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We are thrilled to share with you the first ever Pennsylvania Broadcasters Economic Impact Study!  We have been working with the talented team at ParkerPhillips, who spent a great deal of time meeting with our member stations to properly understand and measure our collective community impact.  The data analysis presented in this report is evidence that the broadcasting industry is a significant driver to the Pennsylvania economy, as well as a critical connection between Pennsylvanians and local charities, communities, cultural experiences and more. This report was made possible through the work of member stations in over 15 different markets throughout the Commonwealth.  We are extremely grateful for their time and effort in helping us to paint a comprehensive picture of the broadcasting industry in Pennsylvania.  We hope you enjoy reading the report. You can view an abridged version of the report here: PAB Final Presentation Here are some top line highlights:

Philadelphia Inquirer 8/1/2018 By Bob Fernandez STAFF WRITER Two Philadelphia-area radio companies have split with a lawsuit and a terse public statement. Malvern’s United States Traffic Network sued Entercom Communications for fraud in state and federal courts in Texas this week, seeking punitive damages in excess of $5 million, while Entercom said good riddance to a former partner. Entercom, the nation’s No. 2 radio company and controlled by the Field family, is based in Bala Cynwyd. The breakup spells more trouble for Enter-com with its recently acquired CBS Radio empire that has been nothing but surprises since the deal closed in late 2017. Entercom stock is down more than 50 percent since it announced the CBS Radio merger in early 2017 as radio advertising has declined and Entercom’s debt has soared. It also threatens the United States Traffic Network, which provides traffic updates — and on-air traffic personalities such as Bob Kelly at Fox29 — for 1,000 radio stations and 50 television stations, reaching 160 million Americans. The company employs 250 full- and part-timers, including 85 at the Malvern headquarters. The United States Traffic Network faced liquidation earlier this year before it was bought out by top executives led by CEO Ivan Shulman. The company had a big contract with CBS Radio. But now it has lost that contract. Filed in Houston courts, United States Traffic Network’s suit claims that Entercom stole its customer data and lulled it into thinking that Entercom would buy the whole company. But Entercom — which acquired 27 percent of the United States Traffic Network earlier this year as part of a rescue package for USTN when the companies were getting along — backed out of the deal at the last minute in late June, leaving the Malvern company without the funds to make necessary payments to Entercom. Entercom’s “scheme was so perverse and all-encompassing that even Vladimir Putin would be left blushing,” United States Traffic Network claimed. Officials at the United States Traffic Network declined to comment beyond the suit. Entercom shot back on Tuesday with a public statement, saying it had ended its “reseller agreement” with United States Traffic Network and was pleased to be done with the partnership. “We are relieved to no longer be mired by the difficult USTN situation that was inherited as part of the CBS Radio merger. We will move quickly to augment our strong internal sales organization to ensure that we realize the full value of this inventory,” David Field, president and CEO at Entercom Communications, said in a statement. “With leading news brands like 1010 WINS in New York, KNX in Los Angeles, and WBBM in Chicago, Entercom has the industry’s most valuable traffic inventory, and we are pleased to be in control of our own destiny as we pursue opportunities in this attractive market segment.” Entercom did not respond immediately to aquestion as to how it would provide traffic updates to stations. In addition to the former CBS Radio stations in Philadelphia such as KYW, Entercom recently acquired 101.1 More FM.

Soundboard Video Update! We are so pleased to share the first-ever Pennsylvania Broadcasting Economic Impact Study, Enhancing Communities, Delivering Trust, and Generating Impact: The Broadcasting Industry’s Role in Pennsylvania. We worked very hard with our partners at Parker Phillips to create a truly relevant and believable study on the impact we generate statewide. We hope you enjoy reading and gain some important insight into the work you and your teams are already doing. Download the Report

