Media Notebook (Nov 1, 2007)

Collected and Edited by Rick Kaempfer






Highlights and links to the big stories in the news this week about the media. This column appears twice a week at http://medianotebook.blogspot.com



42 House Members 'Shocked' Over FCC Chief's Plan
(Radio Online) A group of 42 Democratic House members, led by led by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin "to express our grave shock and dismay over reports" that Commission chief will reportedly wrap up the agency's media ownership review by mid-December. "We understand that you intend to try to finalize these rules by the end of this calendar year," the letter said. "We believe that such actions are reminiscent of the bad behavior that resulted in an intervention by the Third Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals in your agency's efforts on media ownership three years ago. After all of the controversy that this proceeding has generated over the past four years, we believe that another round of public commentary is essential before a final vote. We cannot comprehend how your staff could possibly have fully analyzed the public comments submitted in Chicago before you began to circulate these new rules."
(Rick's note: Including these commments, officially submitted to the FCC)


UPDATE: Hastily scheduled FCC Localism hearing covered by Radio Ink
FCC Chairman Martin Supports Rule Changes for Localism
Veteran Broadcaster Bob Edwards opposes loosening ownership rules
FCC Commissioners decry lack of action on localism
Activists Trick or Treat at FCC (arriving in costume)
Poll: 70% see consolidation as a problem
(Rick's note: The other 30% have no idea what they're talking about.)


CBS blows up WCKG
(Chicago Sun-Times) Robert Feder writes: "Monday marked the beginning of the end of WCKG's FM talk format, with Garry Meier signing off just seven months after his comeback as late-morning host, and the duo of Stan Lawrence and Terry Armour bidding their midday audience farewell too. Also gone are the syndicated morning duo of Gregg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia, as well as the evening team of Matt Dahl and Brendon Greeley. Bulls basketball, which aired last season on WCKG, will open the new season Wednesday on ESPN sports/talk WMVP-AM (1000), under a new five-year deal announced Monday. The move marks a return to the station that carried the team for 10 years. "This is a wonderful homecoming for both ESPN 1000 and the Bulls," said Jim Pastor, president and general manager of the station. CBS Radio also confirmed Monday what readers of the Sun-Times knew Friday: Steve Dahl is switching to mornings on adult hits WJMK-FM (104.3), the station known as "Jack FM." Starting next week, Dahl and newsman/sidekick Buzz Kilman will be heard from 5:30 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday.


Dahl & Meier Reunion Talk Only That
(Chicago Tribune) Phil Rosenthal writes: "It's tough to know exactly how close Chicago came to a re-teaming of the groundbreaking radio duo of Steve Dahl and Garry Meier mornings on WJMK-FM 104.3, but that once-improbable reunion is still very much a possibility. Sources at CBS said the company remains hopeful it can get the two back together but acknowledged that if it is going to happen, it will take time. On Tuesday, the day after CBS Radio axed every WCKG-FM 105.9 show but Dahl's, including Meier's 6-month-old mid-morning program, clearing the way for a format overhaul next month, Dahl indicated on the air that an olive branch of some sort had been extended to the one-time broadcast partner with whom he made radio history from 1979 until a bitter breakup in 1993. 'I wasn't opposed to having him join us in mornings, but that's not something that he wants to do right now,' Dahl said of Meier on WCKG, where he will close out the week before moving Monday to the 5:30-to-10 a.m. shift on sister station WJMK, better known as Jack FM."


News may fill network schedules in case of writer's strike
(Variety) Michael Learmonth writes: "A writers strike could mean boom time for the network's news divisions as they ratchet up production to fill holes in primetime. While no directive has been given from above, ABC News' longform unit is stockpiling series under the Primetime Live banner as potential fill-in programming and is preparing as if the newsmagazine could return to the schedule. 'We have a lot of series in production,' said 20/20 and Primetime Live exec producer David Sloan. 'In the event of a strike, we would fast-track them.' A prolonged writers strike could take primetime back to the '90s, when Dateline NBC ran five nights a week and the newsmagazine was king."

Writers have that flashback feeling
(LA Times) Smith & Gold write: "THE year was 1988 and Hollywood's writers were still smarting from concessions made in a 1985 strike that left them with only a small percentage of residuals for DVDs and other rebroadcasts of their material. It was a time of high stakes, passion and confusion -- in other words, a time not unlike the present. Many current members of the Writers Guild of America don't remember the last major strike by the writers. One reason is that it was 19 years ago; another is that two-thirds of the guild's 8,000 members have joined since then. So if current talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers end in a strike when the contract runs out Thursday, it may be their first experience with picket lines."


The good, the bad and the downright ugly of AOL's recent layoff announcement
(Richmond.com) Robert Holland writes: "It's bad enough when a company has to lay off employees, but screwing up the announcement of the bad news just adds insult to injury. AOL, which has never been a shining example of how to communicate with people inside or outside the company, told employees in an Oct. 15 e-mail that 20 percent of them will lose their jobs over the next few months. The New York Times obtained a copy of the memo and posted it on one of the newspaper's online blogs the same day." (Rick's note: He goes on to critique the memo...)


