A first shoe that many in the sports betting industry feared is hovering inches above the Congress floor, as a proposal to ban ads dropped Thursday.
According to The Legal Sports Report Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) has introduced the Betting on our Future Act, which would treat sports betting like cigarettes and ban all advertisements on any medium in the jurisdiction of the FCC including TV, radio and the internet.
This would drastically change the US sports betting industry, as advertising would mostly be limited to snail mail, print media and billboards.
➤Tonko tagets ‘predatory’ sports betting ads
Sportsbooks are using a “variety of predatory tactics,” according to a fact sheet distributed by Tonko, including massive promotions and the use of “risk-free” and “no-sweat” bets to acquire customers.
Paul Tinko
The fact sheet specifically called out DraftKings, and how it spent $500 million in sales and marketing in 2020 and another $400 million in the first half of 2021.
Children and young people are the fastest-growing demographic of gamblers, the sheet continues. Between 60% and 80% of high school students say they have gambled for money already, according to the International Center for Youth Gambling Problems & High-Risk Behaviors.
That sheet also noted that universities and colleges have partnered with sportsbooks. That gives the industry “direct access to a new and impressionable generation of gamblers,” he said.
The White House has yet to agree to have President Bidensit for an interview that would air before the Super Bowl with Fox News, leading anchors on the network said late Tuesday night, according to The Hill.
“The president is going to be out on the road, taking his message to the road. Every year, traditionally, the network covering the Super Bowl gets an interview with the president of the United States,” said Bret Baier, a top anchor at the network, during its coverage of Biden’s State of the Union address. “We have formally asked for that interview, but we have not received an answer yet, whether they are going to officially do it or not … we’re running out of days.”
Fox broadcast network will carry the Super Bowl on Sunday. Biden sat for an interview with NBC last year, which was broadcast as part of the network’s pregame coverage of the game, and CBS the year before.
News Corp. said Thursday it will cut about 1,250 positions, or 5% of its workforce, in the latest round of layoffs that have hit the media and tech industries in recent months, reports CNBC.
Rupert Murdoch’s media company, which owns such names as The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Barron’s and HarperCollins, said the tough marcoeconomic environment and higher interest rates have been hurting the company.
On Thursday the company reported earnings results and said its quarterly revenue decreased 7% to $2.52 billion from the year-earlier period. Media companies, particularly digital media, have been trying to contend with a challenging advertising market.
In a study released on Thursday by the Brookings Institution, Steve Bannon’s podcast 'War Room' was crowned the top peddler of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among political podcasts.
The NY Times reports researchers at Brookings downloaded and transcribed 36,603 podcast episodes from 79 political talk shows that had been released before Jan. 22, 2022. When researchers compared the shows’ transcripts against a list of keywords and common falsehoods identified by fact checkers, they found that nearly 20 percent of Mr. Bannon’s “War Room” episodes contained a false, misleading or unsubstantiated statement, more than shows by other conservatives like Glenn Beck and Charlie Kirk.
Overall, about 70 percent of the podcasts reviewed had shared at least one false or misleading claim, the researchers found. Conservative podcasters were 11 times as likely as liberal podcasters to share a claim that fact checkers could refute.
Kirk, a conservative activist and the founder of Turning Points USA, ranked second, with 17 percent of his episodes containing an unsubstantiated or false claim. “The Rush Limbaugh Show” (which ended when Mr. Limbaugh died in 2021) and “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show” shared third place, while “The Michael Savage Show” ranked fourth.
Valerie Wirtschafter, a senior data analyst at Brookings who led the research, said some falsehoods and errors were expected to slip through on talk shows, where conversations were typically recorded live. “But what does stand out, particularly for a show like Bannon’s ‘War Room’ and a few others, is just how frequently this type of content appears,” she said.
One of the most accomplished pop music composers of the 20th century, Burt Bacharach, died Wednesday at age 94.
Billboard reports the musical maestro behind 52 top 40 hits including “Alfie,” “Walk on By,” “Promises, Promises,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “What the World Needs Now is Love” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?,” Bacharach had an untouchable run in the 1960s and 1970s with a wide range of pop, R&B and soul artists.
Working with lyricist partner Hal David, Bacharach and David were dubbed the “Rodgers & Hart” of the ’60s, with a unique style featuring instantly hummable melodies and atypical arrangements that folded in everything from jazz and pop to Brazilian grooves and rock.
