Fox News Digital Finishes August As Top-Performing News Brand

FOX News Digital finished August 2022 as the top-performing news organization in the competitive set in both multiplatform minutes and multiplatform views, according to Comscore. 

This marks 18 consecutive months as the number one news brand with multiplatform minutes and three consecutive months as the leading news brand with multiplatform views. FOX News Digital closed out August reaching over 2.9 billion total multiplatform minutes, 1.5 billion total multiplatform views, and 77 million multiplatform unique visitors.* FOX News Digital also topped the news competitive set averaging 2.3 views per visit. Additionally, the FOX News Mobile App reached nearly 6.3 million unique visitors in August, seeing month over month growth.**

FOX News remained the most engaged brand on social media in the competitive set in August, with 34.5 million total social interactions, notching the 96th consecutive month FOX News has placed on top, according to Emplifi. FOX News drove 14 million interactions on Facebook, 16 million Instagram interactions and 4.4 million Twitter interactions. On YouTube, FOX News secured the top spot among news brands in video views for the 19th month in a row with over 306 million, which was up 7 percent compared to the prior month, according to Shareablee.

September 20 Radio History

➦In 1921...KDKA Pittsburgh established the world's first radio newsroom.  The first daily radio newscasts featured a reports fro The Pittsburgh Post.

Harry Harrison

➦In 1930...NYC Personality Harry Harrison was born in Chicago. (Died January 28, 2020)

Harrison is the only DJ to be a WMCA "Good Guy", a WABC "All-American", and on the WCBS-FM line-up when the New York station flipped to the "Jack" format in June 2005.

He attended a seminary, intending to become a priest. But he decided to make broadcasting his career after spending nearly a year as a teenager glued to the radio while bedridden with rheumatic fever.

Harrison worked at WCFL in the early 50s as a summer replacement, yet remained there eight months, substituting for the permanent DJs. In 1954, Harrison became program director at WPEO, Peoria and hosted the morning show as the "Morning Mayor of Peoria."  In just six months, Harrison made WPEO the top station.

In 1959, Harrison joined WMCA, New York, as the mid-day "Good Guy." Joe O'Brien (mornings) and Harrison gave WMCA a "one-two punch" for over eight years.  In 1965, he recorded the nationally charted holiday narration "May You Always" on Amy Records.

Young Readers: All Information Is 'Not To Be Trusted'

Young people are great consumers of media. But they are skeptical of both mainstream and alternate sources, according to MediaPost citing  a report by Reuters Institute. 

 “One of the great commonalities in this study is that almost all young people believe that all information is put in the public realm for a reason, and is not to be trusted or taken at face value,” the study authors state, Nieman Lab reported last week. 

They add that young readers are “highly skeptical of most information, to greater or lesser degrees — they don’t necessarily judge a source’s value by its impartiality.” 

This is based on research conducted by the Reuters Institute as a follow-up to a study published earlier this year. The authors spoke with 72 people in the 18-30 age range in the U.S., U.K. and Brazil. 

According to Nieman Lab, they discovered three forms of skepticism: 

• More skeptical of mainstream sources—These readers still must rely on mainstream media for summarizing top stories, verifying and breaking exclusive stories. They supplement their alternative media consumption with mainstream media.  
• Equally skeptical of everything—They feel each is (mainstream and alternative) is  biased, and both need to be consumed to get the full picture. So they consume both, putting them on an equal footing. 
• More skeptical of alternate sources—Mainstream media might be biased, but alternative media is worse. It must be avoided or taken for what it is—overly biased and opinionated. 

The authors also defined three forms of news consumption:

Retail Sales Expected To Grow 7.1% This Holiday Season

This holiday season, U.S. retail sales excluding automotive are expected to increase 7.1% year over year, according to the Mastercard SpendingPulse™ annual holiday forecast. Mastercard SpendingPulse measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment. It is not adjusted for inflation. The holiday forecast, along with a look at key economic trends shaping the season, can be downloaded from the Mastercard Economics Institute here.

