Moonves: CBS News Broadcasts "Thrive"

On the analyst's conference call Thursday, CEO Les Moonves talked-up CBS News and CBS-All Access:

"At CBS News, our broadcasts have thrived during this election season thanks to our hard news profile and original reporting. CBS Evening News has now had six consecutive years of viewer increases, and CBS This Morning is delivering its best audience in nearly three decades. And we're number one on Sunday as well where we recently completed a seamless transition with Jane Pauley stepping in for the retiring Charlie Osgood at CBS Sunday Morning. We're also pleased that during the quarter CBS News was awarded more Emmys than any competing broadcast or cable outlet.
And also thanks to our political coverage, our digital news network, CBSN turned in an all-time high of 60 million streams in the third quarter, and the momentum has continued, including another weekly stream letter during the last Presidential debate two weeks ago. So, once again, we're growing our audience by delivering our content in the way that viewers want it.

"This is also the case at CBS All Access, our subscription streaming service. During the quarter, we launched an ad-free version of All Access for $9.99 a month, and we also launched our first original program with Big Brother: Over the Top. As a result, CBS All Access continues its steady climb in subscribers with more to come in the first half of next year. With the February debut of The Good Fight, the recently titled spin-off of The Good Wife, and the May premiere of Star Trek: Discovery. This has been an exciting beginning for CBS All Access, and we look forward to growing this revenue stream for years to come."

CBS Corp COO: Radio IPO Could Happen This Year

Also on Thursday's earning's call, CBS Corp COO Joseph R. Ianniello told analysts that the company has separated out what used to be called Local Broadcasting segment into two segments: Local Media, which includes our TV stations and our local digital websites; and Radio:

"Now that Local Media is a separate segment, in order to better align our results with our industry peers, we are recording 100% of our retrans revenue in Local Media, which then pays reverse comp to the network, again, consistent with publicly traded television station companies.

He added, "Local Media revenue in the third quarter was up 9% to $409 million, driven by strong political spending at our TV stations that you just heard about. In addition, higher retrans also contributed to our results. Local Media operating income for the third quarter was $122 million, up 21%, and our Local Media operating income margin expanded 3 points to 30%."

Joseph Ianniello

As for Radio, Ianniello said third quarter revenue came in at $319 million, up slightly from last year.
"Radio operating income was up 5% to $77 million, thanks in part to the restructuring activities we put in place in 2015. And the operating income margin for Radio expanded 100 basis points to 24%.

"Speaking of Radio, let me give you a brief update on how we're progressing with the separation. Last month, CBS Radio issued $1.46 billion of debt with a weighted average interest rate of 5.25%, and we are on track for an IPO in early 2017. That said, we may have a small window of opportunity to go even earlier if market conditions are favorable here in Q4. Similar to the Outdoor play book a few years ago, the next step after the IPO will be an exchange offer sometime in 2017, resulting in more capital returns for CBS shareholders and further focusing our company on our core content businesses.

"We are fortunate that through our strong free cash flow generation, our solid investment grade balance sheet and the benefits of the Radio transaction we are also able to return this level of capital to our shareholders, and as we look ahead to 2017, with our ongoing share repurchase program, coupled with the proceeds from the Radio IPO and subsequent split off, investors can expect another healthy year of capital returns."

As for the future,  Ianniello expects an extremely strong fourth quarter for Local Media driven by political spending. Local Media is pacing to be up mid-to-high teens, and Radio is pacing to be up low-single digits. And on the national front, he sees underlying network advertising strengthening from third quarter levels driven by our new upfront pricing as well as scatter pricing that is up strong double digits.

Philly Radio: 94WIP Teams Carlin-Reese For PM Drive

Chris Carlin

Sportsradio WIP 94.1 FM has made it official! It hasannounced the team of Chris Carlin and Ike Reese as the station’s new afternoon show. Carlin and Reese will broadcast the program weekdays from 2pm-6pm beginning Monday, November 7.

“Chris Carlin understands the passion that major East Coast cities have for their sports teams. It’s easy to be excited to add a seasoned talker who has hosted great shows.  I know he’ll fit right in at WIP. Ike Reese has spent the last nine years developing a deep relationship with Philadelphia sports fans. He’s passionate. He’s opinionated. He’s beloved. We’re thrilled that he’ll be playing an even bigger role at the radio station,” said David Yadgaroff, Senior Vice President and Market Manager, CBS RADIO Philadelphia.

