NJBA Weekly Newsletter for Friday, June 4, 2010

       One to Everyone!

Celebrating the important and unique role Broadcasters powerfully play in all of our daily lives.

 Trump Plaza

Atlantic City, NJ

June 8^th and 9^th, 2010          

2010 Mid Atlantic Broadcasters Conference Begins Tuesday

Greetings NJ, MD, DC &DE Broadcasters!  It’s finally here! Next week our 2010 Mid- Atlantic Broadcasters Conference begins on Tuesday night with our Opening Reception at the Beach Bar in fount of Trump Plaza! Entertainment will be provided by the New Jersey National Guard Quartet.

This year, your Broadcasters Associations are proud to offer you an exclusive opportunity to choose from a host of extraordinary educational experiences.  Please explore the many new developments in Broadcaster Sales, Programming and the Important Industry Topics that will enhance your professional development and growth in our business of broadcast. Discover, network, have fun, and enjoy your Broadcaster Conference!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010: 

 2:30-3:30       NJBA Annual Membership Meeting

 5:30-8:00       Opening Reception

Wednesday, June 9, 2010:

 8:15-9:15      Opening General Session

 9:30-12:15    Morning Educational Sessions

12:15-2:15     Awards Luncheon

 2:30-5:00      Afternoon Educational Sessions

All Day Coffee/Beverage Service and Refreshment Breaks are available throughout the Conference beginning at 9:15 through 5:30. Travel Safe, and we’ll see you at the shore!

Arbitron Increases Service to Monmouth/Ocean Markets

After long and thoughtful negotiations with New Jersey Broadcasters, Arbitron has agreed to increase coverage, sample size, and reporting frequency in New Jersey’s Monmouth/Ocean markets. This important Garden State market is finally going to have audience measurements more than twice per year. Broadcasters were happy to see Arbitron agree to upgrade its diary-measured frequency from two books a year (Spring/Fall) to continuous measurement. More importantly, the ratings service also agreed to enlarge the number of diaries by about 730, to 2,200. The market will see its first-ever Winter book in 2011, ending an anomalous situation that had it as a large market that wasn’t "continuous measurement" in the diary world. Arbitron announced that it is moving to continuous measurement beginning this Fall, with a higher sample size of 2,200 up from approx 1,400 per survey previously. This move to 4 books is a major upgrade (some would say "finally") for market 51.

NJBA Opposes Changes in Retransmission Consent

Your Association joined with many other State Broadcasters Associations in vigorously opposing the rulemaking effort by a number of cable and satellite television operators and others to persuade the FCC to radically change, through governmental fiat, the negotiating dynamics of the Congressionally-mandated, market-driven negotiating process by which television stations exercise their must carry/retransmission consent rights.  We pointed out that, not surprisingly, the MVPDs want the FCC to change those dynamics in ways that will benefit them, and severely prejudice the television broadcast industry, in all future retransmission consent (“RTC”) negotiations. The Associations demonstrated that neither the Communications Act nor the Copyright Act grants the FCC the statutory authority to impose either mandatory interim signal carriage or arbitration in connection with must carry or retransmission consent negotiations.  The Commission has repeatedly acknowledged that fact.  For good reason, a change in the law is not warranted.  As such, the Petition should be denied.

Bill Would Change Spectrum for Public Use

House Homeland Security ranking member Peter King introduced legislation that would require that a controversial chunk of spectrum to be reallocated for use by public safety officials instead of being auctioned to commercial bidders, as the FCC has proposed in its national broadband plan. The legislation, co-sponsored by Homeland Security Emerging Threats Subcommittee Chairwoman Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., would allocate the D-block of spectrum in the 700 megahertz band for public safety use and would reserve an additional 10 megahertz of spectrum for use by public safety officials. In a statement, King said the proposal would double the amount of broadband spectrum that is allocated for public safety use.

NJBA’s Dick Taylor Now Professor Taylor

New Jersey Broadcaster Association First Vice Chairman Dick Taylor has been offered and has accepted the position of Assistant Professor at the School of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Taylor was selected after a two-year nationwide search to fill the position of retiring Professor Barton C. White; who’s been with the school for the past 30 years. Most recently, Taylor has been Market Manager for Clear Channel Tri-State in Sussex County, New Jersey.  Taylor has been a senior manager with Clear Channel for the past five years and a member of the board of directors of the New Jersey Broadcasters Association for over 15 years.  Taylor started in radio at the age of 15 while still in high school back in his hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.  He obtained his FCC license in 1968. Taylor has been a General Manager/Market Manager for the past 27-years.  Taylor celebrated his 40th anniversary in radio in October of 2007.  In 2009 Radio Ink named Taylor one of the forty-one Best General Managers in Radio. 

