CBS to sell 50 radio stations

Despite a 1.1.% increase in its second-quarter net income, CBS announced plans to sell 50 of its radio stations in several midsize markets.

According to the WSJ, CBS reported net income of $408.4 million, up from $404 million a year earlier.

Orlando Sentinel cuts 20% of newsroom jobs

52 newsroom jobs were eliminated in the second round of layoffs in July at the Orlando Sentinel Editor Charlotte Hall announced Monday.

In total, the company has cut 153 positions since January 1.

Other Tribune papers have also been cutting staff and reducing their news space in recent weeks in an effort to reduce fixed costs and preserve cash flow for debt repayment.

Gas prices stall media shield measure in Senate

As democrats and republicans battle over what to do about gas prices, a bill to protect journalists from revealing their sources stalled in the Senate on Wednesday.

According to the AP, republicans blocked the measure, arguing the Senate had to focus on an energy bill while democrats wanted to put aside the energy measure to debate and pass the media bill.

The vote was 51-43 vote, 9 short of the 60 it needed to move forward over the GOP objections.
The Bush administration and many congressional republicans are opposed to the media shield, on the grounds that it could damage national security by not allowing prosecutors to track leaks.

Proponents argue that without confidentiality, many important stories would not have come to light. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said the measure "protects both the freedom of the press and the security of our citizens. In a free and democratic country, we should be able to do both."

WNJU-41 reporter sues Univision

Myriam Ayala, a reporter with WNJU-41, the Univision station in NYC, is suing the company for age and racial discrimination.

Myriam, who has been at the station 25 years, claims that despite her years on the job and previous rave reviews on her performance, she has been moved aside for younger and "lighter" complexioned reporters.

In a federal lawsuit, which was initially picked up and reported by TMZ, she alleges that management changed her more than 20-year day schedule to the overnight shift (3 am to 12 pm), has been given a poor performance review by the current news director, her previously plum assignments are given to younger reporters and she has been subjected to other retaliatory measures after she complained of age and race discrimination.

Santiago leaves newspaper biz

Roberto Santiago, a senior staff writer for The Miami Herald since 2003, has left the paper to become Director of Communications & Strategic Marketing for the Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale.

At the UNITY convention, he told me it was a tough choice to make, but that the opportunity was too good to pass up, especially in light of all the cutbacks in the newspaper industry. He says he loves his new job.

Prior to the Herald, Roberto was Deputy Boroughs and Suburban Editor at the New York Daily News.

Lopez to be solo host of "Extra"

Mario Lopez will be the new solo host of "Extra." The 34-year old actor, who jumped to fame in the late '80's and early 90's sitcom "Saved by the Bell," has been a correspondent for the syndicated entertainment newsmagazine and co-host of its weekend edition since January 2007. TVNewsday reports he will take over from co-hosts Mark McGrath and Dayna Devon on September 15, when the show begins its 15th season.

Mario has been very busy lately - he was a finalist on "Dancing with the Stars," is appearing on Broadway in a revival of the musical "A Chorus Line" and was named People magazine's "Hottest Bachelor" of 2008.

Durón organizes first national Latino cancer summit

KRON-4 anchor Ysabel Durón, a cancer survivor and founder of Latinas Contra Cancer, is putting on the first National Latino Cancer Summit in San Francisco this Thursday and Friday, July 31st and August 1st.

Scientists and health care workers from all over the country will converge to discuss the most recent medical findings linking cancer, Latinos, the environment and genetics.

Ysabel has been working on making this summit a reality for 2 years. Why?

“Latinos will be left behind in life-saving cancer care if they’re not part of cutting edge medicine, including clinical trials. Awareness and collaboration are key in moving the community forward,” she says.

Check out the summit website for details of the event.

San Diego Union-Tribune up for sale

The Copley Press, parent company of The San Diego Union-Tribune, announced it is selling the paper and has retained an investment firm to "explore strategic options for the company's future..."

