Report: La Raza Thriving In Gwinnett

From Roddy Freeman, Atlanta Radio Views

La Raza 102.3 WLKQ-FM is accomplishing something extremely rare in the radio business.  The small-signaled station, in the shadow of the Atlanta giants, is getting good ratings and making big money. 

The urge to own a radio station has always been kind of analogous to the sex drive.  People want it so badly that they sometimes act without thinking.  Going back to the early days of music radio, stations just outside major markets signed on as fast as families were moving to the suburbs. 

Let's face it; people in towns like Carrollton, Griffin and Cartersville listen to Atlanta radio, and for good reason.  The Atlanta stations sound much better, pure and simple.  It's that way across the country in communities close to a major population center. 

The thinking has always been that stations in towns near large cities can super serve their community and be a place where local merchants can afford to advertise.  And that's been true to some extent, but competing in the shadow of the big boys is a tough row to hoe. 

For years, WLKQ-FM was Oldies Lake 102.  It was a station that was full of surprises because unlike major market Oldies stations, its music was not driven by research but by what the Program Director liked.  Lake 102 was considered a successful station, but success is relative.  Selling primetime spots for $25 is not everyone's idea of success. 

When the Josephs retired in 2005, they sold WLKQ to Greg Davis' Davis Broadcasting.  Davis had owned Urban clusters in the Columbus (GA), Augusta, Charlotte and Macon markets, but had sold everything except in his hometown of Columbus.  I wondered why he bought WLKQ, and my guess is it made him feel like he owned a station in the Atlanta market. 

When Davis first took over, the format was Classic Hits, like 97-1 The River plays.  I had expected Hispanic and questioned the format choice.  But somewhere, sometime, somebody planted the Hispanic notion in Greg Davis' head.  Davis sought out Brian Barber, who was VP of Sales for Spanish Broadcasting System in Miami, and asked what he thought about flipping to Spanish.  Barber responded that "it would be crazy not to go Hispanic," and the dye was cast.

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Citadel Reclaims Charleston Station

The ownership of Magic 107.3 FM in WMGL Charleston, SC has been settled, though not without some static.

According to a story by John McDermott at postandcourier.com, the issue began last summer, when industry giant Citadel Broadcasting Corp. asked regulators for the OK to recall the license to the Ravenel radio station. Citadel already had been running WMGL.

The circumstances that led up to that arrangement reflect the rules the broadcasting business operates under.

After gobbling up a rival several years ago, Citadel was required to divest Magic because of federal ownership limits.

WMGL was never sold in the conventional sense. Instead, Citadel shifted the license to a third party, Last Bastion Station Trust. The idea was to give the trustee time to line up a buyer, preferably a woman- or minority-owned business. In the interim, Citadel continued to operate Magic, which was rated the No. 9 local station (tied with Clear Channel's WXLY-102.5 FM) in the latest Arbitron market survey for Charleston.

A buyer never materialized, and Citadel sought to take back the license last summer. In doing so, it had to show a "change in circumstances" to regulators, It cited the move of its old WNKT-FM signal from St. George to the Midlands.

The request drew an objections.  One argument was that Citadel didn't try hard enough to market Magic. The company disagreed, saying "the failure to sell the stations ... is a result, in part, of the recent tightening of the credit markets."

Regulators sided with Citadel and approved the transfer in late July. Daniels could not be reached for comment.

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Brave New Brokered World for Radio Personalities

From Eric Deggan, St. Pete Times TV/Media Critic

St. Petersburg Times photo

Former Clear Channel radio personality Skip Mahaffey, left, and ex-local TV news sports anchor Al Keck chat recently in the studio at WTAN-AM 1340 in Clearwater.

Al Keck compares it to entering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers locker room after a stinging loss: not something he wanted to do, but something he had to do.

For Keck, once the top sports anchor at two local TV stations — WFTS-Ch. 28 (ABC Action News) and WTSP-Ch. 10 (10 News) — that's saying something. When he walked into the Fox Jazz Café in Tampa a few months ago, Keck wasn't reporting a story. He was selling something.

Himself.

More precisely, he was selling The Al Keck Show, a radio broadcast focused on sports news that he was planning to host every Friday on WTAN-AM (1340).

