Chicago's Mix Lets Listeners Vote Playlist

Hot adult contemporary WTMX-FM (101.9) is turning over the evening hours to its listeners. Thanks to new software developed for WTMX parent Bonneville International by a firm called Listener Driven Radio, WTMX listeners can go to the radio station website and vote for the songs they want to hear on the station, according Lewis Lazare, Media columnist for sun-times.com.

The songs with the most votes will immediately become the playlist each evening Monday through Friday from 8 p.m. to midnight. This approach differs dramatically from that at a station such as adult hits WJMK-FM (104.3), where listeners get only a predetermined playlist fed to them by the station.

The new WTMX format has been dubbed “U-Mix-It,” and Erin Carman has been tapped as host of the experimental program. She previously was a weekend and fill-in host at WTMX. “I feel like I’ve been cast in the role of a lifetime,” said Carman, who described the new format as “instant gratification in an instantaneous world.”

Indeed, the new approach reflects a movement in many areas of broadcasting to give the public considerably more control. Greg Solk, programming honcho for WTMX parent Bonneville International, hopes the new audience-controlled format will establish a closer bond between station and listeners by allowing them to become more involved. “I think this will help audiences get more excited about radio,” explained Solk.

He also believes the new format will offer some of the same appeal that has made TV shows such as “American Idol” and “Dancing With the Stars” hugely popular. “The social aspect of entertainment and the connection of ‘shared experience’ of driving the outcome resonates strongly with audiences,” explained Solk.

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New Flare-Up in Capitol Over 'Net Neutrality'

House Republicans attacked new "net neutrality" rules for broadband Internet lines in a contentious hearing Wednesday and criticized Democratic Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski for adopting them, according to a story by Amy Schatz at wsj.com.

Republicans are targeting the new Internet rules, which would bar Internet providers from blocking or slowing Internet traffic and services, as one of many new regulations, including for health care and the environment, which they say are unnecessary and overly burdensome on industry.

"Why would you put the government in charge of the Internet?" said Rep. Fred Upton (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Genachowski defended the new rules during the hearing, saying the FCC "did the right thing" and that it is "pro-job and pro-investment" for the U.S. economy.

Democratic lawmakers on the panel also defended Mr. Genachowski and several said they didn't think the FCC had gone far enough with regulating Internet lines. They said the agency should have more firmly established its authority to play Internet traffic cop by re-regulating Internet lines under rules designed for the landline phone network.

"Without some clear rules of the road, large corporations can carve up the Internet into fast and slow lanes, charging a toll for content and blocking innovators from entering the information superhighway," said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D., Calif.), whose district includes many Silicon Valley companies, including Google Inc.

Republican lawmakers are trying to stop the new-neutrality rules though various legislative avenues, including an amendment to budget legislation to stop funding to the FCC to implement the new rules. They are also planning within the next few days to introduce legislation to overturn the rules using the Congressional Review Act, although such an effort is unlikely to gain the needed approval of President Barack Obama, who supports the FDD's net-neutrality rules.

In late December, the FCC adopted, on a partisan 3-2 vote, new regulations on Internet lines that would prohibit phone and cable companies from blocking or slowing legal Internet traffic. Those net-neutrality rules would guarantee the rights of consumers to access to legal Internet sites and services.

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Programming Changes at N/T WPRO-AM

News Talk 630 WPRO and 99.7 FM announced Wednesday that John DePetro, the host of The WPRO Morning News, will be returning to his prior role as talk show host in the 9AM-12N time slot.

“The opportunity to recast The WPRO Morning News is extremely exciting,” said Program Director Paul Giammarco.  “We are close to announcing our new morning show, which I feel will be raising the bar on objective news reporting in the state of Rhode Island.  No other media outlet or print publication will be able to deliver the most up to the minute newsmaker interviews or detailed developments of local, regional and national news stories as WPRO”. 

With John’s return to talk show host, WPRO will increase its already robust local presence.  WPRO will focus on offering five live and local programs that are unequaled across the nation in content, opinion, and commentary, unsurpassed in entertainment value.

In exploring an opportunity for a syndicated weekend talk show, John DePetro stated, “I want to thank the management of WPRO and Citadel Broadcasting for allowing me to pursue the incredible opportunity of national syndication. This is a dream come true. I look forward to discussing local issues from 9 A.M. to noon on WPRO, and will have more to say regarding my other project (syndication) at a later date."  John added, “Rhode Island is my home.  It is important that my audience know that my primary focus will always be on local talk in Rhode Island”.

