Cable, Internet Lobbyists Fight Drug Price Disclosure

A lobbyist group associated with the cable and internet industries have joined forces with a group of pharmaceutical companies and the Association of National Advertisers in an effort to contest a new regulation that forces prescription drug companies to advertise their list price when creating online or television commercials, according to the Media Post.

The Internet & Television Association allied themselves with several drug manufacturers and the ANA after submitting a ‘friend-of-the-court’ brief with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

“More than merely affecting pharmaceutical companies, the rule also affects the First Amendment rights of cable networks and systems,” the Internet & Television Association wrote in the brief obtained by Media Post. “By requiring disclosure of a prescription drug’s wholesale cost, the rule effectively prevents cable networks and systems from carrying advertisements that do not include that information.”

Big Pharma companies Merck, Eli Lilly and Amgen began the campaign against the drug price disclosure mandate after The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services implemented the new rule that requires all prescription drug companies to incorporate wholesale price information for their drugs when running ads.

All three drug manufacturers, alongside the Association of National Advertisers, sued earlier this year to block the mandate, claiming that the Health and Human Services agency did not have the power to impose the rule while also arguing that a drugs list price is often higher than out-of-pocket costs.

U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta blocked the mandate in June due to the fact that the agency did in fact overstep its authority when imposing such regulations on the prescription drug market.

The Internet & Television Association is now advocating the appellate court to uphold blocking the mandate, arguing that the drug price-disclosure mandate is a violation of cable providers’ free speech rights, with the group arguing that the rule forces cable companies “to convey a controversial message against their will, in violation of their First Amendment rights,” the group wrote in Tuesday’s brief, reports Fox Business.

Smartphones Account for 70% of U-S Digital Media Time

Smartphones, which are cutting into the time spent with traditional media continue to account for a growing share of time spent with digital media. In the US, smartphones now account for fully 70% of total time spent with digital media, per a recent presentation by Comscore.

Combined with tablet use, mobile devices represented more than three-quarters (77%) of digital media time during June 2019, per Comscore’s report, up from 66% during the same month in 2017. The surge in mobile use has of course come at the expense of desktop: these devices represented just 23% of the time that Americans spent with digital media in June, down from 34% the same month in 2018.

Mobile-heavy categories in the US include Games (where the devices represent 94% of digital time), Social Media (92% share) and Entertainment (83%).

The highest concentration of time spent with digital media on smartphones is spent on apps. Indeed, while in 2017 smartphone apps accounted for half of the time Americans spent with digital media, they now now account for almost two-thirds (63%).

As expected, the Comscore report indicates that the younger generations in the US are the most apt to spend heavy portions of their digital media time on mobile devices. Some 72% of the minutes 18-24-year-olds spend with digital media are spent in smartphone apps. Similarly, 13-17-year-olds are spending 70% of their digital media minutes in smartphone apps.

Younger Americans spending most of their digital minutes in smartphone apps may not be news to anyone. That’s especially the case considering that, for entertainment purposes alone, 3 in 10 are now using their smartphone as their primary device.

What may be more remarkable is the amount of time older Americans are spending with smartphone apps. Comscore’s research found that just less than two-thirds (65%) of the time that younger Boomers (55-64-year-olds) spend with digital media is spent in smartphone apps. This matches the amount of digital media time that 44-54-year-olds spend with smartphone apps. Smartphone adoption is likely a large driver here: per the Pew Research Institute, nearly 7 in 10 Baby Boomers in the US now own a smartphone.

Interestingly, 55-64-year-olds actually devote a smaller percentage of their total digital media time to desktop devices (19%) than do the population at-large (23%). And even people ages 65 and older spend only one-third of their digital media time with desktops.

Appeals Court Says No To Ownership Review

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit won't review a three-judge panel decision throwing out much of the FCC's broadcast ownership deregulation order according to a court document obtained by B&C.

The full court did not explain why it would not review the decision, but en banc rehearings are not routine.

The National Association of Broadcasters had joined with the FCC in seeking the full court hearing.

