AP: Songwriter Royalty Deal for Radio Reached 8-2-03
Broadcast Music Inc. and a group representing U.S. commercial radio stations have agreed to terms on a
multiyear deal worth more than $1 billion to cover royalty fees due to songwriters whose songs are
played on the air.
The agreement, pending approval by a federal judge in New York, covers most U.S. commercial radio
stations through 2006 and comes nearly four years after rate negotiations between BMI and the Radio Music
License Committee first broke down.
The groups resumed talks last fall, shortly before they were due to go to trial.
They announced they had resolved their differences Thursday.
For the radio industry, the deal represents a significant step toward a long-sought goal: Ending the practice of using a percentage of a radio station's revenues to calculate how much they owe in royalty fees. The new deal sets a flat fee for the radio industry of more than $1 billion for the life of the agreement.
The new fee structure is expected to save money and time BMI previously spent poring over stations'
financial reports to tabulate fees. And the radio industry will welcome not having BMI's nose in stations' books.
The fee agreement includes radio and Internet simulcast rights. It covers all commercial radio stations that
are not represented by the National Religious Broadcasters Music License Committee.
The groups' previous agreement expired in 1996, but the RMLC held firm on its wish to
change the way its fees were being calculated, Meehan said.
The RMLC hopes to garner the same changes as it negotiates its next deal with the
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP, the biggest performance rights group.
The last ASCAP licensing deal with the RMLC expired at the end of 2000.
More San Diego Radio Wires 8-1-03
John Maffei - North County Times TV/Sports
Let's watch two? Not when Fox has its say...also...Around the dial...
+ Fox Sports Net's 37-game college football schedule, featuring national Pac-10 and Big 12 contests, kicks off Aug. 28 with Maryland-Northern Illinois. USC is featured twice and UCLA twice, once tentatively Sept. 27 against San Diego State.
+ The Mountain West Conference football schedule was released, and San Diego State isn't scheduled for an ABC, ESPN or ESPN2 appearance. Most Aztecs games are slated for ESPN+Plus or Sports West, which means Channel 4 could pick up as many as seven games.¦
+ The NFL preseason kicks off at 2 a.m. Saturday on ESPN with the Jets-Bucs. There will be a replay at 5 p.m. Saturday for those who aren't awake to see the dawn. On Monday, ABC has the Packers-Chiefs in the annual Hall of Fame Game. The regular "Monday Night Football" crew of Al Michaels and John Madden will call the action. Lisa Guerrero makes her network debut as a sideline reporter.
Jay Posner - TV/Radio Sports - The San Diego Union
TVG odds-on choice of horse fans...also...
Of more interest could be Monday's Hall of Fame Game between Green Bay and Kansas City, but only if the debut of ABC's new sideline reporter, Lisa Guerrero, means anything. The game starts at 5 p.m.
Good news for NFL fans: Nearly every game telecast this season will feature a colored first-down line superimposed on the screen. The prime-time games on ABC and ESPN have had the line, as have selected games on CBS and Fox. This year CBS û which will carry all but three Chargers games û will utilize the line on each of its telecasts, while Fox will have the line for five games a week.
XTRA-AM will carry all Raiders games this season, and 10 of the 16 regular-season broadcasts will air at the same time as a Chargers game on KFMB-AM. But, contrary to one published report, XTRA did not have to claim it was a Los Angeles station in order to get around an NFL rule prohibiting another team's games from airing in an NFL home market. There is no such rule. (And even if there were, XTRA is an L.A. station.)
It's now official: ESPN Radio 800 will broadcast 15 USD basketball games during the 2003-04 season, with the remainder airing on KCBQ-AM. ESPN 800 can't take the full schedule because of its contract with USC.
