Thursday's Radio & Media News - May 23, 2013

Jimmy de Castro Named WGN-AM/Chicago President/General Manager The Tribune Company appoints veteran radio executive Jimmy de Castro as President and General Manager of News Talk WGN-AM, Chicago, effective June 3. He will report to Tribune President of Broadcast Media Larry Wert. "Throughout his career, Jimmy de Castro has fused talent, innovation, and a keen understanding of the audience to generate success everywhere he’s been," says Wert. "He’s a great leader, a builder, and someone who knows the Chicago area and the people who live here extremely well. Jimmy will be a great addition to WGN Radio and to Tribune. I can’t imagine a better person to join our team." Says de Castro, "WGN Radio has a tremendous legacy in Chicago and the radio industry. Tribune has been assembling a talented, experienced team to lead its broadcasting businesses and I'm looking forward to working with Larry Wert and Peter Liguori. I'm excited by what’s ahead and determined to continue growing WGN’s audience and market share." WGN-AM, which is ranked 4th in the most recent Arbitron ratings for Chicago with a 4.8 share, took a big hit in revenue last year, dropping by more than $5 million to $30.2 million, according to BIA/Kelsey. De Castro hopes to improve on both ratings and revenue for WGN-AM. "I wouldn't take this job unless I thought that I could improve the ratings and improve the revenues and improve the EBITDA," says de Castro. "Picking the right lane, marketing it correctly, driving some enthusiasm and some energy in the listening community and in the buying community and in the hallways of 720, are going to have an impact." de Castro began his career in marketing and sales, which eventually led to radio management and ownership. He co-founded six-station radio group Evergreen Media in 1988 and grew it into 465 stations within 12 years, creating AMFM, Inc., the nation's largest radio broadcasting company at the time. de Castro served as Vice Chairman and CEO of the company, which broadcast in over 100 markets and reached more than 64 million listeners. Under his leadership, AMFM formed three divisions focusing on Internet and related business and expanded its outdoor advertising businesses. de Castro also served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AMFMi, the company's internet subsidiary. In 2000, de Castro resigned from AMFM, Inc. to devote his efforts exclusively to the convergence of media and the internet and founded the company Nothing But Net. Subsequently, he became a consultant to America Online and later served as President of AOL Interactive Services. The Chicago Tribune notes that de Castro ran "the seminal WLUP-FM 97.9 -- and its roster of larger-than-life air personalities -- during its heyday in the 1980s." And that he "rode a wave of industry consolidation over a 25-year radio management career until he helmed the largest chain in the nation." The Tribune publication -- varying from the official news release -- writes, "More than a decade removed from his last radio job, de Castro will begin his new role on June 3, reporting to Wert, his former WLUP protege, who became Tribune Co.'s head of local broadcasting in February." The Chicago newspaper adds, "Beyond Wert, whom he hired as general manager at WLUP-AM & FM in 1989, de Castro will be reunited with several of The Loop's former air personalities at WGN. Afternoon drive host Garry Meier joined the station in 2009, and fellow WLUP alumnus Jonathon Brandmeier took over as WGN's morning man in December 2011." And de Castro tells the Chicago Tribune's Robert Channick, "That's a station that we spent a career trying to tear the walls down on and now I'm inside the walls with the WGN people trying to build those walls up," de Castro said. "My hope is to bring a new energy to a classic institution." De Castro came to Chicago in 1981 to manage WLUP-FM. Infinite Dial 2013: 'Urban P1s More Likely to Listen to Online Radio' Some 65 percent of Urban P1 listeners have Wi-Fi in their homes, with 19 percent living in homes with at least five Wi-Fi connected devices, according to "The Infinite Dial 2013: Navigating Digital Platforms" -- as Arbitron and Edison Research release more data from the annual study, this time focusing on Urban listeners. Earlier this week, they focused on AC P1s. Urban P1s are more likely than the average radio listener surveyed to tune in to online radio on a weekly basis, with 42 percent of Urban P1s listening online regularly, compared to 33 percent of Persons 12+ overall. Also, 27 percent said they listened to Pandora in the past week. When it comes to online