Apple Unveils iPad Mini, New Macs

Apple CEO Tim Cook and vice president of marketing Phil Schiller took to the stage in California at a media event to finally unveil the company's long-awaited iPad mini -- something Jobs once declared the company would never do. According to Fox News, the new $329 product is meant to compete with smaller, 7-inch tablets from companies like Google and Amazon that are nipping at the tech giant's heals.

"You knew there'd be something called Mini in this presentation," Schiller joked with the crowd before revealing the hotly anticipated gadget. Apple has sold 84 million iPads since their debut in April 2010, he said.

"So this iPad mini is just 7.2 mm thick. That's about a quarter thinner than the fourth-generation iPad. Thinner than a pencil," Cook told the crowd. The new product has the same resolution as the larger display 1,024 × 768, but it should look sharper thanks to the smaller screen.

"You can hold it in one hand," he said. It's not just a shrunken down iPad. It's an entirely new design." Yet the new mini will run all of the software designed for the full-size siblings, he said. The mini will start with 16GB of storage at $329; a 4G model will cost an additional $129.

Cook announced an update to the iPad prior to that that he labeled a "fourth-generation" model with updated specifications.

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Shocker: Tom Langmyer Out As GM At WGN Chicago

Tribune Broadcasting pushed out longtime WGN Radio Vice President & General Manager Tom Langmyer Monday, according tochicagoradioandmedia.com.

Publicly, it was made to look as though Langmyer simply chose to leave the station, effective immediately. Privately, Langmyer and his Tribune Broadcasting bosses disagreed about upcoming changes to the radio station. Both parties felt it was just best to part ways. The move had been coming for some time, but it was Tribune Broadcasting that chose the time of this exit to be today.

Tribune Company is looking to exit bankruptcy at some point this year and turn over ownership of the media giant to a handful of creditors, who are expected to begin to sell off portions of the company. The most valuable asset Tribune Company has is its radio and TV division, Tribune Broadcasting. Nils Larsen, President and CEO of Tribune Broadcasting and Sean Compton, President of Programming and Entertainment for Tribune Broadcasting, wish to make changes right away to make the division look leaner and more valuable on the books. That means major cutbacks will soon be happening. Rather than fighting against the changes, something he has done to some success for the last few years, Langmyer chose to step aside.

Tom Langmyer came to WGN Radio in 2005, after a highly regarded 13 year run as an executive for CBS Radio. During his time in Chicago, the radio station experienced record revenue and profits.

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Study: Streaming Advertising Response Up Sharply

Internet Radio has grown exponentially and so has its audience. More than 42% of the population is listening to Internet Radio, which is up 8% from 2011.

According a a White Paper created by Targetspot, this audience has numerous significant traits:  many are married and have kids, they own their own homes, have high levels of disposable income and they are also highly engaged with Digital Audio content.  In fact, 75% change stations at least one time daily and 64% change websites multiple times a day in order to remain connected with their listening experience.

 Another key indication of engagement is that these listeners regularly interact with the player – 61% don’t keep the player minimized and 67% often check the player to see the name of a song or artist.

 With key metrics such as these, it’s not surprising that this audience’s engagement with content translates to their interaction with Digital Audio advertising.  Given the importance of this major media segment, there is a growing need to understand Digital Audio listeners’ viewpoints on advertising and to leverage these findings to best communicate with them.

Get Full Report Here.

Baltimore’s Stash Gets Jail Time

Stephen G. Smith, who was known as "Stash" on 98 Rock, pleaded guilty Monday morning to drunk driving charges and was sentenced to six months in the Harford County Detention Center, according to a story atbaltimoresun.com.

District Court Judge Susan Hazlett reduced the original one-year sentence after Smith's lawyer said Smith immediately took part in a 28-day alcohol treatment program and admits he has a drinking problem.

She also placed him on supervised probation and required him to abstain from alcohol.

Smith, a Bel Air resident, was involved in a three-car crash at Route 24 near the I-95 intersection July 22 that sent five people to the hospital with minor injuries.

