Trust plays a key role in purchase decisions. And so it is that it’s hard to imagine consumers trusting advertising much when they trust advertisers so little. In fact, there’s been a drastic drop – from an already low point – in consumers’ trust in advertising practitioners’ honesty and ethics, according to the latest annual examination of integrity in industries from Gallup.
Indeed, just 8% of American adults rate the honesty and ethical standards of advertising practitioners as “very high” (1%) or “high” (7%), according to this latest survey. That’s down considerably from 15% who said the same last year, and is the lowest share reporting those levels of trust since 2007 (6%). It appears that the public’s perception of advertising practitioners’ integrity has spiraled again after last year’s mark was the highest in at least 15 years.
Meanwhile, the 8% who have a high trust in advertising professionals is heavily outweighed by the almost-half (49%) who have either “low” (34%) or “very low” (15%) trust in them. That’s up from 41% last year and is a higher level of distrust than is held for car salespeople.
Unlike last year, when women reported more trust in advertising practitioners than men, this year both groups report the same amount, with 8% each saying their trust is “very high” or “high.” What has remained consistent from last year’s results is that non-White respondents (11%) are far more likely than White respondents (6%) to rate the honesty and ethical standards of advertising practitioners as “very high” or “high.” This despite the marketing and advertising industry remaining far from diverse in its leadership and also allocating only a fraction of its spending to multicultural media.
Meanwhile, in another discouraging development for the advertising industry, only 8% of young adults ages 18-34 rate advertising practitioners’ integrity highly, plummeting from 23% who did so last year.
Overall, the five most trusted professions for honesty and ethics (among those tested in this latest edition) are:
Commissioner Rob Manfred covered a wide range of topics in yesterday’s press conference last week from the owners’ meetings. Among the topics, e spoke of a desire to create an in-market streaming bundle as soon as next year, reports mlbtradermours.com.
“Realistically, my target to having a digital package I can take to market would be for the ’25 season,” the commissioner told reporters (link via Evan Drellich of the Athletic). The hope is to include at least 14 teams in a streaming bundle they can market directly to consumers without blackout restrictions.
MLB already makes out-of-market streaming for all 30 teams available via its MLB.TV platform. Most fans are unable to stream in-market games on MLB.TV because of restrictions in teams’ regional broadcasting contracts. With the RSN model on shaky ground for a number of clubs, MLB could be able to work around blackout issues for a number of organizations in the relatively near future.
The Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy provides the clearest avenue. Diamond has already dropped its deals with the Padres and Diamondbacks, putting the onus on MLB to handle those broadcasts. Meanwhile, AT&T abandoned its contracts with the Rockies, Astros, Pirates and Mariners this offseason. MLB is handling Colorado broadcasts this year. The Mariners, Astros and Pirates have all taken those responsibilities on their own, with the Astros and Pirates partnering with teams from other leagues in their respective cities as part of a new broadcasting arrangement.
Disney's ESPN and Fox two of the league’s biggest media partners, announced last week that alongside Warner Bros. Discovery they would create a new streaming service to offer all their live-sports programming. The NFL, a titan that’s used to having a seat at the table in any discussion affecting its future and content, was out of the loop. Executives including Commissioner Roger Goodell and media chief Brian Rolapp were caught off guard by the news.
That the media behemoths were willing to risk the ire of the NFL shows the sense of urgency—even desperation—they feel about solving what is arguably the biggest riddle in their industry: finding a business model that can work in the streaming economy.
To do that, The Wall Street Journal reports they made a profound shift without consulting powerful partners. They’re taking the chance that, by joining forces with big rivals, they won’t draw antitrust scrutiny. And they’re doing it with a product that consumers might not even want—in part because the new service won’t deliver anything close to the entire landscape of sports programming.\
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced the nominees for its class of 2024 on Saturday.
Two-thirds of the artists on the list for "rock's highest honor" are first time nominees, and many are women. Mariah Carey, Cher, Sinéad O'Connor, and Sade made the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's inductee shortlist for the first time, and Mary J. Blige made a reappearance.
Other nominees for 2024 include Dave Matthews Band, Eric B. & Rakim, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Jane's Addiction, Kool & the Gang, Lenny Kravitz, Oasis, Ozzy Osbourne and A Tribe Called Quest.
According to NPR, the Hall of Fame, artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination to be considered.
According to data shared by the Hall of Fame, from 2021 to 2023, 33% of the inductees were female and 48% were people of color. Whereas over the years between the first the Hall of Fame inductions, in 1986, and 2020, only 13% of inductees were female, while 37% were people of color.