Many of their songs were popularized by Dionne Warwick, whose singing style inspired Bacharach to experiment with new rhythms and harmonies, composing such innovative melodies as “Anyone Who Had a Heart” and “I Say a Little Prayer.”
Bacharach’s music cut across age lines, appealing to teens as well as an older generation who could appreciate the Tin Pan Alley feel of some of David’s lyrics. His fresh style could keep the listener offbalance but was intensely moving, defying convention with uplifting melodies that contrasted the often bittersweet lyrics.
The CBC will continue to provide Canadians with traditional radio and television broadcasts and will delay its move to digital-only service until adequate high-speed Internet is available to all Canadians, said the head of CBC.
Accoring to a posting on the CBC website, Catherine Tait, president and CEO of the CBC, was responding to a report based on an interview she gave to the Globe and Mail newspaper. That article said she plans to move CBC to a digital-only format and abandon radio and TV, but the move isn't likely to happen over the next 10 years.
"Let's be clear. We are not abandoning anyone who's watching on traditional television or listening on traditional radio," she said Tuesday.
"We are looking at a two-decade horizon. The BBC president announced a month ago that BBC would be going to digital-only by 2030. That is not the case for CBC. We are a vast country and until we have ubiquity in broadband delivery in this country, we will leave no one behind."
Over 200 employees from NBC News and MSNBC walked off the job Thursday in response to recent layoffs that NewsGuild leaders insist broke the law, reports Fox News Digital.
Lester Holt, Rachel Maddow and other high-paid stars were absent.
Staffers chanted and marched outside NBC’s New York City headquarters at the iconic Rockefeller Center. Scabby the inflatable rat was on hand, angry NBC employees held signs declaring the network stands for "Nothing But Criminals" and New York City comptroller Brad Lander, D., specifically called out MSNBC, NBC's left-leaning cable arm, for failing to practice what it preaches.
"You can’t have the MSNBC brand be one that’s about progressives and then screw your workers," Lander told the crowd.
Lander said New York City pensions belonging to teachers, firefighters and other city workers have invested heavily in NBCUniversal and "shareholders are not happy" with the way employees are being treated. Lander also accused the Comcast-owned company of "union busting" and "unfair labor practices" while standing outside the entrance to NBC’s 30 Rock.
"If you want to consider yourself, in this day and age, a responsible company, then you will respect your workers' right to organize, you won’t interfere when they do, won’t commit unfair labor practices," Lander said. "Companies really show who they are when they fire people without cause when they’ve got a union organizing in place. That’s an unfair labor practice."
NewsGuild president Jon Schleuss rallied the crowd by noting that journalists are supposed to hold the powerful to account and sometimes that includes their own employers.
"NBC is breaking the law, and we are here to hold them to account," Schleuss said before leading a raucous chant.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing mounting criticism from earthquake survivors and opposition parties over the country’s poor construction record and what they say has been an inadequate response to one of its worst natural disasters. A three-month state of emergency officially went into force in Turkey, enabling the government to take swift security and financial measures in areas stricken by a pair of earthquakes on Monday. The death toll in Turkey and Syria reached 21,447, with tens of thousands still missing. Key Developments:
Turkish Anger Turns to Erdogan Over Quake Delays, Weak Buildings
Azeri Oil Exports From Turkey May Not Resume Until Next Week
Turkish Donors Order Container Homes for Earthquake Survivors
Turkey Assets Stop Skid as Investors Weigh Post-Disaster Risks
Erdogan Vows Building Blitz to Renew Quake-Hit Areas Within Year
Turkey Risks Inflation Surge, Budget Breach as Quake Costs Mount
Several tent cities have been built outside sports facilities in the city of Hatay, as the death toll from Monday’s earthquakes surpassed more than 20,000 people in Turkey and Syria and flattened entire blocks over residents in their sleep. https://t.co/Em65jFIo7cpic.twitter.com/AwBvb7FggN
The rescue of several survivors from the rubble of buildings in Turkey lifted the spirits of weary search crews on Friday, four days after a major earthquake struck the country and neighboring Syria. Cold, hunger and despair gripped hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by the tremors, the deadliest in the region for decades. Several people were rescued from the rubble of buildings during the night, including a 10-year-old boy saved with his mother after 90 hours in the Samandag district of Hatay province. Also in Hatay, a seven-year-old girl named Asya Donmez was rescued after 95 hours and taken to hospital, the state-owned Anadolu news agency reported.