radio, Urban P1s have above-average awareness of Pandora, iHeartRadio and Spotify. While 37 percent of Urban P1s are familiar with podcasting, 12 percent listened to one in the last month. Almost one-third of Urban P1s watch YouTube on a weekly basis, and 63 percent are likely to keep their cell phone 'within arm's length." Also nearly half (49 percent) of Urban P1s use their cell phone to wake them up in the morning and 67 percent own a smartphone, while 30 percent own a tablet device. Additionally, 72 percent of Urban P1s have a social network profile, while Urban P1s are more likely to be frequent social media users, as 35 percent said they use such sites "several times a day." Urban P1s have almost twice as many Facebook friends as the average radio listener surveyed. Urban fans are also more likely to use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram and Tumblr. Among Urban P1s, 78 percent listen to AM/FM radio in the car, followed by 65 percent who listen to their CD players in the car, while 37 percent use an iPod/MP3 Player. Urban listeners are more likely to listen to online radio, but just 13 percent use satellite radio in their car and three percent are tuning in to HD Radio. Urban P1s are more likely to think it is important to learn about and keep up with new music, and 79 percent would be disappointed if their favorite station went off the air. Urban P1s are also more than twice as likely to "like" their favorite station on Facebook, while 10 percent are signed up for their favorite station's email list. Urban P1s are also more likely to be listening to the radio just before going to shop, with 66 percent compared to 49 percent overall. Cox Jacksonville Launches Urban Gold 'Hot 106.5' Cox Media Group launches Urban Gold "Hot 106.5" WHJX-FM, Jacksonville, billed as "Duval's Adult R&B" for Jacksonville’s home county. Clarence Natto, who moves from Cox Atlanta, is Program Director for the new format, which replaces a simulcast of News Talk WOKV-AM. According to CMG Jacksonville, "The first of its kind in the Jacksonville market, Hot 106.5 will entertain listeners with an Urban Gold format featuring core artists like Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, Earth, Wind & Fire, Isley Brothers, and Stevie Wonder, among others." The new station launches with 10,000 songs in a row commercial free. Says CMG Jacksonville VP and Market Manager Bill Hendrich, "This is a great opportunity to serve the Jacksonville community in an area that has been underserved with radio options for a number of years. Our in-depth market research indicates a great need for classic R&B, and we expect this new format to be an unbelievable success with listeners, as well as a unique platform for our valued advertisers." Natto (pictured right) joins WHJX-FM from Cox Atlanta where he was Director of Promotions for "Kiss 104.1" WALR-FM. "Great talent resides in the stations owned by Cox Media Group and we have been able to tap into that talent bank once again with Clarence," adds Hendrich. "I had the pleasure of working with Clarence in Orlando when he was at Star 94.5 and have watched him grow his career over the past few years in Atlanta. I really look forward to having Clarence on our team here in Jacksonville." The new "Hot 106.5" is online here, for now with a splash screen introducing the new station and its new logo. Meanwhile, News Talk WOKV-AM still has an FM simulcast. That was moved to 104.5 FM, the former home of Rock WFYV-FM. My 'My' - It's Now a 'Mix' in Indianapolis Only one day after we reported that WNTR-FM, Indianapolis, had gone to stunting, the station unveils Hot AC "107.9 The Mix" -- as we had expected. Wednesday, we reported in our BTM section: "Adult Hits (80s centric) 'My 107.9' WNTR-FM, Indianapolis, is now stunting ahead of a format flip -- possibly to Hot AC 'Mix 107.9' -- running short blocks of various formats." Earlier today, we reported the new format and promised more later. We now have that from Indy. "Mix will be artist-driven and more current than before," says Operations Director J.R. Ammons. "Mix’s new Hot AC format will play more music than competitors in the market and deliver more of what women want, the best of 2000’s and today." Entercom Indianapolis VP and General Manager Jennifer Skjodt tells us, "We are thrilled to bring this amazing mix of contemporary music to Indianapolis. Due to the tremendous success of Entercom’s Top 40 station, WZPL, there is a hole in the market for a station like 1079 The Mix. We are building on the strength of nearly 300,000 weekly WNTR listeners to create a better mix. Today’s launch is the perfect opportunity