Old News: A tower for the Q (7-31-03)
The San Diego Union TV/Radio
Salem Communications' KCBQ/AM 1170 has a new broadcast tower, thanks to Clear Channel Communications. After KCBQ was recently denied a request to relocate its broadcast tower from Santee to Muth Valley (a residential area of Lakeside) by the County Board of Supervisors, Clear Channel came to the rescue. Mike Glickenhaus, Clear Channel San Diego vice president and market manager, said stepping in to help KCBQ was an easy decision. "Those of us who have lived in San Diego for decades remember KCBQ as the big Top 40/rock 'n' roll daytime radio station in the 1960s. KCBQ jocks introduced The Beatles at Balboa Stadium in 1965, were involved in all the top-name tours, and launched the radio careers of dozens of talented professionals. The call letters remain legendary in the market."
Salem purchased KCBQ in 2000. These days, its format is conservative talk, and it also is the radio outlet here for Fox News.
Judy Bowen, Salem's San Diego vice president and general manager, called Clear Channel's offer to host KCBQ's antenna on the KPOP site (in Oak Park) "a great solution" to the problem.
"This is an example of how business relationships can overcome natural competitive issues to better the entire industry," she said.
Jim McInnes Speaks 7-31-03
dear fellow kids,
as you can tell by the rather lengthy recipient list, this is a mass email.
i apologize for taking more than 2 months to respond to most of you, but i am a master procrastinator. even the master-est procrastinator eventually takes care of business. i think. i'll get back to you.
but wait!
i am so happy to see that so many people took the time to send me a "welcome back" message when it was announced that i'd joined 103.7 "the planet". i only wish i could respond to each of you individually.
i love doing radio. it's been my obsession since i was 16 years old...my career since i was 18.
it's great listeners like you who make it satisfying to me.( i hope this doesn't come off as self-aggrandizing.)
...but if you want to, you can visit my ad-free website at http://www.jimmcinnes.com.
thank you for being there.
cheers,
j.m.
Jim McInnes hosts "The Vinyl Resting Place" Sundays 6-8pm on KPLN.
The Wires (Jul 2003)
Baton Rouge Advocate - Satellite radio providers flaunt their crystalline sound, nationwide broadcast area and extensive station selection, but opponents complain something is missing -- Louisiana spice. XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. has NASCAR auto racing but no Tigers sports. Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. offers 16 news and weather streams, but you won't hear about the traffic jam on the 10-12 split. If satellite radio services continue to win over FM listeners, local flavor could be jeopardized, some Baton Rouge radio executives said
From EET: Cable and satellite television proved that consumers will pay for content despite free broadcast alternatives. Now, XM Radio and competitor Sirius are testing the same waters in a high-stakes game to deliver subscription satellite radio services that go beyond the AM/FM dial. Originally targeting drivers, the two have recently rolled out modular satellite radio receivers that go from the car to the home and even to portable settings
From ZDNet: David Coursey: I'm a radio fan, but had feared for its future - until I discovered satellite radio. The best thing about XM (and this applies to Sirius as well) is that it's saving radio.