Shows on WTAN work a little differently from those on commercial radio, where a big corporation owns the radio station, hires talent, sells the ads and makes most of the profit. WTAN offers what radio insiders call "brokered" radio programs, where anyone can buy airtime for a flat fee, go sell advertising and create the show.

Whatever profit they make goes in their pockets, but the workload — from gathering material to booking guests and, yes, selling commercial spots — usually falls on whoever is cutting the check.

Years ago, this kind of radio was the province of churches, Realtors and gadget peddlers; people with a little taste for showbiz who didn't mind promoting themselves directly to a small audience. But as large media outlets pare their staffs in challenging economic times, big names like Keck have been forced to reinvent themselves in places like WTAN.

"Quite honestly, I didn't really enjoy it; I'd much rather have somebody else out there selling Al Keck than me," said the sportscaster, who turned to brokered radio about two years after WFTS failed to renew his contract. Despite his trepidation, Keck left his meeting at the Fox Café with a title sponsorship that immediately put his fledgling show in the black.

"I'm finding people will buy in to a vision if they know you and trust you," he added. "I know I'm not on the biggest radio station on Earth, but I've got a known name and a voice that's pushing a great product. To an average consumer, you're no different" than a traditional radio anchor.

Keck's show airs weekly on WTAN at 3 p.m. Fridays. Two other names from the area's radio scene — onetime SportsChix member Brenda Lee (a.k.a. B.L.) and former Clear Channel Radio star Skip Mahaffey — bracket him at 2 and 4 p.m.

Like Keck, B.L. and Mahaffey lost traditional media jobs awhile ago and are using brokered radio to capitalize on a personal brand that still draws some fans.

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Chicago NonCom WBEZ To Step Up Tts Game

From Robert Feder, Time Out Chicago

After years as the only dedicated source for news and information on Chicago’s FM airwaves, Chicago Public Media 91.5 WBEZ-FM suddenly found itself with not one but two all-news competitors invading its space last week.

While the launch of Merlin Media’s all-news format on WWWN-FM (101.1) and the simulcast of CBS Radio’s all-news WBBM-AM (780) on WCFS-FM (105.9) didn’t come as a surprise to WBEZ, together they represented an unprecedented challenge to the station’s longtime programming franchise.

On Friday, Torey Malatia, president and CEO of Chicago Public Media, outlined plans to boost WBEZ’s output of local news during middays — in between the drive-time fixtures of National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He met with staffers to discuss the strategic plan he’d presented earlier to the board of Chicago Public Media.

“Over the next five years, we’re definitely committed to more local service and more local programming during prime audience time, which is daylight hours Monday through Friday,” Malatia told me. “Absolutely.”

In addition to the local newsmagazine show Eight Forty-Eight and the international affairs talk show Worldview (both of which are produced by WBEZ), the station currently airs a variety of programs between 9am and 3pm that are acquired from outside sources. They include BBC Newshour, Here & Now and Fresh Air.

“Some of those purchased programs would probably remain, but the weaker ones would go away,” Malatia said. “But we haven’t gotten as far as targeting any of them yet.

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NonCom KQED Takes Calm Path to No. 1 In SF

From Ben fong-Torres, sfgate.com

When KQED-FM (88.5), which has been around since 1969, hit the top of the Arbitron ratings for the first time in April, the station did not break out Champagne, have a party, hand out commemorative watches or send staff members to a vanquished rival station to streak (run naked) through its offices, as KSAN once did to KFRC.

Asked just how KQED did celebrate, Jo Anne Wallace, VP and GM, laughed. "You're going to be disappointed in this answer," she said, "but I tend to look at trends over the long term. And with Arbitron and PPM (its portable meter audience measurement methodology), station managers and program directors always wonder, 'Is there any kind of fluke in this data?' So we didn't celebrate, but we took note of it. But we need to look at May, June and July and see if there's any continuation of that."

There is. After a dip in May (during which KQED had a pledge drive), the station was back on top in June.

Since launching a news initiative in July 2010, increasing staff and the frequency of locally produced newscasts to 16, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., KQED has pushed past KGO (810 AM) in the overall ratings and been dominant in the prized age demo of 25-54. The station claims to be the most listened-to public radio station in the country. While KQED doesn't carry advertising, it acknowledges program sponsors and offers underwriting opportunities for short (15-second) messages in newscasts. "It's been very successful," Wallace said.

