R.I.P.: Miami Personality Betty Pino Dies At 65

Betty Pino

Radio personality Betty Pino has passed away, according Latin Times. 

WAMR The Ecuadorian Amor 107.5 FM DJ had been in an induced coma after suffering a bacterial infection.

She was 65.

"The queen of the radio has been called by the Lord, leaving a void that will be difficult to fill in her family, friends, listeners and all the ones Betty helped throughout her career in radio," said a statement on her Facebook page. "Today she is in the lap of the Lord. Thank you all for your prayers."

Pino was a host of a weekly show on the Miami radio station where she played the latest hit songs and the latest celebrity gossip.

When she first arrived to the U.S. she was a maid for an upscale hotel and made her way to a receptionist position at the station where she would have the opportunity to become a DJ. In 1974, she started her career as a radio dj on the now defunct FM-92 where she became the first woman disc-jockey in the south of Florida.

Betty was admitted to the hospital on July 15 due to a bacterial infection after a week of taking antibiotics and having no positive effect, according to El Nuevo Herald. Betty lost her battle against the bacterial infection that attacked her organs. Betty has left her mark in the music and radio world and will forever be remembered.

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Cumulus, DC Productions Ink Content Deal

Cumulus Media Networks and Dick Clark Productions will join forces to create radio, digital and social content opportunities around the American Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards.

"Our partnership with dick clark productions enables Cumulus to provide listeners and advertisers with unprecedented access to two top awards shows of the year with the American Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards," said John Dickey, Executive Vice President and Co-Chief Operating Officer of Cumulus Media Networks.  "We strive to find new and exclusive opportunities to deliver relevant and cutting edge content to engage fans through all of our affiliates platforms and programming."

"By partnering with Cumulus, we hope to increase awareness and fan engagement of the upcoming American Music Awards and Billboard Music Awards through an incredible slate of content and unique affiliate opportunities," said Mike Mahan, President of DC Media.

Radio coverage of the 2013 American Music Awards will feature six hours of original programming, including a two-hour red carpet radio show in advance of the awards that will be customized to all major radio formats.  Cumulus will have prime positioning and unprecedented access to talent, offering an unparalleled and unique experience for millions and millions of listeners.

The American Music Awards will be broadcast live from the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 24, 2013 from 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM ET/PT on ABC.

A similar radio and multi-platform content partnership is in development for the Billboard Music Awards in 2014.  Details will be announced in the coming months.

CC Engineering Mentoring Program Moves Into Third Year

Seacrest Children's Hospital Studio

Clear Channel Media and Entertainment has completed its inaugural Market Engineering Manager Development Program (MEM-Dev) and the third year of the company's Electrical Engineering Co-op Program ­ both designed to provide participants with hands-on industry experience in specialist areas within electrical engineering.

Over the past several years there has been a reported decline in the number of engineers entering radio as well as a spike in those retiring and nearing the end of their careers, according to radiomagonline.com.

"Clear Channel is making a strategic investment in the future of broadcasting engineering and we hope to attract and expose new talent to the ever-changing world of radio while also fostering the expedited growth and development of our existing employees," said Jeff Littlejohn, executive vice president of engineering and systems integration, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment.

The Clear Channel Electrical Engineering Co-op Program was introduced as a pilot program in 2011, and has offered 12 high-potential engineering college students the opportunity to expand upon their technical abilities and education while being exposed to innovative technologies and operational processes at Clear Channel stations across the country.

Many of the graduates from this inaugural class have already been placed in high-level managing positions within Clear Channel, including:

■ David Grice: market engineering manager in El Paso

■ Chris Abbott: market engineering manager in Tucson

■ Andy Mika: market engineering manager in Waco

■ Jake Wyatt: AM transmission specialist

As this first class graduates, Clear Channel welcomes its third MEM-Dev group into the program. Clear Channel will relocate its current class of six to Cincinnati to assist in building a radio studio at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in partnership with the Ryan Seacrest Foundation as part of the hands-on portion of the program.

