CCM+E, Houston Astros Announce Multi-Year Deal

Clear Channel Media and Entertainment Houston and The Houston Astros have announced a multi-year agreement to make KBME Sportstalk 790 AM the new home of the Houston Astros beginning with the 2013 MLB season.

 “I am excited that our valuable partnership with the Houston Astros will continue. Having the Houston Astros on KBME along with being the home of the Houston Rockets and U of H football and basketball will make KBME Houston’s premiere sports outlet,” said Eddie Martiny, President/Market Manager, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment Houston.

Under the agreement, Astros fans will be able to hear all regular season and spring training games in addition to pre-game, post-game and other Astros’ related programming on Sportstalk 790.

 “We are pleased to continue our relationship with Clear Channel Media and Entertainment,” said Astros President and CEO George Postolos. “Our fans will enjoy a first-class, entertaining and informative radio broadcast on Houston's premiere sports station - Sportstalk 790.”

 The new era of Houston Astros baseball on Sportstalk 790 has already begun with Thursday night broadcasts of “Astroline” from 7-8 p.m. CT.  The first spring training game is scheduled for Saturday, February 23 with the regular season debut on Sunday, March 31 against American League rivals The Texas Rangers.

Sportstalk 790 is also the radio home for the Houston Rockets and University of Houston Cougars’ football and basketball.

Opinion: No Bones About It

From Country Consultant Jaye Albright’s Breakfast Blog:

Tt's demoralizing for those of us who believe in local radio driven by powerful local brands to have to watch Clear Channel doing what it seemingly feels is must do to compete while paying down the huge mountain of debt facing the company. 

Demoralizing too for Bobby Bones and his terrific team, it seems, since they claim to have been receiving "a lot of hate mail" about the move.  Even their affiliates learned about it Monday on the air.

They have a poll on their website asking their listeners what they think.  When I voted, here's how it looked (not exactly a rousing welcome/sendoff):

 

I must confess that I am not demoralized.  Actually, I am one of that 42%.  I love how organic the show is, how authentic.  I feel confident that it's going to find a place, much like Ryan Seacrest has in Top 40 and and Hot AC, in country radio where a local show is stuck in its ways and has been slow to understand Gen Y and Z. 

I am energized.  It will be fun to watch what Bobby does on WSIX.  He's certainly not Gerry House in a litany of ways, and yet his unpredictability and honesty, that un-radio approach that endeared Gerry to Nashville radio listeners is alive and well within Bobby Bones.

 

This move means, of course, that as contracts end for many Clear Channel morning personalities over the next year or two, there will be a plethora of great morning talent seeking to find a new city to fall in love with in hopes that place will love them back. 

If you're on the air in the morning on a successful country station now, it's time to up your game.   

Think about today's and tomorrow's available target audience. 

These are exciting times, and if you don't enjoy competition and innovation, I feel sorry for you.  

Just like I feel sorry for anyone who has to face $10.1 billion in debt obligations which come due in three years, but of course a challenge like that can focus the mind and push one to quickly realize that they need to take risks and do big things.  

Radio needs Bobby, his employer and all of us who compete for country radio listener ears to do our very best.  Now. 

To me, that's exciting.

MJ-Bubba Trial Juror: ‘Never Listening To Radio Again'

Todd Schnitt

As controversy swirled and media coverage exploded following the court verdict last week that shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem did not defame rival radio star Todd "MJ" Schnitt, jury forewoman Kristy Craig feared a lesson was being lost.

So she typed up an email to the Tampa Bay Times, eventually agreeing to become the first juror from the trial to speak on the record, stressing that a verdict for Clem did not equal an endorsement of the material on his show.

"I hated this case," wrote Craig, 36, of Tampa. " 'Hate' is not a word used often in my vocabulary, but I hated it. I hate the word 'whore.' I did not count (though, sitting through over 60 hours of testimony, I had plenty of time to), but I assume I heard the word 'whore' upwards of a hundred times. As a woman, I hate what it implies."

Her email continued: "(But) I love that I can hate the antics of Bubba the Love Sponge. I love that he can say all that sexist, worthless drivel to 400,000 radio listeners every day. I love that I can change the station."

Todd Clem

Schnitt filed his lawsuit against Clem back in 2008, saying his rival made "false, highly offensive and defamatory statements" about him and his wife, Michelle, as competition heated up between the two on morning radio.