From ABCNEWS: James Kin: Life before satellite radio meant putting up with highly predictable, ad-driven regular ol' radio. Sirius's 100 channels of ad-free (for music only), uncensored content rocks my world
XM Radio: AP: XM Satellite Radio is now selling a receiver you can hook up to your personal computer
From Networkmags: NetworkMags: Fresh off being rehired by Clear Channel and given the freedom to consult outside stations, KOST and KBIG Los Angeles Director of A/C Programming Jhani Kaye offers insight into how he has been able to oversee two distinctly different A/C powerhouses with cutting-edge programming as adding a psychic to KOSTÆs Sunday night request show
XM Radio News: XM Satellite Radio today announced it has 692,253 subscribers. The company closed the 2nd quarter of 2003 with an addition of 209,178 new subscribers. In April 2003 the company announced it had a total of 483,075 subscribers after adding more than 135,000 subscribers in the 1st quarter
From NY Post: Page Six: Howard Springer has zero tolerance for Internet music downloaders - or Winona Ryder. At a breakfast talk hosted by New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, the Sony chairman was asked if file sharers are thieves. "That's a reasonably polite way of saying it," he told the crowd at the Bryant Park Grill
Radio Station in a Box? - Want your own radio station? For about $2200 + you can get a radio-station-in-a-box
From Washington Post: Small Internet radio stations, angered over what they say is the recording industry's effort to wield royalty rates as a weapon to drive them out of business, say they are preparing to file an antitrust suit against the Recording Industry Association of America
From Homestead: Michael Savage says -- What happened on the air is much different than what is being reported. It was in the middle of an airline horror story segment with a great set (see photos above). Out of nowhere a crank caller from a competitive talk show went from describing his airline horror story to making vicious personal attacks against me. I signaled and thought that this crank caller was cut from the air. His insults continued in my ear piece and I reacted to him personally as an individual who was attacking me to defend myself. Unfortunately, my personal comments to this crank caller were broadcast. In no way did my comments reflect my views of disease and suffering in any way. I have spent my entire life in the field of alternative medicine trying to heal the world and bring comfort to the sick. If my comments brought pain to anyone I certainly did not intend for this to happen and apologize for any such reaction
Dear Radio Babe: I am always amazed by your unlimited knowledge of all things radio and have been going to write you with the following question for a long time: Could you please tell me why stations like WDDV 92.1 and WKII 1070 play the same 50 or 60 songs over and over and over? I think I know the answer and it must have something to do with money -- am I close.
From AZCentral: AP: Filmmaker Spike Lee and Viacom have settled a lawsuit Lee filed to keep the media giant from calling its TNN cable television network "Spike TV." The ruling means Viacom, which also owns CBS and MTV, can proceed immediately with plans to rebrand TNN as Spike TV, the "first television network for men."
Mediareform: MediaReform.net: Because one million Americans raised their voices against the FCC decision, the Senate Commerce Committee recently sent a bill to the Senate floor for a vote that would roll back many of the rules. Today the challenge is to get that bill to the floor of the Senate and House for a vote
U.S. News - US News & World Report: Every day, ordinary people download billions of files: blockbuster movies, cable TV shows, music, video games, software, and nearly every other kind of copyright-protected material available in digital form. The process is seductively simple. Just install the software, available free from a Web site, type the name of the desired file into its search engine, pick among the choices accessible for download, and in minutes to hours--depending on file size and connection speeds--you can find a copy on your hard drive
From Gainesville Sun - Gary Kirkland: Discovering anything new, period - at least new that I like - is almost a lost cause on the radio. But there I was in the middle of nowhere California, tuning the dial like crazy when I heard, "Now a little something from Taj Mahal," and my finger paused in mid-tune. The station is KOZT The Coast, a 35,000 watt station based in Fort Bragg, Calif. Broadcasting at 95.3 and 95.9, it can reach most of the nearly 85,000 people in Mendocino County, which is hardly a big city media hot bed. I wanted to put the little station in the trunk and bring it back to Gainesville
From Businessweek - BusinessWeek: Despite the rough start, XM is beginning to take off. Since launching without fanfare on Sept. 25, 2001, the company's crystal-clear, digital radio service delivered via satellite for $9.99 a month has started to catch on. Some 600,000 subscribers have signed up so far, and Parsons expects 1.2 million by yearend. "I don't think I can be without XM now," says Brad Johnson, a 36-year-old technical systems manager at Pepperdine University who listens during his hourlong morning commute
From KRON 4 - AP: MSNBC on Monday fired Michael Savage for anti-gay comments. The popular radio talk show host who did a weekend TV show for the cable channel referred to an unidentified caller to his show Saturday as a "sodomite" and said he should "get AIDS and die." "His comments were extremely inappropriate and the decision was an easy one," MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said. There was no immediate comment from Savage, according to a spokesman at his office in California
From Wired - In this age of locked-down radio playlists, in which the same songs are played over and over, discovering new music is harder than ever. But a new online radio station out of London is attempting to tackle the problem by automatically tailoring the music it plays to individual listeners' tastes. Last.fm is a streaming radio station with a built-in collaborative filter that attempts to learn its listeners' likes and dislikes. Based on data gathered, the station delivers a personalized radio stream to each of its listeners. Visit http://www.last.fm/.