Inside Radio July 25, 2018 The trend of decoupling radio and TV assets got a new head of steam Tuesday with an announcement from Cox Enterprises that it’s exploring a sale, merger or partnership for its 14 television stations while continuing to hold on to its 61 radio stations. CBS and Scripps earlier decided to split up their radio and TV combos, although, unlike Cox, they opted to keep TV and sell radio. For Cox, the decision is all about scale. The company said it determined its TV group “will need to be part of a larger entity to thrive in the future.” That’s certainly understandable in an era where Sinclair Broadcast Group’s contested $3.9 billion buyout of Tribune Media would produce the largest owner of local TV stations in the U.S. And as TV companies scramble to beef up their holdings after FCC chair Ajit Pai said he plans to loosen media ownership rules in response to a more competitive media landscape. Several of the TV stations being put on the sale block operate in markets where Cox has radio clusters, such as Atlanta, Orlando, Dayton, Jacksonville and Tulsa. In Atlanta, there has been a strong synergy between WSB-TV (channel 2) and “News-Talk Radio” WSB (750). The TV station dominates the Atlanta TV market while the radio station is often top-rated. In varying degrees, Cox has worked to unite its radio and TV stations under common leadership. Last September, as part of ongoing management convergence initiatives, the company appointed Cathy Gunther market VP for Tulsa, and Dan Lawrie market VP for the company’s Jacksonville properties. Both execs oversee each market’s radio and TV properties. In November Cox put all of its assets in Atlanta and Athens under common leadership, integrating radio, TV, newspaper and digital under four VPs. A sale of its TV group would require unraveling those integrated markets. Or as CMG president Kim Guthrie put it in an internal memo obtained by Inside Radio, “TV represents a significant portion of our portfolio and there will likely be implications for the rest of CMG.” Cox also owns or has interest in TV stations in Seattle, Boston, Charlotte, Pittsburgh and Memphis. ‘No Immediate Plans’ For Radio Division The company says it has no immediate plans for the other parts of its Cox Media Group portfolio and will continue to operate its 61 radio stations, various newspapers and other assets. "We didn't take this decision lightly. It is clear that scale is critical for TV affiliates to be positioned well for the future. Our stations are some of the best in the industry and we want them to stay that way," Cox Enterprises president & CEO Alex Taylor said in a news release. In the internal memo, Guthrie said the decision was made after a “thorough analysis” of both the industry and the company’s portfolio over the past year. “Deregulation, new competitors, changing media habits, and a rapidly evolving landscape of mergers and acquisitions are prompting many media operators to consider new ways to compete,” Guthrie said. “Our analysis shows that scale is critical to be successful.” The 14 TV stations will need to be part of a larger entity to thrive in the future, she added, so they can deal with networks and distributors “from a position of strength” and drive digital growth. “This decision will likely mean that we will no longer solely control our existing TV portfolio.” The company says it is in the early stages of the TV sale process and expects it to take six months to a year to complete. However Cox says it has “no immediate plans for the other parts of the portfolio and will continue to operate our radio properties as well as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Dayton Daily News and their affiliated publications and websites,” along with its other businesses like Cox Reps, Gamut, Videa and Ideabar. Cox says the 14 stations in nine states are “leading news and information outlets and are cornerstones of the communities they serve” with strong financial performances that have made them “attractive assets in today's marketplace.” With tentacles that reach into communications, media and automotive services, Cox Enterprises has revenues of more than $20 billion and about 60,000 employees. The company got its start in Dayton, when founder James M. Cox started the Dayton Daily News.

Radio Ink July 25, 2018   It could be, according to The Tennessean, which is saying: “An 11th-hour proposal by the music licensing company SESAC to change the Music Modernization Act could torpedo the landmark copyright legislation that is on the brink of becoming law, supporters of the legislation warn.” The MMA would establish a role for Congress as the Department of Justice reviews consent decrees with the two largest performing rights organizations — ASCAP and BMI. Between them, the two entities license over 90 percent of the musical works played on local radio stations. As previously reported by Radio Ink, the MMA is due to go to the full Senate for further consideration after clearing the House and a crucial Senate committee without any opposition. SESAC — the Nashville-based for-profit licensing agency owned by the private equity firm Blackstone — is apparently not pleased with one element of the MMA that sets out to create a new licensing collective to oversee digital mechanical licensing for songwriters and music publishers. SESAC is concerned that the Harry Fox Agency — which it purchased in 2015 from the National Music Publishers Association — will be made obsolete by the provision. It is conceivable that lawmakers might disregard the proposal. However, Blackstone, which had $360 billion in assets when they purchased SESAC in 2017, has considerable influence on the Hill. Bart Herbison, the Executive Director of the Nashville Songwriters Association International, said, “Blackstone/SESAC waits until July 18 to introduce a proposal that fundamentally would change the way this works. It adds expense, layers of redundancy. It is so troubling and they’ve altered it so dramatically that none of the stakeholders — the songwriters, the music publishers, the record labels, the digital services and others — can now support the legislation.” BMI has since released the following statement: “The Music Modernization Act represents an historic opportunity to enact meaningful music licensing reform. The bill is the product of unprecedented collaboration among music stakeholders and passed unanimously through the House Judiciary Committee, the full House, and the Senate Judiciary Committee. BMI is disappointed that at this late stage, the MMA is being endangered by last-minute asks. During the long process of drafting this bill, BMI, like many others, had to compromise on certain provisions in order to achieve a final result that benefits the industry as a whole. We hope that the parties currently in disagreement can work together to resolve their issues, allowing this important piece of legislation to move forward.”

