• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

CBS Kindly asks 101.9 to do away with copy-cat ads.

W

wpb1999

This from the Daily News and David Hinkley:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...emp-brews-22-minutes-promos-article-1.1008815
URL added as a courtesy by Radio-Info.com

CBS Radio is threatening legal action if all-news entrant WEMP (FM News 101.9) doesn’t stop hitching itself to the “Give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world” slogan, which has long defined CBS’ WINS (1010 AM).

CBS lawyers sent a two-page letter Tuesday to Merlin Media, owner of WEMP, demanding that 101.9 “cease and desist from use of any CBS trademarks,” which also includes “Traffic and weather together.”

WEMP for several weeks has run promotions in which a voice says it doesn’t have 22 minutes. So then WEMP promises, “Give us 10 minutes, we’ll give you the world.”

“These slogans intentionally are confusingly similar” to the WINS slogan, CBS attorney Robert Penchina wrote to Merlin. “Such uses are unlawful and constitute trademark infringement.”

Merlin had been given a Thursday deadline. At midday Thursday, WEMP vice president of programming Liz Aiello said Merlin was discussing its response.

On-air, 101.9 appeared to have stopped using the WINS-like line, instead promoting “10 minutes of nonstop news.”

Whether 101.9 stops the promos or not, editor Tom Taylor of trade publication Radio-Info.com said, it’s not a loss for Merlin.

“They’re an underdog coming after a well-established news operation,” he says. “It’s a win for them if they can just say, ‘Ha-ha, gotcha to look!’ ”

CBS had no comment beyond the letter, but there was a sense of mild exasperation.

Merlin’s reference to the WINS slogan “has no discernible purpose other than to garner free publicity from the trade press,”
Penchina wrote.

Taylor agrees.

“It’s a classic radio game,” he said. “Top-40 stations did this 50 years ago.”

But he also suggested any payoff is long-term, “because building an all-news station is a marathon, not a sprint. You don’t change listener habits overnight.”

When WEMP signed on last summer, it had a lifestyle focus aimed at women. It had no sports. With original programmer Walter Sabo now gone, it already has a tighter presentation, and the New York Giants are prominent.

In the December Arbitron ratings, 101.9 averaged 0.6% of the city radio audience, putting it well below other major stations. At some point during the average week, 621,000 people tuned in.

WINS averaged 3.4% of the audience, with 2,318,000 people tuning in at some point in the average week.
Click to expand...

Also, their ten minute newscast begin at :00, :20, and :40. You know, you would think that if you acted like 1010 WINS you would do well, but they still stink!

Bill Bradley
[email protected]
 
When does the "Merlin Mascot" send back a response?
 
I can't wait to see what the Merlin Marlin has to say. They must be thanking CBS for the free publicity. Z100 didn't even acknowledge on the air that 92.3 Now existed.

I noticed FM News 101.1 in Chicago also had the same promos. I'd assume FM News 106.9 will do the same when it launches.
 
I never knew CBS also owned the trademark to "traffic and weather together," after hearing the phrase on so many radio and even television stations outside of New York.
 
So have they ceased and desisted yet? It's Friday morning now.

And does CBS, or WINS, or Westinghouse own the rights to a teletype effect over the air? That procedure might be next.

All things said : WEMP, which started broadcasting during the dog days weatherwise, cannot have a better opportunity or time to wemphasize their lone high card -- traffic -- than the three-dog nights and days of winter travel. Time for them to get moving. As it were. Trying actual content instead of these silly perimeter-procedure games should be the new priority.
 
Seems to be something that has been happening in a small market too, especially when a radio station is increasingly strapped for cash and being bled dry by deadwood. Not only are there copycat ads, but even the playlists are literally taken from successful places and put right out over the air - as they were aired by the successful ones.

Original advertising made in a studio in a different state suddenly shows up on a deadwood station overdubbed with the name of the local business - and then it suddenly stops, only to be remade. Businesses outside of the range, that cannot even hear the station are having ads run because someone has an agenda other than professional radio.

CBS has been flea bitten by more than 101.9 in New York. There are jocks playing in exact order their playlist in small markets a few hundred miles away. Other stations and networks in other states have been hit too, and have had to deal with it. Imagine all of that going on middays in a cornfield.
 
