disco band The Village People
• Singer-songwriter Billy Ray Cyrus
• Lee Greenwood
• Liberty University’s Praise Choir 

The Liberty Ball

• Country singer Jason Aldean
• The Village People
• Surprise musical guest 

The Commander-in-Chief Ball

• Country music band Rascal Flatts
• Country music singer Parker McCollum 
• The Starlight Ball 
• Singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw

Americans Expectations Of Trump Administration 2.0

Gallup conducted a survey on what Americans think the Trump administration will accomplish over the next four years.

It found that nearly seven in ten respondents (68 percent) said that the incoming administration will control immigration. Respondents were least likely to say that Trump would be able to heal political divisions in the country (33 percent said his administration would be able to).

Anna Fleck at Statista writes around six in ten respondents thought that Trump will reduce unemployment, keep the country safe from terrorism and improve the economy. Just over half (54 percent) think he will cut U.S. taxes and (51 percent) reduce the crime rate. Meanwhile, only around a third (35 percent) of respondents said that the Trump administration will be able to improve the quality of the environment. A majority of respondents also said he will not be able to improve race relations, improve education, substantially reduce the federal budget deficit, improve conditions for minorities and the poor or reduce the prices of groceries and other items.

As this chart shows, a similar set of questions was asked to U.S. voters in 2016 about their expectations the first time Trump was in office. Between the two survey waves, the biggest change was in response to the question of whether the government would keep the nation out of war (17 p.p. increase). While the population answered far more favorably this time round, only just over half of respondents (55 percent) consider this to be the case now. The biggest drop in optimism was over whether Trump would be able to improve the healthcare system. Where 52 percent of respondents had thought he could in 2016, only 40 percent thought the same in 2024 (-12 p.p.).

CNN Settles Defamation Lawsuit

CNN agreed on Friday afternoon to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by security contractor Zachary Young, who argued that his reputation and business were destroyed after he was featured in a November 2021 segment on the network about the high costs of evacuating Afghans from the country after the Taliban took power.

The Washington Post reports the settlement was announced just four hours after a Florida jury had found the network liable for defamation and awarded Young $5 million for lost business opportunities as well as pain and suffering. The jury also had found Young deserving of punitive damages and was expected to deliver a verdict later Friday on how much the network would have to pay.

Because punitive damages are intended to punish the network and deter future defamatory statements, Young’s team was planning to ask for millions of dollars in damages. The monetary size of the settlement was not announced by the parties.

NEW: Jury finds CNN liable for defaming U.S. Navy veteran who helped with Afghanistan evacuation. pic.twitter.com/RfJM6luR4c

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) January 17, 2025

“We remain proud of our journalists and are 100% committed to strong, fearless and fair-minded reporting at CNN, though we will of course take what useful lessons we can from this case,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement.

“We are very happy we cleared our client’s name, obtained a punitive damages verdict against a media defendant, and then resolved the case so our client can move on,” said Devin “Velvel” Freedman, a lawyer representing Young. “These are the sort of things trial lawyers love.”

Zachary Young

Throughout the two-week trial in Panama City, jurors heard from a parade of CNN reporters, producers and executives who sought to explain the reporting process that led to the segment, which described Young’s work coordinating paid evacuations of Afghans and the high prices he quoted to extricate people who feared for their lives.

Young testified last week that there was “a very immediate and devastating impact on [his] life” after the network aired the story. His lawyers argued to the jury that CNN had accused him of criminal activity because an on-screen graphic referred to “black markets” while Young’s face and messages appeared on-screen, even though the term was not used in the story itself. Various CNN employees testified that they viewed the term to mean unregulated markets.

The primary reporter on the story, CNN chief national security correspondent Alexander Marquardt, testified on Monday that he had no intent to harm Young and did not produce a “hit piece.” All along, CNN employees told the jury that they had exercised care in producing, editing and publishing the story, which was approved by the network’s multitiered internal review process.

Throughout the trial, CNN’s employees and witnesses faced tough questioning from jurors who submitted often-critical queries to be asked by the judge that indicated some disapproval of the network’s reporting methods. “Do you feel that Americans are obligated to speak to CNN?” one juror asked reporter Katie Bo Lillis after she finished her testimony Wednesday afternoon. “Do people have a right not to be named in a news story?” asked another.

