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Wednesday, December 31st, 1997
CBC GETS FINAL FCC ACTION TO GO AHEAD
full story online at PRBusinessWire
Children's Broadcasting Corporation announced today that it had received from
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the grant of the renewal of its Los Angeles
radio station license. CBC previously announced that it had entered into an agreement
to sell its radio station group to Global Broadcasting Company Inc. for $72.5 million
in cash. The renewal of the license was the final action by the FCC required in order
for the transaction to proceed to closing, which is scheduled to occur on January
20, 1998.
PIRATE BROADCAST UPSETS CBS
full
story online at MSNBC
The Sun Bowl game
Wednesday between Iowa and No. 16 Arizona State may not be the only skirmish originating
from Sun Bowl Stadium. A small Iowa City, Iowa, radio station is ready to lock horns
with CBS-TV and CBS Radio by reviving its pirate broadcast of Hawkeye football.
Just as it did for Iowaís first seven games this year, KCJJ-AM plans to have a play-by-play
crew set up on game day at Grizzlyís South Side Pub in Iowa City.
The crew plans to watch the game, being televised nationally by CBS, on a big-screen
television. The sound will be turned off and the KCJJ announcers will base their
play-by-play, commentary and color analysis on what they see.
All this is planned without the blessing of CBS, which is investigating exactly what
to do. CBS is also the radio network of the Sun Bowl.
Friday, December 26th, 1997
WORKERS VOW TO PROTEST AFTER STATIONS REJECT PARODY SONG
Money and influence. So what else is new?
Well, in an action that Michael Moore would surely be proud of, the workers of Teamsters
Local 444 in Florida are trying to have a voice -- and are being denied. Not only
won't the local Jacor stations run their parody song describing their plight, but
the new "owners" of the plant where they work have violated human rights.
Read the whole story online at PR
Newswire.
Florida workers who make orange juice for Coke's Minute Maid brand vowed to picket
stations owned by Jacor Broadcasting after the radio giant refused to run a parody
of Coke's Christmas song, "I'd like to Buy the World A Coke."
Jacor Broadcasting which owns WDUV, WFLA, and WFLZ refused to run the workers' takeoff
of the popular tune, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that parody is protected
free speech. Ten stations in the Tampa area rejected the piece.
"Coke's money and influence made these stations afraid to run our ad,"
said Joe Morgan, president of Teamsters Local 444 which represents workers at the
Auburndale plant where Coke's Minute Maid juice is produced.
The workers' mock version of "I'd Like To Buy the World A Coke" is sung
by their children and describes how good jobs are being destroyed since Coke put
new owners in charge of the orange juice processing plant.
"Coke is turning its back on the injustices in Auburndale," said Morgan.
"We launched these ads because we're tired of big companies running roughshod
over our community."
CAPSTAR BUYS MORE STATIONS
full story online at PR Newswire
Capstar Broadcasting Partners, of Austin, the nation's largest owner of radio
stations, today announced that Capstar has agreed to acquire Austin radio stations
KASE-FM and KVET-AM/FM of Austin, in a $90 million transaction.
Friday, December 19th, 1997
YALE SELLS OUT CAMPUS STATION?
We received this email the other day and we are investigating into the story further.
If you know anything about this story, send info to ard@radparker.com
and we'll post details as they emerge.
To: ARD
I'm not sure if it makes any sense at all to report this sort of thing to ARD, but
we are telling everyone we can find. This week WYBC, the Yale College radio station,
changed it's format to 24 hours a day Urban Contemporary. In doing so the station's
management has locked out student djs who played more typical college music and suspended
their membership. The reasons given were simply that the station could make more
money with an urban format around the clock.
Basically, the students of Yale college have been sold out to commercial radio. There
is now no frequency in New Haven that is open to progressive or modern programming,
and there is no outlet for Yale Students interested in playing such music.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of many students, this is a tragic loss. Once again,
commercialism and greed have won out over freedom in radio broadcasting. WYBC is
essentially no longer a college station. They are a fully commercial station that
barely allows students on the air.