Reminded that an alternate juror said Schnitt should "put on his big-girl panties" and accept that criticism comes with his job, Craig offered her own version:

"I think they both need to put their big-boy pants on and find something valuable to talk about," she said. She noted, "Nobody wants to sit around and listen to two men call each other names. I work with 12-year-olds; I do that with them and try to teach them better."

And Craig had a final conclusion, written as the last line in her email to the Times:

"I love that I have some awesome CDs in my car. I am never listening to the radio again."

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Q92’s Mo Apologizes In Person, Returns To Air

Brian 'Mo' Modzelewski

The host of a show on an Alliance, OH  radio station WDJQ Q92 apologized in person to Kellie Baker of Strasburg for mocking her on air.

Brian “Mo” Modzelewski, host of “The Mo Radio Show” on Q92, met with Baker, who has Down syndrome, and her family at her Strasburg home Saturday afternoon for about 20 minutes, according to the timesreporter.com.

“She got the apology she asked for,” said Gigi Standiford, Baker’s mother. “She told him that he hurt her feelings bad, and she never wanted him to do something like that to anyone else ever again.”

Standiford said her daughter was happy with the apology.

THE ON-AIR APOLOGY, Click Here.

On Jan. 21, Baker accidentally called Q92 and talked to Mo, who recorded the conversation. He then played it repeatedly on his show and made fun of her. Mo was suspended and made an on-air apology, but Baker requested an in-person apology.

Mo has since returned to the air.

Read More Now.

Strong Radio Presence Helps Beasley Broadcast

The Naples, FL-based Beasley Broadcast Group Inc. Tuesday reported net income of $3.6 million, or 16 cents a share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, up from $3.4 million, or 15 cents a share, in the same period a year ago.

The company credited strength its radio stations in Fort Myers, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Augusta markets, as well as the third-quarter purchase of an additional Las Vegas station for the increase.

Beasley operates 43 stations in 11 markets.

For the year, Beasley reported net income of $11 million, or 48 cents a share, up from $10 million, or 45 cents a share, for the previous year.

According to news-press.com, the company also announced it has signed a licensing agreement with the Nashville-based Big Machine Label Group "to share certain over-the-air broadcasting and digital revenue related to the use of Big Machine's Music."

Big Machine artists include Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts and Tim McGraw.

Read More Now.

Many Drive Times Getting Longer

When it comes to traffic congestion around Washington, even the good news is bad, and it goes downhill from there, according to an article by Ashley Halsey III at The Washington Post.

The city that so hungers to be No. 1 at something — usually on a gridiron or diamond-shaped field — has again risen to the top as the most congested metropolitan area in the United States, a place where the average driver burns 67 hours and 32 gallons of gas each year sitting in traffic.

The No. 1 ranking is the good news. The bad news is that it’s going to get worse.

The annual crunching of numbers by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute projects that unless something is done about traffic, the economic recovery will put more wheels on the road and create more congestion. By 2020, analysts say, the average U.S. driver will spend an additional seven hours in traffic each year and waste six more gallons of gas.

The Institute’s calculations are based on data from transponders on millions of moving vehicles. It comes from Inrix, the commercial network that also provides much of the information used in traffic reports on radio, television and the Internet.

After Washington, the four most congested metro areas in the nation were among the perennial contenders: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Boston. Raleigh-Durham rated as the easiest major city to get around.

Read More Now.

We Knew This Was Coming: “So God Made A DJ”

The creative talent behind this Paul Harvey parody is Rick Rumble from WNOR 99 FM Norfolk.  He wrote and produced and it was given air-time on his ensemble morning show.

Terrific job and thanks for the laughs, Rick!

‘Blackout Show’ Got Great Ratings

CBS made television history Sunday night when it aired not only the third most watched broadcast of all time, but also the fourth.

Lisa de Moraes at washingtonpost.com writes the No. 3 show was Super Bowl XLVII, which averaged nearly 109 million viewers — a crowd size surpassed only by last year’s Super Bowl XLVI (111.4 million viewers) and 2011’s Super Bowl XLV (111.0 million).

The fourth most watched broadcast in TV history?

Sunday’s Super Bowl blackout.

Number-crunching Nielsen Media has broken out Sunday’s 34-minute game shutdown in New Orleans as a separate show, and given it the name “Super Bowl XLVII Delay.”

“Delay” averaged 107 million viewers.

