Some Christmas Stations Maintaining New Listeners

First glance at the February's 6+ PPMs seem to show ratings continue to settle in at the usual pre-Christmas music season trends. Hosever, some of the holiday music station are keeping some new listeners and are pacing ahead of last fall's results.

PPMs released today include: NYC, LA, Chicago, Philly, San Francisco,  Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston and Atlanta plus several other markets. To take a glance at the latest numbers, click here.

Also today, Arbitron released its March 2011 RADAR (Radio's All Dimension Audience Research) 108 Radio Network Ratings report. According to the newest data, approximately 74 percent of Persons 12+ heard one or more network radio commercials in an average week of the survey period, which is an increase of nearly 3.6 million versus the March 2010 report.

Additionally, RADAR 108 showed 74.8 percent of Persons aged 18+ (175,487,000 Persons) heard at least one network radio commercial, along with 73.9 percent of Persons aged 35+ (121,038,00 Persons), 77.4 percent of Persons aged 18-49 (104,483,000 Persons) and 77.6 percent of Persons aged 25-54 (98,497,000 Persons).

To view RADAR results, click here.

Why AT&T Bought T-Mobile

AT&T, criticized and even despised for its inability to keep up with growing mobile data usage, thinks it has found the solution to its network woes. And all it will cost the telecom giant is $39 billion and months (or even years) of regulatory hurdles.

Mashable's Ben Parr in an article posted at CNN.com rerports in a stunning move, AT&T has acquired T-Mobile USA for a whopping $39 billion from Deutsche Telekom. Along with acquiring approximately 8% of AT&T, Deutsche Telekom will also be gaining a seat on AT&T's board of directors.

The new combined entity, if it can garner regulatory approval, will be largest carrier in the U.S. by leaps and bounds. AT&T and T-Mobile USA combined have over 25% more subscribers now than Verizon (125+ million vs. 93+ million).

This acquisition isn't about subscriber bases, though; it's about improving AT&T's reliability and preparing it for the 4G era of wireless communication.

Read more here.

Opinion: Radio's Audience is Moving Online

What Are You Doing About That?
From Rob Green, for Radio Ink:

One of the famous sayings in poker is “you have to play the hand your dealt”. I think this applies to business, too, and particularly to radio today. Many years ago I worked for John Kluge of Metromedia fame. During an interview a reporter asked him what he thought about all of the fledgling international competition the US was facing at the time.  He replied that he was only thinking about the international opportunities. This is exactly the position radio finds itself in today regarding the rise of digital—concerned about how to beat this new competition and not focused on the new opportunities digital provides.

Radio seems to be playing a hand it was dealt long ago against competitors that are no longer relevant and playing defense in an unwinnable game.  Let’s not repeat what has happened to the newspaper industry.  Instead we need to focus on the vast capabilities and opportunities provided by digital.

At the Radio Ink Forecast Conference last November there was very little discussion about digital.  Folks, this is where your audience is going.  In fact, they are already there. Moreover, this is where the mindshare is, and why our industry valuations are low. Comparing radio to the newspaper industry, as many speakers at the Forecast conference did, tells analysts that the radio industry is living in the past. As a friend of mine told me a long time ago, momentum is really hard to get, but it is even harder to get back once you’ve lost it. Newspapers have long lost momentum and radio will too if it keeps looking backwards.

Read more here. 

Rob Green currently serves as the CEO of Abacast.

Face of Citizen Journalism in Libya Is Killed

Mohammad Nabbous set up an independent internet TV station in Benghazi

The death has been announced of Mohammad Nabbous, described as the "face of citizen journalism in Libya".

According to a posting at  guardian.co.uk, Nabbous was apparently shot dead by Gaddafi forces in Benghazi on Saturday.

Known as "Mo", Nabbous set up Libya al-Hurra TV, which broadcast raw feeds and commentary from Benghazi, on Livestream.



Andy Carvin, social media strategist at NPR, said on Twitter: "Mohammad Nabbous was my primary contact in Libya, and the face of Libyan citizen journalism. And now he's dead, killed in a firefight."