From MSNBC: The choices for listening to music on your PC grows day-by-day. In addition to CDs, ripped music files and Internet radio streams you can now groove along to two satellite radio networks ù and listen to and even record your favorite FM radio station while controlling your cursor
Mike Langberg: Satellite radio, perhaps the coolest new technology introduced so far in the 21st century, is finally ready to hit the road this summer. XM Satellite Radio, launched in November 2001, and Sirius, launched in July 2002, both were initially hobbled by receivers that were too expensive and inflexible. No more
No Relation to Britney! The Beam, a new company owned by Michael Spears, has a new project that syndicates the President's personal physican, Dr. Ken Cooper (father of the American aerobics movement) in a 2 hour Saturday morning call-in series. The show is in LA on KBRT 740 AM, KCSC in the Bay Area and KCBQ, San Diego. Cooper now has 60 nationwide affiliates. The home station is DFW's KRLD 1080. News of more syndication features is upcoming
From Ken Barnes: A disturbing trend on the pop charts is realized! Rap, an underground phenomenon since the '70s, is now American radio's most popular form of music. More than a quarter of the most-heard radio songs of 2003 so far are by rappers. Even more telling: 40% of the year's top 30 are rap hits. And those figures don't count guest appearances by rap artists on several big R&B hits. (damn, I long for the days when Helen Reddy, America, and the Carpeneters topped the charts when I was a kid. Now as an adult, there's nothing but kids music on the pop charts. This sucks the big one!)
From Reuters:...
From CHRON:
From Washpost:... The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday issued controversial new rules that would allow media companies to grow larger, regulations that probably will go into effect in August but could be challenged in court. The rules -- allowing television networks to buy more local television stations and permit a company to own a newspaper, television station and several radio outlets in a market -- will go into effect 30 days after being published in the Federal Register, which can take up to three weeks
From Dallas News: The Federal Communications Commission is closing in on a decision on the proposed merger between Dallas-based Hispanic Broadcasting Corp. and Los Angeles-based Univisi=n Communications Inc., a marriage that would create the nation's largest Spanish-language media company.
Star vs. My 7-30-03!
From SD Board
Posted by Tico:
Here's my evaluations of both stations:
Music: Star has a fresher music variety and will even step over the boundaries of what's considered hot AC. Other the other hand, My takes a more conservative approach and has a play-it-safe attitude. Advantage, Star. When it comes to their gold rotations, My plays the usual 80s songs you hear all the time. Star mixes in the 70s and the 80s and does play older rap songs, which you don't hear on My. Advantage, Star. Star plays new music quicker. My lags behind. Advantage, Star. My lets a song play pretty much all the way through. Star will edit whole verses and instrumentals out instead of letting the songs be played as is. Advantage, My.
Personalities/on air presentation: First, the morning shows. On Star, does Jeff & Jer work for a music station or for their AM sister station? On My, Jagger and Kristi play music. Advantage, My. But when it comes to overall entertainment, J&J have more interesting things to do and talk about (their phone scams are funny as hell). J&K are OK, but kinda wears on you after a while (especially Kristi's voice). Advantage, Star. As for the rest of the day, Star's DJs are usually relaxed and sound like they're having lots of fun. My is somewhat staid. Not boring, but not as relaxed. Advantage, Star. At night, Star plays snippets of J&J's morning show, therefore interrupting music flow. My plays music. Advantage, My.
Contests: All of Star's contests are local. My's contests are usually the ones in which you compete with listeners nationwide. Advantage, Star.