CBS was insane to take the bait on this. Not only can they not play chess, they can't even play checkers. It will be interesting to see how a company with such limited strategic thinking does against WTOP in Washington.
 
spm1036 said:
CBS was insane to take the bait on this. Not only can they not play chess, they can't even play checkers. It will be interesting to see how a company with such limited strategic thinking does against WTOP in Washington.
Click to expand...

What do they care? This gets some trade paper coverage and one article in the New York Daily News... do you really think anybody's going to switch to WEMP because of this? As far as listenership, it's a non-issue. Protect the brand, send a letter, end of story.
 
Intellectual property theft is a big deal. At least CBS handled it well, and go figure there are laws in place already that were readily available to deal with it.

Less significant stations/companies would be sure to let everyone know that they are all sister stations, and they can do what they want, even though it isn't so. If it were so, what a shame to have to be propped up by the stations that are making money.
 
spm1036 said:
Merlin's new slogan should be "Give us 23 minutes and we'll give you the universe!" You are welcome. No charge.
Click to expand...

Better, "Give us 10-minutes, we'll give you a lobotomy."
 
Heck, just about everybody goes to the Caribbean. It seems to be the place of choice for many hubbies and wives to renew commitments to one another and become close again. I never quite understood it (the necessity for the Caribbean, that is), having spent a good deal of my childhood relatively closeby, but hey...different strokes for different folks.
 
Just before I went to bed last night I checked the Internet and spotted the following headline at MarketWatch.com:

"Legendary college football coach Joe Paterno dead at 85." OK, I thought.

A little while later, around midnight, I was flipping through my radio presets and landed on 101.9 to hear that Joe Paterno had been removed from life support but was still alive. "Ha!" I said to myself, "WEMP is behind the curve." Well, of course, it turned out that CBS got it wrong:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/le...erno-dead-at-85-cbs-sports-2012-01-21?siteid=

The WEMP reporterette continued -- with great glee and the requisite wempy giggle in her voice -- to bash CBS for inaccurate reporting. She was right, of course (score one for Merlin) but I changed the station anyway. I can't stand WEMP! It's a presentation issue, not a news issue, IMO.
 
Re: CBS intial false reporting of Joe Paterno's passing

wadio said:
Just before I went to bed last night I checked the Internet and spotted the following headline at MarketWatch.com:

"Legendary college football coach Joe Paterno dead at 85." OK, I thought.

A little while later, around midnight, I was flipping through my radio presets and landed on 101.9 to hear that Joe Paterno had been removed from life support but was still alive. "Ha!" I said to myself, "WEMP is behind the curve." Well, of course, it turned out that CBS got it wrong:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/le...erno-dead-at-85-cbs-sports-2012-01-21?siteid=

The WEMP reporterette continued -- with great glee and the requisite wempy giggle in her voice -- to bash CBS for inaccurate reporting. She was right, of course (score one for Merlin) but I changed the station anyway. I can't stand WEMP! It's a presentation issue, not a news issue, IMO.
Click to expand...

Someone at work reported the same thing to me last night, what they had heard on TV, the initial report of Joe's passing.

I checked the report with my cell phone, and the web story told of how the CBS report was based on an (inaccurate) Penn State blog posting. The editor of the blog has now resigned.

What I wanted to see, was how our local CBS affiliate would handle their Sports News that evening. They did announce that Joe Paterno was in serious condition. But, NO mention was made of their parent companies flub earlier that evening.......

-----------------------------------------

RIP Joe Paterno --- He and his widow Susan would have celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary in 2012.
 
wadio said:
The WEMP reporterette continued -- with great glee and the requisite wempy giggle in her voice -- to bash CBS for inaccurate reporting. She was right, of course (score one for Merlin) but I changed the station anyway. I can't stand WEMP! It's a presentation issue, not a news issue, IMO.
Click to expand...

That is the essence of WEMP's major problem. Presentation on the radio can make or break you like none other, and frankly, WEMP really sucks in presentation.

You'd think that a so-called "radio god" like Randy Michaels would preach that point.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom