Portland Radio: KXRY To Revive Progressive Talk

Carl Wolfson

XRAY.FM will be a local, not-for-profit, progressive radio station combining  talk & music. KXRY 91.1 FM ‘XRAY.FM’ will air progressive talk shows as well as tunes from the widest array of genres in the Northwest.

Nonprofit radio startup Cascade Educational Broadcasting Service announced last week that its LPFM station, KXRY-91.1 FM, would feature Carl Wolfson and Thom Hartmann.

Wolfson and Hartmann were both cut out of the Portland market last November, when Clear Channel switched KPOJ 620 AM to Fox Sports Radio. (See Original posting, Click Here) Wolfson launched a show on the Internet, while Hartmann continues to be syndicated nationally.

According to wweek.com, KXRY organizers say Jefferson Smith, a former Democratic state rep from Portland, and local radio producer Zak Burns approached them last spring about adding progressive talk to a lineup of Portland-based indie-rock shows.

“How do you get music and talk radio to work together?” Smith asks. “We adopted the mullet model—business in the front, party in the back.”

XRAY.FM, as KXRY styles itself, inherited a Federal Communications Commission license from Reed College, and talent from former pirate station Portland Radio Authority.

The station needs to find a location for its transmitter and file paperwork with the FCC. Even if it’s not on the air, the station plans to start broadcasting on the Web on Halloween.

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Radio Talker Dana Losech Joins TheBlaze

Dana Losech

Self-described “conservatarian” Dana Loesch is joining TheBlaze as a host and contributor.

Loesch will continue to fill in as a guest host of “The Glenn Beck Program” and will be contributing across the network in a larger role.

“I’m excited to join The Blaze team,” Loesch remarked.  “I love the fight in this group and their dedication to creating the best content available on multiple platforms. They’ve been at the forefront of new wave media…I can’t wait to get started.”

The conservative radio host – who lives in St. Louis, Missouri – has been described as “fearless and fiery” in her approach, and tackles issues from Washington politics to gun control.

Loesch appears regularly on Fox News, ABC, CNN, and HBO’s “Real Time” with Bill Maher, and was the first and only female guest host for Michael Savage’s radio show.  One of the original Breitbart editors, she also co-founded the local Tea Party in St. Louis and speaks regularly on the subject of new media.

Loesch was named to Talkers Magazine’s top 100 “heavy hitters” in 2012, and was ranked one of the top 16 most powerful mothers online by Neilsen.

I'm excited to join The Blaze team. I love the fight in this group. Thanks for the kind words, all!
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) October 9, 2013

Glenn Beck, who owns TheBlaze, told Politico that Loesch is “everything that a broadcaster needs to be — insightful, honest, funny and willing to stand up for what she believes in.”

Loesch also hosts The Dana Show: The Conservative Alternative, which broadcasts weekdays from noon to 3:00 PM Central time on KFTK FM NewsTalk 97.1 and WIBC in Indianapolis.

CT Radio: WICC Inks Joe McCoy’s Jukebox

Joe McCoy

Cumulus Media’s WICC 600 AM in Bridgeport, CT has announced the addition of ‘Joe McCoy’s Jukebow Saturday Night’.

The show on the full service AC will be hosted by Joe McCoy, former program director of WCBS-FM 101.1 FM in NYC.   McCoy will be now be ‘semi-retired’.

McCoy, who started his career at WWCO in Waterbury, later worked at WXLO and WNBC before joing WCBS-FM, where he was PD for more than 20-years.

WICC OM/PD Danny Lysons commented,  "I’m thrilled to be reunited with JOE and I know our listeners will be excited to hear him bring back the music that so many of them grew up with!"

iHeartRadio Notes Social Media Take-Aways

Clear Channel Media and Entertainment Wednesday released details of the social media engagement surrounding its 2013 iHeartRadio Music Festival, which took place in Las Vegas on September 20 and 21.

This year's festival drove record-breaking buzz across all social media platforms, with more than 700K active social media us ers generating a total of 1.4M pieces of content and 2.3B total impressions, double the amount vs. prior year.

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were the leading channels for conversation around the 2013 festival. Photo-sharing experienced a breakthrough at this year's festival, with Instagram posts accounting for 23% of all social media activity, as compared to less than 1% in 2012.

Other statistics of note include:

• 97,202 social media posts and 1,297,909 interactions were generated about the festival, resulting in 1,440,304 total pieces of buzz
• Miley Cyrus topped the artists discussed during the festival, followed by Katy Perry, Queen and Chris Brown
• Social media interactions were skewed female (66% of content came from women) and young ( 48% of the social media contributors were 18-24 year olds); 83% of all people who participated were under 34 years old
• iHeartRadio's brand partners benefitted from 38M social impressions over the festival weekend

The festival generated 38 trending topics on Twitter over the course of the weekend, with iHeartRadio trending worldwide both nights

This year's two-day iHeartRadio Music Festival brought to life the music of the iHeartRadio app and offered fans an opportunity to enjoy a weekend of live music and surprise performances by their favorite artists. 

