The Wires (Oct 24, 2009)

Howard Stern's not retiring. His contract with Sirius XM Radio expires in 14 months and Stern says he has no plans to retire, telling his own Howard 100 News, "I'll probably be doing it for a while -- I'm sticking around." But Stern later told listeners he could simply be referring to the time left on his contract. There's speculation Stern may consider a return to terrestrial radio, although he's publicly showed no interest.

TV Tech: FCC Releases DTV Converter Box Test Results. Some of the boxes had problems with output video quality, and at least one could not handle some of the ATSC standard formats without problems.

Tom Taylor of radio-info: Even where Univision is encoding for the PPM – it’s not subscribing to Arbitron. No wonder Arbitron CEO Michael Skarzynski cites Univision as one of three reasons the company turned in 4.3% lower revenue for the third quarter. It wasn’t just Miami, Phoenix and San Diego. In those markets, we knew Univision wasn’t accepting Arbitron’s encoders and wasn’t paying for the service. But now I hear that its stations in the top 10 markets of New York, L.A., Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco (plus embedded market San Jose) also aren’t paying. Their stations are showing up in the ratings, but Univision’s not entitled to access to the People Meter numbers or to use them for selling. That’s a definite loss of revenues for Arbitron. What’s more, this T-R-I Newsletter hears that Univision, staying consistent, isn’t encoding for the about-to-go-live PPM markets of San Antonio and Las Vegas, either. The PPM becomes currency there with the December book (November 12-December 9). Arbitron told this week’s Q3 call that 88% of the top 50 groups are on-board with electronic measurement. But Univision’s a bigger holdout than we thought.

Also: A Brooklyn FM pirate at 90.5 is silent, after visits by the FCC and a $10,000 fine. But how time-consuming the FCC’s process is (not its fault) - and how many more unlicensed operators are jamming the airwaves at this very moment? This case had the twist of two people being fined for “providing services and facilities incidental to the operation of an unlicensed radio transmitter.” The FCC agents never caught Jean Clerveau and Jocelyn Edwards on the job. And the pair claimed the pirate station was operating across the street from them. The FCC decides they’re the ones responsible and issues a $10,000 fine.

Senators: No royalty vote. Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and John Barrasso (R-WY) are asking their party leaders to not bring the proposed Performance Rights Act to the Senate floor for a vote. They say the bill would have a "devastating" impact on local stations. Lincoln and Barrasso are the original cosponsors of a non-binding resolution opposing the royalty. It's been signed by 26 senators to date.

Tom Taylor: DirecTV acquires the Dan Patrick and Tony Bruno radio shows from the Content Factory. Two years ago, Content Factory guru Jimmy de Castro told ESPN's Dan Patrick that it was time to seize control of his own brand in radio, print and new media. They shook hands not long after a famous golf game, and the rest is a nice chapter in syndication history – fast-growing daytime radio syndication through Premiere, with a schedule that suits Dan. A high-visibility writing/marketing deal with Sports Illustrated. Various marketing efforts around Dan’s brand, often using new media. And just this past August, a simulcast on DirecTV of the daily radio show from a cool customized studio. Now DirecTV makes de Castro an offer he can't refuse. The result? He’ll have enough dry powder to pursue new projects using the Chicago-based Content Factory as a vehicle. And DirecTV now has a direct pipeline to radio. The Content Factory’s Chris Crane and Ken Kohl will move on to the buyer, to a new unit named DirecTV Sports Group. Expect other radio content producers to see DirecTV as a potential buyer/merger partner/sugar daddy. But I suspect that for now, they’ll be satisfied with Dan Patrick and Tony Bruno’s “Into the Night” – while they get familiar with radio.

Music City Stuff (Oct 24, 2009)

Just In: Soupy Sales Dies at 83 (Oct 23, 2009)

Sales began his TV career in Detroit, where he drew a large audience on WXYZ-TV. He moved to Los Angeles in 1961.

His trademark was the pie in the face schtick that was a staple on his TV shows.

His greatest success came in New York with "The Soupy Sales Show" - a kid's show that had little to do with Captain Kangaroo and other kiddie fare. Sales' manic, improvisational style also attracted an older audience that responded to his envelope-pushing antics.

From 1968 to 1975, he was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line? and appeared on several other TV game shows. During the 1980s Sales hosted his own show on WNBC-AM in New York City.

One of his four puppets appearing on his show were White Fang, who was often the pie thrower when Soupy's jokes bombed. Soupy immortalized Fang in a novelty song in the 60s.

In the 80s, Soupy hosted a syndicated oldies show where he told some jokes and played the rockin hits from the 60s. It once aired on XTRA Gold 690 in the mid to late 80s.