“This holiday season, consumers may find themselves looking for ways to navigate the inflationary environment – from searching for deals to making trade-offs that allow for extra room in their gift-giving budgets,” said Michelle Meyer, U.S. Chief Economist, Mastercard Economics Institute. “New job creation, rising wages and lingering savings should have many consumers ready and able to spend.”

R.I.P.: Jan Carr, Longtime Radio, TV NOLA Personality

Jan and Bob Carr

Jan Carr, an energetic and enthusiastic presence on New Orleans television and radio for 60 years alongside her husband Bob, died Friday. She was 91, reports WWL-TV4.

Beginning in 1960, the Carrs – who were married for 71 years – opened local TV and radio broadcasts with an incessantly cheery greeting: “This is Bob!” “And this is Jan!” They did so until August, when they were still producing and hosting a regular program at their retirement home, where they interviewed residents, staff and other guests.

As a married couple and the parents of four children whom they frequently discussed on air, the Carrs were called “the first family of New Orleans television.” They became household names throughout the 1960s and 70s for their appearances on WDSU-TV, first on a morning show called “Second Cup,” then on the station’s enormously popular “Midday” show.

Their segments focused on family, parenting, fashion and lifestyle topics. WDSU promoted them as “the personable young married couple” and a “happy marriage of entertainment and good common sense” who “inform, sound off and occasionally bicker. In short, Jan and Bob bring to New Orleans television sets a marriage that is warm and opinionated and entertaining and happy.”

The Carrs followed the same formula, working together in various media – television, radio and print – for 60 years. A trailblazing female broadcaster, Jan Carr was a model of the importance of staying active well past retirement age. Friends half her age marveled at her energy and enthusiasm, even into her 80s. She was quick to explain the secret.

Appeals Court Rejects Big Tech's Right To Regulate Online Speech

A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld a Texas law that bars large social media companies from banning or censoring users based on "viewpoint," a setback for technology industry groups that say the measure would turn platforms into bastions of dangerous content.

Reuters reports the largely 2-1 ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, sets up the potential for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the law, which conservatives and right-wing commentators have said is necessary to prevent "Big Tech" from suppressing their views.

"Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say," Judge Andrew Oldham, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote in the ruling.

The Texas law was passed by the state's Republican-led legislature and signed by its Republican governor.

Netflix, Disney+ Are About to Get Ads: There Are Risks

“We’ll be right back after these messages.” The age-old commercial lead-in takes on new meaning at a time when a bounceback for Netflix and Walt Disney  shares rests on the coming launch of ad-supported tiers for the two streaming leaders.

For Netflix, the goal is to reverse subscriber losses with cheaper plans. For Disney+, it’s to offset a recent acceleration in cable cord-cutting, reports Barron’s.

Much could go wrong in the near term for these companies and their rivals. A glut of advertising slots could push industry prices lower, especially if the economy weakens. Too many ads per hour could frustrate viewers. Too few could accelerate defections from full-price streaming tiers and cable.

Yet, if the television industry is successful, it could not only rekindle growth, but also pull back power that has been lost to the closed-off advertising economies of Google and Facebook .

“Connected television is what will bring down the walls of walled gardens,” says Jeff Green, founder and CEO of Trade Desk, which competes with Alphabet as an ad-buying platform and has partnered with Disney in streaming advertising. He means that streaming can match the targeting power of online search and social media while making the emotional connection of video. “A banner ad has never made you cry,” he says.

Microsoft, a rising ad player, should benefit, as well. Roku could have better odds than its collapsed stock price suggests. Walt Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery will benefit from rich content engines. Netflix, meanwhile, faces plenty of risk. And across the industry, more consolidation appears inevitable.

Wake-Up Call: Farewell To The Queen

👑PRESIDENT BIDEN JOINS THE QUEEN'S MOURNERS: President Joe Biden was among the thousands of mourners who paid their respects at Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin on Sunday. People across Britain paused for a moment of silence at 8 p.m. in memory of the monarch.

