This weekend, you will find Cablenut, Lynn and the kidlets at my favorite sci fi convention, Orycon. A thousand geeks talking about everything. Literally everything.

Also, I wish my Father-in-law, Ken a very happy birthday on Saturday. He is in town today, but breezing out on his birthday. I truly enjoy sitting in the TV room harping on politics, ya old bolshevik ;-) Happy Birthday, Ken!

Well! This is going to make for interesting times in radio all over the country, and here in Oregon as well. Clear Channel has accepted a take-over bid of $18.7 billion-with-a-B from a consortium including Thomas H. Lee Partners.

Clear Channel owns every radio station in the universe. Oh, sorry. NOT every radio station in the universe. Just 1,150 of them, 448 of which they intend to sell--all outside the top 100 markets. In Oregon, they own:

• KDUK-FM Albany/Corvallis/Eugene
• KEJO-AM Albany/Corvallis/Eugene
• KFLY-FM Albany/Corvallis/Eugene
• KLOO-AM Albany/Corvallis/Eugene
• KLOO-FM Albany/Corvallis/Eugene
• KODZ-FM Albany/Corvallis/Eugene
• KPNW-AM Albany/Corvallis/Eugene
• KRKT-FM Albany/Corvallis/Eugene
• KTHH-AM Albany/Corvallis/Eugene
• KIFS-FM Medford
• KLDZ-FM Medford
• KMED-AM Medford
• KRWQ-FM Medford
• KZZE-FM Medford
• KEX-AM Portland
• KIJZ-FM Portland
• KKCW-FM Portland
• KKRZ-FM Portland
• KPOJ-AM Portland

Eugene is market 150; Medford is market 210. That's 14 stations likely to go on the block in the state.

UPDATE: I'm confused about the dollar amounts in the buy-out; the figures $18.7B and $26.7B are both in the stories (here's the PBJ's version, but I can't see what the difference is.

[Updated and bumped to include KOIN. I hate missing stuff, it's embarrassing. Mea culpa, you guys.--L]

Free Press and the Center for Media and Democracy have released another report on undisclosed TV news Video News Release (VNR) use, and two Oregon stations KPTV's "More" got stung:

[A] VNR titled "Sleep Is the New Sex," which was produced by D S Simon Productions for Nelson's Rescue Sleep ... is all about product promotion. After raising concerns about the safety of sleeping pills, the VNR presents an herbal product, "Rescue Sleep," as the next best thing since counting sheep. ...

Unlike the other D S Simon VNRs described in this study, there is no verbal or on-screen client notification at the end of the Nelson's VNR. ...

On September 15, 2006, a KPTV-12 anchor [Andy Carson on "More"] called Rescue Sleep "a natural alternative" that's "cheaper than prescription pills," with "no side effects. Plus ... Jennifer Aniston takes it, so it must be good." ...

KPTV-12 aired the VNR as a "Need to Know" segment and CN8 as an "All About You" segment, again proving the irony of TV news branding efforts. Both segments were derived entirely from the Nelson's VNR. However, neither station made any attempt at disclosure.

KOIN was cited in the report for using another DS Simon-produced VNR for Computer Associates on an internet security software suite it recently released:

KOIN-6 (Portland, OR) aired a self-produced report on ransomware and ID theft that included nearly a minute of non-promotional content from the VNR. In a story created and reported by anchor Lynn Huston, KOIN-6 incorporated soundless footage from the VNR and used [Identity Theft Resource Center co-founder] Linda Foley's soundbite in its entirety.

KOIN-6 failed to identify CA as the source of their video, but according to both Huston and KOIN-6 news director Jeff Alan, the station itself was unaware that the material originated from the company. Huston retrieved the footage from Pathfire DMG, a content distribution service that carries both VNRs and legitimate news feeds. In a phone conversation, Huston and Alan attested that the clip in question wasn't properly labeled by Pathfire.

In April 2004, Pathfire announced new VNR labeling features in the interest of "eliminating the confusion and risk that accompanies sourcing VNR material co-mingled or categorized with news service feeds." Pathfire is currently available to over 1,300 stations across the U.S. and Canada.

Big deal, doesn't everyone do it? Well actually, no. The last study CMD and Free Press did resulted in an FCC investigation that's still underway:

Technically, stations do not have to identify the source of video news releases unless they deal with controversial or political topics. The center argues that the act of not identifying them is controversial in itself.

The Radio-Television News Directors Association has advised stations to identify their VNR's, and say that most do.

CMD says it plans to file FCC complaints against the 46 stations today (11/14/06).

Just curious as to whether I am the only one who thinks the Local News does not match Oregon's style? For example watch the news and tell me if you think Nick Winkler from KATU is Oregon material? Or look at Kevin Coari from KPTV, or Chad Carter, or Joe Vithayathil, and so I am not picking on particular stations I would add these to my list: David Freitas, Joe Smith, Jane Smith, and John Cappel.

Basically, I am at the point where I feel that I am tired of the news TELLING me what to think, but while the news is at it I would feel a little better about it I could picture them as my neighbor.

We may not have Don Rumsfeld to kick around any more, but at least Richard Meeker is out there keeping self-interrogation fresh in this year's birthday state-of-the-weekly address:

All over the country, newspapers are crying the blues. How are we dealing with these developments?

