Sour note for
first half radio advertising
Other shorts: RIP, Boca Raton News, 1955-2009
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Aug 24, 2009
Sour note for first half radio advertising
Radio revenue took another big hit during second quarter, sliding 22 percent to $4.17 billion, according to numbers from the Radio Advertising Bureau released Friday. That led to an overall slump of 23 percent during first half, to $7.6 billion, as local, national, network and off-air promotions took a hit. Digital was the only category to grow, up 10 percent to $221 million. Local slid 25 percent during the quarter and during first half. Jeff Haley, president and CEO of RAB, said that the low point came during first quarter and that things are finally rebounding. He attributed many of the losses to a decrease in automotive spend, which has also hurt the spot TV market. Auto has gone from the No. 1 to the No. 3 category.
RIP, Boca Raton News, 1955-2009
Yet another newspaper is stopping the presses. The Boca Raton News in Florida, which decreased its frequency from five to three times a week last year, is joining the Ann Arbor News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other papers that have become online-only. The News will not lay off any staffers, at least not immediately, but they will begin telecommuting as the paper’s office is shutting down. It printed its final edition on Sunday. Oddly, the news was not up on the paper’s web site this morning, though the Sun Sentinel and the Broward-Palm Beach New Times reported it. The publisher cited the high cost of print and the economic downturn as reasons for the decision. The 54-year-old former Knight Ridder paper currently has 24 employees.
But ready to launch: The Commercial Observer
As the Boca Raton News story attests, newspaper shutdown stories have become more and more common during this long recession. So it’s real news when a newspaper is launched, and that’s what’s happening in New York City, where the publisher of the New York Observer plans to start a new weekly publication called The Commercial Observer. The paper will focus on New York’s real estate market, which has been reeling along with the rest of the country, and it will debut Sept. 15. The new Observer won’t be available at newsstands. Instead it will be distributed for free to 10,000 targeted readers in the real estate industry. Subscriptions will be available to others for $240 annually. Jared Kushner, the Observer publisher, acknowledged to the New York Times that it might seem odd to launch a publication at a time when the Observer is losing money and recently laid off some of its staff. However, Kushner expects his company to lose less money this year than last year and break even by 2010. “I think now everyone’s interested in the real estate market, and a product that covers it closely will have great value to advertisers,” he said.
Programming notes: BET may restart ‘The Game’
It may end up that “The Game” was simply on a timeout. BET is reportedly in talks with the CW comedy show’s producer, CBS Studios, to air a new season of the comedy, reports the Hollywood Reporter. CW canceled the “Girlfriends” spinoff in May after a three-season run as it moves to focus on dramas. Mara Brock Akil, the show’s creator, pitched a dramatic hour-long version of the show to CW in an effort to stay on the air, but the network passed. It’s not clear when “The Game” will return if it is picked up by BET. Meanwhile, in other programming, NBC has ordered the dramedy pilot “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer,” about a lawyer who is prone to panic attacks and decides to teach clients how to represent themselves in court. The pilot is co-written by actor Andrew Leeds, who will appear in the upcoming season premiere of Fox’s “House.”
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