Carlin said, “I couldn’t be more excited to come to Philadelphia. When the opportunity came up, it was a no-brainer. The passion of the Philly fans is legendary, and that’s what I’m hoping to feed off. Ike’s been a part of it for a long time, and he’s got his finger on the pulse of the city. I know I’ve worked in New York for most of my career, but to co-host in afternoon drive on one of the cornerstone stations of radio in Philadelphia is something I could never have imagined.”

Added Reese, “I’m excited to make the big move to afternoons at WIP with Chris. We’re going to bring hard-core sports talk to the show, along with some fun along the way, just like our fans want. Chris and I are two guys who love to debate sports, and do so passionately. I can’t wait to get started.”

Chris Carlin comes to Philadelphia with nearly 20 years of experience in radio and television. He first broke into the business at WFAN, where he became the producer of the legendary “Mike & The Mad Dog” program at the age of just 24. Carlin remained in that role for seven years, while gaining experience as an on-air host.

Ike Reese

In 2004, Carlin transitioned to a permanent on air-role, as host of the overnight show at the FAN briefly before joining “Imus in the Morning” as the show’s sportscaster in 2005. In 2007, he joined the “Boomer & Carton” morning program in a similar role, while hosting “The Morning Warmup”.

In March of 2008, Sportsnet New York launched “Loud Mouths,” a New York sports debate show, featuring Carlin and co-host Adam Schein. At the end of 2008, Carlin left WFAN and joined SNY full-time, where in addition to Loud Mouths, he hosted the New York Mets Pregame & Postgame shows for five years alongside former Mets pitcher Bob Ojeda.

In 2013, Carlin left the network’s Mets coverage to host “Geico Sportsnite,” a nightly sports highlight show.

Now in his 13th season, Carlin has served as the play-by-play announcer for Rutgers University Football and Men’s Basketball. He joined the football coverage in 2001, first as a sideline reporter, where he worked with Phillies play-by-play announcer Tom McCarthy along with future Rutgers Athletic Director Tim Pernetti. When McCarthy departed in 2004, Rutgers named Carlin his successor. In 2008, he added men’s basketball to his duties, which he called for eight seasons prior to joining WIP.

WIP 94.1 FM (9.6 Kw) Red=Local Coverage Area

Ike Reese has spent the past five years hosting middays on WIP.  Prior to that, he was the evening host.  Reese was a standout linebacker at Michigan State.  He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the fifth round of the 1998 NFL draft where he eventually earned Pro Bowl and All Pro honors.

Detroit Radio: Allyson Martinek Joins WNIC Morning Show

Allyson Martinek

WNIC 100.3 FM announced Thursday that Allyson Martinek has been named co-host on the Jay Towers In The Morning Show, effective immediately.

As a new on-air personality for the Jay Towers In The Morning Show, Martinek will wake up Detroit listeners with a variety of music and her fun take on pop culture as well as local and national news.

“We are thrilled to add Allyson to the WNIC lineup,” said Tony Travatto, Senior Vice President of Programming for iHeartMedia Michigan. “Allyson’s tenure and following in Detroit make her the perfect co-host for Jay Towers In The Morning. We know Allyson will really help WNIC to serve the audience and our clients better than ever.”

WNIC 100.3 FM (32 Kw) Red=Local Coverage Area

Previously Martinek served as the morning personality for WDVD 96.3 FM.

Portland OR Radio: KNRK Reunites Daria and Gustav

Circa 2000

Daria and Gustav are back together where it all began, on Alternative KNRK 94.7 FM.

"Alternative Afternoons" will air weekdays from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. starting Monday.

Program Director Mark Hamilton told OregonLive he's happy to get Daria, who was one of his first hires, back on the alternative airwaves. "Daria and I have known each other for 20 years," he said.

"Daria has always been fondly regarded by the 94.7 listeners," he added. "We thought it would be a good idea to freshen things up and welcome her home."

Up until recently, Daria was on "Daria, Mitch and Ted," an afternoon show on Entercom's co-owned KRSK 105.1 FM The Buzz with Mitch Elliott and Ted Douglass. That show disbanded. Now, Ted is gone and Mitch has his own show in the same time slot.

Daria told us over the phone Thursday that the program change happened "quite last minute." We've reached out to The Buzz for more information on what happened with the original show.

When asked how this program will be different than their early 2000s collaboration, Daria said, "I have no idea but I'm excited to find out."

KNRK 94.7 FM (6.3 Kw) Red=Local Coverage Area

For his part, Gustav said over that phone that he's "super excited."

"It's been just me in the afternoons since summer of 2005," he said. "To be honest sometimes it gets lonely. It will be nice to have someone to interact with and I think the listeners will be brought into that excitement as well."