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Arbitron Ratings Give WVBE Roanoke Good Vibes

Roanoke's radio ratings have taken on a whole new vibe.

100.1 WVBE-FM, better known as ViBE 100, posted its best-ever ranking in the spring Arbitron survey, vaulting to third place behind usual ratings stalwarts Star Country and Q99, according to a story by Ralph Berrier Jrs., at roanoke.com.

ViBE 100, which ladles heavy doses of old-school soul and funk into its urban contemporary playlist, drew an impressive 8.0 share in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market. Country station Star Country (WSLC-FM, 94.5) pulled a 12.9 to retain the top spot and adult contemporary Q99 (WSLQ-FM, 99.1) was second with an 8.5.

"We have a sound that nobody is offering in this market," said Walt Ford, ViBE 100's operations manager and program director, citing the station's slogan as "Today's Best R&B and Classic Soul."

SEE ARBITRON MARKET SNAPSHOT, CLICK HERE.

The station is mostly programmed locally, except for the nationally syndicated "Tom Joyner Morning Show" and the midday "Michael Baisden Show."

A typical playlist at ViBE 100 will include contemporary stuff from the likes of Jill Scott, Jennifer Hudson and Musiq Soulchild, but it's also the place for Michael Jackson, the Gap Band and Maze.

Just last week, ViBE 100 was easily the only place on Roanoke radio where one could hear Afrika Bambaataa's rap classic "Planet Rock," followed by the O'Jays' "For the Love of Money."

"We're not an oldies station, we're not a hip-hop station," Ford said. "We're dedicated to everything from Earth, Wind and Fire to Alicia Keys. Sometimes we get a little funky with the dance, sometimes we get a little smooth with the ballads."

Even though radio ratings are prone to wild fluctuations from one ratings book to the next, ViBE 100 has been climbing steadily for sometime. In the past two years, the station has moved up from seventh place to fifth and now to third, increasing its market share by 60 percent.

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Detroit TV Icon 'Seduced' Into Radio

From Neal Rubin, detnews.com

Among the things Bill Bonds is good at is laughing at Bill Bonds.


He's smart and funny and he had a great career, and he can't see any sense being bashful about any part of that. But there's something disarming about someone who can simultaneously pound his chest and make fun of himself for preening.


"None of us," the former news anchor said last week, "is as gifted as I think I am."

          And, on the unvarnished splendor of his resume: "When you've got it, you don't have to exaggerate it."

And, on how he was talked into becoming a talk show host on a 250-watt AM radio station: "The guy had a burning desire to seduce an icon, and he did it with flattery and money."


As noted in The Detroit News on Thursday, "The Bonds and Fisher Show" is scheduled for an Oct. 3 debut on 1090 AM WCAR. Having once dominated the evening ratings on WXYZ-TV (Channel 7), Bonds will take a shot at the 3-6 p.m. drive-time audience, accompanied by former newscaster Rich Fisher and producer and co-host Rachel Nevada.


Politically, Bonds, 78, describes himself as "a well-informed objective humanist." Translated, he's frequently left of center. Fisher, 62, leans right, but not to the point that he can't see the white line or even cross over it once in awhile. They're both good interviewers and good listeners, and the show could be huge fun.


Whether or not it'll be successful, however, is only partly related to quality.


As I passed along the news that "Bonds and Fisher" is coming, I wondered how the announcement would be received by the potential audience and other broadcasters. In two somewhat contradictory words, I'd summarize the response as eager caution.

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Analysis: Paying For News Is Nothing New

From Jeremy W.  Peters, media writer at nytimes.com

Harold Bride aided off ship

In April 1912, the surviving operator of the Titanic’s wireless communications system was paid a handsome sum for his account of narrowly escaping death aboard the sinking ship.  

It will probably surprise some journalistic purists to learn that the news outlet that forked over $1,000 for Harold Bride’s harrowing tale — multiple times his annual salary — was not some sensationalist purveyor of yellow journalism,  but The New York Times.

Evolving standards or no, checkbook journalism has been a persistent and problematic feature of news coverage at even the most powerful and reputable news organizations, long predating the hyper-competitive 24-hour cable news cycle and the celebrity gossip boom.