In September, the court panel ruled on an appeal by Prometheus et al. of the FCC's fall 2017 decision under chairman Ajit Pai to eliminate the newspaper-broadcast and the radio-TV cross-ownership rules; allow dual station ownership in markets with fewer than eight independent voices after that duopoly created an opportunity for ownership of two of the top four stations in a market on a case-by-case basis (the FCC was not calling it a waiver); eliminate attribution of joint sales agreements as ownership; create a diversity incubator program; and create some diversity mechanisms to address the court's long-standing concern.

The court vacated most of the order, while remanding a couple of elements back to the FCC for more work.

D/FW Radio: Cumulus Media Re-Signs The Musers On KTCK

CUMULUS MEDIA announces that It has re-signed Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, Sports/Talk radio station The Ticket KTCK-FM’s morning show hosts, George Dunham, Craig Miller and Gordon Keith, also known as “The Musers”, to a long-term deal. 

“The Musers” have hosted the morning show on The Ticket for 25 years and their popularity continues as DFW’s reigning Sports/Talk morning show. The longest-running morning team in Dallas/Fort Worth, “The Musers” airs weekdays from 5:30am-10:00am on The Ticket 1310AM / 96.7FM. 

“The Musers” are consistently ranked #1 among 25-54 Men in the ratings, winning in the most highly competitive timeslot month after month, and year after year. They are also six-time NAB Marconi Award nominees as Major Market Personalities of the Year. Along the way, they have helped raise well over a million dollars through their various charity efforts and events through the years. 

Dan Bennett, Regional Vice President, Dallas-Houston, TX, CUMULUS MEDIA, said: “For 25 years, the Morning Musers’ George Dunham, Craig Miller and Gordon Keith have performed at a market dominant level and we are excited that will continue for many more years in Dallas!” 

The Musers commented: “We are very pleased to continue our longstanding relationship with Cumulus and the wonderful leadership of the Dallas/Fort Worth market. This company has made us feel appreciated and we are extremely thankful for their support of such a special station. The Ticket in Dallas/Fort Worth is our home and the bond that we have with our listeners is something we will cherish for as long as we breathe.”

Orlando Radio: Erika Pulley-Hayes Named Pres/CEO For WMFE-FM

The vice president of radio at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington will be the new president and CEO at non-com WMFE 90.7 FM and sister-station 89.5 WMFV 89.5 FM.

Erika Pulley-Hayes

Erika Pulley-Hayes will assume her new role Jan. 13. The radio stations’ board of trustees announced her appointment Wednesday.

The Orlando Sentinel reports Pulley-Hayes succeeds LaFontaine Oliver, who led the station since 2013 and returned to Baltimore in July to guide public radio station WYPR.

“WMFE|WMFV provides an important service to Central Florida, and this is an incredible opportunity to build upon the quality journalism and programming this organization delivers to the community,” Pulley-Hayes said in a statement. “I am very excited to join this team and continue working to enhance the local service that engages audiences across platforms.”

Since 2005, she has worked at CPB, the nonprofit overseeing the federal government’s investment in public media. CPB supports more than 1,500 locally owned public TV and radio stations.

Pulley-Hayes has developed initiatives to sustain and advance the public radio system across new platforms and through new business opportunities. She has managed daily operations, financial administration and grant programs.

“We are excited to welcome Erika Pulley-Hayes to Central Florida,” WMFE|WMFV Board Chair Anne E. Kelley said in a statement. “She is uniquely positioned to continue her record of driving innovation, now on the local level, and to further our stations’ mission to engage new communities, both on our terrestrial airwaves as well as our growing number of digital platforms.”

Report: Apple Music Getting Into 'Muzak' Biz

Apple Music, the No. 2 music-streaming service by subscriptions has been quietly piloting a version of Apple Music for use in businesses including Levi Strauss & Co. and Harrods stores, reports The Wall Street Journal. 

Apple Inc. has joined with PlayNetwork Inc., which specializes in providing music for commercial use. PlayNetwork handles creating custom playlists, licensing and operating the service—called Apple Music for Business—which differs in important ways from running a consumer-oriented offering such as Apple Music. Apple itself is creating and suggesting some of its existing playlists to clients.

Seattle-based PlayNetwork, which counts Starbucks Corp. and Estée Lauder Co s. as clients, is among the largest providers of music for businesses, including retailers, restaurants and hotels. Such companies license music for use in commercial settings, which costs more—and is more lucrative for music-rights holders—than consumer services like Spotify and Apple Music.

