800.275.2840 MORE NEWS» insideradio.com THE MOST TRUSTED NEWS IN RADIO WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015 FCC dramatically scales back field office closures. The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday announced an agreement with FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to abandon FCC plans to dramatically decrease the number of field offices across the country. The settlement will keep 15 of the 24 offices open. According to a statement from the committee, the new covenant will “ensure better rapid response capabilities for the West, provide a mechanism for escalating interference complaints, improve enforcement of the FCC’s rules against pirate radio operators” and prevent the FCC from transferring field office jobs to its Washington, DC headquarters. “Communities across America will continue to be served even as the Commission becomes more efficient,” full committee chairman Fred Upton (R- MI) said. “It’s a win-win.” In a statement, the National Association of Broadcasters thanked “the many members of Congress who expressed concern over proposed cuts in FCC field offices” and applauded Wheeler for resolving the red-hot issue “in a manner that better protects against airwave interference.” The NAB also thanked Wheeler for pledging to take action to curb the proliferation of pirate radio. This might have been that rare case when local broadcasters were begging for more oversight. The FCC originally proposed keeping only eight of the 24 regional offices. Jordan Walton, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Broadcasters, said the agreement keeps two “Tiger teams,” the name for the quick response units the FCC can dispatch if there is an interference crises. “Our main concern was that we didn’t want there to be just one, so that if there was a problem in Boise, they couldn’t get to a problem in Boston,” Walton said. Wheeler calls new field office blueprint ‘the best of both worlds.’ FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s original plan would have closed two-thirds of the FCC’s field offices and left eight major market hubs around the country, along with a single rapid response team based in Maryland. In a May letter to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-WA), Wheeler said reducing the regional offices was proposed after the FCC hired consultants to assess the field offices – and found a bloated bureaucracy. Many field offices receive only one interference complaint per agent per month, Wheeler said, yet the FCC has more $100,000 mobile direction-finding (MDF) vehicles than field agents. “Our employees and stakeholders agree that radio frequency interference complaints should be the field offices’ top priority,” Wheeler said in May. “Less than half of the field offices’ total personnel time is spent on spectrum enforcement activity.” But yesterday, Wheeler sounded a more conciliatory tone. “This updated plan represents the best of both worlds: rigorous management analysis combined with extensive stakeholder and Congressional input,” he said as part of a longer statement. Lawmakers urge FCC to crack down on pirate radio. With pirate radio running rampant in radio’s largest market, 33 members of Congress from New York and New Jersey are petitioning the FCC to step up enforcement efforts. Based [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 1 NEWS insideradio.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015 on complaints filed at the FCC in January, there were 34 pirate radio stations operating in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx alone. In a letter to FCC chair Tom Wheeler, the lawmakers say the number of pirate FMs in New York City could outnumber the number of licensed operations. The problem goes beyond interfering with the ability to listen to legitimately licensed stations, the letter says. During an emergency, interference from pirate outlets could prevent millions of people from hearing Emergency Alert Systems warnings. “This problem may disrupt the entire alert system in New York City, Long Island, the Lower Hudson valley and northern New Jersey,” the lawmakers say. They also note how the illegal stations subject “some of the most vulnerable populations in New York” to broadcasts that ignore basic consumer protection laws. “Pirate radio operations are threatening public safety and negatively impacting radio listeners and legitimate radio broadcasters,” Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) said in a statement. The lawmakers want the FCC to go beyond issuing fines and begin seizing pirate operators’ transmission equipment. At a time when Wheeler wants to downsize field offices, they’re asking him to increase the number of personnel in the New York office and to work