U.S. Journalist Trashes CBS' Lara Logan on Twitter

While the world reels in shock over CBS reporter Lara Logan's sexual assault in Egypt, another American journalist is causing a different kind of outrage, calling Logan a "warmonger" who was simply trying to outdo Anderson Cooper.

According to a story by Aliyah Shahid at nydailynews.com, Nir Rosen, an NYU fellow who has extensively covered the Iraq War, made the insensitive remarks during a Twitter rant on Tuesday.

"Lara Logan had to outdo Anderson," Rosen wrote, referring to the CNN correspondent, who was reportedly punched in the head multiple times while covering the recent demonstrations in Egypt.

Rosen went on, insisting it would be humorous if Anderson too had been sexually assaulted.

"Yes yes it's wrong what happened to her. Of course. I don't support that. But it would have been funny if it happened to Anderson too."

From there, his posts only got worse.

Last week, Logan, a "60 Minutes" correspondent, endured a "brutal and sustained sexual assault by a mob of men while covering the Egyptian uprising," CBS News said on Tuesday. She was eventually saved by a group of women and about 20 Egyptian soldiers, the network reported.

The 39-year-old is now back in the U.S. and recovering.

Rosen, who has written for a number of prestigious publications, including Time, Harper's, The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine, later offered a half-hearted apology, after deleting many of his previous posts. He's currently a fellow at the Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law.

Read more here.

Must Read:

POLITICS DAILY:  Nir Rosen Resigns as NYU Fellow After Trashing Lara Logan on Twitter

Kill Switch' iNet bill Alarms Privacy Experts

A raging debate over new legislation, and its impact on the Internet, has tongues wagging and fingers pointing from Silicon Valley to Washington, D.C., according to a story by Jon Swartz at usatoday.com.

Just as the Egyptian government recently forced the Internet to go dark, U.S. officials could flip the switch if the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset legislation becomes law, say its critics.

Proponents of the bill, which is expected to be reintroduced in the current session of Congress, dismiss the detractors as ill-informed — even naive.

The ominously nicknamed Kill Switch bill is sure to be a flashpoint of discussion at the RSA Conference, the nation's largest gathering of computer-security experts that takes place here this week.

The bill — crafted by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Tom Carper, D-Del. — aims to defend the economic infrastructure from a cyberterrorist attack. But it has free-speech advocates and privacy experts howling over the prospect of a government agency quelling the communication of hundreds of millions of people.

"This is all about control, an attempt to control every aspect of our existence," says Christopher Feudo, a cybersecurity expert who is chairman of SecurityFusion Solutions. "I consider it an attack on our personal right of free speech. Look what recently occurred in Egypt."

Its critics immediately dubbed it Kill Switch, suffusing it with Big Brother-tinged foreboding. "Unfortunately, it got this label, which is analogous to death panels (during the health care debates)," says Mark Kagan, director of research at Keane Federal Systems, an information-technology contractor for the government.

The disruption to communications and economic activity "could be catastrophic," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Read more here.

Lawrence O'Donnell: Voice of MSNBC Desperation

From David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun critic

I promised myself I was going to waste no more time this year on silly cable news ratings ploys. But I have to say, not since MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, that legendary American journalist, took it upon herself to try and ridicule the news judgment of CNN for covering Michele Bachmann's State of the Union response have I seen anything as ridiculous as MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell attacking Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News program host who dominates the time period in which O'Donnell is now foundering.

Here's the video of O'Donnell's Monday attack. O'Donnell accuses O'Reilly of dishonesty, and then he cites a study about Fox News that he knows full well has been discredited. Read that here, and you decide who is dishonest.

And here's the ever-so-obvious context: O'Donnell is down more than 10 percent in audience from that of the late, newly-marginalized-by-his-move-to-Current-TV Keith Olbermann. All of MSNBC prime-time is sinking in the ratings, and all they seem to know how to do is make partisan attacks on those who are beating them. Last Friday, for example, with the real and monumental news of Egypt on everyone's minds, Fox News doubled MSNBC's audience during the day and in prime time.

Read more here.

The “One Thing” Your Radio Station Needs

There’s this assumption out there that if you make every second of your station great, that’s what it takes to bring in the listeners by the boat-load.

But do listeners come to you because they love every minute of you?  Or do they come for specific things?

Consultant guru Mark Ramsey submits  that everybody has at least “one thing” that invites them to come back to their favorite stations again and again.

Remember, reducing tune-out by stripping out distractions is a noble goal, but there’s a manifest difference between keeping people tuned in and getting them back once they’ve tuned away, as they invariably will.

How do you get listeners back?

With the “one thing.”

The One Thing your Radio Station Needs from Mark Ramsey on Vimeo.