Biden called the queen “decent” and “honorable and “all about service” as he signed the official condolence book. He is one of 500 world leaders and royals invited to the late monarch’s state funeral. She’ll be laid to rest in Windsor on Monday evening after her funeral at Westminster Abby.

Today's Business Owners Are Audio Fans

As the B2B vertical continues to grow for radio, it is evident that advertisers are becoming more confident in radio's ability to deliver ideal business targets. But just who are these targets? Katz digs into MRI-Simmons data this month to explore the who, what, where, and why of the business owner's audio landscape. 

For this analysis, business owners are defined as owners/partners, presidents, CEOs and general managers. The majority of business owners have small businesses; three-quarters run companies that have less than 100 employees. The companies they run perform varied services, such as business, industrial, construction, medical, personal, retail, and agriculture, among many others. 

TV, Film Staffers Anxious Over Expected Lay-offs

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. said last week it’s sacking 100 TV ad salespeople, Paramount Global acknowledged it may stop offering Showtime as a standalone streaming service, and Netflix Inc., an industry gravy train for the last decade, announced yet-another round of layoffs.

Bloomberg reports a multiyear boom in film and TV production, driven by media companies racing to sign up subscribers for their new streaming services, has come to a painful halt, giving way to firings, introspection and handwringing. While much of the country only worries about a recession, major media companies are cutting jobs or consolidating. Their stock prices have collapsed.

“The very foundation that the streaming business sits on has been devolving on sand,” Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek said in a recent interview. “It’s all been shifting.”

Netflix, which shocked the industry and Wall Street earlier this year with its first subscriber losses in a decade, has let go hundreds employees and vacated office space. Warner Bros., which completed its merger with Discovery in April, has been in cost-cutting mode, with CEO David Zaslav working to deliver a promised $3 billion in savings from the deal. 

As Streaming Consumers Pause, Here Come Ad-Supported Options

The future of the streaming industry remains a question mark going forward -- with expected job cuts at media companies and forthcoming consolidation among some companies’ services.

There is news of HBO Max merging with discovery+, and reports of Paramount+ absorbing Showtime.

Ominous and persistent inflation affecting all consumer products -- which hit 8.3% in August -- has consumers wondering about paying for four or more streaming services, which could easily total up anywhere from $50 to $60 a month.

One consumer study says nearly half of household decision-makers view their current communications and home entertainment services as excessive.

Aluma, in its July survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. heads of households, finds that five in six heads of households responded with a thumbs down about the “current” state of the economy. At the same time, one in six view the current U.S. economy in a positive way.

Sixty-nine percent of consumers between the ages of 45 and 54 were mostly pessimistic about the “future” of the U.S. economy, while 40% of those between the ages of 35 and 44 were mostly optimistic about the economy's future.

"Future" versus "current" economy viewpoints are key here, according to Wayne Friedman at MediaPost.

Alex Jones’ Ex-Wife Says Onscreen Mania Is Not An Act: "He’s Crazy"

Alex Jones

Alex Jones’ ex-wife Kelly said that the over-the-top frequently flipped-out persona you’ve seen onscreen is not an act, that he’s even worse in real life  and “kind of crazy like Charlie Charles Manson.”

“In person, as a human being, he is more unhinged and weirder and terrifying and threatening and looming and raging, I would say, than on screen,” Kelly Jones told “The Young Turks” host Cenk Uygur in an interview Friday.

TheWrap reports Uygur got straight to the point in his conversation with Jones, who sought custody of her children with the InfoWars host after their 2015 divorce because of his behavior and saying he’s “not a stable person.”

“So, Kelly, I think a lot of people wonder, is it an act with Alex Jones or is he really that unhinged?” Uygur asked. “Is he crazy or is he fake?”

And she wasn’t shy about answering. That’s a central con to my divorce that’s been reiterated through media,” she said. “His attorneys argued that he was a performance actor like Batman. And they did that to keep all the footage of InfoWars coming before the jury saying that, ‘Oh, he’s not like that at all.’”

