Facebook announced on Thursday that it will expand its Today In news initiative to more than 6,000 cities and towns across the U.S. in an effort to combat “news deserts,” reports FoxBusiness.
Users who live in participating Today In municipalities get to opt into the service, which delivers local news, non-profit organizations and public service announcements directly to mobile newsfeeds. Once activated, critical alerts like road closures, crime reports and election results can be sent in real time—though that also depends on individual notification settings.
This is helpful for citizens who live in areas that lack local news coverage, but it also puts responsibility on the user. According to Facebook, a little over 1.6 million people “have opted in to receive regular local updates from Today In.” That number is a far cry from the estimated 169.5 million users in 2018, as predicted by digital market research company eMarketer.
Despite the limited engagement, Facebook affirmed that Today In features content from over 1,200 local news publishers every week.
A media study by the non-profit Poynter Institute in late 2018 found that more 1,300 U.S. communities have lost local news coverage. This is a dangerous precedent according to David Chavern, President and CEO of News Media Alliance.
“Local news is important. It’s one of the only controls for political activity. If you don’t have local journalism looking over the shoulder of local politicians, that’s just a recipe for corruption and criminality,” Chavern told FOX Business.
When it comes down to why local organizations are struggling to stay in business, Chavern said it’s because they no longer control the distribution of content. Instead, popular social media sites and search engines are information gatekeepers that also eat up ad revenue.
A Pew Research Center study found that the total estimated advertising revenue for the newspaper industry in 2018 was $14.3 billion, which is about 13 percent down from the year prior.
Univision Los Angeles today announced new programming for KTNQ 1020 AM, the Los Angeles talk radio station dedicated to improving the lives of Latinos locally by providing education and thought-provoking discussions with experts.
Starting this week, the new KTNQ 1020 AM programming slate will cover subjects important to the Latino community in the City of Angels, including sports, community empowerment, politics, health and personal finance. Listeners around the country can also tune into the new KTNQ 1020-AM live by using the Uforia app, which can be found on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
"For over 60 years, Univision Los Angeles has been the voice of the Latino community in the City of Angels and we are proud to continue that tradition with the launch of the only Spanish-language talk radio station in the United States with over 14 hours of consecutive local programming," said Luis Patino, Univision Los Angeles President and General Manager. "A radio station that informs and empowers the Latino community about the issues that affect our daily lives is more important than ever as we head into an election year, both in Los Angeles and across the country."
KTNQ 1020-AM's new programming slate is as follows:
5am: Tu Voz en Los Angeles (Your Voice in Los Angeles) hosted by Gustavo Vargas, Juan Rodriguez and Gabriela Teissier
11am: Tu Dinero (Your Money) with personal finance expert Julie Stav and entrepreneur Carlos Marquez
12pm: A Toda Ley with attorney José Jordán
1pm: El Show de Luz Maria Briseño with certified nutritionist Luz María Briseño
2pm: En Privado (In Private) with Dr. Eduardo López Navarro
3pm: El Show de Fernando Espuelas with political analyst Fernando Espuelas
4pm: En Boca de León with journalist León Krauze
5pm: Ni Con Ellas, Ni Sin Ellas (With or Without Them) with Dr. Myriam Balbela, psychologist Sandy Caldera and Estefanía Iglesias
Listeners can get the latest on KTNQ 1020-AM by following KTNQ 1020-AM on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
FOX Sports Radio (FSR) has announced its weekend lineup for the 2019 fall season.
Effective immediately, FSR's new weekend roster features an ensemble of sports entertainment personalities, former players and analysts to provide around-the-clock coverage, including live game-day reaction, analysis and interviews.
Former Pro Bowl Wide Receiver and T.J. Houshmandzadeh joins the network and partners with FSR personality Steve Hartman on Saturdays in the 1-4pm ET. Additionally, six-year NFL Tight End George Wrighster partners with FSR's Mike Harmon on Sundays from 9-11am ET for the first half of football season, and then 10-year NFL Safety/Super Bowl champ Will Blackmon will co-host with Harmon from November through the Super Bowl.
