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August 1, 2005
Payola Investigation Rocks Radio
 *There
are some nervous programmers in NEW YORK, and around the
country, awaiting the aftermath of the settlement between state
attorney general Elliot Spitzer and Sony Music over payola charges.
While Sony's $10 million payment, coupled with an assurance
that it will change its practices, gets the company off the hook
with Spitzer's office, the e-mails that Spitzer's office dug
up as part of its investigation will likely lead to more investigations,
both by the FCC and by some of the broadcasters accused of accepting
payola.
Among the stations whose call letters appeared in the e-mails
were Boston's WXKS and WBCN (where Sony apparently paid for a
staff dinner for former PD Oedipus), Albany's WFLY and WKKF (where
Sony supplied a $1400 laptop to former PD Donny Michaels), Hartford's
WKSS, Buffalo's WKSE (where PD Dave Universal was ousted earlier
in the payola investigation, and where the e-mails suggest that
even Sony was finding Universal excessively greedy) and Rochester's
WPXY (where an e-mail from PD Mike Danger admits "i'm a
whore this week. what can i say?")
There's more, too - a giveaway in which DJs at Buffalo's WBLK,
Rochester's WDKX and other urban stations were to be sent one
Adidas sneaker, with the promise of the other one to follow if
a certain rap song was played often enough. And Sony apparently
paid staffers to call Lancaster's WLAN-FM and the syndicated
"Open House Party" to request certain songs, a plan
which was thwarted when the callers weren't sufficiently energetic
to get on the air.
NERW's Take: Nobody in the radio industry
is likely to be terribly surprised by the contents of the Sony
e-mails. Legal or not, such exchanges between record labels and
radio stations have been common since long before the original
payola investigations of the late 1950s.
And as a former top 40 PD whose opinions we respect pointed
out when the news broke last week, top 40 radio depends on communication
between labels and stations to keep PDs and music directors apprised
of what's new and what's coming. While there will no doubt be
plenty of attempts by nervous stations and labels to restrict
contact (especially, now, by e-mail) between programmers and
promoters, such contacts can't - and shouldn't - be cut off completely.
"There are degrees," says our PD friend, who points
out that the investigations that are sure to get going now will
likely ignore those nuances, just as the congressional inquiry
in 1959 did.
One could ask, also, whether such petty maneuvering (on both
sides - many radio stations are just as guilty, in principle
if not necessarily in the eyes of the law, of manipulating their
playlists in exchange for favors) is really worth the effort
that Spitzer and others have put into these investigations.
After all, any radio station that deals excessive spins to
songs that aren't popular on their own will inevitably begin
losing listeners. Those listeners now have many options for finding
new music that didn't exist in 1959, so it's not as though there's
some sort of public interest obligation in playing an accurate
list of the top 40 pop tunes. And, frankly, top 40 radio just
doesn't seem as important in 2005 as it did in 1959. It bears
noting that the radio formats that have garnered the most attention
in the last year or two either play no current music ("Jack"
and his friends) or no music at all (Air America and its progressive-talk
brethren.)
In any case, we don't expect much, if any change, to the sound
of top 40 radio as the investigations proceed. It's still a mass-market,
lowest-common-denominator medium, whether the record companies
are paying for the airplay or not.
*What else was happening in NEW YORK while we were
on the opposite coast? There was a sad obituary, for one thing,
as the city said goodbye to one of its longest-running DJs. Joe
O'Brien began his career as an announcer at WMCA (570) in 1935,
and he remained with the station as it went through massive changes,
becoming a "Good Guy" DJ and staying on the air until
1969.
O'Brien moved to WNBC (660) for mornings in 1970, remaining
until 1972, when he was edged out in favor of a newcomer from
Cleveland named Don Imus. From there, it was up to Peekskill
and WHUD (100.7), where O'Brien remained on the full-time staff
until 1986 and continued contributing segments well into the
nineties.
O'Brien and former WMCA PD Ruth Meyer were driving near Tanglewood
in Lenox, Mass. when he was involved in a car crash on Sunday,
July 24. Meyer was uninjured, but O'Brien died in the crash.
He was 90.
Upstate, Route 81 continued its shuffling in Corning/Elmira,
putting new calls on 97.7 Big Flats (ex-WGMM, then briefly WCBA-FM
and now WENI-FM, paralleling simulcast WENY-FM 92.7 Elmira) and
flipping WCBA (1350 Corning) from a simulcast of oldies WGMM
(98.7 Corning) to Fox Sports Radio. WCBA is also picking up the
Jim Rome show.
*In PENNSYLVANIA, the news was all
about sports radio - WLPA (1490 Lancaster) finally made its flip
from Sporting News to Fox, while in Philadelphia the 76ers signed
a new deal with WIP (610), scotching rumors that the team was
moving to WPEN (950). (And speaking of WPEN, the station's apparently
just about done building its new night facilities at the transmitter
site of WWDB 860.)