Fox News Taps Tucker Carlson For Evening Show

Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson, a former co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire” and a prominent conservative writer, is set to take over the Fox New anchor chair at 7 p.m., filling the slot formerly held by Greta van Susteren, who left the network in September.

The NY Times reports the 47-year-old Carlson is in some ways a throwback to a more genteel era of conservatism. Preppy and jovial, he founded The Daily Caller, a provocative, if relatively moderate, right-leaning website, and he has often evinced a mischievous streak.

Carlson, who also hosted a show on MSNBC from 2005 to 2008, will replace Brit Hume, who was temporarily filling in for Ms. van Susteren. The show, which does not yet have a title, begins Nov. 14.

Journalists at Fox News are bracing for more change as the presidential campaign winds down. Mr. O’Reilly has signaled that he may be inclined to leave after his current contract ends next year, and Ms. Kelly, whose contract also ends next year, is embroiled in a high-stakes negotiation with Fox about her future.

Kids Confront ABC Reporter About Media Bias

ABC journalist Terry Moran on Wednesday was shocked as he discovered that some high school students support the Second Amendment and don't like the liberal media, reports Newsbusters.

The Nightline reporter traveled to a Pennsylvania high school, explaining that it's in a “predominantly white community.”  Talking to the kids about the 2016 election, Moran appeared perplexed to hear about firearm ownership. "How many of you have a gun," he wondered, urging them to raise their hands. Moran continued, “My goodness. These are your own personal firearms? It's not mom's or dad's?”

Moran pointed at the students and complained, “You think Hillary would want to take away your guns?... She's going to be a police officer come to your door and demand your gun?”

Newsbusters reports the journalist sneered, “That's not going to happen!” He lectured to the TV audience: “They seem to believe what Trump is claiming.... And not trusting what Clinton has actually been saying.”


The classroom was full of political posters and memorabilia from both conservative and liberal positions.

The reporter also asked the kids about media bias and was surprised by their responses:

TERRY MORAN: How about the media? We doing a good job? How many think the media is biased?  Mainstream media as they call it. [Almost all the kids raise their hands.] That's pretty much a yes. [Surprised.] Why?  

GIRL: Because they're always trying to attack Trump.  

MORAN: We're always attacking Trump?  

GIRL: Yeah. Like, they take pictures of him in the worst possible positions that they possibly could. 

Megyn Kelly Book Details Sexual Harassment by Roger Ailes

Fox News star Megyn Kelly has unveiled explosive new charges against the network’s founder, Roger Ailes, claiming the disgraced 76-year-old executive tried to sexually assault her in his New York office and hinted she would be fired when she “pushed him away.”

RadarOnline.com reports that the 45-year-old anchor’s account was added at the last minute to her long-planned memoir, "Settle For More". Her publisher, HarperCollins is owned by the same media conglomerate as Fox, the company Ailes left in July after former Fox host Gretchen Carlson became the first of several women to accuse him of sexual harassment.

Kelly — who is in the final months of a $15-million-a-year contract with the network — claims in the book that when Carlson first filed her complaint, Ailes commenced an “intense campaign” to get her and other stars to speak in his defense.

“I was approached several times, and several times I refused,” she claims in the book, obtained by Radar.

She insists, however, “There was no way I was going to lie to protect him.”

Ailes vehemently has denied any misconduct. But Kelly claims in the book that he started to harass her, too, in the summer of 2005, a few months after she was hired as a legal correspondent in Fox’s Washington bureau.

She writes that she was informed by her managing editor that she’d “captured the attention of Mr. Ailes” and she was summoned to the first of a series of meetings in his Manhattan office.

“Roger began pushing the limits,” she alleges. “There was a pattern to his behavior. I would be called into Roger’s office, he would shut the door, and over the next hour or two, he would engage in a kind of cat-and-mouse game with me — veering between obviously inappropriate sexually charged comments (e.g. about the ‘very sexy bras’ I must have and how he’d like to see me in them) and legitimate professional advice.”

Wanda Groups To Acquire Dick Clark Productions For $1B

The Dalian Wanda Group has sealed a deal to buy Dick Clark Productions for an eye-popping $1 billion, reports Variety.

The acquisition, which had been expected, marks yet another aggressive move into Hollywood for the Chinese real estate and entertainment conglomerate. Dick Clark Productions will Wanda a presence in the world of glitzy live events, such as the Golden Globe Awards, and the infrastructure for unscripted TV production.

Wanda said the deal is the company’s first move in TV. “It’s a big step forward in expanding Wanda’s map in the entertainment industry,” the company said.