According to the L.A. Times, the move comes as a surprise, because the publisher has sold other assets such as its news service, its suburban Chicago weekly papers and the Daily Breeze in Torrance, to give its flagship newspaper a financial cushion.

The Union-Tribune is the country's 21st-largest daily newspaper. It has a circulation of more than 300,000 on weekdays and more than 350,000 on Sundays.

WTVJ sells for $145 million less than expected

NBC's Miami station, which went up for sale in March, sold for $205 million, according to an FCC filing.

Post-Newsweek announced the purchase of station from NBC Universal on July 18. At that time, they did not disclose the sale price.

TVNewsday reports that industry experts had expected WTVJ to go for as much as $350 million. The station ranks No. 6 in the heavily Hispanic market.

Bleak outlook at UNITY

Thousands less attended the UNITY conference in Chicago last week, than in Washington, D.C. in 2004. With no exact number yet on how many people attended the convention, it was estimated at less than 6,000, compared to the more than 8,000 back in '04 - a sign that the thousands of layoffs in the industry within the past few months had taken its toll.

The expo floor was impressive - the major media companies were there and they had great displays, but the reality was the majority of those present were recruiting... but not hiring. That was not good news for the hundreds of job-hunting, laid-off journalists walking the floor. At one point, one job seeker I spoke to said: "it's depressing."

It seemed like the only hopefuls were the young students, trying to snag their first job, while the pros were talking about the rumblings of more layoffs expected in the coming months.

NAHJ elects new leadership

Almost all the seats up for grabs on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists were uncontested - except that of the VP of Broadcast. Here are the results of the election revealed on Friday evening, during the UNITY convention:

Ricardo Pimentel is the new president. He is currently the editorial page editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - a post he's held since June of 2004. Before that, he was a nationally syndicated columnist with The Arizona Republic, writing on public policy with an emphasis on Latino affairs. Ricardo has also been a reporter at The Fresno Bee, The San Diego Union, The Sacramento Bee and a Washington D.C. correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers. He also worked as asst. metro editor at the Sacramento Bee and Fresno Bee.

Liz Zavala was elected VP of Print. She was previously NAHJ's secretary. She is deputy city editor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She rejoined that paper after working 7 years at The Dallas Morning News (2000-2007). Liz helped the Star-Telegram launch its Spanish-language newspaper, La Estrella, in 1994, and served as its editor for three years. That publication no longer exists. It was merged earlier this year with the home-delivered entertainment and sports-focused weekly La Estrella en Casa.

Hugo Balta won VP of Broadcast - the only officer contested race. He edged out incumbent Manny de la Rosa. He is the VP of News & News Director at WNJU Telemundo 47, in New York. Before that, Hugo worked as a producer at NBC's WTVJ in Miami, at MSNBC and at WNBC in New York. He was part of the NBC and Telemundo merger integration team. Following the merger, Hugo was named Assistant News Director for Telemundo 47 in 2002.

Former NAHJ president Dino Chiecchi returns to the board as financial officer. Dino is the editor of Hispanic publications for the San Antonio Express-News, overseeing the weekly bilingual publication, Conexión, and the all-Spanish, twice-a-week publication Cancha.

Veronica García, until recently a copy editor at the L.A. Times, was elected secretary, leaving her Region 8 director position. Her alternate, Jerry Berrios steps into that role.

Robert Hernández was elected online at-large officer. He is the director of development for The Seattle Times/seattletimes.com.

Brandon Benavides is the new general at-large officer. He is a news producer for KSTP-TV in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN.

No one ran for the Spanish-language-at large seat. It remains vacant, awaiting a presidential appointment.

Three students competed for the student board seat. America Arias, a fourth-year student at California State University, Fullerton won that election.

Click here for more information about the winners and candidates.

XM-Sirius Merger Approved

In a 3-2 vote the FCC has approved the XM and Sirius merger. The 16-month merger negotiations ended in a $3.6 billion buyout deal that will unite both companies and their 18 million-plus subscribers.

