WOGL To Flip To Jack/While Ben Gets A Lawsuit?

[TalkerDude]

Infinity Broadcasting/Viacom may have another major flip of the unexpected coming soon. The big money is on WOGL changing from it's current Oldies format to the futures oldies format "Jack." It appears that Viacom and Paragon Research is not impressed with the version of "Jack" that John Fullam and Greater Media is airing in the market. Joel Hollander feels that "Jack" in Philadelphia could grab a huge percentage of WMGK's audience while gaining what little of the audience "Ben" contains by doing it correctly. Viacom feels that "Ben" is just Mix 95 7 with a few Classic Rock songs blended in, due to it's protection of WMGK. WOGL is making money, but so was WCBS, that format has a demographic that doesn't sell like Viacom would like.

An article released yesterday would give this rumor much more validity.

Check Out The Following!

(June 10, 2005) JACK is going to court. SparkNet Communications, which owns the exclusive rights to the trademarks JACK FM and the imaging phrase ?Playing What We Want,? has aggressively moved to stop infringement of those trademarks, according to Derek Newman, of the law firm of Newman & Newman of Seattle.
Trademarks are intellectual property and SparkNet?s whole business is geared around those trademarks. SparkNet is a consulting service. ?Companies are trying to knock off JACK, but they aren?t doing it legally and they aren?t doing it well because you don?t get the playbook and the research,? Newman (left) said by phone yesterday afternoon. ?People will think it is 1,200 random songs, but the irony is that it is very carefully done. That?s why JACK consistently beats the BOBS, FREDS and the other knock-offs.?
?If SparkNet allows other stations to use similar phrases, it causes consumer confusion. The business model depends upon the strength of the trademarks and the goodwill associated with them,? said Newman. ?As you know, there are several stations trying to knock off the format associated with JACK FM. Some stations are using trademarks confusingly similar to ?Playing What We Want.??
What is trademark infringement? Newman defines it as the presence of a likelihood of consumer confusion.
The first lawsuit initiated by Newman & Newman for the JACK owners was against Fisher Communications in Seattle. They were using ?Whatever We Want? on a station called ?Star 101.5.? Once sued, they stopped using the phrase.
One competitor, Bonneville Broadcasting is involved in trademark infringement in four markets with two confusingly similar slogans: ?Whatever We Want? and ?Whatever We Feel Like.? ??Playing What We Want? is not merely descriptive of the services, but is a protected federally registered trademark. When consumers hear ?Whatever We Want? they cannot tell the difference between that and ?Playing What We Want.? That is classic trademark infringement.?
The action against Bonneville with an exchange of motions and responses will result in a court date on June 29 in Chicago?s US District Court. ?We?re seeking immediate relief,? said Newman (right). ?SparkNet doesn?t want to wait a year and a half for the trial. We need them to stop now. The judge has to order them to stop right away.?
One of the Bonneville lawyers expressed to Newman that there is a lot of trademark infringement in the radio industry and no one seems to do anything about it. There may be a ?KISS? in one market and in another market with a different corporate owner, ?KISS? will be used. Same with ?Mix? and other slogans.
?The Bonneville lawyer seemed to be of the belief that the US trademark laws apply to all industries except for the radio industry, which is just totally arrogant and incorrect,? said Newman.


The fact is that "Ben" may need to flip back to "Mix" when this is all over and maybe Infinity is truely behind this. Could it be a Final F-You to John Fullam from Joel Hollander who kicked him out of Infinity. Whatever it is one thing is for sure, Greater Media looks like it failed again. BIG SURPRISE

 

[Slinky]

Re: Ben-FM won't be Sued

Ben uses the tagline "Playing Anything We Feel Like". It's probably different enough from "Playing What We Want" that it will keep 95.7 in the clear.

The tagline Bonneville is being sued for is "Whatever we want", which is extremely close to the trademarked "Playing What We Want" slogan. Either way the "Ben-FM" name is safe.

I wouldn't be surprised if WOGL tries Jack anyway to take on MGK and MMR. Infinity is becoming very aggressive with the format, and if it succeeds in New York, I'm sure it will be in Philly soon as well.

 

[TalkerDude]

Re: Ben-FM won't be Sued

Slinky

I agree that Ben may be in a grey zone with it's tagline, but what may be an issue is the copying of other sayings that Paragon has Trademarked. Infact if you listen to the "Jack's" in other markets online, and then listen to "Ben" and "Max" you will see that they copied some things word for word. Legally that may mean intent to de-fraud "Jack's" intellectual property. I know every station does it, but could this mean new Legal protection for radio is about to be written in the form of a judgement against the time honored tradition of borrowing. Honestly, what kind of industry are we in where we need to copy from each other. Maybe, radio can protect itself from being hurt by IPods and Satellite if we just start to be original for our markets.

