By Steve Passwaiter and Rick Ducey
For broadcasters, it is an article of faith that “localism” is a point of differentiation that adds value to their operations. Localism tends to mean local news, sports, weather, traffic, local events, coverage of local government and other promotional and volunteer involvement in the community. There’s a lot of chatter about what it takes to succeed with true “localism.” This past year has seen some notable localism failures. Other efforts are in a nascent stage
One case in point is Allbritton Communications, based in the Washington DC-area. Its television stations are affiliated with ABC, with the largest property being WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in the Washington, DC market.
Our primary interest was the …

New Year’s Greetings from BIA/Kelsey
So, the good news.
2009 is over. Thank God.
We head into the New Year severely chastened by the historic revenue declines of the current one. The numbers for 2009 don’t bear repeating. They were several shades of awful.
There are signs of a modest ad economy recovery as we enter January 2010. The broadcast networks are reporting an active scatter market. This makes the network execs that decided to hold back inventory at the upfront look like good market callers. Some of the larger radio groups are reporting a decent December assuming that flat is the new up! Online ad activity is regaining …

The announcement that Oprah will end her broadcast television show upon its 25th anniversary in 2011 has created quite a stir. Her category leading position for the past 20+ years has led to her show being a “must buy” for many advertisers trying to reach certain demographic groups. Consequently, local television stations have spent considerable sums to buy the local rights for this show and the cost of this licensing fee has placed Oprah on America’s top television stations.
Now that the show will no longer be available, how will these stations fare? First, the show will continue into 2011. Syndicators and local stations will have a substantial amount of time to plan and test alternatives. It may be one …

By Steve Passwaiter and Rick Ducey
WZMY-TV or “MyTV New England,” is a local broadcast television station that covers the Boston, MA marketplace from its perch in Derry, NH. It has been evolving its own hyper local format since ShootingStar Broadcasting bought it in 2004. CEO/President Diane Sutter says the goal has been, “to combine the reach of TV with the personalization of radio and the interactivity of the Internet.” WZMY provides a mix of syndicated, My Network TV and station produced programs typically featuring vignettes sponsored by local merchants. In short, she refers to this strategy as “radio with pictures.”
We spoke with Diane Sutter last week to learn about her accomplishments with MyTV New England over the past …

By Rick Ducey and Steve Passwaiter
LIN TV Corporation (TVL/NYSE) is a public company with 27 television stations in 17 markets, reaching about 11.5 million households each week. This makes LIN one of the largest television group owners in the country. LIN’s stations typically rank first or second in the Nielsen ratings, both overall and in their news time slots. In addition to its owned and operated television properties, LIN has a growing digital business, more than 50 television station and niche web sites, as well as mobile offerings, including two very popular iPhone and BlackBerry applications recently released. We spoke with LIN’s President/CEO Vince Sadusky to get his thoughts about the firm’s adaptive digital strategy and what he believes are …

At the recently concluded NAB Radio Show in Philadelphia, BIA/Kelsey offered a session on the future opportunities in local radio. As we understand that not everyone had the chance to attend the recent gathering, all of us at BIA/Kelsey wanted to share the contents of our presentation.
There are some trends and research data here that should provide perspective to anyone with a interest in the health and vitality of our industry. BIA/Kelsey very much believes that radio will continue to play a critical role moving merchandise and services in local markets in the future from a new digitally enhanced perch. We also think that there are unparalleled opportunities to gain market share in the next …

In the past few days, two large media companies – Time Warner and Newsday (Cablevision) – have announced that they are either moving towards or are seriously considering restricting access to their content on the Internet. In the case of Time Warner, CEO Jeff Bewkes suggested that only existing subscribers (through cable, telco or DBS delivery) would be allowed to view cable network programming (including TW’s own networks) via broadband. Similarly, Newsday announced that only subscribers to their printed edition would be allowed to view their content online, all others will likely be charged.
These two announcements coming around the same time provide a striking contrast on the likely success of these new strategies. On the one hand, Time Warner’s cable …

Posted by: Steve Passwaiter
Vice President, Business Development
If there was ever an industry that could use an army of missionaries, it’s commercial radio. According to news reports this past week, a new group of PR and communications professionals have formed the Radio Communicators Group. This new group has two goals: 1) to effectively communicate radio initiatives to the industry, trade groups and media, and 2) to reach out to the advertising marketplace to promote the usage of the medium. This group effort is the idea of two innovative women: Beasley’s Denyse Mednik and Greater Media’s Heidi Raphael. I just pray (going on the missionary theme here) that they don’t prove to be gluttons for punishment. …