Republican commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate cast the tie-breaking vote late Friday, leading to the merger's approval.

According to the Business Journal, there are some conditions to the approval: the broadcasters must freeze subscription rates for 3 years and allow subscribers to pick individual channels, known as a la carte programming, for cheaper monthly costs. XM and Sirius have to provide radios that receive signals from both broadcasters. They will also free up airwaves for community based and minority programming.

Earlier this week, Sirius and XM agreed to pay a total of $19 million in fines settling an FCC complaint.

Enrique's Journey goes to Lifetime

Sonia Nazario's pulitzer-prize winning story "Enrique's Journey," which she turned into a best-selling book, will soon be a Lifetime network movie. No date yet set for its airing, but I will definitely keep you posted.

Sonia, who left the L.A. Times earlier this year to focus on her book writing and public speaking career, is working on her second book.

Flores gets "settled" in at ESPN

Robert Flores, who has worked for ESPN for the past three years, gets a steady time slot. He takes over the noon to 3 p.m. weekday shift on “Sports Center” starting next month.

Robert was the sports director at Waco’s KWTX-TV (Channel 10) from 1994 to 2000. He worked at KEYE in Austin before moving to ESPN in 2005.

Corral becomes a talent rep

Al Corral joins the Napoli Management Group as a talent representative effective September 2, 2008.

A 25-year news vet, Al was most recently news director and VP of news at the NBC-owned Telemundo duopoly, KVEA-52 & KWHY-22 in Los Angeles. He resigned in April of this year.

Prior to his 7 years at Telemundo, he was News Director for KPIX-5, the CBS-owned station in San Francisco.

Al will be based at the NMG’s Beverly Hills headquarters.

Baltimore Sun cuts 100 jobs

The Baltimore Sun today eliminated about 100 jobs - 55 of them from the newsroom, most of which accepted buyouts.

The 171-year-old newspaper is owned by the Tribune Co., which has been making major cuts in its properties around the country, most notably at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

Besides reducing staff, The Sun and other Tribune papers are planning an aggressive redesign of their publications.

NBC-Miami sold... to Post-Newsweek

After much speculation over the past couple of days, The Washington Post Co. announced today that it will buy WTVJ Miami from NBC Universal. Although the terms of the deal were not revealed, it's estimated the sale could bring $350 million to $400 million and should be completed by the end of 2008.

Post-Newsweek Stations, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Co., will oversee operations of WTVJ, which will remain an NBC affiliate. It already owns and operates WPLG, the ABC affiliate in Miami, creating another duoloply in town.

TVNewsday points out that FCC rules allow a duopoly in a market this size if one of the two stations isn't in the top four in local audience share. WPLG ranks No. 1, while WTVJ is No. 6.

Diaz named Sr Editor @ ZDNet.com

Sam Diaz has landed a new job. The former Washington Post tech editor and Mercury News tech writer joined ZDNet.com this week as Senior Editor.

He will primarily be blogging for the Between The Lines blog, covering Silicon Valley and technology on the West Coast. Sam will be based in San Francisco.

After resigning from the Post in October of last year, he joined a P.R. firm for 6 months.

Sam's thrilled to be back home in California and covering technology in Silicon Valley again: "It's my passion and I'm excited to be in the center of it all again, working in the fast-paced world of online journalism."

Pioneer Latino producer dies

Claudio Guzman passed away last Saturday in Los Angeles at age 80. He had 40-year career in Hollywood, where he directed almost 30 TV shows, including "I Dream of Jeannie" and "The Patty Duke Show," as well as multiple films.

But he also was a pioneer in bringing bicultural programming to the airwaves. He produced "Villa Alegre," one of the nation's first bicultural Spanish-English educational television programs for children. The show premiered in 1973 on PBS and aired until about 1980 on more than 230 stations across the country.

In an interview with the L.A. Times in 1972, Claudio, who was born Rancagua, Chile, said: "We want children to understand that despite language, geography and cultural differences, they are all similar."