*In MASSACHUSETTS, Qantum Communications
announced a $10 million spinoff of three Cape Cod stations that
it can't keep because of ownership caps. Nassau will enter the
Cape market with the purchase of classic rock WPXC (102.9 Hyannis)
and oldies WDVT (93.5 Harwich Port)/WTWV (101.1 Mashpee) - and
that starts the rumor mill spinning, since Nassau's not a company
that tends to be happy with just three signals in a market.
 In Boston,
former WBIX (1060 Natick) owner Brad Bleidt pleaded guilty to
mail fraud and money laundering charges last week, which will
land him behind bars for 11 years when he's sentenced October
25.
WZLX (100.7) is apparently getting a new morning team from
out of town, but Karlson & McKenzie won't need an introduction
to former listeners of WEGQ (93.7, now WMKK). The duo went to
Rochester (WZNE 94.1) and then Poughkeepsie (WPDH 101.5) after
the "Eagle" folded its wings in 1997, but they're reportedly
about to fill the slot last occupied by Steve Sweeney on 'ZLX.
And ESPN Radio finally appeared, after many weeks of delays,
on WAMG (890 Dedham) and WLLH (1400 Lowell and Lawrence) on Sunday,
July 24, though we hear that the Lowell transmitter was off the
air for much of Monday.
*The saga of VERMONT's radio free
brattleboro continues to wend its way through the courts up there
- last week, a federal judge ordered the station and the FCC
to sit down for settlement talks, as rfb continues to try to
get its seized equipment back.
 The would-be operators
of the community's new LPFM, WVEW-LP (107.9), say they were depending
on getting the rfb equipment in order to sign on their licensed
station quickly, and they're warning that WVEW's debut will be
delayed if rfb's gear remains in federal custody.
(Which NERW believes begs the question: if rfb was supportive
of WVEW-LP's efforts, to the extent that rfb pledged to go off
for good once WVEW began operation, why did rfb risk the seizure
of its gear by continuing to operate without a license even after
WVEW's construction permit had been granted? Seems to us that
the prudent thing to do would have been to shut down rfb and
focus efforts on getting WVEW on the air as quickly as possible...)
*An obituary from CONNECTICUT: Andrew
S. Rajcok, better known as Andy Rage, died July 28 after a battle
with cancer. Andy's career included time at WAVZ in New Haven
and a stint as director of advertising for the Long Island Radio
Network and for WICC in Bridgeport and WPIX-TV in New York. He
was also an accomplished summer theater actor.
*CANADA could soon have a province
with not a single AM station, if the applications of two Prince
Edward Island stations are granted.
PEI was already down to just two AM stations after the conversion
of CJCW (1240 Summerside) to FM a few years back. And a flood
of applications for new FM stations in PEI includes proposals
to move both CFCY 630 (to 95.1, with 100 kW DA/179 m) and CHTN
720 (to 100.3, with 88 kW DA/212 m) off AM as well.
Other applicants for new FMs in Charlottetown include Coast
Broadcasting (95.1, 60 kW DA/213 m, adult pop), Astral Media
(92.5, 70 kW DA/213 m, classic rock) and Newcap (89.9, 100 kW/253
m, rock).
At the same October 3 hearing in Charlottetown, the CRTC will
also consider proposals for new FMs in New Glasgow, N.S., including
one to move CKEC (1320) to 94.1 (100 kW DA/208 m). CKEC faces
three competing applicants for 94.1 - Acadia Broadcasting (50
kW/115 m, classic rock), Astral (8 kW/109 m, hot AC) and Atlantic
Broadcasters (6 kW/111 m, hot AC/pop).
The CRTC will also consider an application for a new community
TV station in St. Andrews, N.B., to operate with 100 watts on
channel 26.
 Speaking
of New Brunswick, it has a new FM station - CFRK (92.3 Fredericton)
launched last week as classic rock "92.3 Fred FM."
And we can't leave Canada this week without a few words about
Newsworld International, the CBC-programmed news service that
went dark as we were going to press Sunday night. (Its channel
space was purchased by a group led by Al Gore, which is relaunching
the channel as "Current.")
 NWI never had a
very big audience in the U.S., in part because it was carried
mainly on obscure digital cable tiers, but it was always a refreshingly
serious and un-flashy alternative to the increasingly tarted-up
U.S. cable news channels, and it went out with as much class
as ever, giving its staffers a full half-hour Sunday night to
say their farewells.
We're big fans here at NERW of the CBC's solid news coverage,
and we hope it finds a new venue south of the border for its
programming soon.
*And we'll close this week with a couple of brief mini-rants:
TV Guide, 1953-2005: It's been many years since
good ol' TV Guide got the media attention it received
with last week's announcement that it will cease publication
in its current incarnation in October, eliminating local listings
and becoming a full-size glossy entertainment magazine.