And the issue is not likely to disappear anytime soon, even with ABC News’s contrite acknowledgment last month that to protect its reputation, it would have to cut back on the kinds of payments that have helped the network score a string of major exclusives in recent years. In Britain, public tolerance seems to have reached its limit with revelations that journalists working for Rupert Murdoch’s recently closed News of the World routinely paid the police for information as well as hacked the phones of crime victims.

Far from existing at the periphery of journalism and society, the payments have reached the highest levels of politics. Newsmakers who have been cut large checks over the years include not just players in courtroom melodramas like the Casey Anthony and O. J. Simpson trials, but former presidents.

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Townsquare Media Hires Kurt Johnson

Townsquare Media, LLC announced Friday that Kurt Johnson has joined the Company’s management team as Senior Vice President, Programming. Mr. Johnson will be responsible for programming across Townsquare Media’s radio markets and will report to Erik Hellum, Executive Vice President, Radio.

“I am excited that Kurt will be leading the Townsquare Media team, growing our brands and ratings,” said Steven Price, Townsquare Media Chairman and CEO.

“Kurt is a talented programmer and brand builder with a consistent track record of success.”

For more than ten years, Johnson worked for CBS Radio, most recently as Vice President, Programming in Dallas. He also served as Vice President of national Jack FM stations and Program Director for various other stations.

“Joining the leadership team of Townsquare Media is a tremendous opportunity,” said Johnson. “This is an exciting time in radio and I look forward to working with Townsquare’s local leaders to deliver compelling entertainment for our audience and to continue to grow our on-air, online and live events businesses.”

In 2004, Johnson led the launch of the “no DJ” Jack FM format model that now airs on dozens of radio stations across the United States. He has programmed successful stations across multiple formats in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Dallas.

Piers Morgan Phone-Hacking Scandal Widens

From Jamie Doward, guardian.co.uk

Can Piers Morgan survive? It is a question his enemies and fans on both sides of the Atlantic are asking with increasing urgency. The position of the former tabloid editor turned CNN chat show host looks vulnerable as the phone-hacking scandal continues to unfold with fresh revelations almost daily.

But unlike other senior journalists caught up in the scandal, it is not Scotland Yard that has been responsible for turning up the heat on Morgan. Rather, in what his enemies might suggest is proof that there is such a thing as divine retribution, it is Morgan's unchecked vanity. Morgan, who edited the Daily Mirror for nearly a decade until 2004, faces questions over a series of boasts that suggest he was at the very least familiar with the practice of phone hacking.

Morgan admitted in a column for the Daily Mail in 2006 that he had heard a message left by Sir Paul McCartney on the phone of Heather Mills, then his wife, in which the former Beatle sounded "lonely, miserable and desperate". The disclosure has prompted Mills to claim the message could have been heard only by hacking into her phone.

Certainly, Morgan appears to have known that there were people capable of hacking phones on behalf of journalists. When pressed about such activities on Desert Island Discs, Morgan claimed "a lot of it was done by third parties, rather than the staff themselves... that's not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work."

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ABC Digital Offers Web Content for Radio Stations

ABC News Radio and Citadel Media have announced the launch of ABC Digital, a content service delivering customizable, format-specific news and music/entertainment feeds directly to radio station websites.

Brief stories from credited sources covering a broad array of categories are produced and updated 24 hours a day. Photos, slides and graphics accompany each story. ABC Digital also offers stations the opportunity to monetize the content as the service can be locally branded on individual station sites and sponsored by local advertisers.

“Timeliness and quality were front and center in developing this product,” said Steve Jones, Vice President and General Manager of ABC News Radio. “According to many of the affiliates we polled, other service providers update their Web content far too infrequently. An important advantage our service offers is that it doesn’t take visitors away from the radio station’s page by linking them to other sites. Our ABC-produced content lives on the radio station’s site ensuring the station retains the traffic and the news and entertainment stories are updated continuously.” 

ABC Digital’s news categories include World, National, Politics, Business, Entertainment and Health/Lifestyle. Content is also customizable for music stations with format-specific stories on artists from 12 major formats including Adult Hits, Adult Contemporary, Lite AC, Oldies, Alternative Rock, Active Rock, Classic Rock, Country, CHR, Hot AC, Urban and Urban AC.

