GLG News by Radio Advertising Experts

Radio's problems are not short-term, and a longer horizon is needed to meet the challenges of declining revenues.

Radio revenues for the month of November took a gigantic drop. National advertising was off by 15% (and local revenues were off by 5%).

Ford Motor Company will include HD radios as standard equipment on all new models produced in 2009. If HD Radio has any future, it will need more deals like this one with Ford to get the technology in automobiles.

Time Warner's announcement to only support the Blue-Ray format going forward makes the Sony technology the clear winner in its format war with Toshiba's HD-DVD player. Toshiba is left with only two studios (Viacom's Paramount and GE's Universal) supporting the rival format, and that probably won't last...

The home digital video recorder (DVR) is expected to double to 35% of all households by 2012, according to this report by JupiterResearch.  While I don't often offer predictions, I think it will happen sooner, possibly by late 2010.

Landmark Communications the privately held entity that owns The Weather Channel has reportedly decided to auction the channel. Big media companies like GE's NBCU, News Corp., Comcast and others are expressing interest.

Bills to provide a performance royalty on the radio industry were introduced in both the House and Senate; if passed the measure would mean millions of dollars in fees paid by the radio industry.

The FCC voted to amend the long-standing newspaper=broadcast cross-ownership rules to allow combinations in the top 20 markets subject to certain conditions being met. The action was met with disdain by just about every stakeholder involved.

True, the people meter introduction was supposed to have moved faster by now, but changing to a new measurement system is complicated.  It is better to pause and get things right than it is to plow ahead and commit more mistakes.

The failure of the radio industry to deploy electronic measurement casts doubt on radio's growth.