"We continue to work to recognize and honor the impact and influence of Female artists by inducting more into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame," the Hall of Fame wrote in a statement. "As our past three inductee classes have shown, we are committed to making a difference in this area."
The new batch of inductees will be announced in April. A group of more than 1,000 artists, historians, and members of the music industry votes on the final inductees. The 2024 induction ceremony is scheduled to take place in the fall in Cleveland, Ohio, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's home.
Birmingham’s Rick Burgess, co-host of the popular “Rick & Bubba Show,” is going solo.
AL.com reports that’s the word from Robert J. Carey Jr., president of Syndicated Solutions, the company that syndicates the “Rick & Bubba Show.” Carey announced a new show from Burgess last week while marking Syndicated Solutions’ 25th anniversary.
“Collectively, the SSI team and I look forward to the new chapters ahead and future milestone celebrations for the company, as well as bringing the country the next big morning show that is going to be special — ‘The Rick Burgess Show,’” Carey said, according to the reports.
The home page for the Syndicated Solutions website includes logos for both the “Rick & Bubba Show” and “The Rick Burgess Show.” Also, there’s a new website for “The Rick Burgess Show,” bearing the same logo posted by Syndicated Solutions and the words “Coming in 2025″ on its home page.
A Miami journalist filed a federal complaint against his radio station this week, claiming that he and his team were let go after a series of discriminatory incidents, including a boss who allegedly said their show was “sounding very Latino.”
Last week, South Florida’s Non-Com WLRN 91.3 FM terminated Carlos Frías and two producers on his team and canceled “Sundial,” a 6-year-old show about local arts and culture that has been replaced with an extra hour of nationally syndicated programming.
WLRN is owned by Miami-Dade County Public Schools, according to The Washington Post.
The shake-up has caused a wave of upset from the Florida Keys to Miami to Palm Beach — a region where Frías, who is Cuban American, has been a longtime voice in the cultural scene. Some South Florida groups have voiced their opposition to the sunsetting of “Sundial” — including one anchor who reportedly quit the radio station in solidarity with Frías.
Station executives defended the cuts as a necessary trade-off. “The change was made to focus more resources on WLRN’s award-winning newsroom, mainly boosting news stories for daily newscasts and features, along with bolstering the expansion of digital stories,” WLRN’s vice president of news, Sergio Bustos, the station’s daily news and live programming director, Caitie Muñoz, and its vice president of radio, Peter Maerz, said in a statement.
Bustos said no one at the station was able to comment based on advice from legal counsel.
Audacy is the No. 1 sports podcast network, according to Triton’s U.S. Podcast Report 2023. The ranking is based on average monthly downloads for all networks measured in Triton’s U.S. Podcast Ranker from January to December 2023.
With over 600 titles in its portfolio, Audacy boasts three times more sports podcasts than any competitor and is the industry's largest provider of sports content. Powered by expert commentary and analysis, and led by influential titles like You Better You Bet, Unwritten, and BetQL Daily, and the distribution of CBS Sports Podcast Fantasy Football Today and more, Audacy fuels fandom growth across all major league and collegiate sports and sports betting.
Audacy reached an average of more than 37 million monthly podcast listeners globally in 2023, according to Triton’s Podcast Metrics. The U.S. Podcast Report 2023 also cites Audacy’s other leading positions in the podcasting industry, including
#2 podcast network for Society and Culture genre
#3 Most Downloaded Podcast among 18-34 (Rotten Mango)
“With more people downloading our podcasts than any other sports audio platform, this report solidifies Audacy's position as the destination for high-quality sports content no matter where, when, or how you are listening,” said Jenna Weiss-Berman, Executive Vice President of Podcasts, Audacy.
The president's lawyer goes on TV to defend his client's mental acuity. The likely Republican presidential nominee heads toward winning one unprecedented court case and losing another. And the House speaker tries to figure out how to get his raucous caucus to pass even legislation they support.
Let's start at the White House. President Joe Biden's personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, on Sunday defended the commander in chief's mental fitness and accused the special prosecutor who questioned it in his investigative report of having political motives. "You have to wonder" if Robert Hur added pejorative comments about Biden's memory to "placate" Republicans who would be angry about the decision not to prosecute the president for his handling of sensitive documents, Bauer told CBS' "Face the Nation."
"Does the president have any memory problems?" @margbrennan asks President Biden's personal attorney, Bob Bauer.