Closed Captioning Gaining Popularity

More viewers, especially younger ones, are using tools that transcribe dialogue in the content they’re watching online, from Netflix  movies to TikTok videos. This isn’t just about watching “Squid Game” drama in Korean with English subtitles, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Closed captions—which display text in the same language as the original audio—have been crucial for a long time for many people with hearing loss. They’re now a must-have for plenty of people without hearing loss, too, helping them better understand the audio or allowing them to multitask.

Recent surveys suggest that younger generations are viewing content with captions more than older generations, despite reporting fewer hearing problems.

In a May survey of about 1,200 Americans, 70% of adult Gen Z respondents (ages 18 to 25) and 53% of millennial respondents (up to age 41) said they watch content with text most of the time. That’s compared with slightly more than a third of older respondents, according to the report commissioned by language-teaching app Preply.

R.I.P.: Eric Jackson, Longtime Boston Radio Host

Eric Jackson

Eric Jackson, host of Eric in the Evenings on non-com WGBH Radio, passed away Saturday morning, according to a posting on the station website.

Eric was known widely as the “Dean of Boston Jazz Radio.” For more than 50 years, he inspired audiences in Boston and across the world with his unmatched knowledge of Jazz and the history of African American music. 

Eric first joined GBH as a regular host in 1977, quickly emerging as one of public broadcasting’s most popular and knowledgeable on-air personalities.  He shared his knowledge and his love of music with all of us, inspiring future generations of musicians, broadcasters and music lovers. 

September 19 Radio History

➦In 1921..Boston's WBZ radio, which now broadcasts at 1030 kHz AM and is the oldest surviving commercial radio station in New England, signed-on broadcasting from Springfield, MA.

The station has long been one of the highest-rated stations in the Boston area, and covers much of the eastern United States and Canada at night with its 50,000-watt clear-channel signal from its transmitter location in Hull, Massachusetts, which has been used by the station since 1940. The transmitter is a two tower directional array where each tower is 160 meters (520 ft) tall. The signal is intentionally directionalized from their coastal location for maximum power transmitted into the continental United States, giving WBZ outstanding multi-state coverage after sunset.

WBZ's initial license, for operation in Springfield, was issued by the Department of Commerce to the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company on September 15, 1921; it was the first license to specify broadcasts on 360 meters (833 kilohertz), and was subsequently deemed to be the first license for a commercial broadcast station. However, other stations, such as WWJ in Detroit, 1XE/WGI in Medford Hillside, and sister station KDKA in Pittsburgh, were already broadcasting under different license classifications.

Original Studio on Page Blvd.

The station's original transmitter and studios were located at the Westinghouse factory on Page Boulevard in East Springfield. However, WBZ's inaugural program, on September 19, 1921, was a remote broadcast from the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield.

The original format was general entertainment and information, which included live music (often classical music and opera), sports, farm reports, special events, and public affairs programming. Despite WBZ being housed in Springfield, it somewhat difficult to attract top-flight artists to the station,  leading Westinghouse to open a studio at the Hotel Brunswick in Boston on February 24, 1924.  WBZ also expanded its news programming via a partnership with the newspaper Boston Herald and Traveler.  It also carried a considerable amount of sports broadcasts, including Boston Bruins hockey, Boston Braves baseball, and Harvard Crimson football.

Because of its comparatively wide reach, the station often referred to itself as "WBZ, New England" as opposed to associating itself solely with Springfield or Boston. 

However, even after several power boosts (the station broadcast at a power of 100 watts in 1921, but was using 2,000 watts in April 1925, the station still had some trouble reaching Boston, leading Westinghouse to sign on WBZA, a 250-watt station at 1240 kHz, on August 20, 1925.  Efforts were soon made to operate WBZA as a synchronous repeater of WBZ, by then at 900 kHz; this process was difficult, as the two transmitters often interfered with each other even in Boston, and WBZA went back and forth between the two frequencies for nearly a year before finally going to full-time synchronous operation in June 1926.