The Wires (Oct 22, 2009)

Randy Dotinga: STATIC: Not-so-local yokels star at 94.1. San Diego has officially lost a local morning show now that JohnJay and Rich, a duo based in Tucson, Ariz., are being heard on Top 40 station Channel 933. Essentially, Clear Channel...is taking the cheap way out. Instead of paying for a more expensive local show, it's airing a nationally distributed show based elsewhere. (Note to Randy: New Country is on 95.7, not 99.3)

Daytime Confidential: RUMOR REPORT: Is Y&R's Melody Thomas Scott in Contract Drama AGAIN? Just received a tip that those spoilerazzis over at Daytime Royalty are abuzz with rumors about The Young and the Restless leading lady Melody Thomas Scott once again being in rather salty contract talks with Sony. Guess what, we've been hearing the exact same thing!

All Access: Everyone's heard of the famed off-shore floating UK Pirate station RADIO CAROLINE, and there is finally a movie based on it. Titled "Pirate Radio" and starring, PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, BILL NIGHY, RHYS IFANS, NICK FROST, KENNETH BRANAGH, TOM STURRIDGE, TALULAH RILEY this new flick set to debut NOVEMBER 13th, centers on the BRITISH Government's comical and futile efforts to silence the station from playing "Rock Music" in the way too conservative 1960s.

FMQB: Senators Urge Leadership To Block Performance Rights Act. Sens. Blanche Lincoln and John Barrasso are urging Senate leadership not to let the Performance Rights Act move forward. They write to Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader John Barrasso, "By many estimations, passage of this legislation would result in potentially billions of dollars flowing from local broadcasters to the recording industry and would have a devastating impact on the local radio broadcasting system as we know it."

NWA Online: Sen. Blanche Lincoln says radio stations should not pay royalties (editor: NWA stands for North West Arkansas, I think. In the L.A. area, the locals have another meaning for NWA.)

Inside Music Media: The radio industry knows a lot about dealmaking. Don't do them. The management guru Peter Drucker told one of my past media conferences in Scottsdale that the acquirer is more likely to get the worst end of any deal than the selling entity. That was certainly true of the radio industry where every consolidator that acquired stations got stuck with massive debt, a declining ad revenue picture or was less able to compete with new media than the lucky folks who sold their stations (or groups) at record prices

The Wires (Oct 21, 2009)

ZDNet: Microsoft exposes Firefox users to drive-by malware downloads

Dave's Gone By Show #318: Sota Pop. Listen to the show here. This episode features: Dave's visit to southwest Florida and the Ringling Arts Festival Inside Broadway - news about New York theater plus reviews from Florida The World Weird Web - fun places to visit on the `net Says Dave about this week's show, "Yes, a week ago, Florida had one more Jew in it. And I'm happy to say I followed the pattern of my brethren: I ate to excess, went to museums and shows, kvetched about the heat and kept checking my skin for lesions. It was fun!"

DAVE ANYTIME!!! Dave's Gone By episodes are now archived, free, on the web! They're at www.davesgoneby.org. Over 300 vintage episodes are now on online so you need never miss a Dave again! Among the guests in the archive: Linda Eder, Peter Tork, Neil Sedaka, Christine Lavin, Jill Sobule, Uncle Floyd, Ute Lemper, Joe Franklin, Issa, Wing, Juliana Hatfield, Fyvush Finkel and Tovah Feldshuh!

REMEMBER, DAMMIT!!!! See 10 episodes of "Shalom, Dammit! Rabbi Sol Solomon's Peace, Love & Acid-Reflux Hour" anytime on Youtube.com!

CNET: Steve Guttenberg. I've had a lifelong love affair with radio. I was a huge Howard Stern fan, back when he was funny, and I'm into political talk, but music has always been the biggest draw. I find most of the new music I buy on the radio. A great DJ can turn you onto great music. They work as filters, filtering out the crap, and playing stuff you might not hear anywhere else. That's what makes them great DJs

Mike Huckabee, Fox News: "I hope Rush Limbaugh takes legal action" - Rush Limbaugh isn't going to be a part-owner of an NFL team thanks to the smears that were hurled at him by media voices and political opponents who didn't bother to see if the "evidence" against him was even true

Cool Unpaid Commercial (Oct 20, 2009)

Tagline: All the things your phone doesn't do, Droid Does.

Groove On The Air (Oct 20, 2009)

Note that this is not to be confused with Groove Radio and its descendant grooveradio.com or the late Groove 103.1 from 1997-98. Groove 105.7 is owned and operated by Clear Channel.

The Wires (Oct 20, 2009)

LA Times: Before the Internet, before cable television or even color TV, there was radio. Back then, we sat by the speakers and listened to radio announcers make pictures with words. Using just a little bit of imagination, we could actually see the things they were describing to us. Vin Scully is one of those master storytellers

NY Times: As if you are not barraged with video choices from your cable system, YouTube, iTunes, Hulu, NetFlix, and Ye' Olde Video Store in the neighborhood, here comes yet another way to veg out: programs beamed over the air from your local TV station right to your cellphone

Mel Phillips: Lost in the buzz of last week's Performance Royalty Act-ion was the ruling handed down by a federal judge who hung up on ASCAP's suit against AT&T. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers alleged that each time a musical ringtone went off in public, the mobile phone melody constituted a performance and violated copyright law. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote didn't buy the allegation