Sharon Lynch, TV station representative, said: "He touched the hearts of many with his bravery and indomnitable spirit. He will be dearly missed and leaves behind his young wife and unborn child."

Read more here.

NPR: The Music Powerhouse?

According to a story by Chris Richards at The Washington Post, the Washington-based news outlet has emerged as an influential powerhouse in a splintering music industry thanks to the growing popularity of NPR Music, a Web site that has connected with music fans by premiering new albums, streaming live concerts and landing exclusive interviews.

How big of a deal is NPR in the music world? Bertis Downs, manager of R.E.M., says NPR’s endorsement now carries as much cultural weight as an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” or the cover of Rolling Stone. “When we sit around thinking, ‘How do we get attention?’ — they’re at the top of the list,” says Downs, who recently helped R.E.M. get its new album streamed on NPR Music. “We know that’s where the audience is.”

The audience is growing. In 2011, NPR Music has averaged about 2.1 million unique visitors a month, putting the site somewhere between MTV.com, which pulled in 7.1 million unique visitors in January, and RollingStone.com, which drew just shy of a million that month, according to Nielsen.

Traffic on NPR Music has quadrupled since the site launched in 2007, and it currently accounts for about 14 percent of the eyeballs visiting NPR.org. And those figures don’t even include the millions of radio listeners who catch the audio features that NPR Music pushes to NPR’s various news programs.

But as the audience for NPR Music grows, it appears to consist of a demographic that’s actually shrinking: music fans who still buy music.

Read more here.

Also Must Read:

THE HILL: WILLIAMS: Now it's time to defund NPR

The Sunday Funny

FLASHBACK: Larry The Cable Guy & Friends prank then-pres. George Bush at TWH.

The Saturday Aircheck

WWSW Pittsburgh Merkel & Dickson 2000

Best Wishes To KFI's Bill Handel

UPDATE:

Reportedly, Bill Handel's surgery went "textbook perfect" Friday morning and is said to be resting comfortably.

earlier posting...
KFI/640 AM LA morning talk host Bill Handel told listeners Thursday he will have open heart surgery Friday to replace an aortic valve.

According to a story at ocregister.com, while Handel recovers, his team of Gary Hoffmann, Rich Marotta and Michelle Kube will fill in from 5 to 6 a.m., with Bill Carroll joining from 6 to 9 a.m. Carroll will also continue his daily noon-3 p.m. weekday program.

Handel, 59, seemed to take the news in stride. He made the announcement and then returned to being his cantankerous self. Toward the program's end, he said, "I will not be here the next couple of weeks. Don't wish me luck. Wish the surgeon luck," he said in his sign-off.

"I admit I am not looking forward to it, but it was one more item I can cross off my bucket list," Handel told his team and listeners.

Read more here.

Newspaper Guild Adds Firepower to HuffPo Strike

A strike called by unpaid Huffington Post contributors received a major boost Wednesday with a call to arms released by the national Newspaper Guild.

According to a story at The Daily Caller, the industry association called on contributors not currently on strike to cease contributions and asked members to help by “shining a light on the unprofessional and unethical practices of this company.”

The Newspaper Guild boasts 26,000 members and is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The CWA is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

The strike was called earlier this year by the membership of Visual Art Source, whose 50 members had previously contributed content for free to the site.

“Just as we would ask writers to stand fast and not cross a physical picket line, we ask that they honor this electronic picket line,” wrote the Guild.

“This is about supporting the quality and integrity of a vehicle for progressive expression, to actually help Huffington Post succeed, but on the right terms,” wrote the Guild. “We call on Arianna Huffington to demonstrate her commitment to the working class she so ardently champions in her writing.”

Mario Ruiz, the Huffington Post’s senior vice president for media relations, responded to the Guild’s statement by providing to The Daily Caller a previous e-mail response to Newspaper Guild President Bernie Lunzer.

Ruiz’s February 20 e-mail addressed a post on the Newspaper Guild’s website titled “Arianna got millions, all we got was a byline.” The post called on Arianna Huffington “to invest in quality journalism by sharing a portion of this fortune with the people who made her successful.” It included a template to e-mail Huffington.