Inside Radio July 20, 2018 It’s the end of an era for WBEB (101.1), which has bucked the deregulation trend for decades, dominating Philadelphia radio as the only major standalone FM amid a sea of consolidators. With its sale to Entercom Communications, Jerry Lee—the “idea person” behind the risk-taking, odds-defying, widely copied station—spoke to Inside Radio about his more than 50 years as WBEB’s architect. While Entercom is paying $57.5 million to a Chicago-based trust company connected to billionaire Sam Zell to acquire AC “More FM” WBEB, Lee’s original business partner, David Kurtz, got the station for free. “In 1963 nobody wanted an FM station, Lee says. “All you had to do was knock on the door and say, give me one of those.” Three years after signing on beautiful music WDVR (for “Delaware Valley Radio”), “we had a larger AQH than any FM in New York, L.A. or Chicago. By 1968 our revenue was triple that of any FM in those three markets,” he boasts. Yet the station’s architect had no equity in the operation. So in 1969, Kurtz agreed to give Lee a 49.99% stake if he met certain objectives, which he accomplished handily by the early 1970s. From the get-go, Lee was unafraid to experiment and invest generously in research, which became the station’s hallmark and a cornerstone of its enduring success. He hired acclaimed researcher Bill Moyes and the two formed a strategic brain-trust that tested just about everything the station did. “We took chances and experimented with things and relied on research to the nth degree,” Lee says. He posits, “We did more research than any radio station in the country.” Liberal investment in station marketing became another foundational element. In 1968, Lee and Kurtz spent lavishly on what Lee claims was the first professionally produced TV commercial for a radio station. The spot, which featured a Rolls-Royce, a Jaguar and two attractive drivers, created such buzz that listeners would call the station to ask when it would air. “A very masculine Italian actor is driving a Rolls-Royce down this sunlit lane and comes to a stop light and this beautiful blonde in an XKE Jaguar pulls up alongside,” explains Lee, who is very fond of cars. “He rolls down his window to put a make on her and she’s playing rock n’roll music. So he rolls up his window, cuts her off and the announcer comes on and says, ‘There’s a difference between classy and class. If you listen to WDVR, you know the difference.” The spot would be mentioned by listeners in focus groups for the next 10 years. EZ Listening to Top-Rated AC In 1981, WDVR switched to new calls WEAZ to reflect its “Easy Listening” position. Slowly integrating vocals into the music mix, the outlet catapulted to the market’s top-rated station by 1984. It made it to the pinnacle in large part by targeting listeners at work and a grand – and expensive – Lee scheme in the mid-‘80s helped cement that position: Lee and Kurtz ponied up the cash for 50,000 deluxe rosewood cabinet radios with 6-inch speakers to be manufactured that could only receive 101.1 FM. The station gave them for free to retailers in the region. “It took an incredible investment but it did a lot to grow the radio station,” Lee says. “David was an incredible partner who allowed me to do what I thought we needed to do.” In 1988, WEAZ completed its transition to soft AC and then to mainstream AC in 1993, rebranded as “B101” with new calls WBEB. When President Bill Clinton signed the Telecom Act into law in 1996, ushering in a wave of unprecedented consolidation that would dramatically reshape the radio landscape, some believed WBEB wouldn’t survive as a standalone. Kurtz and Lee resisted big dollar offers to sell and proved the naysayers wrong. “I knew that everyone would scramble to bulk up and buy a lot of stations that would require a lot of financing—and the first thing they would cut is their marketing budget, which they did,” Lee recalls. “So I increased my advertising over a three-year period from $1 million to $3.5 million a year. And I buried my competitors.” After Kurtz died in 2005, Lee purchased the other half of the station from his partner’s estate and owned 100% of WBEB. But Lee overpaid and with loans coming due, WBEB was purchased in 2015 by a group led by Sam Zell, known for backing Jacor Communications and buying Tribune. Lee remained chairman of the board of Jerry Lee Broadcasting and kept the ideas coming. Now as the station is handed off to radio’s second largest company, joining a cluster with some of the market’s biggest radio brands, like news KYW, sports WIP-FM and classic hits WOGL, Lee believes his baby is in good hands. “The frequency of 101.1 is so embedded in the market. We’re No. 1 across the board because we’re such a part of the fabric. You’d have to do something really bad to screw it up and they won’t,” he says. “I have a lot of confidence in David Field – he’s one of the best operators in the country.” And Lee won’t be going quietly into the night. He says he continues to work “feverishly” on his engaging commercials business and won’t rest until the quality of radio spot creative improves industrywide.