➤MIKE PENCE SUBPOENAED FOR TRUMP INVESTIGATION: Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel who is investigating former President Donald Trump’s involvement in the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, ABC News reported. Special counsel Jack Smith was appointed in November to oversee the investigation into the effort by former president and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. As of last night, there was no comment on the report from the vice president.
Ilhan Omar's campaign cash to consultants dipped by millions after halting payments to husband's firm https://t.co/JQtJvPYwzM
➤FILING INCREASE FOR BENEFITS: Worker filings for unemployment benefits rose last week but remained historically low. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 196,000 last week, the Labor Department said. That reflects a tight job market—in some sectors. Restaurants, hospitals, nursing homes and child-care centers are staffing up postpandemic, more than offsetting layoffs in the tech industry. Meanwhile, the steepest fourth-quarter home-price declines were in the West, according to the National Association of Realtors.
CUMULUS MEDIA’s Westwood One, America’s largest audio network and the official network audio broadcast partner of the National Football League (NFL), will present comprehensive live coverage and play-by-play of Super Bowl LVII on Sunday, February 12, 2023, when the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs face the NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
Super Bowl LVII will be the 36th consecutive year and the 50th time overall Westwood One will broadcast America’s biggest sporting event.
Kevin Harlan will handle play-by-play duties for the Super Bowl for the 13th straight year, with Super Bowl XXXIV MVP and Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner returning for the fifth consecutive year as lead analyst. Former NFL referee turned rules analyst Gene Steratore will also join the radio broadcast booth for this year’s Super Bowl. For the fourth time, Laura Okmin will patrol the sidelines, along with former defensive lineman Mike Golic, who returns for his second Super Bowl with Westwood One’s broadcast crew.
Scott Graham will anchor Westwood One’s pregame, halftime, and postgame show coverage, his 14th Super Bowl with the network. Former offensive lineman and Super Bowl 50 champion Ryan Harris will provide pregame, halftime, and postgame analysis.
Gameday coverage will begin at 2:00 p.m. ET, with “Super Bowl Preview,” co-hosted by Scott Graham, Mike Golic, and Kurt Warner, followed by “Super Bowl Insider” at 3:00 p.m. ET with Scott Graham, Jason McCourty, and Ian Rapoport. Live coverage from the stadium will kick off at 4:00 p.m. ET with “Super Sunday,” and the Super Bowl game broadcast will begin at 5:00 p.m. ET, with kickoff expected just after 6:30 p.m. ET.
Activist investor Nelson Peltz on Thursday ended his quest for a board seat at Walt Disney Co after Chief Executive Bob Iger laid out plans to fix the home of Mickey Mouse, cheering investors.
"The proxy fight is over. This is a win for all shareholders," a spokesperson for Peltz's Trian Fund Management said.
Nelson Peltz
Reuters reports the decision came only hours after Disney reported earnings that topped Wall Street expectations and Iger outlined a corporate restructuring that included 7,000 job cuts and addressed many of Peltz's criticisms.
After weeks of trading increasingly personal barbs, Peltz extended an olive branch to Disney saying he congratulated the company and its CEO on new "operating initiatives" that dovetail with his thinking.
Disney issued a statement applauding Peltz's decision to end the board challenge. "We have tremendous faith in Bob Iger’s leadership and the transformative vision for Disney’s future he set forth yesterday," the board said.
Trian owns a stake of nearly $1 billion in Disney and had criticized the company for bungled succession planning, overpaying for new assets and runaway costs.
The top-rated “Roger & JP” radio show with Roger Luce and “JP” Parise inked a new 4-year deal that keeps them on 102.3 WBAB (Nassau-Suffolk, NY) in mornings and on 102.5 The Bone (Tampa, FL) mid-day. Both stations are owned by Cox Media Group.
Since Roger & JP took over mornings on 102.3 WBAB (Long Island) in 2000 and came to 102.5 The Bone (Tampa) in 2015, they have been there for their listeners. That includes mobilizing relief efforts after 9/11 and Superstorm Sandy; helping the community make it through the COVID pandemic; raising funds for Hope For The Warriors; providing toys for sick children and food for military veterans; and much more. Along the way, Roger & JP have demonstrated that don’t do the show just to entertain, but to help their listeners and communities.
