On 19 Apr 2004 05:22:57 GMT, (Scott McCollum)
wrote:

1) How much would a talk radio station not owned by Infinity or
Disney/ABC in a Top 10 market pay for a contract with Disney to
broadcast ABC News at the top of the hour? How much would that station
pay Westwood One for CBS News briefs? (I know stations like WABC in
NYC and WBAP in Dallas that are *owned* by Disney/ABC obviously have
different contracts for radio news than say, a Cox or Clear
Channel-owned station in Atlanta or Chicago.)

If you're a highly rated station in a major market, they may pay you.
They'll compensate you for the spots they require you to run. A
network spot brings a fraction of what a locally sold spot brings. In
one case you have to be very careful. If you don't meet a required
clearance precentage, you get no compensation at all.

In major markets every contract is different because of the
compensation terms. At WOR we were an ABC Entertainment affiliate but
didn't run the hourly newscasts. We had our own news department, but
used their actualities and wall-to-wall coverage when necessary. We
ran all their spots. Evenings and overnight we ran Mutual hourlys.

When I was at ABC we watched stations very carefully to make sure they
weren't running the network spots in low rated time periods. If we
found you were running our spots overnight your risked losing your
affiliation.

In other markets it's generally barter. You run a certain number of
spots per week for use of the programming.

2) How long do these contracts last with Westwood One or Disney/ABC?

Every contract varies.

For example, the Seattle market has two major commercial talk
stations: KVI and KTTH. KVI acquires their news from Fox News Radio
and caters to a politically conservative audience.

Surely you're joking. We all know that FOX is "fair and balanced" so
it's a cruel accusation to say they're conservative. Roger Ailes will
sue you or get very upset.

The PD for KTTH has publicly stated that they will use
"ABC News for the foreseeable future" but didn't give any indication
as to the length of their contract with Disney/ABC.

What's his alternative? There can't be two "fair and balanced"
stations in the same market. He'll have to figure a way to take FOX
away from KVI.

3) What are the limitations of re-broadcasting those syndicated news
briefs by radio stations with Internet streaming audio? For example,
can an Infinity-owned radio station with a "click here to listen live"
graphic on their website legally stream the CNN Radio at the top of
every hour or are they blocked the same way that AFTRA rules block the
rebroadcast of Howard Stern over the Internet?

It all depends on the policies of the network and the stations. Until
recently, Infinity didn't allow any streaming. ABC used to prohibit
any streaming of its newscasts. There were many cases where
broadcast.com had to black out shows because of network restrictions
on webcasting.

A correction he AFTRA doesn't prohibit anything. Advertising
agencies found that AFTRA wanted their members to be paid for
webcasting if their spots ran in any media other than what they
contracted for. It was the Ad agencies that told stations to remove
their spots from their webcasts. This is the same situation that would
occur if a talent did a TV spot and the advertiser used the audio on
radio. It would cost more. Agencies didn't want to pay for webcasting
where the audience didn't warrant the extra cost.

Rich