Geocities To Close (Apr 25, 2009)

States the Geocities website: "After careful consideration, we have decided to close GeoCities later this year. We'll share more details this summer."

After Yahoo bought Geocities in 1999 and began limiting the bandwidth for its web page accounts in 2001, people began to flee to other free webhosting providers such as Tripod and others that have since gone out of business.

With free easy-to-create web prescence websites such as myspace, facebook, youtube, and twitter coming online with unlimited bandwidth, Geocities was left in the dust as Yahoo basically ruined Geocities by limiting bandwidth, taking away FTP, deleting some pages on some accounts, disabling some accounts, and other tactics that did nothing but make people such as myself leave the service in droves in favor of other places.

While the other websites were developing into multimedia powerhouses, Yahoo did nothing to improve Geocities, in fact, it was left to rot for years until the time finally came when it was time to pull the plug on the venture.

What's left of the Geocities customer base can move their websites over to another free service like Tripod, or go to services like Go Daddy, 1and1, and other sites (I don't reccomend Yahoo) to host their websites.

Yahoo bought Geocities for $3.5 billion in 1999. Today, it probably isn't worth anywhere near that amount.

The Wires (Apr 25, 2009)

Business owners face foreclosures, too, By Helen Kaiao Chang, SDNN

San Diego residents face Level 2 Drought Alert, By Joseph Peña, SDNN

Randi Rhodes' syndicated show will be carried on Premiere Radio Networks beginning May 11.

David Tanny's on Twitter (Apr 24, 2009)

http://www.twitter.com/davidtanny

The Wires (Apr 24, 2009)

Inside Radio: Westwood One buyout final. Private equity firm The Gores Group now owns a controlling stake in Westwood One as part of a recapitalization that reduces the network's debt load and provides it with an influx of capital. Westwood One says it will support several strategic initiatives.

SDNN: ‘First Night’ becomes a victim of poor economy

SD City Beat: Thank you for sharing. TV news rivals are now cooperating with a single camera.

L.A. Times: The change from talk to Top 40 music appears to be paying off for KLSX-FM (97.1), which charged up the ratings after switching formats Feb. 20, according to figures released Wednesday

BBC UK: In more recent times radio has been eclipsed by video games, multi-channel television, home cinema systems and the internet. Against such competition, radio is facing questions as to whether it can survive as a mainstream entertainment form. Industry experts say that radio can embrace technology and sustain its popularity. Growing sales of digital sets worldwide certainly lend strength to that theory

Allan Hoffman: Though Baby Boomers sometimes lament the good old days, when you could tune into FM radio and hear an eclectic mix of tunes, that golden age of radio seems like the dark ages in comparison to what's possible with today's music-related startups and internet radio stations. In fact, today's web-based options for uncovering new tunes are so diverse and varied, you might wonder if you'll ever have time to listen to the music you're discovering

The Wires (Apr 23, 2009)

http://www.interealitymedia.com/: With layoffs in broadcast news operations being announced on a daily basis and the accelerating rate of newspapers closing down across the country, audiences are increasingly turning to online video for information - Marc Prescott and Matthew Glasser are a former on-air reporter and a former producer respectively from KFMB Local 8 News in San Diego, along with Kimberly King, formerly of NBC San Diego on board, have just launched a new business - Inter Reality Media - that offers an interesting new model in news and information programming. As more local news outlets cut back and all our friends lose their jobs, this is a way to provide programming direct to viewers

Inside Music Media: Radio is making it easy for listeners of all ages to adopt new media because instead of making programming more compelling and addictive, radio is becoming less compelling and more vanilla. Consolidators may really need to curb their expenses because of the huge debt payments they must make, but this couldn't be a worse time for a bad strategy.

Sirius XM: SIRIUS NFL Radio channel will give fans around the country live coverage and analysis of every selection from every round with 16 hours of live coverage from the floor of Radio City Music Hall in New York City hosted by NFL experts Gil Brandt, Pat Kirwan, Tim Ryan and Adam Schein

Randy Dotinga: Tweet, tweet: Local stations twittering.