Senate Commerce Committee Votes to Expand LPFM
(Radio Online) The Senate Commerce Committee has voted to expand the number of Low Power FM outlets by eliminating third channel protection. Senate Bill 1675, known as the Local Community Radio Act of 2007, will now move to the full Senate. The bill is designed to implement the recommendations of the FCC and was introduced by Senators John McCain (R-AZ), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA). The Senate Commerce Committee had moved twice in the past to expand LPFM to community groups and failed. But this year, the bill is accompanied by a stronger House companion (House Bill 2802, sponsored by Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Lee Terry (R-NE)) with 55 co-sponsors.


Even death won't resolve Redstone's control issues
(Forbes) Registration required. Lenzer and Pendleton write: "Redstone has been thinking a lot about death and estate planning lately. He has a firm grip on his empire right now, and he wants to rule it from the grave, too. 'I'm in control now, and I'll be in control after I die,' he declares. He will, that is, if heirs, lawyers and corporate directors honor his wishes. They might not. If Redstone were to die tomorrow, a divisive and distracting legal fight could break out over the very control he so relishes...The Redstone family battle centers on a rift between Sumner and his 54-year-old daughter, Shari. Five years ago he saw her as the heir to his control position, and the two were each other's biggest supporters. Now they barely speak, choosing to communicate via faxes and lawyers. There's more to the Redstone family feud than this, however. The dysfunction stretches across three generations. This saga is a Shakespearean tragedy, involving unhappy childhoods, bitter accusations by Sumner's son and nephew that he cheated them out of their inheritances, and, on the periphery, untimely deaths, mental illness and drug abuse."

HOLLYWOOD HEAVY GETS BAR BOOT
(New York Post) Richard Johnson writes: "Jeffrey Katzenberg, a co-founder of DreamWorks SKG, was tossed out of the Four Seasons Hotel lounge after a dust-up with a staffer at the East 57th Street inn the other night, sources say. Witnesses say the Hollywood power player, who is Steven Spielberg and David Geffen's business partner, commandeered the bustling bar's tiny service area to better hear his cellphone conversation as the wait staff tried to maneuver around him. Katzenberg ignored bar manager Danny Cooper's repeated requests to move out of the way. Cooper then told Katzenberg he had to move immediately. That's when the diminutive mogul got heavy with 6-foot-plus Cooper. 'He started shaking his finger and yelling, 'Who the [bleep] are you? Do you know who I am?' and then got into a shoving match with [Cooper],' a witness told The Post's Braden Keil. Katzenberg was escorted out by hotel security in front of a stunned and amused crowd. A spokeswoman for Geffen downplayed the incident: 'There were some brief heated words. They both apologized and that was the end of it.' Hotel marketing director Brian Honan said, 'Both parties got overheated, but no one was escorted out.' Cooper had no comment."


An interview with Tony Snow
(Fishbowl NY) Rebecca writes: "For an out-of-work White House press secretary, Tony Snow remained remarkably on-message during an interview this evening by People managing editor Larry Hackett at the keynote session that opened the 2007 American Magazine Conference here in Boca Raton, Florida. In a conversation that lasted just under an hour, including a handful of audience queries that followed a rapidfire stream of questions from Hackett, Snow -- who also worked within President George H.W. Bush's administration as director of speechwriting -- held the conversational line just as strongly as he maintained it throughout his stint as press secretary."

Brian Williams to host SNL
(TV Newser) Gail Shister writes: "Wanna host "Saturday Night Live?" That's not funny. When SNL asked Brian Williams to guest host this Saturday, he thought it was a joke. 'I wasn't sure they were serious,' says the NBC anchor, who did a cameo last season on Weekend Update. 'These are funny people. When they said, 'We'd like you to host the show,' I said, 'Really?' Once Williams understood it was on the real, he polled his focus group, which includes his wife, Jane Stoddard Williams, their two kids, Tom Brokaw, Steve Capus, Jeff Zucker and assorted pals. 'Not a single soul' turned thumbs down, he says."


Colbert Nation quickly colonizes Facebook
(NY Times) Brian Stelter writes: "Stephen Colbert’s presidential candidacy may be phony, but his supporters are very real. Late on Oct. 16, immediately after the comedian declared his intentions on his satirical news show The Colbert Report, supportive groups began to form on the social networking site Facebook. One of them — a group created by Raj Vachhani and titled '1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T Colbert' — has grown to more than a million members in just over a week, making it the most popular political group on Facebook by far."


Colbert is laughing all the way to Fort Knox
(Marketwatch) Jon Friedman's sense of humor has gone AWOL. He writes: "Stephen Colbert must be laughing all the way to Fort Knox these days. The clever host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report is holding the usually clear-eyed media in the palm of his hand and bringing out the worst in some star-struck journalists who should know better. New York Times curmudgeon Maureen Dowd beseeched Colbert to write a not-too-funny column for her. (Stick to your night job, Steve.) Noted powerbroker Tim Russert invited Colbert to go on NBC's Meet the Press and suck up the rarified air of Washington's elite. It's depressing to watch respected journalists lower themselves just to tickle Colbert's funny bone. Dowd is the wittiest columnist anywhere, and Russert is the best interviewer in television news. They shouldn't be kissing up to a comedian, even one as talented as Colbert."


An interview with John Records Landecker
(Chicago Radio Spotlight) This past weekend I spoke with radio legend John Records Landecker. We talked about his departure from WZZN, his syndicated 70s show, some of his favorite memories from the past, and his hopes for the future. Coming this weekend, an interview with WGN Creative Director Todd Manley.






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