As a result of the charges, he was fired from 98 Rock after more than 20 years working in radio.

Hazlett called his record "lousy," noting 32 prior convictions for traffic offenses.

Smith's lawyer, Leonard Shapiro, said his client had done a lot of good in the community, including charity through the radio station, and is committed to turning his life around.

Shapiro said Smith, who has five children with his wife, relapsed into drinking from the stress of dealing with his severely autistic son.

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Trump Claims 'Big Announcement' About President Obama

UPDATE 10/24/12 5pm : Donald Trump's "big announcement” is here, and he is offering $5 million to a charity of Obama's choice if he releases his college transcripts and passport.

UPDATE 7P 10/23:  According to London’s Daily Mail,  Donald Trump is to claim that he has unearthed divorce papers of Michelle Obama and the President, according to a respected financial pundit with links to the tycoon.

It is alleged that the eccentric real estate mogul will claim that the documents show the First Lady and the President were at one point in their two decades of marriage seriously considering splitting up.

Earlier Posting...

Donald Trump is trying to involve himself in the presidential election again, saying yesterday (October 22nd) that he has a, quote, "big announcement" that he’ll be making about President Obama.

 In a phone interview with Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends Monday, the real estate mogul and reality TV celebrity said, "I have something very, very big concerning the president of the United States. I will be announcing it sometime probably Wednesday and it's going to be very big."

 He said he'd likely make the announcement on Twitter.

When asked by show co-host Gretchen Carlson if it would change the election, Trump said, "Possibly. It's very big -- bigger than anybody would know."

Trump had also promised a, quote, "big surprise" at the Republican National Convention, which was canceled because Hurricane Isaac forced the GOP to shorten the four-day event. The surprise was to have been a video showing the Celebrity Apprentice host firing an Obama impersonator. Trump drew political attention early this year when he suggested for weeks that he might run for president and became a champion of the birther conspiracy, the repeatedly debunked claim that Obama wasn't born in the U.S.

Faces In The Crowd At The Presidential Debate

Radio Row at last night’s third Presidential Debate in Boca Raton, FL:

Jamie Dupree, Cox Radio, Aaron Katersky, ABC Radio, Eben Brown and Jared Halpern, Fox News Radio. Photo by Peter King, CBS Radio News.


Which is the real Peter King?

Peter King, CBS Radio News bumps into Congressman Peter King at last night's debate.

Tom Taylor Is Back…Soon!

Tom Taylor, former editor of Inside Radio, MStreet Daily and Radio-Info, is about to return.

Taylor, one of the industry’s most respected and widely read radio reporter-analyst, has been ‘vacationing’ since leaving as news editor for Radio-Info.com.  The publication recently was bought out at Michael Harrison’s Talkers.com magazine.

Taylor is about to return with a free-subscription daily newsletter to be titled “Tom Taylor Now.  You can sign up by clicking here.

Syracuse: Morning Duo Cross The Street

nyradio.com

C&D Delays Ex-95X Talent From KROCK Start

Fans who followed Hunter Scott and Josh Grosvent from 95X (WAQX) to KROCK (WKRL/WKRH/WKLL) expected to hear the pair sign-on at 6am Friday.  But, according to cnyradio.com,  they said their debut was delayed by approximately 90 minutes, thanks to a threat of legal action from their former employer.

It was approximately 7:30am by the time Scott and Grosvent took to the air, explaining they received a cease and desist order from Cumulus Media, the owner of WAQX.  The pair had been hosting “The Show” there for two years, until they resigned after their shift on Tuesday morning.  For those first 90 minutes, they were discussing the matter with Ed Levine, President and CEO of Syracuse-based Galaxy Communications, KROCK’s parent company.

According to the co-hosts, the C&D from Cumulus alleges Scott and Grosvent violated a clause in their contract, which says they must negotiate in good faith with Cumulus before they speak to any competing broadcasters.  But, the pair said their contract expired at the end of August.  Since then, the co-hosts said multiple requests to discuss a new contract with Cumulus went unanswered.

