The Wires (July 4, 2009)

Gary Lycan: It's the 4th of July weekend. Maybe you're in a mood for classical (KUSC/91.5 FM), The Firecracker 400 (classic hits KRTH/101.1 FM), or more of Silversun Pickups and Linkin Park on KROQ/106.7 FM. Local fans of retro radio, however, are probably catching the "Legends" weekend on KLOS/95.5 FM. The three-day event (it ends Sunday) is part KLOS, part "The Mighty Met," KMET/94.7 FM. Four at KLOS now - Jim Ladd, Bob Coburn, Cynthia Fox and Denise Westwood - were on KMET, a pioneering progressive rock station in the '60s, '70s and '80s until it was silenced on Valentine's Day 1987 and replaced by smooth jazz "The Wave." When it was announced that KSWD/100.3 FM "The Sound" would devote a day to KMET on July 10, KLOS program director Bob Buchmann created the "Legends" idea. No, it wasn't a KMET salute per se, but in a way it was - Frazer Smith, ex-KMET, was sitting in for Mark & Brian, Paraquat Kelley, ex-KMET, was sitting in with Fox, and FM rock radio pioneer Raechel Donahue was scheduled to share memories on KLOS. Now, if you are missing any of the KLOS weekend, mark your Outlook calendar now for July 10 when KSWD/100.3 FM "The Sound" hosts the real deal - "Finally a KMET Friday." KMET was a gathering place for the counter-culture. Its concerts were sell-outs, its ratings huge. When an advertising campaign displayed the KMET logo upside down, fans did the same thing with their souvenir bumper stickers. Everyone knew the KMET jingle was "A little bit of heaven, ninety-four point seven - KMET - tweedle-dee" Its sign-off song was from the Beatles' "The End" - "and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." Read the rest of the article here.

L.A. Times: Broadcasters call the Performance Rights Act a tax. To the music industry, it's more like a royalty fee. But the legislation, which is gaining momentum in both the House and the Senate, is making radio stations nervous.

Questions (July 3, 2009)

Did Michael Jackson get himself an egg and beat it?

Did "Weird Al" Yankovic ever think of doing a third parody of Jackson's song?

Why does Jackson Drive sound so close to Jackson Five?

Two radio stations in San Diego share in the Jackson name. JACK 100.7 and KSON 97.3. If they merged, would it become JACK-KSON 100.7/97.3?

If Al Franken ran for president in 2016 with Ben Stein as his runningmate, would the ticket be called the Franken Stein ticket?

If Roger Hedgecock launched a Straight Pride parade, would women dressed as straight men and vice versa be allowed to march?

The Wires (July 3, 2009)

TV Tech: Over the Air Mobile DTV Launched

TV Tech: More Stragglers Make the Transition. The total number of DTV-less homes now stands at 1.7 million, or 1.5 percent of U.S. homes.

The Wires (July 2, 2009)

Kurt Hanson: President Obama signed the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009 into law yesterday. The legislation legalizes any royalty rate agreement negotiated between webcasters and SoundExchange. Those settlements must be reached within the next 30 days. The previous Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008 set a deadline of February 15, but SoundExchange did not reach agreements with some groups of webcasters by that date.

CNN: CNN Poll: Americans worry Obama health care plan will increase costs.

WSJ: Wal-Mart Backs Drive to Make Companies Pay for Health Coverage.

NY Times: Insured, but Bankrupted by Health Crises.

The Los Angeles Board reports a significant, but expected, call letter change for 97.1. Gone are the KLSX call letters that used to mean classic rock (and Howard Stern) and more recently all-talk. Now to complement the new CHR “Amp 97.1” format, CBS files for new calls of KAMP.

CHR KLSX (97.1 Amp Radio)/Los Angeles is changing its call letters to KAMP. The station has had the KLSX call letters since 1986.

TV Newsday: The cloudy outlook for VHF-DTV.