Content is delivered in RSS, Atom, RDF and other common formats. All feeds include breaking  news updates via email to key station contacts so major news being posted can be promoted onair and listeners can be directed to a station’s site.

Thomas Hartmann's Cable TV Show Flourishes

Radio personality Thom Hartmann's nationally syndicated cable television program, The Big Picture, has grown in viewership by an impressive 19% since going on the air in late January of this year, while his simulcast (a'la Imus) TV/radio viewership has surged by 57% since it debuted on TV in October of 2010.

This spiking popularity of Hartmann's two programs, both carried live by Free Speech TV (FSTV) weekdays, has created an overall 21% increase in viewership for the progressive network over the past year.
Both Hartmann's simulcast-TV/radio and standalone television shows are the top-three most-watched programs on FSTV, which reaches over 35 million households throughout the country via Dish Network, DirecTV, RT TV, and over 200 local cable TV affiliates.

According to Don Rojas, Executive Director of Free Speech TV, "Thom's programs continue to impress viewers with excellent content and high production values. We are delighted with the performance of Thom Hartmann's programs and we look forward to a long partnership between him and the nation's only progressive TV network."

In addition to the presence of his radio show on FSTV, Hartmann, the nation's #1 rated progressive radio personality, is syndicated on three continents via Pacifica Radio, commercial stations from New York to Los Angeles by Dial-Global, on SiriusXM, and heard on American Forces Radio worldwide.

source: PRNewswire

RIP: Fred Imus, Songwriter & Don's Brother

Fred, Don Imus, nydn photo

Fred Imus, younger brother of 770 AM WABC morning host Don Imus and a long-time songwriter and radio host himself, was found dead Saturday at his home in Tucson, Ariz. He was 69.

According to a story by David Hinckley at nydailynews.com, He was found in his trailer after he failed to show up for "Fred's Trailer Park Bash," a weekend show he cohosted with Don Collier and "Missy" on Sirius XM's Outlaw Country channel.

In 1976 he and a fellow railroad worker named Phil Sweet cowrote "I Don't Want To Have To Marry You," a No. 1 country hit for Jim Ed Brown and Helen Cornelius. It was voted song of the year by Music City News.

Fred collaborated with Don on the 1997 book "Two Guys Four Corners," which featured photographs and reminiscences of the Southwest, and with Daily News columnist Mike Lupica on 1998's "The Fred Book," which featured Fred's thoughts on life.

Fred was best known to New Yorkers and radio listeners as a laconic, droll, funny and sometimes ornery guest on his brother's syndicated show.

In the 1990s he ran Auto Body Express, which began as a garage where he worked on restoring vintage cars. Don mentioned it on the radio and that random remark soon turned it into a million-dollar clothing and food business.

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RIP: Nat Allbright, Radio Play-By-Play Recreator

From Matt Schudel, The Washington Post

The Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s were one of the greatest teams in baseball history, with Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and other stars. They had two storied broadcasters, Red Barber and Vin Scully, covering their games, but most people who listened to the Dodgers on the radio heard another voice.

For hundreds of thousands of fans throughout the eastern half of the country, listening on more than 100 radio stations, the voice of the Dodgers was Nat Allbright. He announced more than 1,500 games for the Dodgers, and all that time, he never saw a game he was broadcasting.

Mr. Allbright, who died July 18 of pneumonia at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County, was one of baseball’s finest practitioners — and perhaps its last — of the forgotten art of game re-creation. He was 87.
During the 12 years that he broadcast Dodger games, he visited Brooklyn only once. Listeners to the far-flung Dodger radio network thought Mr. Allbright was sitting in the press box at Ebbets Field and other big league stadiums, but he was actually at a studio in Washington.

He received sketchy summaries of the game — whether a pitch was a ball or strike, where a batted ball landed — from telegrams or wire service reports. But everything else that brought baseball to life — from crowd noises to vendors hawking their wares to the crack of the bat — was improvised by Mr. Allbright.

He had recordings of crowds in various states of excitement and used a click of his tongue to mimic the sound of the bat striking a ball. Each time a player tugged at his cap or a manager shouted at an umpire, the drama was supplied by Mr. Allbright.

He was, in the words of former Washington Post sports columnist Bob Addie, “king of the baseball re-creators.”

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The Sunday Funny

George Carlin 'The Hippy Dippy Weatherman'