García among LAT layoffs

Veronica García, a National News Desk copy editor at the L.A. Times, is among the scores of employees who have been laid-off at the paper. It's expected the Times will eliminate 250 positions in this round of cuts.

Veronica, who is currently Region 8 director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, has been at the Times for 17 years. Friday is her last day on the job.

Other Latinos laid off that we know of at this point:

Jesús Sánchez. At the Times since 1987, he's covered several business section beats before becoming one of the first bloggers for the paper's online news division.

Jaime Cárdenas. From intern to sports writer, his tenure as a staffer at the paper was brief. He would've celebrated his first year anniversary in August.

Spanish-language media ad revenue increases

Ad spending in Spanish-language media has gone up 3%... reaching almost $6 billion in 2007. Cable TV had the biggest increase - a 76% jump, since Fox Sports en Español and Telemundo's mun2 were added as measured media, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Adweek reports that Nielsen's recently-released spotlight on Spanish-language advertising shows national magazines rose 13% in 2007 to $163.5 million and Spanish TV networks went up 2% to $3.01 billion, while ad spending in local newspapers remained flat year-to-year at roughly $110 million.

Radio Líder off the air in Charlotte

Charlotte's first Spanish-language radio station, Radio Líder (WNOW-AM) is off the air. After being on the air for 14 years, the owners of Orbimedia, Julián Posse and Aura Maria Gavilán-Posse, were unable to reach an agreement with Davidson Media Group to continue leasing the radio signal.

According to the Charlotte Observer, Davidson raised the lease from $25,000 to $30,000 a month, forcing Orbimedia to discontinue operations, since the station would not be profitable at that lease rate. An offer to buy the station for $1.6 million was turned down, with Davidson's asking price staying firm at $2.2 million.

Layoffs at Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune announced it will eliminate about 80 newsroom jobs by the end of August and reduce the number of pages it publishes by 13 percent to 14 percent each week.

This is the fourth round of cuts at the paper since late 2005, when the newsroom had aproximately 670 positions.

Tribune's industry troubles are compounded by the debt load acquired when the company went private at the end of last year.

Hernandez named director of development at Seattle Times

Robert Hernandez has a new title: Director of Development for seattletimes.com. For the past 5 years, he's been a Sr Producer of News for The Seattle Times and seattletimes.com.

In his new role, Robert says he'll be "leading a group of engineers and designers dedicated to developing new ways of using our news and information content." He says the goal is to improve user experience, advance the company brand through technology, and generate revenue.

"Developing is becoming as important as storytelling in this tough time and I'm excited about the possibilities. It's hard and somewhat abstract work, but we've already launched some projects that really are taking full advantage of the medium. I miss the newsroom, but the magic that happens with collaboration between design, engineering and journalism is pretty cool!"

Robert has also worked at the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle and La Prensa Gráfica in El Salvador.

Murillo celebrates 30 years at KVOA

Reporter Lupita Murillo celebrated her 30th anniversary at NBC affiliate KVOA last week. Lupita arrived in Tucson in 1978 after working at KRGV-TV in Weslaco, Texas for several years as reporter and weekend anchor.

She was one of the first Hispanic women to work in Texas television news and faced the challenge of working in a male-dominated environment. She tells the Arizona Daily Star: "I remember one time walking into the break room and the guys were drinking their coffee and smoking their cigars. One of them said, 'What is this world coming to when we are letting women into the business?' "

She says that attitude made her stronger. In an industry where reporters come and go, celebrating 30 years in one station is a true accomplishment.

Weather Channel sold! .... to NBC

It's a done deal. NBC Universal will buy the Weather Channel and Weather.com from Landmark for $3.5 billion.

AP is reporting that private equity firms The Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LLC joined NBC in the deal, which will also include several related assets such as weather services for newspapers and radio stations.

NBC Universal, became the sole bidder for TWC after Time Warner Inc. dropped out of the race last month.

NBC already operates NBC Weather Plus, a digital weather and news service launched in 2004, which can be seen on digital cable services and digital subchannels operated by NBC stations.