The following former NFL players continue as hosts, giving listeners a look at the weekend in both college and professional football: Former Notre Dame Quarterback, first round draft pick and FOX Big Noon Kickoff analyst Brady Quinn (Sundays 8-11pm ET), three-time Pro Bowler Lincoln Kennedy (Saturdays 6-10am ET), 13-year NFL tackle and NFC champion Ephraim Salaam (Sundays 5-8pm ET), five-year NFL cornerback/return specialist Bucky Brooks (Saturdays 4-8pm ET) and six-year NFL guard Rich Ohrnberger (Sundays 1-5pm ET).
FOX NFL Sunday, which was inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame as America's most watched NFL pregame show for the past 25 years, returns home to FSR with a simulcast on Sundays at 12pm ET. FOX NFL Sunday is co-hosted by Terry Bradshaw and Curt Menefee with analysis from Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson and Michael Strahan
"From weekdays to weekends, early mornings to overnights, FOX Sports Radio is LIVE 24-7 reacting to the biggest stories in sports," stated Premiere Networks VP/Sports Programming Scott Shapiro. "With the most talented and credible personalities in the industry, FOX Sports Radio delivers instant reaction before games, during games when monumental plays happen, directly after games, and anytime sports news breaks."
Cumulus Media's Westwood One is celebrating the 35th anniversary of its award-winning weekday news magazine, America in the Morning, which launched September 17, 1984.
America in the Morning offers up-to-the-minute news reporting from around the country and across the globe, with the latest overnight developments in breaking news, politics, entertainment, business and weather, all delivered first thing in the morning. It airs on 332 affiliates and continues to grow with six markets added in the past two months, including Oklahoma City and Norfolk. It’s cleared in 14 of the top 15 DMAs and 38 of the top 50. It can also be heard on the American Forces Radio Network.
John Trout
America in the Morning offers stations the most comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of breaking news, most recently live reports from El Paso and Dayton on the mass shootings and live reports from Cocoa Beach, Jacksonville, Charleston, and Wilmington, NC on Hurricane Dorian. The program has been broadcast from across the country, around the world and beyond, from political conventions to overseas presidential summits and Emperor Hirohito’s funeral in Tokyo, to live interviews with questions from listeners of orbiting space station astronauts.
Jim Bohannon
America in the Morning is hosted by John Trout, who took the reins from Jim Bohannon in 2016. Bohannon still contributes interviews and features to the program. The show began out of what was originally the last half hour of the overnight five-and-a-half hour Larry King Show. When King was cut back to five hours, Westwood One utilized the last half hour to launch a morning news magazine. The show was later expanded to one hour.
“Our 332 affiliates know that America in the Morning is the show to turn to for the best and most comprehensive coverage of breaking news overnight,” said Bart Tessler, EVP, News and Talk, Westwood One. “ Jim Bohannon created a legacy and John Trout continues the tradition of ensuring Americans are informed and entertained at daybreak.”
The program has received numerous accolades and is the winner of many industry awards, including the top prize for “Best News Magazine” the last two years at the New York Radio Festival.
Learn more about America in the Morning by contacting Jim Jones at jimjones@westwoodone.com or (202) 840-7933.
Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax filed a $400 million defamation lawsuit against CBS on Thursday (September 12th), charging that CBS News published false statements from two women who accused him of sexual assault. CBS conducted interviews with the two accusers in February.
Fairfax, who's a Democrat, has denied the accusations made by Vanessa Tyson and Meredith Watson.
Tyson says Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex on him at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and Watson says Fairfax raped her while they attended Duke University.
CBS News said in a statement, "We stand by our reporting and we will vigorously defend this lawsuit."
"Fairfax brings this action to restore his reputation and clear his name, ensure the truth prevails, stop the weaponization of false allegations of sexual assault against him, and vindicate his rights under civil law," the lawsuit says.