Bauer: "He does not. I was in the interview room...I just thought [special counsel Robert Hur] was asking bad questions." pic.twitter.com/fyYxHfvOYN
Meanwhile, at D.C. courthouses, Supreme Court justices Thursday signaled during oral arguments they were likely to block efforts to keep Trump off the ballot in Colorado and elsewhere − a win for him. But an appeals court panel two days earlier unanimously rejected his argument that he should have presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. That's a bigger loss, one that increases the prospects he'll face a trial before Election Day on criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 attack.
➤AUSTIN GETTING CRITICAL CARE: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was rushed to the hospital Sunday for symptoms of an "emergent" bladder issue and admitted to the critical care unit, less than a month after his previous secret stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center sparked controversy. Austin, 70, was taken back to Walter Reed by his security detail at 2:20 p.m. Sunday, according to Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary. Just before 5 p.m., he transferred his authority to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. In a statement late Sunday night, Austin's doctors said they ran tests on Austin and admitted him to the "critical care unit" at Watler Reed for "supportive care and close monitoring."
"At this time, it is not clear how long Secretary Austin will remain hospitalized," John Maddox and Gregory Chesnut, Austin's doctors said. Unlike his previous hospitalization that began Jan. 1, Austin notified the White House, Congress and Pentagon officials, Ryder said in a statement.
➤TRUMP GOES OFF SCRIPT: Former President Donald Trump again stirred fears about the future of NATO by suggesting he might not come to the aid of European nations if they're attacked by Russia − and might even "encourage" Russians "to do whatever the hell they want." Trump, during a campaign rally in Conway, South Carolina, on Saturday said his decision, if he's elected again, would be based on whether NATO members are contributing enough to the foundational alliance. The former president said he made that very point during an international meeting that took place during his presidency. “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’ I said, ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you."
The White House and global leaders firing back after fmr. Pres. Trump says he wouldn’t defend NATO allies unless they paid more into defense. @Alex_Presha reports on Trump sending shockwaves around the world. https://t.co/tF0D9oAbsQpic.twitter.com/awwlTbfnCW
➤HALEY RIPS TRUMP: Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has a new reason to demand that ex-President Donald Trump debate her in South Carolina: The former president attacked Haley's husband, who is overseas on military deployment, for being absent from the campaign trial.
"If you mock the service of a combat veteran, you don’t deserve a driver’s license, let alone being president of the United States,” Haley told supporters in Gilbert, S.C., part of her bus tour throughout the state. "Donald, if you have something to say, don’t say it behind my back," she said. "Get on a debate stage and say it to my face."
Hours earlier, during a rally in Conway, S.C., Trump referred to Michael Haley when discussing a meeting he had with Nikki Haley some time ago. "She comes over to see me at Mar-a-Lago - 'sir, I will never run against you' ... She brought her husband," Trump said. The former president then added: "Where’s your husband? ... Oh, he’s away ... He’s away ... What happened to her husband? What happened to her husband?! Where is he?! ... He’s gone! He knew! He knew!"
➤SHOOTING AT OSTEEN'S MEGSCHURCH: Off-duty officers shot and killed a woman who claimed she had a bomb and opened fire with a rifle in Joel Osteen's Houston megachurch on Sunday, leaving a 5-year-old child in critical condition after being hit by gunfire. The woman, wearing a trench coat and escorting the child, walked into Osteen's Lakewood church in between services shortly before 2 p.m. CT and inexplicably began firing a long rifle, said Houston Police Chief Troy Finner.
HPD Chief Troy Finner breaks down the shooting that occurred at Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Texas.
He says the female shooter is deceased. A 5-year-old child is in critical condition, and a 57-year-old man was shot in the leg. pic.twitter.com/ILRsjDmb0p
Amazon will carry a wild-card game during the 2024-25 season, according to The LA Times citing people familiar with the plan who were not authorized to comment. The game provides an opportunity for Amazon to bring a massive audience to its Prime video platform.
The NFL declined to comment on the move. An Amazon representative did not respond to a request for comment.
NBC carried a wild-card game on its Peacock service on Jan. 13, delivering what it called the largest live streaming audience in history with an average audience of 23 million viewers. It’s likely the game, a Kansas City Chiefs victory over the Miami Dolphins with pop superstar Taylor Swift cheering them on, helped Peacock add substantially to the 30 million subscriber total it has reported to Wall Street analysts.
Amazon recently finished its second season as the exclusive home of “Thursday Night Football,” which saw a 24% increase in audience compared with the prior year, averaging nearly 12 million viewers according to Nielsen data. The streamed games reach a substantially younger audience than the ones airing on traditional television.
Amazon is getting the playoff game next season due to a performance clause in its exclusive deal to carry the NFL’s Thursday night package.
