TV Update (Aug 2, 2008)

Fox is on cable 5, digital 19, and analog 69.

CW is on cable 6, digital 23, and analog 6.

End of update.

The Wires (Aug 2, 2008)

ZD Net: FCC rules on network neutrality. The FCC ruled 3-2 that Comcast overstepped its network management authority by blocking BitTorrent peer-to-peer traffic, but stopped short of fining the cable company. Will the ruling lead to more traffic congestion?

Kurt Hanson: Outspoken artist representative Fred Wilhelms, so disappointed by his legislative representative Senator Bob Corker's opposition to the Internet Radio Equality Act, wrote a letter to Corker. He states, "Artists deserve to be compensated when their music is played by webcasters. They can't be compensated if the webcasters aren't there to play the music."

Kurt Hanson: musicFIRST vilifies Clear Channel for not sharing part of its $24 billion privatization deal with artists. We point out in our RAIN Analysis that the same could be said of music label mergers...

TV Technology: Comcast Eyes Million-Plus Viewers Left Behind by DTV. Comcast’s estimate of the number of households in its footprint that will lose over-the-air signals next February—20 to 30 percent—far exceeds the 5 percent figure FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin cited when asked by Congress.

TV Technology: Low-Power Broadcasters Seek Full-Power Carriage. CBA told the commission that by classifying Class A and possibly low-power stations as full-power commercial stations, it could force cable operators to carry the stations without needing any fresh laws from Congress.

The Wires (Aug 1, 2008)

Clear Channel says "aloha" to stations. The newly-private Clear Channel will need to spin-off about 75 stations to meet current FCC ownership limits.

Indy Star: Here's news you probably don't care about. The Bob & Tom Show, renewed their long-term contract with Premiere Radio Networks.

End of Spring Semester (July 31, 2008)

We're at the crossroads where the Spring semester is coming to an end, along with the midnight sun in many places in the Arctic Circle. Summer season is in its second month but the Summer semester continues on with month four on August 1, along with the first day of the Fall semester, where it's time for things to fall.

Leaves will be turning brown. Football will be playing once again. School is back in session. Baseball is in its final two months of the season. The heat continues to get horribly hot and sticky. It's just goes on and on.

Also on August 1st, Fox and the CW move to new affilliate homes. Fox on KSWB 69 and CW on XETV 6. KSWB broadcasts digitally on 19 and XETV on 23.

The folks at the XETV and KSWB studios are busy getting their station vans and homes redesigned with the new logos that reflect their new affilliations. It's the biggest mess since KGTV and KCST swapped affilliates in 1977.

The Mad Music Archive Hit By Malicious Website (July 31, 2008)

My Norton firewall blocked the website that ended with .ru from accessing my computer. The .ru website is reportedly a malicious website that has a risk name of "HTTP Malicious Toolkit Download Activity" and is rated high risk.

We're not sure if Darth Demento (whoever that may be) is behind it or if Talonian's Storm Troopers have done something to Captain Wayne (Skywalker)'s website that would cause this to happen, but we know that The Mad Music Archive has been a serious threat to the bottom line of The Dr. Demento Show, as the latter has made all of its shows on a pay per listen basis, and forced its affilliates (reportedly four left) to stop streaming his show.

We know that Wayne has recently made a one-hour podcast version of his radio show "The Mad Music Show", but streams many shows for free such as his two-hour "Mad Music Show", "Manic Mondays," "Kahmnan's Comedy Corner," and David Tanny's own "Mad Music Comedy Zone."

The management at Davesfunstuff's World Domination Headquarters (a dumpy little shack near Kearny Mesa) has taken the step of removing all of the links to Captain Wayne's website until he gets his website fixed and we're sure that this will never happen again.

We know that without Dr. Demento, we wouldn't have heard 90 percent of the dementia that was ever played in the past 35 years. Well, as for the 10 percent of the dementia that Dr. Demento has never played, you can find them on many websites such as podsafemusicnetwork.com, garageband.com, lastfm.com, and soundclick.com. Just do a search on David Tanny and you'll find all kinds of dementia and comedy that Dr. Demento never wanted you to know about.

As for Captain Wayne's website, better keep your firewall updated because you never know what website will plant some kind of link that may download a malicious rootkit code.