and timing for 1079 The Mix." WNTR-FM now has a new website at www.IndysMix.com. Pandora Reports Record Fiscal Q1 Revenue, Up By 55% But Rising Costs Boost Net Loss by $8 Million Pandora reports "record revenue" in the first quarter of its fiscal 2014. Total revenue was up by 55 percent to $125.5 million, while advertising revenue grew by 49 percent to $105.1 million. Non-GAAP subscription and other revenue grew by 114 percent to $23.4 million. Pandora says its total listening hours grew by 35 percent to 4.18 billion, compared to 3.08 billion in the year-ago period. Says Chairman and CEO Joe Kennedy, "Pandora continues to expand its mobile leadership. Mobile listening hours and mobile ad revenue reached record highs, with growth in mobile ad revenue exceeding growth in mobile listening hours. During the quarter, we successfully implemented a mobile listening limit, enabling us to manage our content acquisition costs with minimal impact on listenership or revenue growth. Pandora's subscriber base surpassed 2.5 million, adding more net new subscribers in the quarter than in all of fiscal 2013, giving Pandora the largest U.S. streaming subscriber base of any music service." Kennedy, you might remember, announced in March thast he will be stepping down later this year. Despite all of the positive numbers in the news release, a look at the raw numbers shows Pandora's net loss rising to $28.6 million (16 cents a share), compared with a year-earlier loss of $20.2 million (12 cents a share) -- the result of growing expenses (especially royalties paid) outpacing revenues. More (And More) Delays for Apple 'iRadio' Launch Apple continues to run into stumbling blocks in its efforts to launch its "iRadio" streaming music service -- now with problems with music publishers rather than labels. Monday, we reported that "song skipping" was said to be the latest Apple "iRadio" holdup. Now, it's being reported that music publishers are also holding up the launch of the service, as Sony/ATV and BMG Rights Management are both seeking more favorable terms in their royalty agreements from Apple. Sources tell The Verge that Sony/ATV has essentially "refused" to license Apple's service, while BMG is holding out for a better deal. As we previously reported, Apple has chosen to negotiate its own royalty agreements, rather than take a blanket deal for rates and other streaming issues set by the government -- which put them in their current position. Reportedly, with all these issues delaying the launch of Apple's streaming music service, the other major labels are becoming frustrated. Sources tell The New York Post that Universal Music Group and Warner Bros. executives are "increasingly frustrated" with Sony's still ongoing negotiations with Apple holding back the launch of the service. One unnamed "senior music exec" tells the Post, "There’s a frustration. [The Apple streaming service] is a net positive for the business. Apple is offering a 50/50 ad revenue share, minimum guarantees and royalties and the most successful ecosystem that’s ever been created. Unlike Pandora, the up-sell opportunity is enormous." Borrell Associates: Radio Losing Auto Ad Dollars Saying that they see "a radical shift in the way dealers, dealer associations, and manufacturers market themselves," Borrell Associates is forecasting a big downturn in auto advertising dollars for radio. In a client memo, Borrell says the "radical shift" is "the end result of how consumers have altered shopping habits." While the research and consulting firm is forecasting that auto advertising will be up 10% this year, "The bad news is, local media companies with great dealer relationships will find themselves short-handed if they don’t also have great products suited to what the dealers need today. An internal meeting of the minds is in order." For radio, Borrell projects 2013 auto dealer ad spending, compared with previous years, to be down significantly -- from a 4.2% of ad dollars in 2012 to a 3.3% share of ad dollars this year. And they note that the 2012 share was down from a 4.6% share in 2011. The client memo from Borrell Associates warns, "What we’re seeing is a radical shift in the way dealers, dealer associations, and manufacturers market themselves -- the end result of how consumers have altered shopping habits. We believe these changes are notable not only because of the shifting dollars, but more importantly because the print and broadcast industries rely so heavily on the automotive category. The average print or broadcast outlet gets 15% to as much as 45% of its revenue from automotive. Big change in the wrong direction could be