Joel Zelle, a popular KDKA-AM disc jockey in the 1970s, died September 6, 2019.
He was 68 and passed away after battling glioblastoma.
Mr. Zelle was the afternoon drive DJ at KDKA-AM from 1972 to 1976. He also hosted the station's Saturday morning show.
After leaving KDKA, he spent more than 30 years at WJR in Detroit as traffic reporter and helicopter pilot. He also was a traffic reporter at WXYZ-TV in Detroit. His radio career also included stints at WBZ in Boston, WIS in Columbia and WSB in Atlanta.
The debut broadcast was to be on November 11, 1928 (to honor Armistice Day) but on-the-air testing between 4AM and 8AM the morning of October 27, 1928 proved so successful that KOH went directly to full-time broadcasting running 100 watts on 1370 kHz. This early debut also allowed KOH to take advantage of the lucrative political advertising for the upcoming 1928 Presidential Elections in November. In fact, KOH even carried the election returns in a joint effort with the Reno Evening Gazette on November 6, 1928. KOH had a seven man crew, which was the largest for a radio station in Nevada up to that time. KOH was the first professionally operated, commercial radio station in Nevada.
Today the station is KKOH 780 AM is owned by Cumulus Media and airs a News/Talk format.
➦In 1932...Radio personality Dick Biondi born. Calling himself The Wild I-tralian, he was one of the original "screamers," known for his screaming delivery as well as his wild antics on the air and off. In a 1988 interview, Biondi related he had been fired 23 times; both fits of temper and jokes gone wrong were part of the tally. Over many years and many frequencies, Dick's close-of-the-program line was, "God bless, bye, bye, Duke. Thanks a million for dialing our way."
Biondi gained national attention in the 1950s and 1960s as a disc jockey on leading AM radio stations in Buffalo, New York; Chicago, Illinois; and Los Angeles, California. Besides being among the first to play Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, and other early rhythm and blues artists, he was able to meet them also. The early Rock and Roll era meant "record hops" where disc jockeys would make personal appearances at local schools and clubs; they often included appearances by the artists whose records were being played.
Biondi is credited as the first U.S. disc jockey to play the Beatles, on Chicago's WLS 890 AM in February 1963, with the song "Please Please Me". Later, while working at KRLA 1110 AM in Los Angeles, he introduced the Beatles and Rolling Stones at their Hollywood Bowl concerts.
Since 1984, Biondi has been a mainstay on Oldies stations in the city where he first earned his reputation, Chicago. On 2 May 2010, Dick Biondi celebrated the 50th anniversary of his first Chicago broadcast. WLS-AM and WLS-FM presented a 5-hour simulcast special from 7 PM to midnight, featuring memorable moments in his career and special celebrity guests, with Biondi as its host.
Biondi is an inductee of the National Radio Hall of Fame.
➦In 1937...the first successful radio soap opera set in the world of doctors and medicine Road of Life debuted on the NBC Red network. Writer/producer Irna Phillips‘ story of handsome Dr. Jim Brent and his wife Jocelyn ran simultaneously on CBS for much of its 22 year run ➦In 1960...the FCC formally banned the practice of payola — in which record companies paid disc jockeys to play certain records.
Alan Freed
Prosecution for payola in the 1950s was in part a reaction of the traditional music establishment against newcomers. Hit radio was a threat to the wages of song-pluggers. Radio hits also threatened old revenue streams; for example, by the middle of the 1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in the USA went into jukeboxes. Still, in the 1950s, independent record companies or music publishers frequently used payola to promote rock and roll on American radio; it promoted cultural diversity and disc jockeys were less inclined to indulge their own personal and racial biases.
Radio personality Alan Freed, an early supporter of rock and roll (and also widely credited for actually coining the term), had his career and reputation greatly harmed by a payola scandal. Dick Clark's early career was nearly derailed by a payola scandal, but he avoided trouble by selling his stake in a record company and cooperating with authorities.