I guess time will tell!

Takerdude

 

[pab]

Re: Ben-FM won't be Sued

> I wouldn't be surprised if WOGL tries Jack anyway to take on
> MGK and MMR. Infinity is becoming very aggressive with the
> format, and if it succeeds in New York, I'm sure it will be
> in Philly soon as well.

Flipping WOGL to Jack is going to kill both "Jack" and BEN. This kind of format only works when it's the alternative to everything else in the market: the oasis in the desert of 300-song-library stations. When you've got two stations playing the same thing, they cease to be alternatives to everything else, which is what attracts people to this format.

I don't think Infinity has a case here. You can only service mark so much; eventually things get too generic to be successfully defended as trademarks. "Whatever we feel like" is different enough from "What we want" as to be distinctive. And the concept of using masculine first names as a logo goes way back in broadcasting, so the mere idea of giving a station a name like "Jack" or "Ben" (or "Alice" or "Bob" or so on) is not litigible. You can't trademark a concept.

Hell, under Infinity's logic (if they sue Greater Media) Bill Gravino and I would have grounds to sue Infinity, since "Jack" is 99.9% identical to the "Fred" format we developed for WVLT back in 1999. Heck, it's the same format that Frank Turk, Joe Russo, and I did at WSBU in 1990, so Frank and Joe could sue us. Which isn't all that far from the format that WMMR was fiddling around with in 1983-84, so maybe Fox (who picked clean the carcass of Metromedia) should sue Frank and Joe. But then, since free-form radio (which grew into AOR, then the variety formats mentioned above) was the granddaddy of them all, Jim Ladd should sue Fox. But that format was one of the first to successfully use FM, so the Armstrong estate should sue Jim....

Ridiculous.
<P ID="signature">______________
The Pab Sungenis Project - http://www.lowbudgetradio.com</P>

 

[eGillCVI]

Re: Ben-FM won't be Sued

I find the whole idea of trademarking a name or tagline to be ridiculous. It's one thing to sue a station in your market when they copy you...but to say "You can't call your station Kiss 100 in Philadelphia because we own a Kiss 92.5 in Tampa" (or wherever) is insane. Same goes with the "Whatever we want" positioner. If someone beats you to it in some other market, well balls to you. You should've gotten there first.

This is the same idea as Radio One suing to keep P&S off of WMMR. If you have nothing in the market to protect, then your C&D's and lawsuits are a waste of time and money.

Eventually, there will be no names left for radio stations and everyone will be going by ridiculously-worded taglines for fear of being sued.

Terrestrial radio is so desperately trying anything to keep itself alive, it doesn't realize these silly moves are just assisting in its eventual self-destruction.

> Slinky
>
> I agree that Ben may be in a grey zone with it's tagline,
> but what may be an issue is the copying of other sayings
> that Paragon has Trademarked. Infact if you listen to the
> "Jack's" in other markets online, and then listen to "Ben"
> and "Max" you will see that they copied some things word for
> word. Legally that may mean intent to de-fraud "Jack's"
> intellectual property. I know every station does it, but
> could this mean new Legal protection for radio is about to
> be written in the form of a judgement against the time
> honored tradition of borrowing. Honestly, what kind of
> industry are we in where we need to copy from each other.
> Maybe, radio can protect itself from being hurt by IPods and
> Satellite if we just start to be original for our markets.
>
>
> I guess time will tell!
>
> Takerdude
>

 

[TalkerDude]

Ben PD Mike Sommers Out????

One of the other radio message boards is claiming that BEN PD Mike Sommers is out. The announcement will be made on wednesday.

Could this mean then end of the Ben format?

 

[TalkerDude]

Re: Ben-FM won't be Sued

While I understand some of your point I disagree with your theory that it's killing Terrestrial Radio. I believe that it's the years of idiotic copying of eachothers names and formats that has made this industry so vulnerable to attack. Take this "Jack" format it's not even made a consisitent mark yet in the ratings war's and the whole nation is jumping on it. I believe "Jack" will be off in every market as well as the clones in 2 years. In Philadelphia consistency wins and with Greater Media in charge consistency will never be in place. It seems that Greater Media only knows how to lose in this cluster.