Study: More Time Spent on Screens Other Than TV

Americans spend a full five hours and 16 minutes a day in front of a screen, and that's without even turning on a television.

So says a statistic from eMarketer, a research firm that focuses on digital media and marketing. It says that for the first time we are devoting more attention each day to smartphones, computers and tablets, according to The Wall Street Journal.

 All of which points to a big question: What counts as TV-watching today?

We are actually watching more television programming, just from a growing range of devices and platforms, say digital and television executives, as well as academics and statisticians. Traditional TV or cable-network fare is now available online, via streaming services like Netflix or for sale to be watched on mobile phones and tablets.

The report says that adults are watching their televisions slightly less—with a daily intake of four hours and 31 minutes this year, seven minutes less than in 2012.

The increase in mobile devices and the multitasking they allow, plus the trend toward watching TV shows on devices other than televisions, is driving the changes measured in the report, says Clark Fredricksen, a spokesman for eMarketer. The study, which came out in August, is conducted twice annually.

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Kanye and Kimmel Settle ‘Rap Feud’

Kanye West

Kanye West visited “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Wednesday to settle his beef with the late-night host, according to The NYPost.

The grudge developed last month, after Kimmel aired a Kanye parody sketch using a child actor to mock the rapper’s interview with BBC. West answered back the way people do these days – on Twitter, ripping the host’s humor … and his face … and his talent … in 140-character, caps-locked bursts.

Kimmel later joked that he always wanted to be in a rap feud.

“I was only in one other rap feud,” Kimmel said during the open of Wednesday’s episode. “It was 1992, and I accused Sir Mix-A-Lot of only liking medium butts.”

Wednesday, and it was West – dressed in a subdued blue-gray pullover and ripped jeans – burying the hatchet.

Kimmel expressed remorse for the skit, saying he simply enjoys seeing children curse.

“I’m not running for office,” Kanye said. “I’m just here to make good music, make people feel good when they hear my music, and y’know, when I did that interview (with BBC), I was really vocal with a lot of things I’ve been dealing with in the past 10 years, and the classification of ‘just’ a celebrity.

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Houston Radio: Michael Harris Starts KCOH Legal Proceedings

Michael Harris

Less than a year after KCOH, Houston radio's voice of the black community for six decades, moved from 1430 AM to 1230 and began being run by local minister Jesse Dunn, the station is mired in controversy, according to the Houston Chronicle.

In a civil suit filed Monday, longtime KCOH host Michael Harris - who resigned two weeks ago after 38 years on the air - accuses Dunn, the station's president, and the South Houston Community Development Corporation, doing business as KCOH 1230 AM, of fraud.

Harris claims Dunn made false representations to induce him to secure two personal lines of credit totaling $130,000 for station financing and back a $38,000 loan for equipment. According to the complaint, financial documents and pronouncements in local media by Harris, Dunn allegedly acquired a debit card on at least one credit line to pay personal expenses as well as fund trips to Louisiana and Las Vegas casinos.

The accusations have caused an uproar among listeners and community activists while fueling concerns about the station's future.

Jesse Dunn

Dunn declined to comment on the lawsuit, but admitted that the new KCOH faces challenges. He denied misusing funds as well as allegations that KCOH is in jeopardy.

KCOH was on the market until last December when relatives of the late Michael Petrizzo - the longtime majority owner - and other partners sold its signal for $2.1 million to La Promesa Foundation of Midland, which then relaunched 1430 AM with Catholic programming as part of the Guadalupe Radio Network.

KCOH took over the 1230 AM signal on March 1. The new leadership team leased the frequency from Lieberman Broadcasting, as well as use of the historic call letters and the "looking-glass" studios at 5011 Almeda from 1430's former owners.

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Boston Radio: AMP Radio Sez Kiss 108 Stole Britney Interview

Not sure if you can call it a radio war if only one side is engaging, but WODS AMP Radio 103.3 FM is calling out Kiss 108 for stealing an interview with Britney Spears — and demanding reparations!

Here’s the deal according to Gayle Fee at The Boston Herald: Last week, AMP morning duo TJ Taormina and Loren Raye scored a little scoop when they interviewed Brits and the pop princess complained that there was too much sex in music videos.

On Monday, Billy Costa on Matt Siegel’s Kiss morning show played audio of Britney that was identical to AMP’s, but Costa said Spears had given the interview to Kiss afternoon guy Romeo.

