With ace-consolidator Randy Michaels at the helm of Tribune Company it looks like he’s having a jolly good time installing his old Clear Channel pals into top positions at the bankrupt newspaper and broadcast company. On Monday Tribune announced that ex-Clear Channel CFO Jerry Kersting is now president of Tribune’s broadcasting division. This was followed […]
Last week I told you how former-Clear Channel Charm School president and current Tribune CEO Radio Randy Michaels identified 119 words and phrases that are no good for his company’s flagship station WGN-AM. Well, this week Radio Randy’s follow-up was to double-down and confront the station’s staff about how the list got leaked outside the […]
So, I guess now it’s my turn. What is Radio Survivor (the blog)? It’s all about the idea that radio is a hardy, useful, practical and proven medium with a lot of life left in it. A Radio Survivor (the person) is someone who continues to believe in the medium. A Radio Survivor is not […]
Clear Channel has announced what the commercial radio giant calls a major step forward for radio advertising: technology that can “automatically and reliably insert any length of audio spot immediately after specific programming or commercial spots based entirely on content.” In blogoland that’s called “contextual,” or sometimes “semantic” advertising. Google Adsense and various Amazon widgets, […]
As I said in my introduction to our subjective and opinionated review of radio in the 2000s, I still think it was darn near impossible to predict how the medium of radio would end up at the beginning of 2010. Sure, the seeds for satellite radio, HD radio, low-power FM, internet radio and MP3s were […]
At the start of the decade the nation’s largest owner of radio stations, Clear Channel Communications, was flying high with a stock price over $90 a share in January, 2000. While public interest advocates and media reformers continued to batter the company with criticism over its tactics, Wall Street was still in love with the […]
On Friday the Wall Street Journal reported news that’s no surprise to radio industry watchers, that the third largest radio owners in the country, Citadel Communications, is about to declare bankruptcy in a deal pre-arranged with its creditors. The loudest critic of Citadel has been industry-insider Jerry Del Colliano who predicted last week that the […]
Down down down. Clear Channel and Cumulus’ third quarter earnings dropped 19 and 18.5 percent respectively compared to Q3 of 2008. Clear Channel reported revenues of $660.6 million in the third quarter of 2009 and $813.4 million for the same in 2008. Cumulus’ net revenues sank from $80.0 million last year to $65.1 million this […]
Tough times necessitate creativity, not to mention a little bit of compassion. Not to be left behind the National Association of Broadcasters serves up both by offering what it’s euphemistically calling a “free agent rate” [scroll down to the bottom] which gives discounted registration of only $179 to its upcoming Radio Show convention. Radio magazine […]
I splurged and took a taxi to JFK airport in New York City today, and waddayaknow, my driver was a dedicated Sirius XM fan. We listened to the Love Channel for a while (I would not have taken him for a Lionel Richie type of guy). I asked him how much he likes Sirius XM. […]
