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Cumulus Sues Nielsen over Ratings Monopoly

We'd all like every stopset to be filled with jingle type ads written by Steve Karmen.


There are annoying national ads, and similarly annoying local ones. And the reverse, too.

But I'd rather hear...


See? It is about the creative, not the medium.

Here is an interview with Steve... showing how a good ad can be as entertaining as the entertainment content.

Barry Mannilow's career started writing jingles. Yes there are some great ads still, the problem is a lot of them get overplayed and then they become annoying.
 
A number of years ago a friend, no longer among the living, wrote quit a number of jingles that were played on the radio and TV. I knew he had written a few but I was surprised with how many he had actual written once I had gone to his calling hours and saw everything listed. Sadly, don't think he was making a lot of money off them because when I met him he was working for Warner Cable [Now Rectum cable....I think] for their local access channels and doing the jingles on the side. Pretty sure if he had his druthers he'd just be writing jingles if he could have made decent cash for it.......well, maybe he was making a decent amount but not enough to live off of. He never really talked about it that much. Were some of them annoying? Yep, but catchy as hell also. Even today, I could be whistling or singing a jingle of his from 40+ years ago and someone will pop off with "Hey! I know that tune! It's from a department store commercial years ago!" [And that department store, like the jingle writer, is now defunct.]
 
A number of years ago a friend, no longer among the living, wrote quit a number of jingles that were played on the radio and TV. I knew he had written a few but I was surprised with how many he had actual written once I had gone to his calling hours and saw everything listed. Sadly, don't think he was making a lot of money off them because when I met him he was working for Warner Cable [Now Rectum cable....I think] for their local access channels and doing the jingles on the side. Pretty sure if he had his druthers he'd just be writing jingles if he could have made decent cash for it.......well, maybe he was making a decent amount but not enough to live off of. He never really talked about it that much. Were some of them annoying? Yep, but catchy as hell also. Even today, I could be whistling or singing a jingle of his from 40+ years ago and someone will pop off with "Hey! I know that tune! It's from a department store commercial years ago!" [And that department store, like the jingle writer, is now defunct.]
Watch the video I linked that has the Steve Karmen interview: he mentions how most jingle writers get no residuals, while the singers and musicians do. In his case, he had a "big name" after the General Tire ads and could get residuals on the jingle compositions, while most jingle creators don't.
 
Watch the video I linked that has the Steve Karmen interview: he mentions how most jingle writers get no residuals, while the singers and musicians do. In his case, he had a "big name" after the General Tire ads and could get residuals on the jingle compositions, while most jingle creators don't.

My relative wrote jingles, I don't think he ever got any residuals for them but I'll ask him.
 
My relative wrote jingles, I don't think he ever got any residuals for them but I'll ask him.
Charlie Sheen's character on Two and a Half Men wrote jingles for a living, and was always mentioning his residual checks coming in. He did own a home on the beach in Malibu...but this is a TV show, though.
 
No link because Lance hasn't reported this yet, so I can only reference one of his competitors, but apparently former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth has joined the fight with Nielsen, and is quoted as saying Nielsen’s “tying” policy coerces stations into buying unwanted products and “harms competition” across the radio industry.

And before you ask "Harold who?" ... here is his bio at the FCC website:

Wikipedia says he served until 2001 (so only one term).
 
It's actually Spectrum cable but people have been taking in in the a** [therefore, Rectum cable] from them regarding what seems like their monthly rate hikes.
Ah, I see.

I have MediaCom where I'm at. Might as well be Mediocrom. Or MediaCr*p.

My speeds are on average somewhere around 60-100 Mbps, and I feel like I'm paying for 1 Gbps (it's not cheap!!)

c
 
Spectrum is my internet service provider, but nothing more. I watch their declining number of video subscribers with great delight, since as Time Warner Cable, they were the ones I abandoned for DirecTV around 2001. (And then left for OTA television after TWC's greedy debacle around the Dodgers.)
 
Back in the late 80s, Time Warner came into a city I lived in. Installing cable lines they trashed peoples yards, left open holes, etc. Ignored customer demands to fix the issues. City threatened to sue them if they didn't fix the issues. One main line to supply the city's head end and one day a car crashed into one of the poles and took it out. They said "We'll get around to fixing it......eventually." A week later, they fixed it. DENIED customer's request for a rate reduction for not having cable for a quarter of a month. Took another lawsuit threat to get them to fold. Router problems in customers homes were commonplace and they basically said it was the homeowners fault and charged them for new ones. Continuous rate hikes after the city's franchise agreement ran out was the final straw and the city started up their own cable/internet service. The day it went live, TWC cut their prices by 2/3rds. TWC still around as Spectrum but their service has gotten even worse.
 
I just read Jerry Del Coliano's view on the Cumulus lawsuit. Of course he takes Nielsen's side in it, saying Cumulus is also a "monopoly,"

I don't think he understands what Cumulus wants. At one time, Arbitron did network ratings. They called them RADAR reports. There aren't a lot of radio networks anymore. But Cumulus owns Westwood One, and they operate networks. So they want national ratings information without having to buy books in every market. Nielsen won't do it. Cumulus can't get the information any other way. So they're claiming anti-trust. Del Coliano doesn't understand. He thinks Cumulus is just being cheap. My view is there should be a better way to get national ratings. Nielsen needs to start thinking beyond local markets, because at some point very soon, online will exceed local.
 
TWC still around as Spectrum but their service has gotten even worse.

I have to correct you on that.

Time Warner was acquired by Charter (which operates under the Spectrum name and has been a separate company since 1980) in 2016. They are not the same company as before.
 
Ah, I see.

I have MediaCom where I'm at. Might as well be Mediocrom. Or MediaCr*p.
Newspaper readers use such pejorative names, too. I remember my fellow J-school students at Syracuse referring to the Post-Standard and Herald-Journal, the local fish-wrappers (a good pejorative in its own right), as the Substandard and the Horrid Urinal.

Considering that the school of public communications we all were taking those journalism courses in was endowed by and named for S.I. Newhouse, publisher of those two papers, our low opinion of them was somewhat ironic.
 
I have to correct you on that.

Time Warner was acquired by Charter (which operates under the Spectrum name and has been a separate company since 1980) in 2016. They are not the same company as before.
Correct. I just couldn't remember all the details as if I think about TWC too much I have panic attacks and PTSD symptoms.
 


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