devastating." Borrell explains, "The reason for these changes is that the manufacturers decided last year to trim broadcast and print in favor of digital advertising. They learned through research that online inquiries -- especially those generated via mobile devices -- were leading more prospects to dealerships than other ad choices. They found that more prospects were coming to showrooms with their decisions already made after visiting manufacturer websites." AdLarge Media and Sports USA Media Settle Suit, Renew and Extend Contract for AdLarge to Rep Sports USA AdLarge Media and Sports USA Media settle their dispute, and announce that Sports USA's lawsuit against AdLarge has been dismissed "as a misunderstanding." In a news release they've announced that they will be continuing their relationship. That release says, "AdLarge continues as the exclusive national advertising sales representation firm for Sports USA." We're told the deal covers national advertising sales representation of NFL and NCAA football. Says Sports USA President Bob Moore, "Any pending lawsuit has been dismissed, and we are really looking forward to this upcoming season with AdLarge. Their connection with national advertisers and their agencies provides the opportunity for continued revenue growth in our football programming." AdLarge Media Co-Founder and CEO Gary Schonfeld tells us, "We are delighted to renew our arrangement with Sports USA, with a terrific line-up of 2013 NCAA and NFL games, and we are looking forward to representing their play-by-play coverage for the upcoming football season. These football games offer advertisers an incredible opportunity to associate with two of the most exciting sports leagues in the country." Sports USA filed suit aganist AdLarge Media on May 9 alleging breach of contract over whether AdLarge was entitled to deduct sales commissions from the amount due to make up for the shortfall between sales goals and actual sales. The new deal has resolved that dispute, although we don't receive specifics. CRN Digital Talk Radio Partners with Aha to Offer Content CRN Digital Talk Radio signs an agreement with Aha by Harman to provide all seven of the talk radio network's channels on the mobile interactive audio service. "Aha organizes listeners' favorite Internet content into personalized, live, and on-demand radio stations from a single dashboard," says a news release. The free Aha app can be found for Android and iOS. Aha says that by the end of 2013, it will be offered in vehicles by more than ten automotive manufacturers, including Acura, Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Porsche, Scion and Subaru. "We are absolutely thrilled to offer our content on Aha," says CRN President and CEO Michael Horn. "People have asked for our shows to be available in vehicles and this is a wonderful solution. Aha is so innovative and versatile -- and we know our programming will nicely complement this service." RadioTraks Debuts RequesTrak on Envision Radio Envision Radio Networks and RadioTraks partner to launch RequesTrak, a listener engagement service that ERN says takes song requests to the "next level." With RequesTrak, we're told, "stations can gather and keep track of their song requests by using a request widget that displays the station's top requests and gives listeners real-time feedback on when their requested songs are scheduled to play, based on the station's actual playlist." In addition to automatically logging the data from web requests made through the widget, RequesTrak gives stations the ability to manually log requests submitted via phone, text and e-mail. Stations are also given the option to collect a variety of demographic information with requests including age, gender, city and more. This data is tabulated into reports of the top requests by day, week, and month, providing insight into your listener base as well as built-in content to personalize requests on the air. "Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best," says RadioTraks President and CEO Hal Fish. "Listeners are going to request their favorite songs and radio stations want to know which songs are their favorites. RequesTrak greatly simplifies this process, while providing engaging web content. RequesTrak is a must have for stations that do "top request" countdowns." RequesTrak "works with all major music scheduling software and is mobile ready, so listeners can let a station know what they want to hear even while on the go." The Missing Link One of the more interesting threads (to us, at least) of recent days at RadioDiscussions.com started with a "missing link" to that popular national radio/TV/media boards website. We knew immediately what had happened -- and had already suspected that it would happen which led us to check and find that it had indeed happened (before we saw the question posted in the popular board site's "Ask RadioDiscussions" section). Member "Mastaclocksetta" posted: "What happened to the 'discussion boards' link on the Radio-Info.com homepage? It used to be among the links in light gray letters against a black background near the top of the page." After some amount of member debate of the question itself, "RadioPro65" (who in a PM denies any relationship to MHBC's Mark Harris, despite lingering suspicions to the contrary) hit the nail on the head. "This answer (worded as they choose) should probably be left to a board editor/moderator, but since it seems a lot of the unpleasant discussion that ensued from an honest question should be removed by a moderator anyway, I'll answer the question until 'someone official' gets to this. The old RadioInfo was sold to Talkers publisher Michael Harrison. As a courtesy, he put a link to RadioDiscussions on his version of RadioInfo. With the announcement of the sale of RD to Streamline, which operates Radio Ink and also now owns RBR, it should have been expected that the link to RadioDiscussions would no longer appear there. Effectively, the two parts of the old Radio-Info.com are now owned by different owners, who are in the radio/media publications world, direct competitors." Harris (who officially denies any relationship to "RadioPro65" -- also despite lingering suspicions to the contrary) says -- on the record, "When the former Radio-Info was sold to Harrison, I publicly expressed concerns that it was doomed. While I respect Harrison for his Talkers.com, I have since written on the death of the former Radio-Info, now the unhyphenated RadioInfo. To the contrary, I've long had great respect for Eric Rhoads for all of his ventures, but especially Radio Ink magazine and RadioInk.com. While I expected Radio-Info to die an excruciating death, I expect RadioDiscussions.com to not only thrive, but regain its former glory when in3media owned both and grew the non-board section to a genuine new R&R -- with talented industry journalists such as Tom Taylor and Sean Ross, and many other valuable features for broadcasters." Harris (who also denies he's the "missing link" in the graphic with this report), adds: "In a related note, the morning of the day of the announcement of RadioDiscussions acquisition by Rhoads, Taylor (in his excellent new "Tom Taylor Now" newsletter) included several links for items from the board site. As suspected, the next day he ceased to even mention that site. That's just the nature of the business. As for MHBC, we will continue to recommend RadioInk, RadioDiscussions, and Taylor's newsletter, as we have done in the past. What I think is worthwhile reading is what I recommend to our growing readership." Philly WOGL-FM Personality Bob Pantano Honored by City Council CBS Radio Classic Hits WOGL-FM, Philadelphia, personality Bob Pantano will be honored by Philadelphia City Council for his organization and efforts of many charitable events throughout the years. Pantano, who has been the host of the "Saturday Night Dance Party" for over 36 years, has in the past also handled regular air shifts at the station in its earlier "Oldies 98.1" days. His philanthropic initiatives include The Hero Scholarship Fund, Saints Neumann Goretti High School's annual "Taste of South Philly" fundraiser and The Vendemmia Festival in Girard Park. Pantano has raised thousands of dollars for a countless list of charities in the Philadelphia area. Pantano will be recognized for his contributions with a Citation from Philadelphia's City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson -- Councilman for the 2nd District which covers parts of Center City and all of South Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Navy Yard and Philadelphia International Airport. The Citation is given to individuals whom City Council deems deserving of the honor based on service to the city as well as charitable contributions. Says WOGL-FM VP and General Manager Jim Loftus, "WOGL congratulates Bob Pantano for this recognition; we know Bob's great love for Philadelphia first hand. We are proud of him and honored to stand with him and the many great organizations he supports. " Pantano is credited with keeping the "Sound of Philadelphia" alive every Saturday night. "The Saturday Night Dance Party" is an award-winning Philadelphia tradition broadcast live on WOGL-FM, and simulcast on WTTH-FM, Atlantic City, at the Jersey Shore.