Radio Ink July 29, 2018 How many consultants can say they were with one station for 38 years? We know of at least one…Bill Moyes. He consulted Jerry Lee and his team for nearly four decades, including three name changes. Moyes started working with the station in the 1980s when the call letters were still WDVR. On Thursday, we spoke to Moyes about his relationship with Jerry Lee and how he helped one radio station be so dominant for so long. Radio Ink: Give us your thoughts on a stand-alone station trying to fight it out with clusters. Bill: They are so rare. Jerry never wanted to get another station. He dabbled in a little AM. He just wanted to do everything well with one signal and give it his all. There was money for defense, and he was attacked many times. He wanted to be able to fight them. He didn’t want other stations in the city distracting him. We worked with a lot of people who had multiple stations in multiple markets but this was his thing. He was very proud of it and he should be. He did a hell of a job. Radio Ink: You still have to have a good product. What was it, what is it about the WBEB product? Bill: They observed the rules of defense from a warfare strategy perspective. There are four positions. There is defense which is the leader, and there are certain rules that govern if you are going to do a good job. Then there is offense, that’s the guy coming after the leader. There’s the flanker which is something totally different like classic rock to BEB’s position. And, there’s guerilla. He observed the seven rules of defense right to the end. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to defend that fort. Radio Ink: Do enough stations follow that philosphy? Bill: Some don’t have to because they own so many stations in a market. I think the kind of dedication he gave to it and use of warfare rules is really rare. Radio Ink: Now that it is in a cluster, what do you think will happen to it? Bill: It’s with a good group who I would imagine will continue to defend, not with the same heart that Jerry has, but they know they have a cash cow. They would be remiss if they didn’t keep defending it. Being on track with the music now is critical and they have a great program director. One of the best in the country. Radio Ink: Do they play a lot of spots every hour? Radio has a big issue with that these days. Bill: I would say compared to many other stations BEB is clean and maybe the new owners will enlarge that a little. The more they do, the more peril they take. MORE FM is about two things: more of  the music you like, and more music/less talk. If they go against all that, they do so at their peril. Radio Ink: You went through three name changes with WBEB. How do you do that with a station that’s been around so long? Bill: With the name goes images. When I got there “beautiful music” images went along with our “name” – WDVR .  When we changed it to AC we made it ‘EASY 101′ and that stayed competitive and positive for 10-13 years.In time that name developed images from the artists Easy played over the years who were no longer “cool”…the name developed a little “asterisk” that said “dated’.  In 1993 we went to B101 and we had “Buzz-bee the Bee” as our mascot and that station name stayed fresh and usable for 13 years. So a few years ago we saw evidence in the research that “B-101” had acquired associations with artists that made the station susceptible to being considered pretty dated, and that made our fortress vulnerable to attack. Listeners- a lot of them – associated B-101 with artists and songs we had not played for 5 or 6 or 10 years!  So we went to “MORE FM®”, and that move to change our name surprised a lot of people because our ratings were awesome, as they remain today.  The idea is to remain vigilant in observing the guidelines of good defensive warfare strategy, and those rules of defense have served us well for almost 40 years of having huge ratings and great Miller-Kaplan results. The nice thing about the name MORE FM is that is is tied into why people come to that station, more music/less talk and more of the songs you really like. Radio Ink: Did it ever falter in the ratings, or has it always been at the top? Bill: When it was attacked it would go down a little. Over the years there were maybe four or five attacks. There was a time when there were two ACs and us and we were all kind of equal in the numbers. That’s when we changed to B101. It was a toss-up and we developed a strategy that put us way ahead and the other two finally gave up. When the three of us were fighting it out, clearly it was a problem, but after that time even when it was directly attacked it would lose a little but it has always been a monster and a cash cow. Radio Ink: You guys were never afraid to out-market everybody? Bill: I would say that, after a while, the fact that we would just kill anybody that attacked us was known and people didn’t even try. We weren’t spending that much in marketing for the last 10 to 15 years because everybody knew better.