Like all NFL games, the playoff telecast will be available on broadcast television in the markets of the teams competing in the contest.
The Boston Red Sox are allowing streaming leader Netflix full access during the upcoming MLB season.
From next week at spring training in Fort Myers, Fla., through the end of the 2024 season, Netflix film crews will be embedded with the Red Sox for an unprecedented glimpse into what goes into MLB players’ grind of six weeks of spring training and a 162-game regular season.
Netflix, which also is producing a documentary on the 2004 Red Sox to be aired later this year, will focus on a ball club facing intense scrutiny from its fan base over three last-place AL East finishes the last four years..
The players have signed off on it, as have manager Alex Cora and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow.
Adam Grossman, the Red Sox executive vice president/chief marketing officer, said Breslow offered his experience as a player as one reason the Netflix project will not get in the way.
➦In 1904...radio/TV talent show host Ted Mack was born William Edward Maguiness in Greeley Colorado. Mack died July 12, 1976 at age 72.
Mack succeeded Major Bowes as host of The Original Amateur Hour for the period 1948-52 on radio, and until 1970 on TV. His discoveries include Gladys Knight, Pat Boone, & Teresa Brewer. He also hosted TV’s Ted Mack Family Hour, a show similar to Ed Sullivan.
The Original Amateur Hour began on radio in 1934 as Major Bowes' Amateur Hour, and ran until the 1946 death of its creator, Major Bowes. Mack, a talent scout who had directed the show under Bowes, revived it in 1948 for ABC Radio and the DuMont Television Network.
The show lasted on radio until 1952 and until 1970 on television, where it ran on all four major networks, ending as a Sunday afternoon CBS staple. A success in the early days of television, the program set the stage for numerous programs seeking talented stars, from The Gong Show to Star Search to American Idol to America's Got Talent.
➦In 1909...singer/producer Barry Wood was born in New Haven Conn. He was the singing star of radio’s Lucky Strike Hit Parade in the early 40’s just ahead of Frank Sinatra, and went on to perform in lesser-known radio shows. In the TV era he was host of several shows including Places Please & Backstage with Barry Wood, and producer for The Bell Telephone Hour & Wide Wide World. He died July 19 1970 at age 61.
➦In 1910...Longtime radio announced Ken Roberts born (died at age 99 June 19, 2009). He was known for his work during the Golden Age of Radio and for his work announcing the daytime television soap operas The Secret Storm, Texas and Love of Life, each for a two-decade span.
Ken Roberts
His first announcing job was at WMCA in New York lasting three weeks. Next at WLTH in Brooklyn. In an interview for the book The Great American Broadcast, Roberts told Leonard Maltin that he had started at the Brooklyn station in 1930, where his responsibilities included answering phones and sweeping the floors, in addition to on-air roles playing piano and reading poetry.
During the 1930s and 1940s, at the height of the radio era, Roberts' voice appeared widely in live programming to introduce programs, moderate game shows and do live reads for commercials. Despite his Errol Flynn-like good looks and the frequent broadcasts featuring his voice, as often as several times each day, few listeners knew who he was or would have recognized him in public.
Radio credits include The Shadow (including the 1937-38 season on the Mutual Broadcasting System with a 22-year-old Orson Welles starring in the role of Lamont Cranston), the comedy Easy Aces, along with soap operas Joyce Jordan, M.D. and This is Nora Drake. In 1941, he achieved his goal of hosting his own quiz show, with Quick As a Flash on the Mutual network.
He also announced or hosted a number of game shows, such as What's My Name? and the parody It Pays to Be Ignorant, in which he would pose questions to actors portraying contestants such as "Who came first: Henry I or Henry VIII?" that would be answered incorrectly. At various times, he performed on eponymous programs for Fred Allen, Milton Berle, Victor Borge and Sophie Tucker.
In 1941, he achieved his goal of hosting his own quiz show, with Quick As a Flash on the Mutual network.
➦In 1912..Bigtime radio announcer Del Sharbutt was born in Cleburne Texas.
Del Sharbutt
His first appearance on radio was in 1929 as a singer on WBAP in Fort Worth, Texas. He became a staff announcer for CBS Radio in 1933, and is best remembered as spokesman for Campbell’s Soup (“Mmm mmm Good!”) beginning in the ’30’s. He was also TV announcer for Your Hit Parade, and worked until retirement in 1976 as newscaster for the Mutual Radio network. He died April 26, 2002 at the ripe old age of 90.