Wanda said the management team at Dick Clark Productions, lead by CEO Allen Shapiro, will remain intact and that executives have signed “long term operation target agreement” with Wanda.

Wanda already owns AMC Theaters and Legendary Entertainment, and is planning to acquire Carmike Cinemas, which would create the world’s largest exhibitor.

Guggenheim Partners bought Dick Clark Productions in 2012 for $370 million — a price that at the time many thought was inflated. More recently, the company was spun off from Guggenheim to Eldridge Industries, which is owned by former Guggenheim exec Todd Boehly.

In 2007, DCP was acquired by Dan Snyder’s RedZone Capital Management for about $175 million.

DCP is best known for producing the Globes, the American Music Awards, the Academy of Country Music Awards and several other awards franchises, as well as ABC’s perennial “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve” special. It also produces reality series such as Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance?” DCP recently struck a deal with ABC to produce “For the Record Live” specials involving soundtracks to well-known films.

But the company in recent years has struggled to produce successful new programs. Industry observers were shocked when word surfaced last month that Wanda was considering such a high valuation for the company.

DCP also owns the archive of its namesake’s “American Bandstand” music series that ran with Clark as host from 1956 through 1989. But the clip licensing from the show is complicated and costly because of the need to obtain music rights.

NYTimes To Lift Paywall For Election Coverage

The New York Times is inviting readers to take advantage of its reporting, analysis and commentary from the lead-up through the aftermath of the 2016 election. Readers will have unlimited access to NYTimes.com for 72 hours from 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday, November 7 until 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, November 9.

“This is an important moment for our country,” said Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., publisher of The New York Times. “Independent journalism is crucial to democracy and I believe there is no better time to show readers the type of original journalism The New York Times creates every day.”

Below are highlights of what readers can expect from The Times’s coverage of this historic election:

• FOLLOW The Times’s live coverage on election night for reporting on hundreds of races across the country and real-time analysis by the political team. The Upshot plans to provide live forecasts of the Presidential and Senate elections, as it did during the 2016 primaries and the 2014 Senate midterms. These forecasts offer readers a constantly updated estimate of the final vote, based on the turnout patterns, exit polling, and demographics of places where votes have already been counted.  The New York Times mobile news apps are free to download. Users can sign up for breaking news notifications, which allows users to stay on top of major news events even when the app is closed.
• JOIN a livestream of election coverage on The Times’s Facebook page continuously throughout the night starting at 4:30 p.m. ET.  Coverage will include live video reports from correspondents at polling stations across the country as well as college campuses, election viewing parties and more. International correspondents in a handful of countries will capture worldwide reaction to the results of the American election.
• LISTEN to a special call-in show hosted by The Run-Up podcast on Election Day in which Times politics reporters will answer questions from listeners. The day after the election, Times reporters will come together to discuss the results and recap this remarkable year in politics.

St. Louis Radio: Editorial Decries Candidate's 'Hate Speech'

Bob Romanik

KQQZ 1190 AM talk host and political candidate has drawn the aire of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The paper is urging readers to contact that FCC over what it calls the 'filth spewed' by Bob Romanik.

Romanik bill himself as the Grim Reaper of the Radio" and the station's website touts Romanik as "The Krariest Son of a Bitch, you'll ever hear on the radio"

He is also running for the Illinois Stae House and in political radio commercials this week referred to his opponet, Bob Kern, as a cross-dresser and worse.  The paper's editorial said "listeners must not allow this abuse of the public airwaves to stand. The Federal Communications Commission needs to hear from anyone who believes Romanik’s hate speech deserves sanction. Romanik makes GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump seem like a model of good manners and decorum."

Kern declines to engage. “Bob Romanik’s hate is unworthy of comment,” he said.

According to the Post-Dispatch, Romanik's voice ad this week started with a legitimate critique of Kern’s role in the sagging fortunes of MidAmerica St. Louis Airport and the county’s losing bid to become the site for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s new western headquarters. Kern had lied, Romanik asserted.

Then he added: “Have you also been lying about your sexuality and sex life? … Mark ‘Sweetcakes’ Kern, not a wolf in sheep’s clothing but a very small man in women’s clothing. You have now earned a new name. … To all the people of St. Clair County, you’ll be known as Mark ‘The Faggot’ Kern, a faggot forever.” Tiny Tim’s 1968 recording of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” served as background music.

The paper is urging that readers/listeners contact the FCC  by phone at 1-888-225-5322. Chairman Tom Wheeler’s email address is tom.wheeler@fcc.gov.