“Delay” has been trimmed to 30 minutes in Nielsen’s records: 8:41-9:11 p.m., a.k.a. not long after the end of Beyonce’s halftime show – and lasting twice as long as her performance, BTW.

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The Super Dark Bowl: Boomer Heard Buzzing

Watching the big game power outage on television was strange enough.

Imagine being in the Superdome radio booth on Sunday night, trying to broadcast football’s biggest game in the dark.

WFAN’s own Boomer Esiason Monday gave his unique take on the 34-minute delay in the third quarter of Baltimore’s 34-31 win, and even offered up a possible cause for the yet-to-be-officially explained outage in New Orleans.

SHOW AUDIO, Click Here.

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Piedmont Triad Radio: Diapered DJ Pays Off Lost Bet

Jared Pike of WKZL 107.5 FM Winston-Salem/Greensboro, NC paid off a lost Super Bowl bet Monday.  Jared of the Jared & Katie Morning Show bet an intern that the 49ers would win.

Jared was embarrassed but paid off the bet Monday morning on a street corner in chilly 40-degree weather.

He added the experience also was an eye-opener that he needs to find a gym and start working out!

Hidden 'Radio' Buttons Found In Apple's iOS 6.1

There's a hint that Apple has something new in the pipeline, and the company appears to have tucked it away inside the latest version of its iOS software.

Josh Lowensohn at cnet.com reports a set ofg buttons were discovered Monday night within a freshly jailbroken iPad.  Also discovered were code references for "radio," a feature found in iTunes on Macs and PCs, but not on the iPad or iPhone.

Making things more interesting is another button suggesting you can make purchases via the radio feature, presumably from iTunes.

The buttons hint at Apple's much-rumored radio service, a product that will let people stream music much like they do on the popular Pandora service, but with deep ties to Apple's iTunes library. Rumors that Apple has been working on such a service have floated for years, but heated up last year as talks with labels advanced. (See original posting, Click Here)

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Merger: Arbitron Hits The ‘Reset’ Button

Arbitron Inc. announced Monday that, following informal discussions with the staff at the Federal Trade Commission, Arbitron and Nielsen Holdings have agreed to voluntarily provide the FTC with additional time in which to review the proposed merger of TNC Sub I Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nielsen, with and into Arbitron.

According to streetinsider.com, Nielsen, as the acquiring party, will withdraw and refile its pre-merger notification and report form under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, which will restart the 30-day time frame for initial review of the transaction. The waiting period for the new filing will expire at 11:59 p.m. on March 8, 2013, unless earlier terminated by the FTC, or the FTC makes a formal request for additional information prior to the expiration of the waiting period.

List: Top 100 Streaming Talk Shows

A list of the “Top 100 Talk Shows of 2012″ just released by Talk Stream Live – which ranks the nation’s leading streaming talk shows – placed Rush Limbaugh at the top, with Michael Savage No. 2 and Glenn Beck No. 3.

Laura Ingraham came in fourth, followed by Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Tammy Bruce, Dennis Miller, Bill Bennett and George Noory rounding out the top 10.

Most surprising were the strong performances of Savage and Ingraham, wnd.com notes both were at least temporarily off the air following contractual disputes with their syndicators and moved to new providers of their shows to stations around the country.

Other rankings, especially where the online audience differs from the on-air “Heavy Hundred” ranking produced by Talkers magazine, show a stark difference between what audiences choose online and what they’re given on the radio.

For example, Talkers magazine ranks Ed Schultz No. 4, with over 3 million in his radio audience, but Talk Stream Live ranks the progressive talker’s online audience at No. 61.

Talk Stream Live notes its rankings, based on a sample of 2.75 million listener sessions, “tracks talk radio show metrics gathered on the Internet and collected through our cloud based server via TalkStreamLive.com’s website, gadgets, iPhone app and ‘click2listen’ links on social networks. They only rank the talk show hosts that are listed at TalkStreamLive.com. The TSL Top 100 report includes the big personalities talk show fans would expect as well as some new media rising stars. The conclusions are our own and not guaranteed to be accurate.”

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Tense Moments when The Lights Went Out

CBS’s Armen Keteyian was doing an interview with the NFL’s head of Super Bowl operations for a story for “60 Minutes Sports” when the lights went out.

“We were talking about the halftime clock and how Beyonce’s show had gone three minutes long when everything changed, leading us to a search for answers that for over 35 minutes, never came.”