with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and local law enforcement to step up enforcement. The letter also asks Wheeler to come up with an action plan for resolving the problem. Across America, ratings homeruns for baseball. When it comes to live play-by-play moving the radio ratings needle, it’s all about football and baseball. But football is mainly a Sunday affair and doesn’t often impact total week ratings the way baseball can with 162 regular season games a year. That impact is being profoundly felt once again in May PPM results released yesterday by Nielsen. Take St. Louis, where the Cardinals have won more games than any MLB club so far this season. Their radio flagship, CBS Radio’s “News Talk 1120” KMOX, hit one out of the park in May, with a market-topping 9.2 among listeners aged 6+, up from a 6.9 in April and a 7.9 one year ago. To find a higher 6+ share for KMOX, you have to go all the way back to October and November of 2013, the year the Cardinals made it to the World Series. Baseball is putting the ratings mojo back in CBS sports sister “97.1 The Ticket” WXYT-FM, home of the Detroit Tigers. “The Ticket” ripped 6.4-8.5-8.4 in May. Despite a lackluster season, the Boston Red Sox have helped bring a ratings truce to what is arguably the most competitive sports radio market. Entercom’s WEEI-FM (93.7), the Red Sox flagship, tied CBS Radio’s “98.5 The Sports Hub” WBZ-FM, after beating it in April. The two tied for seventh with a 4.6 in May. Baseball helped make San Diego’s “The Mighty 1090” XPRS, well, mightier. It sprinted 3.8-4.2-4.6 in May, for a fifth place finish. No other AM in the market even comes close to the top 10. XPRS has more than triple the share it had three years ago. And in Seattle, the Mariners helped move Bonneville sports “710 ESPN” KIRO-AM 3.0-3.2-4.0. Classic hits: Made in the shade in May. The Eagles, Elton John and Michael Jackson killed it in the May ratings. Those and other core classic hits artists – combined with big spring and summer promotions, concerts and other events – helped deliver another seasonal boost to the format that seems to offer something for everyone. Classic hits was No. 1 among listeners aged 6+ in Los Angeles (CBS Radio’s “K-Earth 101” KRTH), Philly (CBS Radio’s WOGL) and Boston (Greater Media’s WROR-FM). CBS Radio parked three classic hits stations in second place in their markets in May: New York’s WCBS-FM, Detroit’s WOMC, and KOOL in Phoenix. The format also finished second in St. Louis on iHeartMedia’s KLOU. And in Tampa, where two classic hits stations are tied for second place: Cox Media Group’s “107.3 The Eagle” WXGL and Beasley Media Group’s WRBQ-FM . The format placed third in Minneapolis (iHeart’s “Kool 108” KQQL) and Dallas (CBS Radio’s KLUV). Summertime has been good to classic hits in years past. It quietly and consistently grew its audience and finished the summer of 2014 with the largest percentage increase in listening shares of any major format last summer. Study: Advertising’s biggest impact occurs long after the campaign ends. Impatient advertisers that want a quick bang for their buck might get it in the short-term. But a study from Nielsen Catalina Solutions based on the results of 23 packaged goods campaigns confirms that with effective advertising, much more impressive results can pile up later. And that’s probably good news for the radio business and advertisers that buy in for the long haul. Leslie Wood, chief research officer at Nielsen, says she suspects that many radio listeners are deeply engaged, [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 2 NEWS insideradio.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015 “and that has to rub off on advertisers.” While radio may sell the immediacy of the message, its long-term effect may be even more significant. She creates an interesting hypothetical: “If you asked people to draw a picture of themselves, some would draw themselves wearing a t-shirt with a Nike swoosh, and some would draw themselves wearing a t-shirt with their radio station logo.” Wood believes people think what radio station they listen to says something about who they are. “That’s valuable to advertisers,” she says, and something Nielsen wants to study. The Nielsen study on short and long-term effect basically says that consumers are affected by advertising long after the campaigns is over, and that the long-term effect is double the more immediate lift from an ad campaign. A Special K campaign received a 2.8 times long-term lift. But Wood says long-term effect varies largely on what the product is (condiments don’t get much residual effect, but soft drinks do) and the general health of the brand. Advertisers that don’t see a very robust multiplier should be concerned, she said, that not only is the advertising not working but possibly something more.