Ruiz wrote to Lunzer, “We feel there’s a critical distinction between our editors and reporters and the people who contribute to our group blog.” Ruiz noted that the Huffington Post had a staff of 143 paid employees. On Thursday, Ruiz told TheDC that the site had hired 17 additional journalists since March 7.

Read more here.

Also Must Read:

B-NET: Newspaper Guild Boycott Call for Huffington Post Will Go Nowhere

House Votes to Defund National Public Radio

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted 228-192 on a bill to defund National Public Radio, the vast public radio network whose leadership has been questioned after a series of executive decisions about programming, staffing and reporting bias.

According to a story at foxnews.com, seven Republicans broke with House leadership and voted against the package. One GOP member, Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, voted present.



Though Republicans have been targeting NPR for months, in earnest after the firing last October of Fox News contributor Juan Williams, the charge to stop taxpayer cash from reaching NPR coffers was recently refueled by James O'Keefe. O'Keefe, the investigative reporter whose hidden camera expose led to the defunding of ACORN, recently captured on tape an ex-NPR executive calling Tea Party members gun-toting, racist, religious fanatics and saying the network doesn't really need federal money.

Opponents of government spending for NPR said the O'Keefe video was the last straw.

"Of all the data that we've seen, we still have not absorbed the culture of NPR until we saw the video" of that meeting, said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

NPR currently receives millions in indirect and direct funding to supply programming to hundreds of radio stations. But if the bill debated Thursday were to become law, the federal government would be prohibited from direct federal funding of NPR -- valued at $5 million in fiscal year 2010 -- and stations would be prohibited from using federal funds to pay NPR dues.

The legislation also bans public radio stations from using federal funds distributed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to purchase programming produced by NPR. Programming fees are the largest single source of NPR revenue, at $56 million in 2010's budget.

Current federal law requires approximately 26 percent of federal grants to public radio stations be used for the production or acquisition of programming. Stations can continue to receive federal grants for the production of their own programming, according to the bill.

Read more here.

NYTimes Unveils Digital Paywall Plan

An open letter from the publisher of the New York Times announced the paper's long-expected paywall.

The letter from Arthur Sulzberger Jr. reveals the paywall is first to be rolled out to Canadian web readers and to the rest of the US on March 28th. 

Click here for pricing information.

An important announcement from the publisher of The New York Times

Dear New York Times Reader,

Today marks a significant transition for The New York Times as we introduce digital subscriptions. It’s an important step that we hope you will see as an investment in The Times, one that will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality journalism to readers around the world and on any platform. The change will primarily affect those who are heavy consumers of the content on our Web site and on mobile applications.

This change comes in two stages. Today, we are rolling out digital subscriptions to our readers in Canada, which will enable us to fine-tune the customer experience before our global launch. On March 28, we will begin offering digital subscriptions in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

If you are a home delivery subscriber of The New York Times, you will continue to have full and free access to our news, information, opinion and the rest of our rich offerings on your computer, smartphone and tablet. International Herald Tribune subscribers will also receive free access to NYTimes.com.

If you are not a home delivery subscriber, you will have free access up to a defined reading limit. If you exceed that limit, you will be asked to become a digital subscriber.

This is how it will work, and what it means for you:

On NYTimes.com, you can view 20 articles each month at no charge (including slide shows, videos and other features). After 20 articles, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber, with full access to our site.

On our smartphone and tablet apps, the Top News section will remain free of charge. For access to all other sections within the apps, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber.

The Times is offering three digital subscription packages that allow you to choose from a variety of devices (computer, smartphone, tablet). More information about these plans is available at nytimes.com/access.

Again, all New York Times home delivery subscribers will receive free access to NYTimes.com and to all content on our apps. If you are a home delivery subscriber, go to homedelivery.nytimes.com to sign up for free access.

Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles.

The home page at NYTimes.com and all section fronts will remain free to browse for all users at all times.

For more information, go to nytimes.com/digitalfaq.

Thank you for reading The New York Times, in all its forms.