Dick Clark
After the initial investigation, radio DJs were stripped of the authority to make programming decisions, and payola became a misdemeanor offense. Programming decisions became the responsibility of station program directors.
A different form of payola has been used by the record industry through the loophole of being able to pay a third party or record promoters, who will then go and "promote" those songs to radio stations. Offering the radio stations "promotion payments", the independents get the songs that their clients, record companies, want on the playlists of radio stations around the country.
This newer type of payola was an attempt to sidestep FCC regulations. Since the independent intermediaries were the ones actually paying the stations, it was thought that their inducements did not fall under the "payola" rules, so a radio station need not report them as paid promotions.
➦In 1986...Bob “Bob-A-Loo” Lewis aired last radio show.
He was best known as one of the “All Americans” on 77WABC. Lesser known was the fact that he was also heard on the FM side. WABC-FM 95.5 was airing Progressive Rock. The format was called “Love”. It featured tons of album cuts from all the heavies of the time, Hendrix, the Doors, the Who, and many more similar artists which would become the staples of AOR and later, Classic Rock stations. Courtesy of the musicradio77.com website, Aircheck from 1965: Click Here. ➦In 1999...WNEW 102.7 FM flipped to 'extreme' talk format
➦In 2017...WFAN sports radio talk show host Craig Carton resigned as co-host of ‘Boomer and Carton. He is currently in prison for his involvement in a ticket scam.
Chris Carlin has lost his dream job at Entercom's WFAN 660 AM/ 101.9 FM.
Chris Carlin left a good job on Philadelphia sports radio for WFAN late in 2017, but it lasted less than two years, ending with his abrupt departure from the station on Wednesday.
Carlin, a former producer for the “Mike and the Mad Dog” show, announced the news Wednesday on Twitter:
According to Newsday, Carlin's contract was due to expire at the end of the year, and he already had been told that his option under the existing contract terms would not be picked up. But until this week it appeared the station might let things ride until December..
Over at The NYPost, Andrew Marchand writes that PM Drive host Mike Francesca is the culprit. He believes the moment Mike Francesa stomped back onto the air at WFAN, the trio of Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott were on the clock.
Mike Francesa
In fact, there were those high up at WFAN’s parent company, Entercom, who wanted to let the trio go entirely in May 2018, according to sources.
They survived then, but it was a matter of when, not if, something was going to happen.
Carlin, Gray and Scott all have contracts Entercom could escape from by the end of the year. The company had choices. Carlin was chosen as the odd man out.
Gray and Scott are expected to remain with WFAN for the rest of this year and beyond. Nothing is official yet.
For the fall, CMB will become MB, preceded by Boomer and Gio in the morning, Joe & Evan in midday and Francesa in the afternoon.
After the new year, the lineup will be based on what Francesa decides, according to Marchand. A week ago, when Francesa’s app officially was purchased by Entercom — The Post reported Francesa was contemplating moving most of his content off-air to Radio.com.
Carlin is a former producer for the Mike and The Mad Dog Show on WFAN. But, according to Marchand, he had a falling out with Francesa. When Chris Russo split with Francesa and went to SiriusXM, Francesa thought Carlin, their former producer, sided with Mad Dog.
Entercom Communications Corp., the owner of 235 radio stations, was apparently hacked over the weekend, freezing its emails and causing computer systems to crash, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer citing published reports and sources.
The hackers — in what some call ransomware — have asked for $500,000, according to the reports.
Two sources at the company said Entercom phone and email has been down for a few days, with employees communicating with one another via cell phone conference calls.
“We are experiencing a disruption of some IT systems, including email,” the company told Chicago media blogger Robert Feder. “We apologize for any inconvenience and are working around the clock to resolve this issue.”
Among the systems affected were telephones, music scheduling, production, billing, and other internal digital systems, reports said. There also was concern whether the company could process the direct-deposit payroll on Friday.
Entercom is the nation’s second-largest radio station group, behind the iHeartMedia.
Entercom was the third national station group owner to be attacked recently with ransomware. The others were Townsquare Media and Radio One.