The daily newspaper business is genuinely in trouble.

Some of what ails dailies has affected weeklies like ours—the emergence of Craigslist as a classified ad competitor, for example. But WW is fortunate to have avoided most of the dailies' woes. First and foremost on dailies' list of troubles is circulation. We published a Murmur two weeks ago about how circulation numbers are down at all but three of the largest 25 daily newspapers in America. (At The Oregonian, the most recent drop was 6.8 percent, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations—third-largest among the country's biggest 25 daily papers and even more surprising given the population growth this region has experienced.) In stark contrast, Willamette Week's circulation has grown by 10,000 over the past seven years, so that we currently distribute 90,000 copies at nearly 1,500 locations in the Portland metro area.

A second difference between WW and the dailies is demand on the bottom line. Many newspaper companies are being forced to lay off staff and cut back investments because their stockholders and/or investment bankers aren't satisfied with current profit margins of 10 to 15 percent. We suffer no such pressure.

Finally, daily newspapers, which have operated for most of their recent lives as monopolies, seem to be struggling in the emerging digital landscape, in which the competition for eyeballs is ferocious. Here at WW, we feel the Internet offers real opportunity, not the least of which is that it puts us in closer touch with our audiences and allows us to break news constantly.

Which would explain the not-blog's premiere Monday.

Do I wish WWeek a happy 32nd? Gosh yes.

Hey kids, Cablenut and I will be at the Portland Metroblog meet n greet tonight at the Rose and Raindrop sometime after 6. Come see the Metroblog folks and get us as a bonus--plus also you've heard the Rose and Raindrop is closing? so come give it a send-off while you're at it. I think b!X will be skulking about somewhere later in the evening.

Apparently the lack of working commenting isn't the only thing plaguing the O's tech people over at the OLive blogs. The software is misbehaving, eating posts and not letting contributors log in. PAC is taking a blog break until they fix it, and Canzano solicited help suggestions from his readers:

However, now I'm in need of a personal henchman to settle the miffed people inside the building who apparently felt I was 'showing up' the operation by reaching out for outside help and making noise. Look. Sometimes it's ok to admit we don't have the answers, yes? I'm not sure these people understand how many emails I was getting from readers who were wondering why in the name of $%^@& I wasn't posting daily entries. One guy accused me of being whipped over a woman.

Serve the reader, that's what I say.

Good luck to the IT guys, the bloggers and the readers.

No, it's not a comment on the current writing; KOIN really is looking for a news writer:

KOIN-TV, Portland's CBS station in the 24th market, is seeking a part-time Web News Writer. Position is accountable for the gathering and writing of daily news for KOIN-TV's website. Applicants should show experience in contemporary writing techniques and must have the ability to communicate clearly.

Requirements:

• One year commercial television news writing experience preferred.
• Strong broadcast writing skills and excellent verbal communication skills.
• Ability to perform under deadline pressure is a must.
• Computer skills required.
• Available to work all hours, overnights and weekends and be flexible to frequent changes in work shifts.
• Coursework in journalism or broadcasting preferred.

Well, it's nice that the poor beleaguered web producer is getting some help.

Wait, aren't we market 23?

Since we've all been not-waiting with not-bated breath for the not-paying not-blog from WWeek, let's all take a not-look, shall we?

Props:

--Three postings out of the gate today. Good start, but you've got a long way to catch up with the hyper-posters at the Merc and the Trib.

--The geek in me must applaud digg and del.icio.us autolinking. Other locals (*cough*Merc*cough*) take note. This is good for increasing both traffic and usability.

Not-Props:

--NO RSS FEED! argh. Oh sure, there are RSS feeds, there just isn't a separate one for the Wire, or the Wire hasn't been rolled into the "headlines" feed; the existing feeds are for the print edition. One assumes, anyway--the items in the feeds right now are dated 11/8/06.

--Also a php error in the footer, but that's mean and nitpicky. My middle names. Lynn Mean Nitpicky Siprelle. Still, it may mean a faster catch for the WWeek tech team, though relentless pointing out of KPTV's broken local news RSS feed both in email and here has resulted in no action, so maybe my name is Lynn Mean Nitpicky Completely Irrelevant Siprelle. Yeah, that's probably closer to the truth.

UPDATE: The Merc points out that the not-blog's main page is...wait for it...

blog.wweek.com/

FURTHER: OK so I didn't take a look around the blog.wweek.com entry until after I posted the update. Lynn Mean Nitpicky Completely Irrelevant Sloppy Siprelle, that's me. It's a completely different interface from the one linked off the main WWeek page, basically a Wordpress installation that isn't even configured all the way, since I'm assuming that they aren't intending it to be the public face anyway. But one thing about that page is it contains the missing RSS feed, which is working in my news reader and which will be added to the aggregator here as well.

Is the weather overdone in the media in the Northwest?
After the governor's comments, what does everyone think? People in the flood zones are saying this is worse than 1996. I don't live in a flood plane so I don't know. I live in Salmon Creek, and for the first time, I'm cut off from the north part of my neighborhood, due to the Klineline bridge shutdown, and it really sucks.

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