From the beginning, legal observers speculated that the jury pool might be unfavorable to CNN. About 73 percent of Bay County, where the trial was held, voted in the November presidential election for Donald Trump, who has demonized CNN as “fake news.”

CNN’s Net Worth Sliced in Half Over 2 Years

CNN’s net worth was nearly sliced in half between 2021 and 2023, according to financial metrics shared at the network’s defamation trial on Friday.

The network’s net worth went from $4.4 billion in 2021 to $2.3 billion in 2023 — a drop of 47.7% — according to what the company shared.

CNN’s annual revenue also dropped from $2.2 billion to $1.8 billion from 2021 to 2023, per the company’s internal metrics.

Free Beacon’s Jessica Costescu shared a CNN revenue graphic from the courtroom on X:

The financial metrics put a spotlight on CNN’s conspicuous decline in recent years. And following the 2024 election, the network, along with MSNBC, has seen its ratings take a major hit. TheWrap reported in November that CNN’s viewership declined 27% in the weeks following Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris, with CNN averaging 367,000 total viewers post-election.

CNN’s finances were reported after a Florida jury on Friday found that CNN defamed a U.S. Navy veteran when it implied he illegally profited from helping Afghans flee the country during a 2021 segment on “The Lead With Jake Tapper.” The network was ordered to pay Zachary Young $5 million in compensatory damages for libel, and the jury is still deciding on how much the network must now pay in punitive damages.

CBS Owner Discusses Settling Trump Suit

Paramount Global have held internal discussions about settling a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump over a News interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, according to people familiar with the situation, a sign of larger efforts to dial down tensions with the incoming president.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Paramount, owner of CBS, its namesake studio and several cable channels, has a major piece of business in front of the new administration: its planned merger with Skydance Media. It’s become clear to executives at both companies that Trump’s dissatisfaction with CBS News will make the review tougher than they anticipated, and that they’ll likely need to offer concessions to win approval, people familiar with the situation said.

Incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr gave Paramount executives a warning to that effect at a reception late last year following the taping of the Kennedy Center honors in Washington, according to people familiar with the exchange, and he has echoed the message in public remarks.

The FCC has the authority over the transaction because it would involve the transfer of broadcast-TV licenses held by local CBS-owned stations.

Trump’s lawsuit against CBS, which seeks $10 billion in damages, alleges that the network committed election interference by editing portions of an interview with Harris, favoring her campaign for president. Trump claimed CBS aired one version of the interview on “60 Minutes” and another version on its show “Face the Nation,” each containing different answers about Israel. CBS has said it aired a more succinct version of Harris’s interview on “60 Minutes.”

There was no indication that Paramount had approached Trump’s team about a settlement, but executives at the company were gaming out options to reduce friction with the incoming administration.

SLC Radio: Joyce Wirthlin New Market President For iHM

iHeartMedia has announced that Joyce Wirthlin has been named Market President for Salt Lake City, effective immediately. iHeartMedia Salt Lake City is home to six iconic stations featuring music, talk and news formats on both broadcast and digital platforms.

In her new role as Market President, Wirthlin will oversee all aspects of operations in Salt Lake City, including sales, promotions and programming. She will report to Nick Gnau, Division President for iHeartMedia.

Joyce Wirthlin

“I am very excited to have Joyce leading this team in Salt Lake City. Since the day I started working with Joyce, I was impressed with her leadership, the culture she has built with her team and the deep knowledge of the market. I have no doubt that she will propel this team to the next level!” said Nick Gnau, Division President.

Wirthlin joined the company in 1998 as Vice President of Sales. Over the years, she advanced within the organization. Most recently she served as the Senior Vice President Sales, where she played a pivotal role shaping sales strategies, fostering team development and strengthening the company’s presence in the market.

“I am deeply honored to be appointed Market President of iHeartMedia Salt Lake City and grateful for the trust placed in me to lead this exceptional team,” said Wirthlin. “The people here are the core of our success. Together, we are eager to build upon our achievements and continue to shape the future of media in Salt Lake City.”