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DC Radio: WAMU, WTOP Trading Places

Non-Com N/T WAMU 88.5 FM is back on top 6+ in the July PPMs for Washington DC.  The American University owned station moved 7.7 – 7.6 which was good enough to best Hubbard’s  Newser WTOP 103.5 FM 8.0-7.2.

CCM+E Top 40 WIHT Hot 99.5 FM  is #3 with a notch up 6.5-6.6.

Radio One Urban AC WMMJ MAJIC 102.3 FM is in sole possession of  #4 moving 5.8-5.6. While Howard University’s Urban AC WHUR 96.3 FM had another uptick moving 5.4-5.5  to move into a tie for #5 with CCM+E AC WASH 97.1 FM, which went down 5.8-5.5 and dropped a notch from #4.. 

In Cume, Hot 99.5  1,275,700 listeners...WASH 1,159,500...WTOP at 1,154,200.

25-54:  Hot 99.5 is #1 WASH #2 and WTOP #3

18-34: Hot 99.5 #1, WKYS #2 and WPGC #3

18-49: Hot 99.5 #1, WKYS #2 and WASH #3

More Top Line Arbitron PPMs Ratings: Click Here

Boston Radio: New Sheriff In Town Country Is #1

Summer surprise in Boston as WKLB 102.5 FM makes a little history as the new #1.  For the first-time ever a country station tops Boston’s ratings as the Greater Media station moved 7.0 – 8.1 besting perennial winner Top 40 WXKS Kiss108 (107.9 FM).  The CCM+E station slipped to #2 moving 7.9 – 7.6.

CBS Radio Classic Rock WZLX 199.7 FM notched-up 6.7-6.8 to claim the #3 spot for the third straight book.  Cluster-mate Newser WBZ 1030 AM is in sole possession of the #4 spot 6.1-6.3.   Sports WBZ-F The Sports Hub 98.5 FM dropped 6.1 – 4.5  to #8. 

Looking at two recent format flips:

• Greater Media’s rhythmic AC WBQT Hot 96.9, the former talk WTKK, goes 3.2-3.1. 
• CBS Radio’s CHR Amp 103.3 FM, which replaced oldies on WODS, is flat 2.8-2.8.

Top Cumers: Kiss 108  1,554,400...Magic 1,277,400...Classic hits WROR 1,055,000.

25-54: Kiss #1, WKLB #2, WZLX #3

18-34: Kiss #1, WKLB #2, WJMN #3

18-49:  Kiss #1, WKLB #2, WZLX #3

More Top Line Arbitron PPMs Ratings: Click Here

Rush Limbaugh Calls Twitter “Leftist Cesspool”

As least certain parts of it…

Here’s what Rush had to say on Tuesday’s radio show: 

“You know how many people get their news from Twitter every day?  Put together a Twitter news feed, and that's where they find out what's going on.  And that's simply citizen journalism.  That's just a bunch of leftists scouring other news sites and retweeting or reposting what they find interesting.  But the left owns Twitter.  That's where they're all headed.  They're abandoning Facebook because Facebook is being taken over by the elderly.  I have a story on that in the Stack.  Young people are getting all ticked off and leaving Facebook because old people are getting on there, and they don't know how to use it.  And the story that I have in the Stack cites as an example. And to the young, elderly is 50, 55 plus.  They don't know that LOL means "laugh out loud."  They think it means "lots of love."  So they're sending all these notes around with LOL after it, lots of love, and they say, "this is embarrassing.  We got these old fuddy-duddies and these gummers here on our network, and they even know what it is," and they're abandoning it and all going to Twitter. 

And Twitter, certain parts of it, have become a leftist cesspool.  So for every newspaper demise, the people that work there are gonna end up online doing the same thing that they do, and young people more and more are not watching television either.  They're doing everything online.  They're watching video TV shows. They're either buying them a day later or they're pirating them or something. But fewer and fewer people are getting media in conventional ways.  And I know some of you people are probably thinking, "Well, how are you surviving?"  Because radio, AM radio particularly, is one of the oldest.  Why is it still around, by the way?  When all of these venerable institutions of once dramatic greatness are fading away and their ultimate demise is clearly seeable, how come old Limbaugh and AM radio, which is as old as newspaper, how come it's still out there? 