Sincerely,

Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
Publisher, The New York Times
Chairman, The New York Times Company

Within 30-minutes of the NYTimes announcement, the Wall Street Journal emailed a reminder of its digital plan.  See below.

Tom's Take: If you want digital, the full digital plan will run you $420 per year.

To get 'free' digital access a NYTimes subscription would be about $770 for the paper 7 days each week. Sundays only $195.  Be interesting to see if they would allow digital access for Sunday only subs.

Tiger Woods Guests On 'Late Night' With Jimmy Fallon

Radio: Oldies Are New Again

Chicago radio war pays off for listeners
From Robert Feder, Time Out Chicago:

If competition is good for the marketplace, then fans of oldies and personality radio in Chicago have reason to celebrate this week.

“After Two Decades, Oldies Battles Return,” read the headline Tuesday on Ross on Radio. Calling it the “final confirmation of the resurgent appeal of the revamped greatest hits format,” columnist Sean Ross put Chicago at the head of a list of oldies radio wars stretching from Las Vegas to Albany, New York.

On the same day CBS Radio replaced its jockless Jack FM franchise here with a live, local K-Hits format on WJMK-FM (104.3), Citadel Broadcasting oldies WLS-FM (94.7) transformed its midday hours — from 10am to 3pm Monday through Friday — into a local showcase for Radio Hall of Famer Scott Shannon.

While Shannon has been the syndicated midday, overnight and weekend voice of the station since it switched to oldies in 2005, Monday marked the first time he began hosting a customized version of the show for Chicago listeners only.

Michael Damsky, president and general manager of WLS-FM, acknowledged the coincidence with the debut of rival K-Hits, but said the move had been in the works for months.

Read more here.

House To Vote On Stopping NPR Funding

The House of Representatives has scheduled a vote Thursday on a bill that would bar federal funding for National Public Radio, according to a cnn.com story.

The move to pull funds from the public broadcasting outlet comes after a conservative activist secretly taped an NPR executive criticizing Tea Party supporters and saying NPR would be better off without federal money.

On Tuesday, the House voted to cut $50 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps support NPR. It's part of a larger bill to keep the government running for the next three weeks.

Separately, the House voted last month to zero out all federal funding for the CPB as part of its bill to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. But that bill failed to pass the Senate and Senate Democrats are unlikely to include the NPR provision in any compromise measure they are negotiating with House Republicans.

The embarrassing video has re-energized GOP efforts to cut off funding for NPR.

Colorado Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn, who unsuccessfully tried to strip federal funding for NPR last year, introduced the new standalone bill Tuesday. It would bar any of NPR's affiliate radio stations across the country from using any federal funds to purchase any programming from NPR.

According to NPR's website, it provides content to 900 independent stations, reaching 27.2 million listeners every week.

Read more here.

Also Read Here:

FOX NEWS:  This is NPR: National Private Radio

Stern: 'Felt Like Such A Failure' After Marriage Ended

Used sex to cope with divorce

Feeling lost after his 2001 divorce from wife Alison Berns, Howard Stern revealed to Rolling Stone that he turned to sex for comfort before eventually finding love again with second wife Beth Ostrosky, according to a story by Joe Gracely at nydailynews.com.

"My marriage ending blew my mind. I was upset that I failed, let down my family, my kids, my ex-wife; it all was very painful," Stern told the mag in its new issue.

Stern had three daughters with Berns during their more than 20 years of marriage and struggled to explain the separation to their children.

"[Getting a divorce] felt like such a failure," he added. "It's so complicated, and it's hard for me even to figure out at this point what went wrong and how things that were so good could go so bad. It's tough. I think I'll spend the rest of my life trying to analyze that."

Though Stern eventually turned to religion to make sense of it all, the shock jock confessed women were his first source of comfort and escape.

"I realized, 'Oh, wow, I can go have sex,'" Stern, 57, said of his newfound bachelorhood.  "I was running around, picking up women."

It was "new" and "exciting," said Stern, who explained he was faithful throughout his relationship with Berns.  But "at some point," he said, "it became just like I was on autopilot."

He went on, "I didn’t know what I was doing. I wasn't thinking of myself as a human being - didn’t value myself."

Read more here.