So there you have it. I would appreciate anything you can do to get the word out
about these events. It's simply not right. A college station should play college
music, if not all the time, at least some of the time. This is absolutely ridiculous.
Spread the word.
PART II ------------------------------------
Let me give you more of the info: Their actions are not illegal. WYBC has a commercial-not
for profit license that allows them to program as they will. They are well within
their legal rights I believe, but never-the-less, this is a sad time for college
radio. There aren't many college radio stations left and we've got to fight for the
ones we've still got.
While the WYBC website doesn't seem to be fully functional at this time, you can
send email to wybc@minerva.cis.yale.edu
and voice your opinions.
DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL!
full story online at Pioneer Press
There's just no point anymore, since the local pop and rock music stations appear
to be sharing the same playlist. This week, you can hear Jewel, Chumbawamba, Sugar
Ray, Matchbox 20, Olive and Meredith Brooks.
Remember when radio stations had identities? When a station could brag that it "owned"
an artist or song? That was before alternative went mainstream.
It was also before President Clinton signed the Telecom Act into law early last year.
Previously, broadcasters could own up to 20 FM and 20 AM stations nationwide. The
bill eliminated national ownership limits, setting a cap in big cities of eight stations,
with no more than five on either side of the AM-FM dial.
FCC PRESSURES FREE RADIO SPENARD
full story at Anchorage Press
Anchorage's most prominent and longest running radio pirates shut down their transmitter
Tuesday night under growing pressure from the Federal Communications Commission.
Defying the feds is a little scary, even for a pirate.
Free Radio Spenard, 93.1 FM, also known as Spenard Community Radio, provider of strange
music and home to the otherwise disenfranchised, voluntarily shut down its 10 watt
transmitter and went off the air after almost a year of uninterrupted, unlicensed,
commercial free operation. The move was in response to mounting pressure from the
FCC.
SFX PURCHASING CONCERT PROMOTERS
full story online at HoustonChronicle
SFX Broadcasting said Monday it will spend about $240 million to buy four concert
promoters. The move will make SFX the biggest player in a $1 billion-a-year segment
of the U.S. entertainment industry that has yet to see the type of consolidation
that the radio and television station business has undergone during the past few
years.
Thursday, November 20th, 1997
FCC CRACKDOWN IN TAMPA AND PHILADELPHIA
The FCC make a large sweep through the Tampa Bay, Florida area yesterday and shutdown
THREE different microbroadcasters, with two people being charged with crimes and
then later released on bail. One of the stations, "The Party Pirate," was
recently voted Tampa's favorite radio station by readers of one of the local weekly
papers.
The FCC also went to Philadelphia and shut down a microbroadcaster there. See the
story and links below for further info.
FEDS SHUTDOWN PIRATE RADIO
full story online at The Tampa Tribune
Federal agents pulled the plug on three area pirate radio stations Wednesday,
arrested a Lutz-area man and seized thousands of dollars of equipment.
Investigators descended on unlicensed radio operators at dawn and confiscated broadcasting
equipment.
Arthur Kobres, 53, of Lutz was charged in a 14-count federal indictment with operating
a radio without a license. He was released at an afternoon hearing on $25,000
security bond.
Agents also hit 102.1, "The Party Pirate" in Temple Terrace, and 87.9,
"87X" in Seminole Heights on Wednesday. Authorities wouldn't say if other
unlicensed radio stations in the Tampa Bay area would be shut down.
Doug Brewer, 43, said he was awakened at 6:30 a.m. by armed U.S. Marshals, who handcuffed
him. Agents seized equipment from his home studio and gear from his remote van, he
said. They also dismantled a 150-foot radio tower. Some of the equipment taken, he
said, belonged to other groups, like the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club.