Mood Media Corp. (formerly known as Muzak), Sirius XM Holdings Inc. and Soundtrack Your Brand offer music-streaming service options for businesses in the U.S. costing around $25 to $35 a month per location.

PlayNetwork declined to say what Apple Music for Business costs but said it is priced competitively.

Rupert Murdoch Brushes Aside Climate Change Denier Question

The founder and chairman of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, has rebuffed claims his company promotes a climate-change-denying agenda, reports mumbrella.com.

At the company’s annual general meeting in New York, Murdoch was asked about the company’s stance on climate change: “What do you believe is the global role of News Corp in the current geo-political climate? If you do believe in climate change… why [does] News Corp give climate denies like Andrew Bolt and Terry McCrann so much air-time in Australia?”

The question was asked by Jessica Craig, a proxy for News Corp shareholder Stephen Mayne.

Murdoch responded: “On climate change, we have reduced our carbon footprint by 25% six years ahead of schedule. We were the first North American media company to commit to science-based targets to limit climate change. We have reduced energy costs by [US]$18m since fiscal ’14. Global paper policy to ensure 100% of publication paper is sourced from certified sustainable material. And print centers have achieved 96% diversion from brown fields as part of our zero waste goal. There are no climate change deniers around, I can assure you.”

Rupert Murdoch

During the AGM, however, Murdoch pushed the company’s “premium content” offering.

“News Corp is an increasingly digital and global company, defined by unparalleled premium content and market-leading and multi-platform brands…. News Corp is a uniquely influential media company,” Murdoch said.

CEO Robert Thomson echoed these sentiments, positing that we’re entering a new era.

“We are surely entering an era in which our trusted news, information and entertainment is increasingly sought by platforms, partners, advertisers and audiences globally. We intend to make the most of that emerging opportunity for the benefit of all our shareholders,” Thomson said.

Both men lightly praised Facebook for taking the first steps in rewarding and respecting its journalism, however signalled there was still some way to go in balancing the playing field between traditional publishers and tech giants.

Overall, Murdoch said News Corp has had a “successful year” and it was now working to optimize its profits and simplify the structure of the company.

On how it can maintain its market position and have its mastheads survive in an ever-changing environment, Murdoch said “the secret is to go digital”.

Rush On FOX News: 'Lower Expectations'

Radio host Rush Limbaugh says his 15.5 million weekly listeners have started to complain more about the disturbing left-wing direction that Fox News has taken under the stewardship of Rupert Murdoch’s more liberal sons.

“I can’t tell you the number of people who are complaining to me about Fox and their analysis,” Limbaugh said this week on his syndicated radio show. “And folks, all I can tell you is there’s nothing new about that.”

Rush said this leftist migration is a slap in the face to the millions of loyal viewers who have made Fox News the No. 1 cable news network every day since its 1996 launch.

“I’d lower my expectations if I were you,” Limbaugh warned. “If you’re expecting what Fox used to be, you need to shift your perspective.”

Lori Lewis Media Launches

Lori Lewis

In order to offer brands the most affordable way to finally put a social media strategy in play with proven, winning tactics to drive audience and revenue growth, Lori Lewis announced the launch of Lori Lewis Media.

As one of the most progressive and long-standing thought leaders, Lori offers unparalleled experience as the most-trusted partner for social media marketing, management and monetization.

Lewis notes, "Everyone is distracted. "As you look at the Internet Minute we create each year, they’re walking around with the Internet in their pants, looking for something to feel a part of; to talk about. This is why time & energy spent on social media needs to be focused in order to create real impact for our stations, our advertising partners and the bottom line.”

Since 2008 Lori has led hundreds of successful brand transformations in the social space.

Email llewismedia@gmail.com for Lori’s deck presentation.

Edison Launches Podcast Tracking Report

Edison Research has delivered to clients the first and only comprehensive measure of the comparative reach of America’s top podcast networks, the Podcast Consumer Tracker.

Edison, the leading podcast research company in the world, has been studying this rapidly evolving medium since 2006, and the Podcast Consumer Tracker represents the first successful endeavor to present a unified look at audience information at the publisher/network level.