All in all, I like Star better, though there are both good and not-so-good things about both stations.
National Radio Wires 7-29-03!
Kurt Hanson
Orlando Clear Channel station WTKS-FM, on its website, informs listeners
that they will soon need to pay a $4.99/month subscription fee to
continue to listen online.
According to VP/Technology Brian Parsons, the company is considering
various options for monetizing its stations' streams, and station
management considered this a good opportunity.
Read more, including more of what Parsons had to say about WTKS's
announcement, in today's issue of "RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter,"
avaiable now at http://www.kurthanson.com.
Also in today's RAIN:
The RIAA has named Republican lobbyist Mitch Bainwol to succeed Hilary Rosen as Chairman and CEO...
Los Angeles Radio Wires 7-29-03!
Gary Lycan: - I wonder if Art Astor is having second thoughts about abandoning country music (KIK-FM) for alternative a few years ago. Country had peaked, he remarked at the time. Astor, one of the few independent owners left in Southern California, flipped "KIK" to "COOL" and it never caught fire in the ratings. So he sold 94.3 FM to a company that changed its format to Spanish. Fast forward to the latest Orange County ratings from Arbitron covering listening habits March through June. Guess what was No. 4 overall - country KZLA/93.9 FM (read Gary Lycan - OC Register)
rronline
Cable Radio Network Adds Two KFI Shows...
CRN, which reaches a reported 26.5 million homes on more than 225 cable television systems across 38 states, is adding KFI/Los Angeles morning host Bill Handel and afternoon hosts John and Ken to its lineup of live weekday broadcasts available on CRN Channel 4. Los Angeles-based CRN offers continuous talk, news and sports programming to subscribers via cable, satellite and the Internet on six different digital radio networks.
ESPN Radio 800 to air some USD basketball games 7-28-03
From U-T:
The USD basketball team will be airing about half of its games on ESPN Radio 800.
The other 14 games will be on KCBQ 1170 (kcbq.com is streaming).
ESPN 800 will also carry USD games in the West Coast Conference Tournament.
Times and dates for each of the games will be determined at a later date.
ESPN 800 is already committed to carrying USC football and basketball this upcoming season.
Another upstart all-sports station, The Mighty 1090, will be airing Aztecs basketball and football
this season, as well as games from the San Diego Padres next season; it's carrying the af2 Riptide
games for the first time this season.
Also see this U-T article:
Shell game all golf had in early days
and from the North County Times
ABC starting from scratch at The Bridges.
Tonight, it's the annual live three-hour summer golf match where it's still daylight on the West coast from 5-8pm
while time zones to the east are seeing their sunsets. "Battle of the Bridges" moves from Palm Springs to
Rancho Santa Fe tonight at 5pm Pacific on ABC 10.
Formats You'd Like to See in San Diego 7-28-03
A discussion on this subject can be found at the
Radio Info San Diego Forum.
One says urban oriented, one says news, 24 hour Christian music, another says dance (which would do well locally if
the idiots at Califormula put dance on 99.3 back in 1999 when it was the rage of the nation).
It would go well with Z90 since the two audiences for dance and rap hardly overlap.
One poster says "I'd like to see Independent 92/1 return to what made them stand out in the first place: more off-the-wall music, more DJ banter, and more musical genres (true indie-rock, a little techno, reggae other than Bob Marley, etc.)."
Melissa Joan Hart Ties The Knot 7-27-03!
Place: Venice, Italy. Groom: Mark Wilkerson. No word if any magic spells were dispensed on their wedding night.
Tying The Knot airs Sunday at 9pm on ABC Family.
I put this in here because I know the radio ad for this is going to be heard about 27 times over the weekend.
So I can save you the trouble and you can just read the advert here, and not listen to the radio all weekend long!
And, yea, we put this news blurt in here because we know you're going to be taping Melissa
on your VCR while you're listening to Dr. Demento on the Internet on WLUP The Loop!
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