And there is a simple answer to this... 

..I do this program for one group of people and one group of people only, and that's you.  The audience is king.  Now, as we've discussed, journalists -- the mere employees -- at newspapers and television news networks don't want to have to be worried about the audience.  They view the customer with contempt more often than they view the customer with respect.  Have you ever called in a complaint to a newspaper about content?  What do you get? 

"Well, you don't know enough to know how we do our business," or, "Well, you don't know what you're talking about.  We're not biased."  You get hung up on or shouted at or what have you.  You're the customer, but you are not respected.  You're the customer, but your opinion doesn't count a hill of beans because they're a bunch of elitists, and it doesn't matter to them.

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Feud: Hannity Calls Singer ‘Gutless Little Coward’

On his TV show, Sean Hannity Tuesday responded to singer Ryan Adams over Adams' Twitter snipes at Hannity and his refusal to come on Hannity's show and explain himself.

Hannity noted that Adams' initial tweet was taken down, asking "Why the urge to quickly recall the tweet, sir?" He called Adams a "gutless little coward" and challenged him again to make the same charges face-to-face.

Senator Calls For FCC To Intervene In CBS, TWC Dispute

Customers have been calling on Time Warner Cable and CBS Corp. to resolve their ongoing carriage dispute that has resulted in channels going dark in several markets including Los Angeles and New York.

Now politicians are demanding an end to the blackout.

According to the LA Times, Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) on Tuesday asked the Federal Communications Commission to step in and restart negotiations.

"I believe the public interest would be best served if carriage is restored by the parties at the earliest possible time so that consumers are not long caught in the middle," Markey said in a letter to the commission.

The fight between the two companies last week resulted in a blackout of CBS-owned media outlets for Time Warner Cable customers in several markets. The pay cable channel Showtime is also dark on Time Warner Cable.

At issue are fees that CBS wants to charge Time Warner Cable to carry its local television stations. CBS is seeking a hefty increase in so-called retransmission consent fees, which Time Warner Cable is resisting.

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SLC Radio: Brown To Oversee KSL Broadcast Group

Darrell Brown

KSL Broadcast Group, which includes both KSL TV and KSL NewsRadio, now has a new president.

Bonneville International Corporation announced Tuesday that Darrell Brown will oversee the day-to-day operations of the KSL Broadcast Group, a division of BIC.

"I am pleased to welcome Darrell to KSL," said Keith McMullin, president and CEO of Deseret Management Corporation, parent company of BIC. "He embodies the mission of our organization and brings strong leadership and broadcast experience."

Brown has spent the last 28 years with McGraw-Hill Broadcasting Company in various roles, most recently as president.

He is also a past president of the ABC Television Affiliates Association and was an executive board member of Internet Broadcasting Systems out of Minneapolis.

"I am proud to be part of such a strong team, and look forward to upholding the great legacy that is KSL," Brown said.

KSL Broadcast Group also includes KSFI FM 100.3 and KRSP 103.5 The Arrow.

Les Moonves Calls TWC Letter 'A Well-Wrought Distraction’

Les Moonves

CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves has responded to the letter he received from Time Warner Cable head Glenn Britt on Monday, calling it a "well-wrought distraction" that doesn't contain "a sincere or helpful proposal" to end Time Warner Cable's blackout of CBS stations.

According to THR, he also claims he has not heard from Time Warner Cable or Britt apart from the publicized letter, which Moonves said he was upset was simultaneously released to the media.

"It made me suspect that the document was not, as I hoped, a sincere offer, but rather a public relations gesture of some kind," the CBS CEO writes.

Moonves notes that Britt has CBS' actual proposal, including terms, economics and rights agreements. The company never received a mark-up or reply to anything contained in the proposal and has not heard from anyone at Time Warner Cable apart from Britt's "public letter masquerading as a private one," he writes. "That's not negotiating. That's grandstanding."

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CableTV Cutters No Longer An Urban Myth

The number of Americans jettisoning pay TV is still fairly small — but data clearly shows that cord-cutting is picking up the pace as the cost of cable and satellite TV service continues to climb skyward, according to Variety.