Half of Taylor’s career in radio has been spent in New Jersey managing 12 different radio stations in the state, most of those in the Atlantic City metro in South Jersey. Taylor has also managed stations in Ocean City-Salisbury, Maryland, Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Iowa, Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Dick says he’s seen the business go from records, transcription disks and reel-to-reel machines to CD’s & carts to full computerization.  And he’s even more excited about radio’s future as we head to the 100th Anniversary of Radio in 2020. Taylor will be moving to Bowling Green, Kentucky in early July and begins his new career at WKU in August. He is the father of two sons who both live in New Jersey.

FCC to NJ Engineer Arsenault: I Said No and I mean it

New Jersey-based consulting engineer Richard Arsenault recently filed a petition for rulemaking on the grounds that “AM radio service will further decline, without serious intervention” by the FCC. This was a request to increase AM power to help out the AM band. Tom Taylor reported that the FCC, in a curt one page denial said this:”He won’t get it.” The FCC replies to his April 13 petition in what for it is practically overnight fashion with a denial that says “no” and “we already did that.” The agency says that “in MM Docket No. 87-267 [started in 1987], the Commission took many actions, both major and minor, to transform and revitalize the AM band.” It says Arsenault’s proposal to allow power increases of four times to ten times current levels is “not in the public interest”, because it would increase interference between AM stations and “undermine the Commission’s efforts to improve the AM service.” Too bad the FCC isn’t this quick in granting Petitions.

Choose New Jersey

Governor Christie and Lt. Governor Guadagno announced the launch of Choose New Jersey yesterday, a new nonprofit corporation that will promote New Jersey and facilitate business attraction, retention and expansion. Choose New Jersey is a public private partnership designed to proactively market New Jersey’s strengths.  Choose New Jersey is a key component of the Administration’s economic development strategy, the New Jersey Partnership for Action. Under this Partnership, Choose New Jersey will work in coordination with the state Economic Development Authority (EDA) and newly created Government Process Solutions. EDA provides financing and incentive programs to the business community. Government Process Solutions will assist businesses in navigating state government and programs. Choose New Jersey is chaired by Dennis Bone, President of Verizon New Jersey and Chairman of the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. Choose New Jersey’s Board of Directors is comprised of New Jersey’s top business executives as well as civic and labor leaders, who will aggressively promote New Jersey to current and prospective businesses. Choose New Jersey Board members Robert H. Doherty, State President of Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Ralph Izzo, Chairman and CEO of Public Service Electric and Gas; Vincent Maione, President of Atlantic City Electric; and William J. Marino, Chairman and CEO of Horizon Blue Cross / Blue Shield of New Jersey, also serve on the Chamber Board of Directors.  Additional Chamber member companies who serve on the Choose New Jersey Board include American Water, Prudential, New Jersey Resources, South Jersey Industries, United Water and Novartis. The NJBA congratulates Governor Christie and thanks the members of this new venture for stepping up to the plate for New Jersey!

FCC to Police Speech on Talk Radio?

The FCC is being urged to monitor "hate speech" on talk radio and cable broadcast networks.  A coalition of more than 30 organizations argues in a letter to the FCC that the Internet has made it harder for the public to separate the facts from bigotry masquerading as news. The groups also charge that syndicated radio and cable television programs "masquerading as news" use hate as a profit model. "As traditional media have become less diverse and less competitive, they have also grown less responsible and less responsive to the communities that they are supposed to serve," the organizations wrote to the FCC. "In this same atmosphere hate speech thrives, as hate has developed as a profit-model for syndicated radio and cable television program masquerading as 'news.'"The organizations, which include Free Press, the Center for Media Justice, the Benton Foundation and Media Alliance, also argue that the anonymity of the Web gives ammunition to those that would spread hate. (Gautham Nagesh) 

Quick News will be on the road next week but will return on June 18^th!  Have a great Mid-Atlantic Broadcasters Conference New Jersey!

QuickNews is provided for general information purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal or tax advice pertaining to any specific factual situation. Legal and tax related decisions should be made only after proper consultation with a legal professional of your choosing.

Broadcast House, 348 Applegarth Road, Monroe Twp., NJ  08831 (888) 657-2346 FAX: (888) 652-2329, njba@njba.com