This did not sit well with TJ, who has been ripping Kiss for supposedly ripping him off. And what really got TJ AMPed up is that Romeo’s interview with Britney is posted on the Kiss website and the clip Billy played clearly isn’t there.

“Matty over at Kiss 108 played our audio, which, God, that’s as flattering as can be, but gave their own radio station credit for it,” TJ said. “Listen Matty, if you want to use our audio, I’m honored. ... Just give us the credit for it.”

Taormina went on to say that he has a “massive amount of respect” for Siegel, then kind of gave him a little dig, adding, “That guy’s been on the radio here in Boston in morning drive for 30 years — that’s longer than I’ve been 
alive. ...”

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TVCable News: Megyn Kelly Draws a Large, Older Audience

Megyn Kelly

On her first night as a central player in the Fox News prime-time lineup, Megyn Kelly scored impressively with the network’s core audience of older viewers, but, according to Bill Carter at The NYTimes, did not register much improvement in attracting additional viewers in the category that makes money for cable news networks, viewers between the ages of 25 and 54.

In fact, among that group, Kelly finished second to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC in the 9 p.m. hour. That qualifies as something of a surprise given the amount of publicity Fox News put behind the introduction of Ms. Kelly and her status as the fastest rising star at the network.

Certainly, the attention surrounding Kelly’s first prime-time program paid off in terms of adding viewers, though they happened to be largely over 55. Ms. Kelly averaged a total audience of 2.1 million viewers for her debut edition of “The Kelly File” from 9 to 10 p.m. That was an increase of 32 percent from the audience that Mr. Hannity had been averaging for the previous four Mondays in that hour.

But of that 2.1 million viewership only 289,000 were 25 to 54 years old, roughly 14 percent of her total audience. Ms. Maddow, MSNBC’s biggest name, beat Ms. Kelly on Monday with an audience of 299,000 among the younger viewers, though she was far behind in total viewers with 997,000. That meant Ms. Maddow averaged about 30 percent of her audience in the age group that makes money for her network.

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Ronan Farrow Could Be MSNBC's Anderson Cooper

Ronan Farrow

Ronan Farrow — the man with Woody Allen’s wit and Frank Sinatra’s charm — is closing a deal with MSNBC to become a news correspondent and a future Anderson Cooper-style “face of the network” anchor.

According to The NYPost, Farrow has been in talks with network execs for months, and is set to become MSNBC’s next new face after Alec Baldwin, who premieres his “Up Late” show on Friday.

Farrow’s deal is part of a move to inject new energy into the left-leaning channel, which has struggled due to its focus on opinion rather than breaking news during the election cycle.

While MSNBC reps declined to comment, a network source tells us, “They’re just finalizing the contract. Ronan is not going to get his own show off the bat, but they are going to develop him, have him work on stories and build his TV news credentials. He’ll work across the whole lineup. He’s 25, everybody knows he’s very bright, but he’s not getting his own show — yet.”

While his TV experience is limited, Farrow is certainly accomplished. A graduate of Yale Law and a Rhodes Scholar, he has served in the Obama administration’s foreign policy department, and has previously appeared on MSNBC and CNN. He’s been a UNICEF spokesman and became a special adviser to Hillary Clinton for global youth issues.

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Reports: CPB Got $445M On First Day Of Shutdown

Funding for clinical cancer trials and other life-saving research under the National Institutes of Health was cut off in response to the government slimdown, but it looks like the cookie monster will still be knee-deep in chocolate chips (or is it carrots now?)

According to the Daily Treasury Statement and first reported by CNS News, the administration dished out $445 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) on the first day of the slimdown, which means funds for the likes of PBS Newshour, NPR and “Sesame Street” are being spent before cancer research.

“It’s more than irresponsible, it is reprehensible. It’s an ‘in-your-face’ move by the administration, blatantly picking winners and losers in this shutdown,” C. Edmund Wright, a columnist for Breitbart.com and American Thinker, told FOX411. “Public broadcasting is a staple of liberal propaganda.”

And as Media Research Center’s Director of Media Analysis, Tim Graham, pointed out, PBS has hosted two “very friendly” interviews with President Obama in recent weeks.

“It certainly looks like ‘you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours,” he continued. “Liberals see PBS and NPR as their own personal sandbox, as a supposed balance of the ‘capitalist bias’ of the commercial networks, as silly as that sounds.”

But the CPB defended their big payday, telling FOX411 in a statement that their funding was "indispensable"and provide jobs for thousands of people.