The Podcast Consumer Tracker also contains competitive intelligence, audience demographics, and sales targeting information for podcast publishers and networks. The Podcast Consumer Tracker from Edison currently has 10 charter subscribers, including NPR, PodcastOne, Wondery, ESPN, WarnerMedia, and other significant publishing and agency partners. The study is based on a continuous sampling of consumers who have listened to a podcast in the last week. Comparative rankings of publisher networks are available only to subscribers.

Among the findings of the first report:

• The Joe Rogan Experience is the leading podcast in terms of reach amongst weekly podcast consumers.
• There are significant content consumption differences between iPhone and Android users, rendering “Top Podcast” charts derived exclusively from users of either to be unrepresentative of total listening behavior.
• While the study tracks the relative reach of the top podcast networks, 54% of weekly podcast consumers have listened to an unaffiliated, independent podcast in the last week.

“This is the first study in the podcast space to tackle a universal measure of reach,” notes Edison SVP Tom Webster. “There are, of  course, various charts of downloads that cover parts of the overall universe, but those either reflect only a portion of the podcast audience, or they only measure publishers that opt-in. The Podcast Consumer Tracker’s goal is a truly inclusive measure of the comparative penetration of the leading publishers and networks. In that, we have been highly successful.”

Report: Fake News Is Costly

Cybersecurity company CHEQ conducted research with the University of Baltimore, which found that the epidemic of online fake news now costs the global economy $78 billion annually. According to Media Post, the report, which analyzes the direct economic cost from fake news, also estimates fake news has contributed a loss in stock market value of about $39 billion a year.

The World Economic Forum's analysis released in 2018, ranks the spread of misinformation and fake news among the world’s top global risks.

“Fake news stories can be found everywhere online,” said CHEQ CEO Guy Tytunovich. “This includes aggregated online on search engines, directly on questionable news sites, shared on social media platforms and other forums.”

Tytunovich defines fake news as the deliberate creation and sharing of false or manipulated online information intended to deceive and mislead audiences.

The research analyzes a variety of industries that take into consideration online impressions. CHEQ worked with the economics department at the University of Baltimore to analyze economic data across many sectors to estimate the annual financial cost of fake news on the world economy.

The findings suggest businesses will lose about $9 billion annually from health misinformation, $17 billion from financial misinformation, $9 billion in reputation management, $3 billion from platform safety efforts, and $400 million from fake political advertisements.

Brands lose about $235 million annually from unknowingly running ads alongside fake news.

An example in the study points to content on the Yale School of Management site describing deceptive articles on investment websites that appeared to temporarily boost stock prices, noting a particular effect for small firms.

The political race in the United States also will be impacted. The study estimates at least $400 million annually will be spent on fake news in political races.

Google Updates Political Ads Policy

Google on Wednesday announced it will no longer allow advertisers to micro-target their political messaging, though the tech giant will still allow some misinformation in political ads amid rising scrutiny how online platforms mediate political discourse, reports The Hill.

In a new blog post, Google said it is tweaking its political ad policies in response to "recent concerns and debates about political advertising." Over the past month, Facebook drew fury over its policy allowing politicians to make false or misleading statements in ads, and Twitter angered a broad swath of advocacy and conservative groups by declaring it will no longer run political ads at all.

Scott Spencer

"We want to improve voters' confidence in the political ads they may see on our ad platforms," Scott Spencer, Google's vice president of product management at Google Ads, said Wednesday.

Google said it will limit the factors that political advertisers can target with to age, gender, and location to the zip code level. The new changes will go into effect globally at the beginning of 2020.

The company had come under heat from critics and competitors, like Mozilla, for allowing micro-targeting of political ads. Google's ad platform, which minted $116.3 billion last year alone, is a top destination for advertisers due to its ability to reach audiences with unprecedented specificity.

But micro-targeting, which uses consumer data and demographics to narrowly segment audiences, has been criticized for letting campaigns spread misinformation to susceptible populations in political ads that are not seen by the general public, avoiding accountability.

While most inaccurate political messaging will remain unaffected, Google clarified its policies to say it will remove advertisements that include doctored content, mislead viewers about the census process or could "significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process."