Fox News Digital Finished 2024 As Top News Brand

FOX News finished 2024 as the top news brand with multiplatform views and minutes while seeing yearly growth across all metrics, according to Comscore.

For the year, FOX News Digital secured 41 billion total multiplatform minutes (up 11% vs. 2023), 21.1 billion total multiplatform views (up 5% vs. 2023) and averaged 110.7 million total digital multiplatform unique visitors per month.* 

Comparatively, CNN saw declines despite the historic presidential race with multiplatform views (down 4% vs. 2023), minutes (down 3% vs. 2023) and unique visitors (down 7% vs. 2023). 

Additional highlights include:

• The FOX News Mobile App reached an average 6.2 million unique visitors per month in 2024, while seeing year-over-year growth.**

On YouTube, FOX News saw a 20% increase with video views compared to 2023 and a 3% increase compared to the last presidential election year in 2020 according to Shareablee. FOX News commanded over 2.8 billion YouTube views for the calendar year peaking in November when the country went to vote.

FOX News was once again the most engaged brand on social media in the competitive set in 2024, driving 404.4 million total social interactions, up 34% from the year prior, according to Emplifi. FOX News drove 126 million interactions on Facebook, 247 million Instagram interactions and 33 million X interactions. From June – December, FOX News generated 1.14 billion views on TikTok. FOX Business drove 10.5 million social media interactions during 2024.

In December, FOX News was also the top news brand with multiplatform minutes (3.3 billion) and views (1.7 billion).* With total digital multiplatform unique visitors, FOX News commanded 104 million surpassing CNN’s 91 million. Notably, CNN saw lows dating back to 2015 with multiplatform views and minute in December.

FOXBusiness.com drove 2 billion multiplatform views in 2024, surpassing brands including CNN Business, WSJ Online, MarketWatch and Forbes. Additionally, the business site delivered 2.9 billion multiplatform minutes and averaged 25.3 million multiplatform unique visitors per month.***

The Rise of News Influencers

The 2024 presidential campaign that resulted in the re-election of Donald Trump was unique in many ways. One thing it demonstrated is the increased power that individual voices, first and foremost on social media, have in comparison to the actual “fourth power”, the news media. And it’s not just mega influencers like Elon Musk or Joe Rogan, people with tens of millions of followers on social media, who shape the political views of many, especially young people these days, but also thousands of smaller-scale news influencers.

These are people with large social media followings, who regularly post about politics and current events but are, more often than not, unaffiliated with an actual news organization. As trust in news organization has eroded in recent years, news influencers have become more popular for those seeking independent voices outside the often-maligned “mainstream media”.

According to a Pew Research Center report commissioned by the Pew-Knight Initiative, 21 percent of U.S. adults regularly get news from news influencers, with young adults significantly more likely to do so than older ones. 37 percent of 18 to 29- year-olds regularly get news from influencers versus just 15 percent of 50 to 64-year-olds and 7 percent of those aged 65 and above. While it would be easy to assume that people mostly seek out news influencers who’s views closely align with their own, that doesn’t necessarily appear to be the case. According to Pew’s findings, 61 percent of those wo regularly get opinions from news influencers say that they see opinions they agree and disagree with about equally. 30 percent see mostly opinions they agree with, while very few (2 percent) mostly see opinions from influencers they disagree with.

So why do people lean on news influencers to get informed? According to Pew, 65 percent of news influencer followers said that they helped them better understand current events and civic issues. More than 70 percent said that news influencers offered news that are extremely/very different (23 percent) or somewhat different (48 percent) from the news they get elsewhere. And one final aspect is likely trust: while the news media has lost trust in recent years, influencers have it in abundance, often built through years of social media “relationships” with their followers. What they often lack compared to traditional news outlets is an actual journalistic background, meaning that the trust they enjoy from their followers may not always be backed up by their actual understanding of often complex matters.

As our chart shows, X (formerly Twitter) is the most popular platform among news influencers, with 85 percent of the 500 sampled influencers active on the platform acquire b Elon Musk in 2022. Instagram, YouTube and Facebook are also very commonly used, while TikTok is surprisingly far down the list with only 27 percent of the sampled influencers active on the platform.