FCC Crackdown
- TV news transcript of this occurence
The FCC's Finest Hour - Commentary by Herb
'PIRATE' STATION RUNS INTO STATIC
full story online at The Philadephia Inquirer
In the neighborhoods around 52d and Market Streets in West Philadelphia, WSKR-FM
offered something people couldn't find anywhere else on the dial: a mix of West Coast
hip-hop music, Islamic programming and talk shows on local issues, weaved together
by an upbeat entrepreneur named Mike Stone.
Stone and his station lacked just one thing -- a license.
Around noon Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission officials went to WSKR's
studio at 23 South 52d St. and removed the transmitter and antenna from atop the
nine-story office building where Stone leased space.
RADIO NETWORK FOR ADULTS GETS MONEY
FOR KIDS' STATIONS
full story online at MediaCentral / related story at BusinessWire
Global Broadcasting Co. Inc., the company that intends to buy the 14 AM radio
stations owned by Children's Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), said Tuesday that it has received
commitments for project development funding sufficient to complete those acquisitions
as well as six other identified station acquisitions with which Global is in active
discussions.
NEW FEDERAL TV REGULATOR HAS NO TV!
Here's a great message we received the other day... thanks for sending it in to us!
Hello! I thought ARD would find this interesting. It's good to see we have people
in charge at the FCC who are truly on top of the world of electronic media! Enjoy,
and keep up the great work!
USA TODAY, Weird News, Nov. 19, 1997
NEW FEDERAL TV REGULATOR HAS NO TV
Harold Furchtgott-Roth is one of the nation's top five television regulators.
But he doesn't own a TV.
"Look, I've got five children. We have no shortage of live entertainment in
my house," said Furchtgott-Roth, one of five members of the Federal Communications
Commission.
One of four new commissioners, Furchtgott-Roth told reporters he watches television
at the FCC office. The FCC licenses TV and radio broadcasters and makes sure TV stations
comply with various regulations. Furchtgott-Roth, who turns 41 next month, said he
owns "lots of radios" and has a home computer that is not hooked up to
the Internet, another area the FCC has been taking increasing interest in.
He wouldn't say why he doesn't have a TV.
Wednesday, November 19th, 1997
ARD "LIBRARY" NOW ACTIVE
We now have a collection of stories, articles, editorials, etc, online under the
ARD Library link. We hope to continue to build this collection
of radio-related information so you, the public, have a good source to turn to when
you need information. If you have items that you think should be included in the
Library, please submit them, or the links to them, to ard@radparker.com
The ARD Discussion Board is coming soon. We expect to upgrade our webserver in the
next week, so look for it after that. Thanks.
Thursday, November 13th, 1997
VICTORY FOR FREE RADIO BERKELEY
AND MICROPOWER BROADCASTING!
At 7 PM on Thursday, November 12 attorneys for Stephen Dunifer and Free Radio
Berkeley received a 14 page decision via fax from Federal District Court Judge Claudia
Wilken announcing her ruling in favor of Stephen Dunifer and Free Radio Berkeley.
Her ruling denies the FCC's motion for summary judgement for a permanent injunction,
states that she has jurisdiction in this case and that the FCC's regulatory structure
is unconstitutional. Further, she orders the FCC to submit within 14 days a brief
on the constitutional issues raised. Essentially Judge Claudia Wilken affirms all
the merits and arguments raised by the defense attorneys for Stephen Dunifer and
Free Radio Berkeley.
Stay tuned for further details.
Stephen Dunifer --- Free Radio Berkeley
Free Radio Berkeley's Legal
Team Website
The full text of Judge
Wilken's Decision
The full text of Judge Wilken's
Decision on freeradio.org
Story in San
Francisco Examiner "Tiny Berkeley radio station can't be
silenced by FCC"
BEAT RADIO MARKS ONE YEAR OFF THE AIR BY FILING APPEAL OF JUDGE'S JURISDICTION
RULING
Beat Radio, the low-power dance music station off the air since November 1, 1996
at the hands of the FCC, observed the one-year anniversary of its forced silencing
by filing an appeal of Judge Michael J. Davis's September ruling on jurisdiction
of its case.