Entercom is not paying the ransom, and that the costs to fix the attack will go well beyond the $500,000.
Nearly 24 hours after someone at WWL 870 AM / 105.9 Radio used the company's official Twitter account Tuesday to direct a gay slur at a fellow employee, executives at the station had said little publicly beyond a statement that they're looking into the matter.
According to gambit.com, the tweet, which called evening sports host Seth Dunlap a "fag," was deleted within minutes but not before many people screen-captured it. The story went national overnight on sports websites.
Dunlap is gay, which many listeners just learned about last week when he wrote an extensive Facebook post about the challenges he's experienced in sports media as a gay man.
The station hasn't issued any other statement on its webpage or social media accounts.
WWL-TV reported that station management was told they weren't allowed to speak until Entercom, which is based in Pennsylvania, investigates the matter.
The investigation is complicated by the fact that Entercom has been attacked by hackers this week in a "ransomware" attack, with staffers unable to access emails and other electronic files, as reported by the industry website Radio Insight — though there's no indication that the tweet is related to the ransomware matter.
Sources at the station have said the investigation also is complicated by the fact that several people have access to the station's Twitter account.
Kevin Cassidy, WWL Radio's senior vice president, sent a memo to staff today in support of Dunlap. Cassidy said he was "personally disgusted" by the tweet and said the company was "taking all possible steps" to identify who sent it. "This does not represent us nor will it," Cassidy concluded.
Alex Tear has joined Pandora and SiriusXM as VP/Music Curation & Programming.
Tear will be based at Pandora’s New York office and will report directly to Alex White, VP/Content and Programming for Pandora.
SiriusXM President/Chief Content Officer Scott Greenstein made the announcement to staffers in an email welcoming him to the company while noting, “Alex will be responsible for partnering with the programming teams to further build Pandora’s listener base and maximize music assets across both the Pandora and SiriusXM platforms. More specifically, he will work closely with Pandora’s music genre leaders on refining top curated stations and playlists, and further defining strategy and execution of mood and activity programming along with new artist development.”
Greenstein added, “Alex is a nationally recognized radio programming leader, an advocate for new artists, and a pioneer in creative audio content. Prior to joining SiriusXM and Pandora, He was at iHeartMedia where he served as SVPP and National Top 40 Brand Music Director for the past 13 years. He also led music and programming operations at ABC Disney for over a decade.”
In August, ESPN Podcasts set a new record with a verified unique audience of 7.1 million. The total represents an increase of 49% over August 2018. This is the eighth consecutive month of year-over-year growth.
The leading driver behind the growth was 30 for 30: The Sterling Affairs, a series focused on Donald Sterling, the former owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers. In August, 30 for 30 registered a unique audience of more than one million, a first, and an increase over the same month last year of 172%.
In addition, Fantasy Focus Football drew a unique audience of 1.3 million, an increase of 33% over 2018.
ESPN’s unique podcast audience is verified by Podtrac.
The Democratic party developed an elaborate, multi-year operation in the 1990s that deployed thousands of activists to covertly mold public opinion using talk radio, according to The Washington Free Beacon which examined documents from the Clinton Presidential Library.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC), with the blessing of the Clinton White House, launched the Talk Radio Initiative (TRI) ahead of the 1996 campaign. The program trained thousands of operatives to call in to radio shows, conduct surveillance of their contents, and secretly disseminate Democratic talking points while posing as ordinary listeners.
Lars Larson
"Volunteers must be able to keep the project confidential so as not to create the image of a ‘Democratic conspiracy' to infiltrate Detroit area talk radio shows," a 1995 TRI guide prepared by Michigan Democrats said. "Democratic performance in the 1996 elections will no doubt be affected by the success or failure of this initiative."
Radio show hosts long suspected that someone was training so-called "seminar callers" to inundate their shows with sympathetic callers. Lars Larson, a radio host in the Pacific Northwest since the mid-1990s, recalled being on the receiving end of many such calls, but was not aware that many may have been trained by the DNC.