Old-time radio shows for which Sharbutt was an announcer included The Man I Married, Lavender and Old Lace, Guy Lombardo, Jack Pearl, Ray Noble, Bob Hope, The Song Shop, Hobby Lobby, Myrt and Marge, The Hour of Charm, Melody and Madness, Colgate Ask-It-Basket, Lanny Ross, Amos 'n' Andy, Club Fifteen, The Jack Carson Show, Lum and Abner, Your Hit Parade, The Campbell Playhouse, Request Performance, Meet Mr. McNutley and Meet Corliss Archer.
In 1958,Sharbutt became a disc jockey on 77WABC in New York City. He and another old-time radio announcer, Tony Marvin, began "hosting afternoon record shows in their distinctively deep voices."
He died April 26, 2002 at the ripe old age of 90.
➦In 1915...newscaster/actor Lorne Greene was born in Ottawa. He was called “The Voice of Doom” as the nightly newsreader on CBC Radio during World War Two.(1939-42) On TV he starred in Bonanza, Battlestar Gallactica & Code Red. He died Sept 11, 1987 after an operation for a perforated ulcer, at age 72.
➦In 1924…The Eveready Hour was the first commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting. It premiered February 12, 1924 (other sources: December 4, 1923 or November 4, 1923) on WEAF Radio (now WFAN) in New York City. Radio's first sponsored network program. it was paid for by the National Carbon Company, which at the time owned Eveready Battery
In early 1924 The Eveready Hour began to be carried simultaneously by a second station, WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, and the number of outlets was expanded to a group of Eastern and Midwestern stations "as quickly as WEAF could add stations" to its "WEAF chain" radio network. On election night, November 4, 1924, the program, hosted by Wendell Hall, was carried by 18 stations, with Will Rogers, Art Gillham, Carson Robison and the Eveready Quartet entertaining between election returns given by Graham McNamee. Joseph Knecht led the Waldorf-Astoria Dance Orchestra.
The Bowery Boys were featured on the Eveready Hour
In 1926 the WEAF chain operations were purchased by the Radio Corporation of America, becoming the basis of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in early 1927. The Eveready Hour continued as a featured broadcast on NBC until 1930.
Calvin Coolidge
➦In 1924...President Calvin Coolidge became the first President to make a political speech on the radio. It originated from New York City and was broadcast on five radio stations to an audience of an estimated 5M listeners. During his presidency, Coolidge made around 50 broadcasts. He soon learned how to make best use of the new technology, adding a consultant to his staff to help him polish his radio persona.
While Coolidge was a radio pioneer, the American president most associated with radio is Franklin D. Roosevelt. From 1933 to 1944, Roosevelt delivered 30 “fireside chats,” in which he addressed the American people in a friendly, plainspoken manner about his efforts to bolster the depressed economy through innovative government programs and about global challenges in the run-up to World War II.
➦In 1940…New York radio station WOR presented the first broadcast featuring the comic-strip hero, “Superman“. The 15-minute juvenile adventure became a feature of the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1942, three times a week to start, then daily.
\On Mutual, it was broadcast from August 31, 1942, to February 4, 1949, as a 15-minute serial, running three or, usually, five times a week. From February 7 to June 24, 1949, it ran as a thrice-weekly half-hour show. The series shifted to ABC Saturday evenings on October 29, 1949, and then returned to afternoons twice a week on June 5, 1950, continuing on ABC until March 1, 1951. In all, 2,088 original episodes of The Adventures of Superman aired on American radio.
The Man of Steel first appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938. When Superman was first heard on radio less than two years after the comic book appearance, the character took on an added dimension with Bud Collyer in the title role.
During World War II and the post-war years, the juvenile adventure radio serial, sponsored by Kellogg's Pep, was a huge success, with many listeners following the quest for "truth and justice" in the daily radio broadcasts.
➦In 1951...Radio Personality, Pat St. John, was born in Detroit.
Pat St John age 18
In early 1969, at the age of 18, he landed his first gig as a radio personality on Windsor's CKLW, where he also worked for CKLW's 20/20 news doing newscasts one day a week, and part-time booth announcing on CKLW-TV Channel 9. In late 1970 he moved across the border to WKNR and was then hired in early 1972 at the ABC-owned album-oriented rock (AOR) station WRIF until 1973.
In April 1973, St. John began an almost 15-year stint at New York's WPLJ. He survived the station's transition from AOR to top 40 in 1983.
He left WPLJ in 1987, and returned to his rock roots on WNEW-FM, which had been WPLJ's rival during its AOR years. He became the station's program director in the early 1990s. St. John remained with the station until it switched to a hot talk format in 1998.