Inside Music Media: The spin doctors at Clear Channel who first bragged of 100,000 fans at the B93 Concert Bash quickly revised that number downward to 80,000. Funny about that -- can you imagine a radio station changing an attendance figure so that it winds up being lower for a popular annual event? Their current estimate has been downgraded again like a hurricane to a tropical storm – except now their official attendance figure is 60,000. Maybe they can't count. Maybe they don't want to count. If you want to know why a spectacular event feels compelled to keep downgrading the attendance – kind of the opposite of what you’d expected – it’s because Clear Channel is in a heap of trouble .

Hear 2.0: One of the biggest mistakes the radio industry makes is to embrace and encourage "feel-good" statistics from Nielsen, Arbitron, and others that look for and find the good news. There's nothing wrong with good news, of course. But the world knows when you're not telling the whole story and it damages the credibility of the story-teller and our industry, both .

Radio Ink: San Antonio Paper: Is 'Bell Tolling' For Clear Channel?. The San Antonio Express News, in Clear Channel's hometown, says Clear Channel's lenders "evidently want to steer the company into bankruptcy." The paper's David Hendricks writes that "no one sees a way out" for the broadcast and outdoor giant.

Randy Dotinga: Jackson-o-rama isn't radio norm.

Billy Mays Died (July 1, 2009)

The Wires (July 1, 2009)

The FCC has slapped ATERET ISRAEL and NETAN ELI HEBREW ACADEMY with notices to cease unlicensed operation of a radio station on 92.1 FM in LOS ANGELES. The notice, filed JUNE 5th for a violation observed MAY 28th, says that agents confirmed the operation by direction finding techniques and ordered the school to cease broadcasting immediately. The unlicensed operation aired on the first adjacent channel to Urban AC KHHT on 92.3 FM.

The Wires (June 30, 2009)

Kurt Hanson: Autonet, a provider of in-car Wi-Fi Internet service, has begun selling its services directly to consumers. The company previously relied on car makers and dealers to sell their Wi-Fi product, but has "cut out the middle man" in the face of sinking new car sales. Autonet's target: car owners looking to upgrade their current set of wheels.

Inside Music Media: Michael Jackson is still dead and radio is still voice tracking. Back to reality this morning. Late last week when Michael Jackson died suddenly at his Los Angeles home, the radio industry was caught with its pants down and voice tracking up. This is not to say that some stations did not respond -- the ones programmed by real live individuals and/or those who actually had control of their company's voice tracking did the right thing for their listeners. For too many, radio was caught sleeping while new media was feeding the need of the public to know, mourn publicly and appreciate the talents of this great iconic performer. TMZ broke the news and owned the story from start to finish. That's TMZ like in gossip website -- no matter that it is owned by Time Warner

Ron Jacobs: I first heard Michael Jackson on the radio in the early 60s in San Francisco and later in Los Angeles. He was erudite, sophisticated and verbally skilled. Not unusual for one born in the United Kingdom. But what made this Brit unusual was that he was a first generation "talk radio" host . Jackson began broadcasting when Rush Limbaugh was barely out of diapers

Michael Jackson Talk Radio: A strange day, for me. My 'phones haven't stopped; mostly calls from family and friends, in several parts of the world, calling and writing to confirm that the news reports of Michael Jackson's death, were referring to the singing, dancing, mega-star. A 50 year life that might well have been enchanted, but turned from super-talent to a self-imposed complexity and tragedy. What a pained life. The little boy from Neverland, who would rather to have never grown up (read more - www.MichaelJacksonTalkRadio.com)

FMQB: Will Clear Channel Sell More Stations? Could San Diego be on the list?

Radio Ink: FCC OK's AM Rebroadcasts On FM Translators. The FCC has changed its rules to allow AM stations to use currently authorized FM translators to retransmit within their coverage areas, to "better serve their local communities and thus promote the commission's bedrock goals of localism, competition, and diversity in the broadcast media." Daytime-only AMs will be allowed to originate programming over translators in hours when they'd otherwise be off the air.