Classy 100 parent to be delisted: Citadel Broadcasting Corp., the group owner of WXKC, WXTA, WQHZ, and WRIE will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange this week, according to AllAccess.com. Citadel will be become an “over-the-counter” stock with a new symbol to be determined. The stock has been trading over 30 days at under $1 and the market cap is under $75 million, both conditions for trading on The Big Board. CDL closed down a nickel Friday, to 0.09, dropping its market cap to $24.30M.
Archive for February, 2009
The Feed for the Weekend of Feb. 28th & March 1st
February 28th, 2009 
joel 
Posted in The Feed 
Tags: ABC, CBS, Citadel Broadcasting, Erie Bayhawks, Focus on the Family, Fox, James Dobson, Jay Leno, NBA, NBC, New York Times, WCTL, WQHZ, WRIE, WXKC, WXTA 
1 Comment »U.S. Senate votes to ban Fairness Doctrine revival
February 27th, 2009 joel 
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) successfully attached the Broadcaster Freedom Act as an amendment to a bill providing the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House. According to Fox News, the amendment passed 87-11 and effectively outlaws the “Fairness Doctrine,” a defunct FCC policy that required opposing viewpoints to be aired on controversial issues on broadcast stations.
Views on the Doctrine depended on who you talked to. There was significant fear on the account of broadcasters that the policy would be reenacted, threatening conservative talk radio and religious broadcasting because of the onerous bookkeeping that would be required. Others feel that that the whole Fairness Doctrine revival was just a canard drummed up to incite and engage the conservative base.
Recently, Democrats such as Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), along with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have made public their support in reinstating the policy. Last Friday, Rush Limbaugh wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal asking the President to “keep the airways free.”
In the end, Pres. Obama has come out and rejected the reinstatement of the Doctrine, making the vote Thursday an easy one for the majority. One hitch may be the also passed amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin that orders the FCC to encourage radio ownership “diversity.”
A similar bill is running through the House.
Philly papers go bankrupt, S.F. Chronicle could close
February 26th, 2009 joel UPDATED: Commenter Danny Lucas alerts P&T to the announcement Thursday of the shuttering of the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News in Denver. The Friday, Feb. 27th issue will be its last, as parent Scripps cited millions of dollars in losses, including a $16 million in 2008. The demise of “the Rocky” leaves Denver with just one daily, the Post.
Over the weekend the company that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The papers in Philly are looking at a 30% decline in revenues this year while they are trying to renegotiate on $390 million in debt.
Meanwhile, it was reported Wednesday that San Francisco could lose the Chronicle should the Hearst Corp. close up shop. They are reeling from a $50 million loss in S.F. last year, and hope to get buyouts from a large number of their 1,500 employees.
So the bad news in the newspaper business keeps coming. This era of economic tsunami has hurt all media, and the decline of the newspaper business model has been in effect long before now. However, it seems like there are some papers taking it more on the chin than others. The common thread among the major metro dailies who are really suffering is their financing via LBO: Leveraged Buy Out.
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Who are Erie’s black bloggers?
February 25th, 2009 joel For the past few weeks I have been on a quest to educate myself on the acceptance and participation in the new media by Erie’s minority community. Sorry to say, I have not been very successful in getting information on how connected African-American, Hispanic and other ethnic minority members are to the various outlets of new media.
Let me preface in saying that it seems like we have at least adequate participation in the mainstream media by minorities. In addition to newspaper and television reporters and production staffs, you can hear minority voices on community access television and on the radio. In fact 90.5 WERG does a great service to our community in providing media balance through the highly regarded Super Soul Weekend programming, as well as the Sunday ethnic shows.
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Posted in New Media Tags: blogging, Erie, Facebook, GlobalErie.com, media, minorities in media, MySpace.com, social network, Twitter, WERG 2 Comments »Poll: minority participation in Erie media
February 23rd, 2009 joel Our last poll asked about the relevance of phone book advertising in this era of instant online information. As I suspected, over 40% of respondents said that they never look at the phone book, while another 28% said that phone book advertising makes no impact on their buying decisions. Almost a third of those who answered the poll said that they found the telephone directory useful at least half the time when shopping for products or services.
I don’t want to start a controversy or “pick a scab,” but I don’t want to be, in the words of the new Attorney General, “a coward.” I must say that I’m concerned about the lack of growth of African-American, Hispanic, or other minority participation in Erie media. In this era of great diversity of media outlets, I’m not seeing a growth in diversity of participants. Should the proverbial “we” do something about it?
Should current participants in Erie broadcast, print, and new media do more to encourage minority participation in media?
- No: there are plenty of opportunities for members of Erie’s minority community to be involved in Erie media if they so choose (66%, 23 Votes)
- Yes: minorities are significantly underrepresented in local Erie media (34%, 12 Votes)
Total Voters: 35
Loading ...The Feed for the Weekend of Feb. 21st & 22nd
February 21st, 2009 joel Editor’s Note: don’t forget that you can always share your insights on any topic of media in Erie and elsewhere on our open comment forum, Deep Background.
- Kanzius’s passing noted world wide: The news of the death of Erie broadcaster and cancer-fighting inventor John Kanzius has been reported around the world, including on Facebook. Here in Erie, news organizations are covering both the immediate angle of the reaction to his passing and the memorial services, but also the long-term impact of Kanzius’s death on the ongoing research and potential local economic impact of the possible cancer-killing device he invented. The latest on the viewing and funeral can be found on GoErie.com.
Deep Background for Feb. 22-28, 2009
It has been an eventful week in Erie media. WSEE became the first commercial television station to drop it’s analog signal for good. WQLN-TV finally completed its fix of their transmission system and are now full-power digital.
And this week marked the untimely passing of John Kanzius, who took his RCA broadcast engineering training to sign on WJET-TV in the mid-1960’s, and to create a promising cancer-killing radio wave machine in the late 2000’s which, if trials are successful, could save millions from the scourge of the disease, and maybe bring in billions of dollars in manufacturing to the Erie area.
Here on Deep Background is your chance to speak your mind to all of these and other matters in the media, locally and nationally. If you wish to contact me privately, my e-mail is joel@nataliemedia.com or on Twitter @pressandtower.
Embrace the chaos!