The move doesn't really come as a surprise to anyone who's
been following the slow and sad decline of what was once an American
institution. In the last few years, TV Guide appeared
to have come unhinged over what it perceived as the threat of
online listings and the profusion of new cable listings. A particularly
ill-conceived redesign last year consolidated many local editions
into nearly useless regional versions, in the process eliminating
useful features such as overnight listings and even a guide to
which channels were listed. (Here in Rochester, we now get a
"Western New York Edition" that lists everything from
Syracuse to Erie, Pennsylvania, with no guidance to the uninitiated
reader as to whether they can actually receive most of the channels
listed.)
It clearly didn't take TVG long to figure out that
the changes weren't working; at the end, subscribers were being
offered rates as low as 25 cents an issue (against cover prices
of $2.49 or more at the diminishing number of newsstands and
supermarkets where the magazine was still sold), and some reported
continuing to be sent the magazine even after explicitly cancelling
it.
The new TV Guide, such as it is, will apparently eliminate
much of the padded subscription numbers (including the generic
editions that were being sent free to hotel rooms coast to coast),
cutting circulation by about two-thirds, and it appears from
here that it will be at best a shell of its former self.
The shame of it is, TVG didn't really have to die.
Ask any newspaper editor what feature draws the most complaints
when it's changed or diminished, and the invariable answers will
include comics, sports listings and the weekend TV book. There's
clearly a demand for a compact print publication that provides
reasonably comprehensive listings, if not for every channel on
a 500-channel system, then at least for the top 70 or so. And
NERW thinks that a TVG that retained some of the editorial
flair that once distinguished it - interesting articles that
exposed readers to more of the inside nuances of the TV industry,
as opposed to the shallow celebrity profiles of recent years
- could still draw readers today.
No, TV Guide was never going to return to the glory
years when it was the top-selling magazine in America, but it
didn't have to die like this, either.
United Airlines, on the other hand, can't complete
its death throes soon enough, as far as your editor and family
are concerned. A stroller that's gate-checked in Oakland should,
NERW firmly believes, be waiting at the gate in O'Hare, and we
do not like being given the run-around with excuse after excuse
about where said stroller might be and when it might turn up,
especially when there's a small child and stacks of luggage to
transport. We'll be taking JetBlue next time we go west, thanks
very much.
*We're just weeks away from the debut
of the Tower Site Calendar 2006, and we think you'll like
the many images and dates that we've collected in the fifth annual
offering in the series.
 In the meantime,
our Tower Site Calendar 2005 clearance continues, and
here's how it works: instead of our list price of $16 for this
fabulous, full-color, glossy calendar, you can now pick one up
for just $8, postpaid. ($8.64 to New York State addresses.)
Better yet, if you order two calendars at this special clearance
price, we'll throw in a third for free - $16 for THREE calendars,
with nine exciting months of 2005 yet to go. (That's $17.28 in
NYS.)
Maybe you've already hung your original 2005 calendar on the
wall, and you're thinking it would be nice to have another copy
to stick away in pristine condition. Maybe you really want to
frame that spectacular September page right now - but you still
need a calendar later this year. Maybe you just want to help
Mrs. NERW clean out the living room and give happy NERW baby
Ariel more space to practice walking.
Whatever your motive, now's your big chance, because while
there are still 2005 calendars left, there may not be any in
a few weeks. (Remember, the 2002 and 2003 editions were total
sellouts, and I've had to turn away several of you who were hoping
to add these now-rare calendars to your collections.)
And we've got two more great deals for you, too. We still
have a few 2004 calendars left, and while they're getting rare,
Mrs. NERW wants them gone - so they're yours, in pristine condition,
for just $5 postpaid. (Buy two and the third is free!) Or order
the 2004 and 2005 calendars together for just $10, postpaid.
(What a deal!)
(New York orders pay $5.40 for the 2004 calendar, $10.80 for
the 2004 and 2005 together.)
And as always, the calendar's free with your $60 or higher
subscription to NorthEast Radio Watch/fybush.com. In fact, as
part of our Early Summer Subscription Drive, you can be among
the first to reserve your free 2006 Tower Site Calendar with
your $60 subscription - and we'll even send you a 2005 as well,
if you ask. Remember, we count on your subscription dollars to
keep NERW coming each and every Monday morning!
You can use PayPal, below, or send your check or money order,
payable to Scott Fybush, to 92 Bonnie Brae Avenue, Rochester
NY 14618. (Please note that the prices below are valid for U.S.
and Canadian orders only; please e-mail for information about
overseas shipping.)
Don't want to order by credit card? You know the drill by
now - make those checks payable to "Scott Fybush,"
be sure to include sales tax (8.%) for New York state calendar
orders only, and send them along to 92 Bonnie Brae Avenue, Rochester
NY 14618. (Sorry - we can't take orders by phone.)
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2005 by Scott Fybush. |