"You would get calls, an hour apart, from different people with different voices and different names, but they would talk the same lines. So close that you knew that this was not a coincidence," Larson said. "It was the same language on the same subject and the same arguments."
The Washington Free Beacon reviewed years' worth of previous reporting and scores of internal documents from the Clinton Presidential Library—including secret DNC communiques, confidential state party documents, and executive memorandums for the president—that together shed light on the internal workings of TRI. The materials revealed that Democrats systematically trained more than 4,000 operatives in at least 23 states to lie about their identities, deflect difficult questions from hosts, and plant pro-Democrat messages on the radio waves.
The ongoing shrinking of the old media industry and business model has resulted in the elimination of 33,000 newspaper jobs, and now, even big, new-age, digital outlets are facing pressure, according to The Washington Examiner citing a new analysis.
The Pew Fact Tank report is the latest portrayal of the difficulties faced in the news business and the reality that the explosion in online media has fallen far short of making up for the job losses in newspapers and magazines.
The worst news for the industry is that from 2008-2018, 33,000 newspaper jobs were axed.
And overall, “newsroom employment in the U.S. dropped by 25% from 2008 to 2018, a decrease driven by newspapers.”
The growth in digital media included lots of hiring, but fell far short of compensating for the newspaper losses. Pew said that “digital-native" news publications added 6,100 jobs.
Promising, yes, but it added that larger outlets have been suffering through recent job cuts.
“Among the largest digital-native outlets — those with a monthly average of at least 10 million unique visitors — 14% went through layoffs in 2018 and 20% did the year before. Nearly all the digital-native news outlets that laid off staff in 2017 or 2018 cut more than 10 employees,” it said.
The report also showed a continued decline in the number of Americans who say they get their news from newspapers and television.
Social media beat out papers in the category, where people could pick more than one platform, dominated by TV at 49%.
Bospar, the boutique PR firm, has released the results of its Ethics in Media survey. The new data comes as Bospar hosts its Ethics in Media panel with the San Francisco Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and the San Francisco Press Club on Sept. 19 at 6 p.m.
ABC Veteran anchor Cheryl Jennings will moderate the discussion. Panelists include former Wall Street Journal reporter and Message Lab CEO Ben Worthen and former KRON Executive Producer and Bospar Principal Curtis Sparrer.
Bospar and Propeller Insights surveyed 1,010 American adults and discovered that more than 95% are troubled by the current state of media. The reasons for their concern include the following:
Reports on fake news – 53%
Reporting gossip – 49%
Lying spokespeople – 48%
Celebrity opinions – 36%
Left-wing agendas – 34%
Gotcha journalism – 33%
Right-wing agendas – 32%
Puff pieces in exchange for access to other important interviews – 31%
Blind items being reported in the news – 30%
Hit pieces – 21%
Rise of independent contributors versus on-staff media – 14%
And an overwhelming majority (67%) believe ethics in journalism will be worse during the 2020 presidential campaign. When asked about the impact unethical journalism has on the country, Americans cited four chief problems:
64%: It creates division and partisanship
63%: It fuels inaccuracies
60%: It incites hate
57%: It creates fear
“If ever there was a time for an in-depth discussion about ethics in the media, it’s now,” said James Ennis Kirkland, president of the San Francisco Press Club.
The survey group considered local print and online journalists as the most ethical (40%), followed by local TV reporters and anchors (23%) and national print and online journalists (22%). Only 15% of Americans said national TV anchors and reporters were the most ethical.
“When you look at perceptions of ethics in journalism, based on political affiliation, those aligned with the Democratic Party are significantly more likely to consider national journalists/anchors/reporters ethical, when compared to those aligned with the Republican Party or other minor parties,” said Gabrielle Ayala, Principal of Propeller Insights. “This is no surprise, given the current battles being waged by all groups in politics and the media to control the narrative and position themselves as the bearers of truth.”