On October 31, 1997, Beat Radio filed an appeal with the Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals, requesting review of Judge Davis's decision which conferred exclusive jurisdiction
of Beat Radio operator Alan Freed's case on the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals.
The decision came as the result of a June 1997 hearing of the FCC's motion on the
jurisdiction issue. Beat Radio maintains that the U.S. District Court in Minnesota
is the proper jurisdiction for Beat Radioís challenge to FCC regulations.
*The judge's ruling did not address the first amendment arguments, only the jurisdiction
of the case.* The litigation stems from the FCC's seizure of Beat Radio transmission
equipment on November 1, 1996, which forced the station off the air. Since that action,
the two parties have been clashing in U.S. Federal Court over the issue of citizen
access to the airwaves and the regulation of low-power FM broadcasting.
*Meanwhile, a California court has just handed down a precedent-setting ruling in
the case of Free Radio Berkeley,* a station and case similar to Beat Radio being
heard in Federal Court in Oakland, California (U.S. v Dunifer). On November 12, 1997,
Judge Claudia Wilken of *the U.S. District Court, Northern California District, denied
the FCC's motion* for a permanent injunction to halt micro-broadcaster Stephen Dunifer's
operation of Free Radio Berkeley.*
ï OF NOTE: The FCC introduced Judge Davis's decision in Beat Radio in an attempt
to support its position in the Dunifer case; Judge Wilken rejected the FCC's interpretation
of the Minnesota decision. In fact, Judge Wilken's findings on the identical issue
of jurisdiction are opposite to Judge Davis's opinion.
In the Berkeley case, the court has ruled repeatedly since 1994 in favor of Dunifer,
denying FCC attempts to silence Free Radio Berkeley, which remains on the air 7 days
a week, 24 hours a day.
Beat Radio, self-described as "The Station On Vacation," continues its
community interaction and fund-raising at key Minneapolis nightclubs to publicize
the station's legal battle with the FCC. Financial support from listeners and the
public at large has been strong and continues to be a critical component in the effort
to diversify the radio airwaves.
Beat Radio
PO Box 3333
Minneapolis MN 55403
612.391.BEAT --- fax 612.338.0188
visit Beat Radio online at www.beatworld.com
email Beat Radio at The_Beat@bitstream.mpls.mn.us
Wednesday, November 12th, 1997
HICKS MUSE TO PAY $850 MILLION FOR OSCAR I CORP.
full story online at Excite! News
Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, showing a continued thirst for media properties,
said Wednesday it will buy the parent company of United Artists Theatre Group for
$850 million.
The private investment buyout firm said the purchase price for privately held Oscar
I Corp. is based on a United Artists' projected debt balance at the closing as well
as $300 million in equity. The closing is expected within the first quarter of 1998,
the company said.
Hicks said United Artists is currently the second-largest U.S. movie theater operator,
with 2,174 screens in 340 theaters. United Artists said its 11,000 employees in 26
states, including senior management at its Englewood, Colo., headquarters, are expected
to be retained following the purchase.Thursday, November 6th, 1997
SHUTDOWN OF RADIO FREE ALSTON: Free-Speech Revolution?
full story online at Boston Phoenix
...On October 28, two agents from the FCC's Boston office showed up at Provizer's
makeshift studio -- at the 88 Room, an art gallery in the Allston Mall -- and politely
but firmly ordered him to shut down...
...By dramatizing the extent to which huge corporations now monopolize the airwaves,
and how federal laws and FCC regulations protect that monopoly, Provizer may strike
a blow for low-powered community radio stations -- which have been rare since the
1920s and illegal since 1978, when the FCC stopped licensing stations smaller than
100 watts.
"This is all about what should be on that broadcast band," says Provizer,
whose campaign to free the airwaves has moved to the cluttered kitchen of his second-floor
Allston apartment....