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MLB Padres Renew XEPRS Broadcast Deal

After spending much of last off-season negotiating a radio contract, the Padres have extended their agreement with XEPRS  1090-AM for three seasons through the end of the 2015 season.

The San Diego Union is reporting under the new agreement between the Padres and the Broadcast Company of the Americas, all 162 regular season games will be broadcast, although BCA committed to only 15 spring training games.

In the past, the Padres broadcast all their spring training games. But many teams have reduced the number of spring training broadcasts.

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What If TV Goes the Way of Music and Newspapers?

From Derek Thomas At The Atlantic: 

Do you love television but hate your cable company? Then you'll be thrilled to hear this bit of news.

Les Moonves, the chief executive at CBS, said in an interview that if the cord-cutting revolution takes off, he is prepared to distribute TV directly to viewers through apps. "If the universe changes and they [viewers] want us to bring the content directly to them, then we can," he said. 

This is music to the ears of those who've been predicting that the End of Cable will be as inevitable and consumer friendly as the webification of newspapers and the iTunes-ification of music. It sounds like the best of both worlds. In an on-demand world, you get the TV you love, and only the TV you love, without those hundreds of pointless channels you don't, and save all this money in the process! That's the dream, at least. 

Here's the reality. If the cable bundle dissolves, buying the TV you love on-demand would probably be either much more expensive that you'd think ... or much lower quality than you'd accept. 

Let's say for example that you just want to watch ESPN and otherwise be left alone. Right now, you pay $80 to cable every month, which passes along $5 to ESPN (per its agreement with its media company, Disney). So ESPN alone would cost $5 a month, right? That's not so bad. 

But wait. Remember, ESPN isn't just getting $5 from every household that wants to watch it. It's also getting $5 per from the millions of TV-watching households who don't care for sports and just happen to have ESPN because they have cable. In our post-cable future, you might have to pay $10 a month to make up for all the households who choose to stop subsidizing your SportsCenter habit.

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Rolling Stones Sell Out London Shows In 7 Minutes

The Rolling Stones' two London shows for next month sold out in only seven minutes and temporarily crashed the Ticketmaster server, according to Vintage Vinyl News. Including the service charges, the tickets for the Stones' November 25th and 29th at London's O2 arena, ran from $170 to $650 -- with the "Special VIP Platinum Experience" tickets costing fans a cool $1,500. According to various Internet sites and insiders predictions, scalped tickets may run as high as $30,000 by the time of next month's UK shows.

The general on sale for the December 13th and 15th shows at Newark, New Jersey's Prudential Center is set for October 26th, with V.I.P. Hospitality Packages having gone on sale on Saturday (October 20th), and the American Express pre-sale happening today (October 22nd).

R.I.P.: Robb Mahr Formerly of WWJ

When he was covering news for WWJ Radio in the 1970s and ‘80s, there was a button in the control panel marked “VOG.”

That was the button they pushed to contact Robb Mahr, “The Voice of God.” Mr. Mahr died at his home in Keego Harbor on Oct. 16 after a year-long bout with cancer, according to a story by Dave Smith at theoaklandpress.com. He would have turned 76 on Nov. 4.

While the laid-back journalist made no claim to sounding like God, his booming, deep bass voice — even in normal conversation — was a natural for radio, his first love, and for television.

Born in Colorado Springs, Colo., Mahr attended the University of Denver and the University of Nebraska. He was an on-air reporter early in his career on radio stations in Monterey and San Jose, Calif. and continued in broadcasting until his death.

Mahr wound up in Detroit by coincidence. In 1971, while serving as news director of KSTP, a news and talk station in Minneapolis, he returned after a short vacation to discover that his office was cleared of his belongings and occupied by a young man he’d never met.

“What are you doing here? This is my office,” Mahr is reported to have said.

The office’s new occupant replied, “Not anymore.” Mahr never learned why he was fired, but he was hired in 1973 by WWJ, where he spent the next 20 years.

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