Radio Ink July 20, 2018   With the addition of Country powerhouse WXTU, Beasley Media Group now has five FMs and two AMs in Philadelphia, strengthening up its cluster to better compete with Entercom, which has six stations (four FMs and two AMs); iHeartMedia which also has six stations (five FMs and one AM); and Radio One (three FMs). Here’s what Beasley CEO Caroline Beasley had to say about the purchase of the station it was once the owner of. “As the former owner of WXTU-FM, Beasley originally launched the station’s Country music format in 1983 against the advice of a number of industry pundits who believed it wouldn’t succeed in the Philadelphia market. Instead, the station thrived and resulted in our successful exchange of WXTU-FM in 2014, as part of a larger asset exchange agreement with CBS Radio. Today, WXTU-FM remains one of the best and most listened-to Country music stations in America. We are proud of this heritage and confident in our ability to continue the growth and success of WXTU-FM as part of the Beasley family of stations.” She also spoke about what acquiring WXTU means for the company’s business. “Our acquisition of WXTU-FM represents a strategically and financially compelling growth opportunity for our shareholders and further enhances our revenue and competitive position with a strong cluster of five FM and two AM stations in a key, top-10 market. Importantly, the addition of WXTU-FM is consistent with Beasley’s disciplined approach to growing our platform by executing accretive transactions that deliver valuable synergies and the potential for SOI margin improvement, all with a limited impact to our leverage.”

Radio Ink July 20, 2018   Along with David Kurtz and Marlin Taylor, Jerry Lee launched WBEB back on May 13, 1963 (the calls were WDVR at the time) for $28,500. On Thursday, Entercom purchased the station for $57.5 million. While he hasn’t been involved in the station for the past two-and-a-half years, Jerry Lee’s name has always been associated with WBEB in Philadelphia. And, many times, the radio industry has referred to Lee as the best independent operator in the history of radio. WBEB, the only station Lee owned (other than dabbling with an AM for a short while), has been a consistent winner for decades against radio’s biggest companies. And those companies eventually built clusters in Philadelphia and WBEB still won. David Kurtz passed away in 2005 and Lee bought out Kurtz’ half of WBEB. He wound up overpaying for the station at the time and when money he owed came due, several years ago, Sam Zell and other investors took control of the station. Lee was moved to Chairman of the board and Jim Loftus was made the President and CEO of the station. We spoke to Lee on Thursday about how WBEB remained the king of radio in Philadelphia. Radio Ink: For the longest time WBEB battled clusters and won. How? Jerry: The station was always run based on rigorous research. We researched out everything we did. For 37 years we had Bill Moyes as our statistical researcher who did a phenomenal job for us. We were always willing to spend when others were not. For example, in 1968 we were the first radio station in the country to use television to advertise. When deregulation came in we decided it was an opportunity to take hold of the market and we increased our advertising budget enormously. We constantly figured out a way to advance and stack the odds in our favor. We used research for everything. A little history: by 1966, the first year Arbitron was in existence, it showed us having the largest AQH for any station in the country, bigger than New York, Chicago, or LA. Two years later in ’68, we had the largest revenue of any FM in the country. We were three times as large as the nearest FM, in Chicago, New York, or LA. We have always been ahead of our time. Radio Ink: How much did it cost back then to put it on the air? Jerry: $28,500 Radio Ink: You have made a few bucks over the years? Jerry: Yes and I have given away millions of dollars. I’m in the later phase of my life but I am not finished. I am going to spend the rest of my life carrying the torch for engaging commercials which is the future of radio, because if the commercial works, the advertiser spends more money. We have to get to the point where we are cutting back on our commercial loads and the way to do that is by increasing the revenue through engaging commercials. Radio Ink: Do you believe selling the station was the right thing to do? Jerry: I’m really happy that Entercom acquired it because they are good operators.  They are a first-class operation and I’m delighted the station is in good hands. Radio Ink: What do you want to say about the people that you’ve worked with over the years at WBEB? Jerry: We have had phenomenal people. Blaze Howard, Jim Loftus, the current president and GM is great, just to name a couple. I was very fortunate over the years to have great people working with me who have put up with my wild ideas. It was always an adventure for people. Radio Ink: Do you think we have seen the last of the single operators who can succeed like you did in a city that big? Jerry: You could not survive as a single station if you were the fifth through eighth radio station in the market. Being the dominant station all these years has given us an unfair advantage over everybody else. You will never see, in my estimation, another single station operation in a major market. Radio Ink: What do you miss the most about being the day-to-day guy? Jerry: I don’t miss it because I was never the day-to-day guy from the beginning of the station, basically. As soon as I could afford to hire a GM, I did. That GM ran the station. My job was to come up with ideas. That has been my job my whole life. I have not worked day-to-day in the stations since 1964 or ’65. I have this passion of engaging commercials and my goal is to get every advertiser in the country on the radio to be using commercials that make the client money. I had the system and …  logic to do that. For me nothing has changed. Obviously I don’t have the title of Chairmen of the Board of WBEB anymore, but things are not changing. I will put more energy into developing engaging commercials.