➦In 1893...singer/comedian Jimmy Durante was born in New York City. His distinctive vocal personality made him a natural star in bigtime radio, and later TV. He was still headlining a weekly TV show as late as 1969 when he was in his late 70’s (Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters.) Famous for the sign-off, “Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.” He died of pneumonia Jan 29, 1980 at age 86.
➦In 1925...WTIC-AM in Hartford, CT signed-on with 500 watts of power from the 6th floor of the Travelers 26 Grove St building in Hartford where there were seven studios, most or all with control rooms. The station was licensed to the Travelers Insurance Company ("TIC") and had studios in downtown Hartford.
The 1931 CT State Register shows WTIC, owned by Travelers Broadcasting Service, operating on 1060 Khz with 50,000 watts, the most powerful station in the state. The transmitter, referred to as "old number one" was the first 50,000 watt transmitter ever manufactured by RCA and has serial number 001. This RCA 50 transmitter was the first high power commercial transmitter to use 100-kilowatt tubes, the first to use mercury-vapor type rectifiers throughout, and the first capable of true 100 percent modulation of its full rated 50-kilowatt carrier output.
By 1941 they had changed frequency to 1080 khz. WTIC is now owned by Audacy Communications.
WTIC was known for its historic time tone, which is a broadcast of the Morse code letter "V" every hour on the hour since 1943. This makes it one of the oldest continuously broadcasting radio time tones in the world. WTIC employs a GPS master clock system that fires the custom-built time-tone generator shortly before the top of the hour, timed such that the final tone of the sequence occurs precisely on the hour (Even though everything else heard on the station is on a 10-second delay), and listeners have been setting their watches to WTIC for many years. The notes of the sequence were pitched to mimic the famous opening sequence of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, whose "short-short-short-long" rhythm matches that of the Morse code letter "V". The Morse code letter "V" for Victory was selected during the height of WWII.
Bob Steele
WTIC's best-known personality was Bob Steele, who started with the station in 1936 and stayed with WTIC for his entire sixty-six year career, ending with his death on December 6, 2002 at the age of 91.
Steele continued to broadcast a 5:30 - 10:00 AM Monday-Saturday morning show for WTIC for fifty-five years, scaling back to Saturdays only after September 1991; by the time of his last broadcast in November 2002, he was only heard on the first Saturday morning of every month. Despite WTIC's various format changes over the years, Steele's show (which featured musical standards, farm news and prices early in the morning, novelty songs, silly jokes, horrible puns ("...and the weather for Mexico City is chili today, hot tamale") and a regular "Word of the Day" segment - even long after WTIC itself had abandoned music for a focus on news/talk remained unchanged throughout its run, making it perhaps the longest-running radio program in history to have never undergone a significant format change.
➦In 1964...Personality Johnny Holliday started at 1010 WINS. He hosted the station's final music broadcast in 1965. This led him west to Top 40 giant KYA in San Francisco where in 1965, Holliday was named America's number one disc jockey by the Bill Gavin Radio "Gavin Report." His radio work is featured in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In connection with the station he hosted record hops and concerts, including co-hosting the final concert by the Beatles at Candlestick Park in 1966.
Holliday moved to Washington, D.C., in 1969, handling morning drive time duties for WWDC until 1978, and sports for WMAL from 1978 to 1991.
➦In 1996...“The New” WKTU officially debuted at 103.5 FM.
At 6 p.m. on February 9, 1996, WYNY, which had dropped it's Country Format, switched its stunting to a heartbeat sound effect, promoting the launch of a new format coming the following day at Noon. At that time, WKTU was relaunched on 103.5 FM with a dance-based CHR format; WKTU's first song was "Gonna Make You Sweat" by C+C Music Factory. The station instantly skyrocketed to number one in the Arbitron ratings.
Drag performer RuPaul co-hosted mornings with Michelle Visage, Lisa Taylor and Freddie Colon around this period, further helping their ratings. Sean "Hollywood" Hamilton and Goumba Johnny made their debut at night and after much success were moved to mornings in 1998.
By 2002, the moderate amount of rap played on the station was gone and the station evolved into more of a Rhythmic Hot AC.
➦In 2004...Rick Dees announced he was leaving the morning show at KIIS 102.7 FM, Los Angeles, after 22 years. The issue was a contract dispute. Click Here for his final KIIS-FM Show.