"The United States Treasury sent public broadcasters their two-year advance appropriation -- a sum, approved by Congress in 2012 for FY 2014, representing only 0.01% of the federal budget," said rep Kelly Broadway. "Seventy percent of these indispensible dollars are promptly sent to locally-owned and operated stations in cities and rural communities all across the country, as they have been for most of the past 40 years.  There, they provide jobs for more than twenty thousand people who are working to support 'America’s Largest Classroom' as well as life-long learning for all Americans with our unique cultural, public affairs and news programs."

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Report: iTunes Radio To Beat Pandora Overseas

Apple plans to expand iTunes Radio to English-speaking countries outside the U.S. by early 2014, beating industry leader Pandora to the U.K. and Canada, people with knowledge of the situation said.

Jon Erlichman reports on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West."

Indy Radio: Rusty Redenbacher OUT At WTLC-FM

Rusty Redenbacher

After being fired by WTLC-FM 106.7, Rusty Redenbacher says the radio station’s definition of frowned-upon self-promotion is difficult to reconcile with years he’s spent plugging the company in his multimedia life.

Rapper/songwriter/DJ/producer Redenbacher told indystar.com,  that WTLC management cited a “zero tolerance” policy when dismissing him for spinning the song “Sriracha” — a tune by Indianapolis band Cosby Sweater, featuring vocals by Redenbacher — during the Sept. 27 episode of “Club 106.7.”

It’s a conflict-of-interest no-no for a WTLC on-air personality to play a song that includes the personality as a performer. Redenbacher said Sept. 27 wasn’t the first time he included “Sriracha” as the closing song of three-hour mix show “Club 106.7.” Two months earlier, the tune was broadcast and it prompted no response from WTLC management.

Redenbacher —perhaps the city’s longest-running ambassador of hip-hop, thanks to his work with the Mudkids, Birdmen of Alcatraz and as a solo artist — worked 25 hours per week for WTLC, a station owned by Maryland-based Radio One. He learned of his dismissal on Oct. 1, a day when he did behind-the-scenes work for the Karen Vaughn Show and he programmed the “Drive at 5” music block.

Chuck Williams, Radio One’s vice president and general manager in Indianapolis, declined an interview request, citing Radio One’s policy of keeping personnel issues private.

According to Redenbacher, WTLC’s management also expressed disapproval for “Sriracha” because the song doesn’t fit the station’s classic R&B format. Redenbacher said he previously played Black Fabio’s “Black Fabio” — a 2011 track by an underground Indianapolis duo — on “Club 106.7” without reprimand. The “Club 106.7” playlist typically showcases vintage R&B, soul and hip-hop.

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Calgary Radio: Dave Rutherford Helps Pull Driver To Safety

Radio host Dave Rutherford, at back on the ground, pulls driver from burning truck

A reckless ride that saw a driver reaching high speeds, narrowly missing other motorists and crashing into the median last Friday ended when he was pulled to safety by other motorists, including radio host Dave Rutherford, Calgary police say.

According to the Calgary Herald, the drama began Friday before noon when many drivers noticed a pickup truck weaving dangerously between lanes, and bouncing off the cement divider southbound. The pick-up truck driver clipped a semi truck, bursting its front tire. The driver lost control of the pickup, smashing through a fence at the golf course.

“We were trying to get buddy out of there, he did not want to go,” said Dave Rutherford, a Calgary radio show personality who was driving past. “He was grabbing onto the wheel. We said ‘buddy, get out, you’re going to be burned.’ It took all the strength we had to pull the guy out.”

Police say the man was diabetic and was suffering from low blood sugar.

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Dave Rutherford

Rutherford’s involvement came just days Rutherford has found a new radio home, according to the Herald.

He joined CFFR 660 AM News Monday, delivering daily commentary.

Rutherford’s long-running morning show on NewsTalk CHQR 770 AM  came to an abrupt end in late June after Corus Radio cancelled the show one day after the conservative host criticized the station’s coverage of the Alberta flood crisis.

NW Alum Mike Greenberg Takes Radio Show To Evanston

Mike Greenberg

What came first, Mike or Mike?

“What do you think?” Mike Greenberg said, with a laugh.

Greenberg, co-host of “Mike & Mike,” the popular ESPN morning sports talk radio show, was in town Oct. 4 to serve as grand marshal of the Evanston Northwestern University Homecoming parade.

Watch video: Click Here.

Banners welcomed him. Students wanted to hear his story. His day was filled with meet and greets and lots of fist bumps, Greenberg’s preferred chummy hello.

Earlier, Greenberg, and his co-host Mike Golic, broadcast their morning show live on Sheridan Road as part of the third annual ESPN Audio Fall Football Tour. Greenberg is a 1989 Northwestern Medill School of Journalism graduate.

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