....the FCC is clearly doing the bidding of the media monopoly. Indeed, the National
Association of Broadcasters (NAB), a powerful lobby that worked to weaken the ownership
restrictions on radio stations two years ago, has been urging the FCC to crack down
on pirate stations. Earlier this year, after the closing of stations in New Jersey
and Florida, NAB president Edward Fritts pronounced himself "delighted"
that the agency was "sending a strong message to broadcast bandits that their
illegal activities will not be tolerated."
PLANNED PURCHASE OF SFX DRAWS
ANTITRUST SUIT
full story online
at Media Central
The trend toward consolidation of radio stations
under fewer broadcaster umbrellas hit a bump on Thursday, when the U.S. Department
of Justice announced it will file an antitrust lawsuit to block a pending deal between
Chancellor Media Corp. and SFX Broadcasting Inc. Irving, TX-based Chancellor Media
is seeking to add SFX's four Long Island, NY, radio stations to its own portfolio
of two through a cash deal of $54 million.
The action marks the first time that the Justice Department has chosen to file a
suit to stop a radio merger. Since the federal government nearly two years ago deregulated the number
of stations an owner can operate in a single market, more than 4,000 stations have
changed owners.
TINY WEB BROADCASTERS RETURN TO RADIO DAYS
full story online at NY Times
"Twenty years ago, there was nostalgic
irony in the idea of radio as a sound sensation. Radio was an old technology in a
society dominated by television. Its rock-and-roll days as something vaguely subversive,
as a place where young people found a soundtrack to rebellion, were over. It was
boringly mainstream, used by millions daily but decreasingly profitable. Not something
to knock McLuhan's socks off.
But times change.
Radio, the broadcast medium, is hot again.
A decade after NBC dismantled its national radio network, media conglomerates are
racing to snatch up properties to create old-fashioned, vertically integrated giants.
Radio talks shows and the stations that carry them are highly sought after in the
increasingly consolidated over-the-air marketplace. And thanks in large measure to
the tremendous success of RealAudio, the most popular software for cybercasting sound
over the Net, even the Web is home to new radio networks like AudioNet,
Pseudo, Grit, and RealNetworks, named for the popular
Internet browser plug-in.
Dig deeper into the Web radio revolution, however, and you find an even better story
-- the "sound sensation" of dozens of tiny broadcasters whose myriad messages
are way outside of the mainstream of Imus, Stern, and Limbaugh. In many ways, it's
a throw-back to the very early days of the 20th century, when the Italian inventor
Guglielmo Marconi brought his wireless radio to American shores."
U.S. OPPOSES
CHANCELLOR-SFX RADIO DEAL!
full story at Excite! Live website
FINALLY! The US Justice Department has stepped in and blocked a radio sale -- the
first time in the radio industry (and
most welcome since the passage of the 1996 Telecom Act!). Typically the Justice Department has allowed mergers and sales
where owners had up to 40% of a radio market (which still seems rather high) but a pending sale in Long Island would effectively give Chancellor a 65%
market share.
Apparently Joel Klein thinks that consumers will lose if this deal were to go through.
And consumers haven't lost in any prior deals?!? Where have consumers gained?
Perhaps this signifies a new awakening of the Justice Department and further ludicrous
mega-media mergers will be halted or perhaps even past mergers broken up... ?
The Justice Department, in an unprecedented
action, sought Thursday to block Chancellor Media Corp.'s $54 million purchase of
SFX Broadcasting Inc.'s four radio stations in Long Island, N.Y.
The department said it is the first time its antitrust division has gone to court
to challenge a deal in the radio industry, which has been swept up by a merger frenzy....
The department said the deal involving Chancellor, the nation's No. 2 radio broadcaster,
and SFX "would create a dominant Long Island radio group" controlling more
than 65 percent of the market....
"These stations have been locked in a daily competitive battle. This deal will
end that battle, and consumers will lose," Klein added.
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