 

[BobAltimari]

Re: Ben PD Mike Sommers Out????

> One of the other radio message boards is claiming that BEN
> PD Mike Sommers is out. The announcement will be made on
> wednesday.
>
> Could this mean then end of the Ben format?
>

And, if so, does OGL pull the plug right away?

Altho, I would be willing to bet that it's a change in programmers rather than a format change. I mean, Christ, they just launched BEN...they will give it the requisite 1 1/2 to 2 years then yankify for the next format du jour. <P ID="signature">______________
FOX News Alert: YOU SUCK!!! Ya like apples?</P>

 

[Slinky]

Re: Ben PD Mike Sommers Out????

> One of the other radio message boards is claiming that BEN
> PD Mike Sommers is out. The announcement will be made on
> wednesday.
>
> Could this mean then end of the Ben format?

Sommers was originally brought in for his Hot AC/Adult CHR expertise to program Mix. It's likely that GM wants to bring in some new blood to program Ben or assign the task to another PD in the cluster. It's way too early for another format flip.

 

[eGillCVI]

Re: Ben-FM won't be Sued

It's contributing to the slow (but accelerating) death of terrestrial radio. It's not doing it single-handedly! What I'm saying is this: With everything working against the industry right now, is this really the kind of petty chickenshit on which management should be spending time and money? There are much bigger fish to fry than worrying about a station that uses the same name or tag in a market 2000 miles away.

I agree that most Jack-type formats will be gone in two-to-three years (it will be known as "The Big Jack-off") and I agree 9339571029950% about GM falling all over themselves in Philly. They need to sell one of their FM's and focus on what they're left with. This way, they won't have to worry about competing with themselves, nor will they face the embarrassment of flipping 95.7 each and every time a format du jour comes down the highway.

> While I understand some of your point I disagree with your
> theory that it's killing Terrestrial Radio. I believe that
> it's the years of idiotic copying of eachothers names and
> formats that has made this industry so vulnerable to attack.
> Take this "Jack" format it's not even made a consisitent
> mark yet in the ratings war's and the whole nation is
> jumping on it. I believe "Jack" will be off in every market
> as well as the clones in 2 years. In Philadelphia
> consistency wins and with Greater Media in charge
> consistency will never be in place. It seems that Greater
> Media only knows how to lose in this cluster.
>

 

[TalkerDude]

Re: Ben PD Mike Sommers Out????

Do you think Mike Sommers could go to B 101 or do you think his stock isn't big enough to take on the B.

 

[TalkerDude]

John Fullam??? Why The Fuss!

Just Curious as to why people think John Fullam is a genius. He was not responsible for WKTU's success only at the station when Steve Rivers and company made it a hit. Then he was asked to leave Infinity for failing and now after playing at that level he is running not Greater Media, but Greater Media's Philly Cluster... and yes he seems to be screwing that up as well. WPEN's Flip his decision... WBEN was his decision... and Dee Snider was his decision along with Bill Weston and Jaxson... I guess in his defense WPEN may not be a failure if you look at this way... If a radio station sucks and nobody hears it does it suck at all...

 

[eGillCVI]

Re: Ben PD Mike Sommers Out????

Isn't Chris Conley comfortably entrenched as the B PD? (I would so have that printed on my business cards. "E. Gill CVI, B PD." Or "E. Gill CVI, PD of the B.")

> Do you think Mike Sommers could go to B 101 or do you think
> his stock isn't big enough to take on the B.
>

 

[eGillCVI]

Re: John Fullam??? Why The Fuss!//I didn't make one.

I don't remember mentioning John Fullam. In fact, I'm sure I didn't. I've never heard of him before today.

> Just Curious as to why people think John Fullam is a genius.
> He was not responsible for WKTU's success only at the
> station when Steve Rivers and company made it a hit. Then
> he was asked to leave Infinity for failing and now after
> playing at that level he is running not Greater Media, but
> Greater Media's Philly Cluster... and yes he seems to be
> screwing that up as well. WPEN's Flip his decision... WBEN
> was his decision... and Dee Snider was his decision along
> with Bill Weston and Jaxson... I guess in his defense WPEN
> may not be a failure if you look at this way... If a radio
> station sucks and nobody hears it does it suck at all...
>

 

[TalkerDude]

Re: John Fullam??? Why The Fuss!//I didn't make one.

Sorry i didnt mean to reply to your post like that I just was wondering in this thread why the GM of GM gets so many compliments in the industry.