John McNary said:
No, it is not that simple, and only a corporate radio exec would minimize it as such.
Most of my career, spanning 49 years this year, has been with either stations I owned or smaller groups including family owned operations for many of those years. My perspective has always been to serve the greatest audience possible and if you do you will be rewarded.
Of course you would think that, David, you are a part of the problem. Corporate radio has made you very rich, and you have long ago lost the perspective of a radio user. You are paid to get away with as much as the market and sleepy regulators will let you.
I speak with thousands of radio listeners a year in person in each market I work with. My group speaks with hundreds of thousands a year, directly, in person or in calls we originate. Our intent is to learn what listeners want, and deliver to them those things they like or want.
"What is "corporate radio?" I checked my station database, and 99% of stations are owned by corporations. How many stations have to be owned by one company to consider the company "corporate?" In my exeriences, the cuttung of corners, the poor internal controls, etc., come more often from small owners in trouble or where the owner is not knowledgable or not a good broadcaster.
As to being "very rich" please tell me how you calculated that? You are throwing lies against the wall to see if they stick here... sort of like the last minute mud slinging in the political arena for the last few days ahead of Super Tuesday. We are NOT at any larger broadcast company paid to protect our licences by operating within the letter and spirit of all laws and to provide service to our listeners. In fact, larger companies have staffers that help guarantee compliance with all regulation and responsibilities as broadcasters.
I am amazed, however, that any corporate radio mouth would defend paid programming masquerading, unannounced, as news programming. Clearly, the FCC has warned broadcasters that such deception is illegal in terms of VNRs.
A video news release is very different. The FCC questions these, as they should, because they may not be news per se and thus constiture a free commercial without the required sponsor ID. VNRs don't play musch of a part in radio (ANR for audio news release?) and this is a new issue that involves non-paid on air exposure. That is very different from a long spot run in regular programming
I have not heard the KFWB segments, but by your admission, each one has the name of the sponsor within it. If they are typical of mortgage advertising, they say the name often, in fact. Sponsorship identification is complied with, no matter where the name is placed in each mini-segment.
The only real difference from a 60 second spot for the same client and the 8 minute one is length. Were a 60 with the same content to have been the first spot in a stopset, I doubt you would object. You dislike the introduction of 8 minute spots into the regular format, and are, as in the Cinderella story, trying to find a legal foot that fits your discontent. You can not pin it on sponsor ID rules, so you want to blame something... thus your failure to do what Mr. Moore wisely suggests: write the station and tell them that you find what they are doing improper and poorly executed. You might suggest that, if your description is accurate, the way they drop the commercials into the programming makes the infomercials seem to be part of the programming
I just love the argument that times are tough, interest rates are high, and the station has to generate enough cash to cover its huge interest bills. If Infinity paid too much for the CBS properties, tough cheese. That does not mean they get to violate the FCC regulations, the clear rules that state program-length material be identified as such. No one forced those speculators to borrow heavily and pay billions in a speculative frenzy.
CBS bought infinity in June of 1966 for $3,9 billion plus assumption of debt, and they renamed the whole division Infinity. This was in the middle of the long winding Westinghouse deal with CBS, starting with the TV affiliations of the Group W stations and ending with Westinghouse buying CBS and the radio division becoming Infinity, and then merging with Viacom in an all stock deal. "All stock" means no debt... the deal was done by merging and swapping infinity shares for Viacom shares.
So don't blame debt. Most of consolidation was done with equity financing (new shares) and not cash. Even biggies like Clear Channel have a reasonable debt to equity ratio, so this is a non-issue in this particular case.
By the way, interest rates are LOW. Haven't you noticed what the Fed has done in the last 90 days? Or that home mortgages are available for well under 6% today? Yet you say, and infer that I mentioned, that "interest rates are high." They aren't... and this is another example of your creating straw men and straw facts to justify your positions. Your facts are wrong here.
The real fact is that all news is the world's most expensive format, and this explains whey there are nearly none outside the top 10 markets. With radio revenue flat or downtrending in most sectors (essentially, all except ethnic radio) and the economy in a near recession, stations with high expenses are vulnerabel.
If you understand that, you can see that you should make your case with the station in the hopes they would improve the presentation of the paid long commercials. If you value the all news service, help the station to understand what the listeners feel... without going balistic. They may think the presentation is proper, and would like to know if the perception of an interested, loyal listener is different.
David, the FCC rules do not specificially mention video news releases either, yet the FCC has strongly warned and indeed fined broadcast and cable stations for airing handout material that they were not even paid for.
Apples and oranges. We are talking about 8 minute commercials with proper sponsor ID. KFWB is apparently complying with every rule in this case. We are NOT talking about program length commercials, as 8 minutes is well within the length of stopsets in commercial radio... heck, Howard Stern's sets sometimes went over 10 minutes!
The companies I have worked for over decades, including CBS, at one time had standards and practices that clearly delineated the illegaility of what happened Sunday.
Like the NAB Code, standards and practices are not the law, they are a set of guidelines that goes beyond the law. KFWB, by complying with the rule on sponsor ID in each long commercial, met the requirements of the FCC rules. You think they should go beyond the rules and ad a tag at the open and maybe the close... that would be voluntary and not compulsary. The only way KFWB is going to consider this is if people like yourself point out the situation reasonably, without calling everyone names.
Those have fallen by the wayside as corporate raider after corporate raider came in and paid too much for the licenses, causing the financial woes that have caused KFWB and other to prostitute themselves.
Again, debt that does not exist is not the reason. It's a lot simpler... the folks in production, seeing the mortgage segments as long spots in between news and traffic, felt the sponsor ID requirement was met. You feel that it is appropriat to have an opening tag or somthing of the sort. Suggest it to them in writing... something you apparently have not done.
I think an FCC complaint is exactly the proper cause of action. And you know what? When I talk to KFWB I'll be sure to tell them you sent me.
Why would an FCC complaint prosper? They have broken no rule. All you will do is make it even more expensive to run the station than it already is. Why not simply write them a suggestion, not a threat, of how they can do this kind of long commercial better? This is not something you do on the phone. And by sending a letter, you receive the gratification that it goes into the Public Inspection File, meaning they notice it.