The Wires (Apr 22, 2009)

Tom Taylor of radio-info.com: Have some FMs temporarily shut off their HD signals – to save on the electric bill? Yesterday’s T-R-I lead story predicted that this 2009 NAB convention will have “truths revealed” about issues like HD Digital Radio – and sure enough, I got this email from a regional exec at a big group who knows of “several companies shutting down their HD signals in some markets to cut electrical cost. In our company [one of the top five or six groups] we would rather turn that off temporarily than cut more people loose. By the way – there have been no complaints or calls in the markets that have done it. And in one market I know of, we’ll save about $3,000 to $5,000 annually. Right now, every penny counts. We are trying to save peoples’ jobs.”

Mel Phillips: You might recall that U2’s Bono originally worshipped at the radio shrine for all the free airplay he and his band received to make U2 one of the biggest acts in the world. Take sides in performance rights by slamming radio? - not on your life. Well things have changed. Bono has changed his tune and now supports the creation of a fair performance right on AM and FM radio.

Mumblings (Apr 21, 2009)

Why is Air America considering asking for donations?

Should Clear Channel and Univision divest its San Diego stations to avoid bankruptcy?

Why doesn't Cox sell Channel 4 Padres to cable systems in cities where there is no MLB franchise?

Does anyone have a portable digital TV set yet so they can monitor any new digital signals?

Anyone heard of White Springs TV? Saw some vintage 40s cartoons and movies. It airs on channel 43 in North County. Watch it online at http://www.whitesprings.tv/

A pirate launched operations at 89.1 FM with some profanity-filled music just Sunday or earlier. Operates in the evenings.

What's all the fuss about Jamie Luner replacing Marcy Walker as Liza on "All My Children?"

The Wires (Apr 21, 2009)

Stacy Brown: WARM AM, the radio station that once dominated the northeastern Pennsylvania airwaves and introduced the Beatles to local listeners, has gone silent - Officials at Citadel Broadcasting, the station’s parent company, in New York and Las Vegas said they weren’t aware that the station had gone silent. “You would have to call those at the station in Scranton,” Citadel Chief Operating Officer Judy Ellis said (read more - Stacy Brown - The Standard-Speaker)

WSJ Online: With radio-advertising revenue down 9% last year and on track for a dismal 2009, some commercial stations are borrowing a tactic from public radio: asking listeners for donations (read more - Sarah McBride - WSJ)

NY Post: The days of buying online to avoid paying sales taxes may soon be over. A bill is expected to be introduced to Congress this week that would force retailers like eBay and Amazon.com to start collecting sales taxes on behalf of states from people who shop online or through mail order (read more - Kaja Whitehouse - NY Post)

Ad Age: Why Pizza Giants Want Customers to Click, Not Call, for Delivery.

Mel Phillips: There’s nothing like a good lawsuit to get your blood boiling and this one is a pip. Aldav LLC, a patent licensing company is suing Clear Channel Communications Inc., CBS Radio Inc. and others for allegedly infringing a patent covering technology that allows radio stations to replace local content with information for wider audiences when broadcasting over the Internet. Huh? Come again?

Atlanta JC: In a surprise move, 99X, the biggest rock station in Atlanta in the 1990s, went back on the FM dial Friday after 15 months online only, this time at 97.9

Ad Age: As media market-share wars go, this one's epochal. This week Ashton Kutcher - the former "That '70s Show" star and "Punk'd" auteur now mostly known for being married to Demi Moore and doing Nikon commercials - declared his intention to beat out CNN in the race to become the first Twitterer with one million followers - Kutcher's, um, triumph has me thinking that it can't be a good sign for the so-called Attention Economy that a million people are following Mr. Demi Moore

All Access reports that Clear Channel and Univision make the "Likely To Declare Bankruptcy" list published by Money Central at the link below:
Money Central