The U.S. pay TV sector as a whole lost 316,000 subscribers for the 12-month period ending in June, even as the housing market shows signs of recovering, Moffett Research analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a research report Tuesday.

“Cord cutting used to be an urban myth.  It isn’t anymore,” Moffett Research analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a research report Tuesday. “No, the numbers aren’t huge, but they are statistically significant.”

The latest figures showing the industry decline hit cable operators including Comcast and Time Warner Cable the hardest.

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Disney Reports Media Revenue Increases Five Percent

Walt Disney Co.'s fiscal third-quarter profit inched up 0.9% as growth from the media giant's parks and resorts and ESPN network more than offset weakness for the studio division, which was weighed by marketing costs for "The Lone Ranger."

According to Marketwatch, Disney has reaped the benefits of recent multibillion-dollar investments in its domestic theme parks, including the launch of Cars Land at Disney California Adventure, as well as investments abroad that have helped the division's growth. The company's cable-networks business has also performed well, mostly due to the strength of the ESPN sports network and ad growth, though ratings have been down at its ABC network.

The media networks division, Disney's largest business segment, posted a 8% increase in operating income as revenue climbed 5%. Parks and resorts revenue grew 7%, while profit for the business increased 9%. Guest spending at the company's parks and resorts increased due to higher average ticket prices and food and beverage spending.

The studio division's sales slid 2%, though profit dropped 36% due to pre-release marketing costs for "The Lone Ranger." Though "Monsters University" had a better performance than "Brave" a year ago, the performance of "Iron Man 3" in the latest quarter wasn't as strong as "The Avengers" last year.

For the quarter ended June 29, Disney reported a profit of $1.85 billion, up from $1.83 billion the prior year. Per-share earnings were flat at $1.01. The latest period included a charge of two cents a share tied to restructuring and impairment costs.

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Time Warner Reports 2Q Earnings Jump 87 Percent

Time Warner Inc. reports second-quarter earnings jumped 87%  as hits like "Man of Steel" helped drive strength at the media conglomerate's film and TV businesses, while Turner and HBO continued to deliver strong results.

According to Marketwatch, the company said it is raising its view for the year, now expecting adjusted per-share earnings to grow in the mid-teens off a base of $3.24. Time Warner's May view was for growth in the low double digits off an adjusted per-share earnings base of $3.28.

TV businesses faces big challenges from the rise of online-video outlets and near-saturation of the pay-television market, which has prompted concerns that some pay TV subscribers could disconnect.

Time Warner reported that revenue from its networks arm, which includes Turner Broadcasting and HBO, was up 6.8% to $3.84 billion for the quarter.

The growth was helped by stronger subscription revenue, driven by higher domestic rates and international growth, as well as a double-digit increase in advertising revenue, driven by higher pricing, strong demand for the NBA Playoffs on TNT, and the timing of the 2013 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball National Championship tournament. Content revenue also increased, which Time Warner said was due to higher sales of original programming by HBO.

The film and TV entertainment division reported a 13% jump in revenue, to $2.94 billion, led by theatrical releases like "Man of Steel," "The Hangover Part III" and "The Great Gatsby," as well as an increase in international television syndication and subscription video-on-demand revenue.

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Saga Reports 2Q Revenue Increased 2.6 Percent

Saga Communications, Inc. reports that net operating revenue increased 2.6% for the period ending June 30, 2013.

• Station operating expense was $23.5 million this quarter compared to $22.0 million for the same period last year. $851 thousand of the increase was the result of the credits received for music licensing fees during the 2nd quarter of 2012 that are not recurring in 2013.
• Station operating expense increased 7.0% compared to the same period last year, but only 3.0% when adjusted for such credits.
• Operating income decreased 8.0% to $8.4 million compared to $9.1 million for the same period last year. Adjusted for the music licensing fee credits, operating income would have increased 1.5%. Net income for the quarter decreased 6.4% to $4.8 million ($0.84 per fully diluted share) compared to net income of $5.1 million ($0.91 per fully diluted share) for the same period last year.