TWC would continue to be operated out of Atlanta. If the two companies get regulatory approvals, the transaction should close by year-end.

Back in January, Landmark was hoping to sell TWC for $5 billion.

Could there be some future layoffs at NBC's Weather Plus? The $3.5 billion price tag of The Weather Channel could prompt some cost-saving measures, including unloading duplicate positions brought on by the acquisition.

Univision O&O's are number 1

Univision stations KMEX-34 in Los Angeles and WXTV-41 in New York have the leading early evening newscasts in the country, regardless of language.

Variety is reporting the June data issued by Nielsen People Meter shows KMEX's 6 p.m. newscast averaged 140,000 adults 18-49, more than 73% ahead of KABC. While WXTV averaged 116,000 adults 18-49, finishing 9% ahead WABC, which currently has the market's No. 2 newscast.

Vega moves from print to TV

Cecilia Vega, the S.F Chronicle's city hall reporter leaves the paper to become an on-air reporter for KGO-7, the Bay Area's ABC station.

Cecilia has helped break some embarrassing stories about mayor Gavin Newsom, including his affair with the wife of his campaign manager, Alex Tourk.

Although this is Cecilia's first broadcast job, she has made numerous TV appearances as a Chron reporter. She starts the new job on Sept. 8. She will be working at KGO's Oakland bureau.

Why the move? She told the S.F. Chronicle the state of the newspaper industry played a major role in her decision:

“I certainly believe newspapers will always be around, I'm just not sure in what form or capacity. So, indeed, the unfortunate state of the newspaper industry played a role in my decision to make the jump to TV news. But really the decision came down to taking advantage of an opportunity to work for a great local news station and learning another form of story telling.”

L.A. Times to cut 250 jobs

The Los Angeles Times announced it will cut 250 positions across the company, including 150 editorial jobs. The newspaper will also reduce the number of pages it publishes each week by 15%, as part of its plan to cut costs.

In a memo, Times Editor Russ Stanton said:"Thanks to the Internet, we have more readers for our great journalism than at any time in our history. But also thanks to the Internet, our advertisers have more choices, and we have less money."

The editorial staff cuts will be spread between the print and Web operations and should be completed by Labor Day.

Blanco leaves El Paso

Jesse Blanco moves to Savannah to anchor Fox 28's 9PM newscast. He leaves KDBC, the CBS station in El Paso where he was also a primary anchor.

A Miami native, Jesse started his on-air career started in 1996 at WBBH/WZTV in Fort Myers as a Sports Reporter. He has also worked at Central Florida News 13 in Orlando, WSAV in Savannah, and WZTV in Nashville, Tennessee, before landing in El Paso.

NY1 Noticias celebrates 5th anniversary

Monday, June 30 marked 5 years since the launch of New York 1's 24-hour Spanish-language cable news network.

According to the Daily News, since NY1 Noticias hit the airwaves, it has covered such stories as the 2008 elections in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico's role in the race for the White House and the death of Celia Cruz.

NBC-11 cuts reach Garza

Award-winning reporter Daniel Garza is among a number of employees who were laid-off the Bay Area's NBC station.

Danny, a Bay Area native, has worked 18 years at KNTV. He also worked in Puerto Rico as a desk editor for the Associated Press Caribbean bureau in San Juan, and associate editor for Caribbean Business newspaper.

Shoptalk is reporting the staffers were given generous severance packages. There is also word that more cuts are yet to come.

Creste named VP of news at KVEA

Esteban Creste, currently the news director at Telemundo's Chicago station, is moving to Los Angeles.

Esteban begins his new job as VP of News for KVEA-52 and KWHY-22 on July 14.

Esteban tells me he's looking forward to the new job: "It's a great challenge, which will require team work and clear direction."

Esteban was recently promoted from news director to VP of News in Chicago, where he has been for the past three and a half years. He previously worked as a reporter and managing editor for Telemundo 47 in NYC.

He replaces Al Corral, who left the station in April, after 7 years.