Radio Ink July 19, 2018 Entercom announced this morning that it has reached an agreement to acquire 101.1 MORE FM (WBEB-FM) from Jerry Lee Radio in Philadelphia for $57.5 million in cash. The company also announced that it has entered into an agreement to divest 92.5 XTU (WXTU-FM) in Philadelphia, to Beasley Broadcast Group, for $38.0 million in cash. Entercom CEO David Field said, “We are very pleased to add the legendary WBEB, one of the country’s most recognized and awarded stations, to our group. It is a terrific addition to our lineup that will enhance our ability to serve our listeners, customers and the community. I tip my cap to Jerry Lee, one of the industry pioneers and a visionary leader who built B101 into such a special station and has done so much for radio over the decades. We are saddened to say goodbye to our colleagues at WXTU, but know that they will be in great hands.” A Local Marketing Agreement for WXTU will begin Monday, July 23. The transactions are expected to close by the end of the third quarter of 2018.

Radio Ink July 13, 2018   Paul Corvino (left) has been named Region President for Detroit and Nick Gnau for Philadelphia. Gnau has been with iHeart for over 25 years, most recently as Region President for Detroit, where he oversaw Detroit, Grand Rapids, Toledo, and Muskegon, Michigan. Corvino joins iHeart Detroit from Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, where he was Regional President for its Midwest Region. Gnau and Corvino will report to Tom McConnell, President of iHeartMedia’s East Division, who said “Nick and Paul are great leaders with successful track records and who have done an extraordinary job for us across multiple markets and platforms. Their vast experience and proven leadership and performance results have shown that they are the perfect candidates to continue to further accelerate growth and innovation across these regions.” In addition, iHeartMedia announced that Rich Lewis will transition to the role of Vice President of Multi-Market Partnerships and report to Julie Donohue, Senior Vice President of Multi-Market Partnerships.

Radio Ink July 8, 2018   The 6th annual Confer Radio Talent Institute begins Monday, July 9, in Pennsylvania on the campus of Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Sessions over the 10-day Institute cover sales, on-air, production, promotions, digital, social media, and engineering. The Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters and Confer underwrite the Institute. Twenty-two students have been accepted from eight universities. PAB President Joe Conti said, “We are so impressed with the Confer Radio Talent Institute. The PAB is proud to enthusiastically support this effort to discover and prepare the next generation of broadcasters.” Confer said, “We want to make a difference and give this next generation a firm foundation in the industry. We are going to birth a whole new generation of radio people, and are so pleased the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters offer both their time and financial support, investing in radio’s future.”