Feedback: XM/Sirius Merger (July 31, 2008)

From Matt: Long time no email. Thought I'd drop my 1.5 cents in here on the XM-Sirius merger. At this point in time, I think it?s going to be a watch and see as this scenario plays out. With the economy it?s anybody?s guess what will happen. But, you have to consider a few things:

1) When SatRad started out in 1999, XM was the first kid on the block and by Oct 2003, XM had reached 1 million subscribers. This was a small drop in the bucket, however, the latest numbers point to 9.6 million as of June. Sirius has 8.9 million subscribers. Not bad for a 8 year period. Consider this, how many Cable TV Subscribers were there at the onset of HBO? At the end of it?s inaugural year, HBO only had 50,000 in 1974 but grew to about l.5 million in 1978. It now has 50 Million subscribers in 50 countries around the world.

2) While the NAB cried foul about a monopoly which would be the outcome of the XM-Sirius merger. They didn?t want the merger because they knew it would be a direct threat to their livelihood and the irony here: terrestrial radio was the monopoly.

3) In a country that is supposed to be based on capitalism, the sheer arrogance of companies like CCU who argued that if this went through, it would be a travesty of justice and hurt competition. In reality, there would be nothing that the Mays boys hated more than direct competition to their evil empire.

4) The price of hardware has come down quite a bit, units now are selling in the $30 - $50 range (my own model has dropped down a bit as well.)

5) Two words: Commercial Free - That alone is a great reason to pick up a subscription. There are the arguments that it?s too expensive but the merger promises to drop prices and afford consumer more options.

6) Great Programming has been a hallmark of the SatRad. There?s no less than 10 different rock channels on Sirius, everything from your dinosaur rock legends to alt, new wave, hard rock, techno, coffee house and of course the specialty channels. For instance, when the Stones and the Who were on tour, they had there own stations 24/7 which played nothing but and there were live concerts broadcast as well as interviews, retrospectives and songs that you had never even hear from the bands. You would never get that on terrestrial radio such as CCU stations. The Springsteen Channel, The Grateful Dead Channel, Jimmy Buffet, Elvis and don?t forget about Stern. Now, I?m not a huge fan but it?s funny sometimes and I enjoy some of his guests. He just had former Gov. Jesse Ventura on this week and it was a great interview. One last note: for the ladies, Oprah and Martha Stewart. Don?t even attempt to argue that one boys, you?ll lose big time!

I?m going to continue to enjoy what I?ve been paying for which is well worth it to me. Let me preface this by saying that I?m not rich but I?m no slouch either. I own a home in SoCal and my family loves the SatRad along with some of our neighbors who got one back in ?06 as well. In the grand scheme of things, it?s not the end all or be all for me. I haven?t tuned in to terrestrial radio since ?06 and the convenience, flexibility and quality make my 2 hours of commuting every day a little less monotonous.

Best Regards,

Matt Seufert

The Wires (July 31, 2008)

Clear Channel Communications, Inc. Completes Merger with Private Investor Group. Clear Channel Communications, Inc. today announced the completion of a merger with an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of CC Media Holdings, Inc., a corporation formed by a private equity group co-led by Bain Capital Partners, LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. The total transaction is valued at approximately $24 billion.

Randy Dotiga: Ratings get makeover at last. The radio ratings people are finally entering the 21st century. And not a moment too soon. In 10 radio markets ---- including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia ---- the Arbitron ratings company is now sending pagerlike devices to randomly selected listeners. The devices, known as Portable People Meters, detect hidden signals in radio programming and wirelessly send data to Arbitron about what you're listening to. It sounds a little bit creepy because, well, it is. Basically, the meters silently listen to what you hear and then go and tattle on you. Who cares? You might. The meters are scheduled to appear in the Riverside-San Bernardino area this fall and in San Diego next year, and it's possible they could change what you hear on the air.

San Diego City Beat reports that "Reggae Mekosa" has moved to Tijuana's 102.5 FM Tuesday nights from 7-9pm.

JS Online: Here are few of the changes that will take place once the Sirius-XM merger moves beyond the name change: Two a la carte packages, allowing a choice of either 50 or 100 channels of programming. It looks like new radios will be necessary for that option + The new Sirius XM promises that existing radios will continue to work, and says subscribers will be able to stay with their current level of service

Jacobs Media: According to comScore, Americans watched 12 billion (that's with a "b") videos during the fifth month of this year. Not surprisingly, YouTube garners the lion's share of this video activity, while Fox Interactive, Viacom Digital, Yahoo!, and Microsoft are all in the hunt. As we saw in this year's Tech Survey, video streaming, something that was relatively uncommon just a few years ago, continues to grow