Radio Opera Drops F-Bomb

Classical radio station WQXR (105.9 FM) is unhappy and embarrassed that the f-word went on air Saturday afternoon during a broadcast of the opera "Nixon In China."

According to David Hinckley at nydailynews.com, during Act III of the 1987 composition, performed live as part of the station's weekly Metropolitan Opera series, the character playing Chairman Mao's wife says, "We'll teach these m-f-ers how to dance."

"WQXR regrets that an obscenity was not cut from the air during the live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera of the production 'Nixon in China,'" a station spokeswoman said yesterday.

WQXR, like other members of the WNYC public radio family, routinely bleeps obscenities. A source familiar with the broadcast suggested this one may have caught the station off-guard, since obscenity is rarely an issue on opera broadcasts.

The slip set off a modest stir among listeners, though the more animated online discussion concerned the musical quality of the John Adams opera.

It is unlikely the station will face any sanctions for the slip. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates content, does not initiate action unless it receives complaints from listeners.

Read more here.

How ‘Morning Joe’ Picks Its Music

Music captures the show’s vibe, connects with audience

From Mallary Jean Tenore, poynter.org

Read more here.

When you watch “Morning Joe,” you can’t help but notice the music. Every commercial break is book-ended with tunes from a mix of bands — the Rolling Stones, Smashing Pumpkins, Rilo Kiley, The Grateful Dead and Arcade Fire, to name a few. The music’s catchy, and it helps capture the show’s feel-good vibe.

But it’s not just the type of songs and artists that make the music stand out, it’s also the way they’re selected.

Behind the scenes, the “Morning Joe” producers are busy at work, listening to the MSNBC show’s guests to see if there’s a song or band that could illustrate what they’re saying. The show’s audio director, David Quanvie — or “Q” as he’s called on set — selects much of the music with the help of the show’s producers and hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.

“We don’t have a rundown of the songs we’re going to play; it’s completely organic,” executive producer Chris Licht said in a phone interview. “Really anyone in the control room can shout out a song and Q can literally dial up a song in a couple seconds.”

“Morning Joe,” which had an average of 387,000 viewers per day in 2010, has hundreds of songs in its library. Many are from some of Scarborough’s favorite bands — The Clash, Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones and Radiohead. He loves the Beatles, too, but the show doesn’t have the rights to play their songs.

Cord Cutting’s Not Real

Unless You’re Under 25



A room full of TV execs heard what they wanted to hear Tuesday morning at the 2011 TV Summit; Cheryl Idell, EVP of Media Product Leadership at Nielsen, presented numbers that suggest the cord-cutting phenomenon is not for real, according to a story by Liz Shannon at gigaom.com.

According to Idell, over the last four years, the number of households signing up for cable or cable-like services have shown consistent growth. While, in Idell’s words, “the pie is getting larger,” any subscriber loss is due not to cord cutting but “cord swapping,” where consumers trade their cable subscriptions for satellite or telco options like AT&T’s U-verse. Meanwhile, the increase in broadband-only households from 2010 to 2011 has only grown from 3.6 percent to 4.4 percent of Americans with televisions.

That’s an average, though; when the numbers are broken down across different age demographics, Nielsen found that in households with people 25 years old or younger, 8.5 percent are cable-free, which is almost twice the national average.

Read more here.

Not-for-profit News Website For L.A.?

Former Times Mirror exec Tom Unterman is 'very hopeful'

From James Rainey, On the Media blog at LA Times:

Sipa Press photo

I've been wondering for a couple of years whether someone would bring Los Angeles the kind of not-for-profit news website that has popped up in cities like San Diego, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Austin and Chicago.

That day may be drawing closer, as venture capitalist and former newspaper executive Tom Unterman has been quietly exploring the formation of such an organization to focus on public policy issues.

Unterman has been quietly discussing the idea with a handful of community leaders around Los Angeles on and off for at least a year, with his deliberations picking up momentum of late. He still doesn't have a formal plan or the partners he would seek to launch the site, but told me he expects to decide this spring whether to go ahead.

"A good, smart, nonprofit journalism effort could be a very nice complementary piece to the media picture here in L.A.," said Unterman, former chief financial officer for Times Mirror Co., which published the Los Angeles Times before it was bought by the Tribune Co. in 2000. "Particularly if it focused on investigative work and filled a gap in the kind of stories that for-profit media can't persistently fill now because of changes in the economics of the news business."

While "very hopeful" about making the site a reality, the founder of the Santa Monica-based investment firm Rustic Canyon Partners said the key would be coming up with a plan to sustain such a venture beyond the startup phase — which he estimated would last three years and cost $10 million.

Read more here.