Boston Herald: WRKO radio host Tom Finneran blurted “bull(expletive)” while on the air the other morning - “Take your banjo and shove it up your ass, Cooksey,” Finneran fumed at his producer, Bill - “Why are you so defensive and sensitive about this?” laughed his co-host, Todd Feinburg.

Gary Lycan: Former KFI-AM talker John Ziegler says he is ready to "stir things up a bit" on his new weekday 11 a.m.-1 p.m. program starting Monday (June 8) on KGIL 1260 and 540 AM and streamed live at www.1260.am + Glenn Beck, along with Rush Limbaugh (KFI/640 AM), and Howard Stern (Sirius XM), made this year's Forbes "Celebrity 100" list of top earners.

Sean Hannity: Rush Limbaugh "cuts loose" exclusively on the Sean Hannity show saying, "If al Qaeda wants to demolish the America we know and love, they better hurry, because Obama's beating them to it"

Washington Times: Radio legislation ignites royalties battle: Pay-to-play act could threaten religious, minority radio stations (read more - Deborah Simmons and Lyndia Grant - Washington Times).

Inside Music Media: No matter how bad it gets, radio consolidators are going to continue to "fix it" their way. Cutbacks. Firings. Less local programming. No Internet or mobile strategy. The usual. It's way past trying to operate the stations. Now, owners just want to cut their losses. That can be the only explanation for an industry where all the major consolidators -- led by, but not limited to Clear Channel, Citadel and Cumulus -- have given up on doing the right thing and opted for doing the cheap thing.

Inside Radio: Court upholds LPFM status. The U.S. Court of Appeals has handed the NAB a defeat as it upholds a December 2007 FCC decision to block full-power radio stations from knocking about 40 LPFMs off the air. The Media Access Project calls it a "critical win for the future of LPFM." The NAB is weighing its options.

Inside Radio: Radio gets a new in-car competitor. AT&T teams with RaySat Broadcasting to launch CruiseCast, a $28 per month rear-seat entertainment system that gives subscribers 20 satellite radio channels and 22 TV channels. The service launches as car sales are at their lowest point in decades and consumers are looking for ways to cut expenses.

TV Tech: FCC Loosens June 12 DTV Start Time. The FCC said stations wishing to commence their digital operations June 12 may do so at any time that date without prior commission approval.

TV Tech: FCC Pulling 'DT' Call Sign Suffixes. After June 12, the FCC will delete the “-DT” appendage from DTV station call signs unless the licensees file an application requesting calls with the “-DT” suffix

TV Tech: AMD Releases Combo ATSC/DVB-T HDTV Chip. The device includes demodulators for NTSC, PAL/SECAM, ATSC, ClearQAM and DVB-T.

TV Tech: Off-Air DTV Reception Pushes Antenna Sales. Antennas Direct says sales jumped 224 percent during the first quarter of this year and attributes this to both consumer frustration in receiving DTV off-air signals and high approval ratings for their products

Radio World: Drivers Want Their Devices in the Car. Consumers rank entertainment connectivity high in J.D. Power study

The Wires (June 5, 2009)

Tom Taylor of radio-info: "High cost of fuel" is cited as the reason for this Oregon FM to reduce power… and Marathon Media's KXPC-FM, Lebanon (103.7) followed up that March request to the FCC with a May request to be silent. Now it says "Station KXPC-FM had to go off the air due to technical difficulties." Presumably the fuel they're talking about is for power generation at the remotely-located transmitter site above Corvallis-Albany – not for sales vehicles.

Inside Music Media: Nielsen bought R&R from Perry Partners a few years ago. The paper has been sold several times in its history but R&R has always been blessed with great managers, editors and employees. It was a publication about good will toward the radio and music industries. Beyond losing another great asset, the demise of Radio & Records, which took its website down immediately after yesterday's announcement and will publish no further issues, is a very meaningful commentary on the plight of both industries. The original founder, Bob Wilson, was a genius. He knew program directors and made the publication something expressly for them. Up until that point you could read Billboard's radio section but that amounted to Claude Hall, also a very able communicator. But Hall's column Vox Jox was Billboard. The rest was for the labels and rack jobbers -- you get the point.

Gorman Media: They should have renamed it Downloads and Streaming. Maybe it would’ve had a fighting chance. On line. Let’s remember Radio & Records for its many achievements. It was the publication for both the radio and record industries. Nothing was more imperative to the record labels than an add and chart position on top 40 radio. The format played its currents in high rotation and sold product.

Countdown Shows Downsized: Kasem's American Top 10 and Top 20 To End On July 4th Holiday. Premiere Radio Networks has announced that it will cease producing American Top 10 and American Top 20 with Casey Kasem as of the weekend of JULY 4th-5th. Casey Kasem's American Top 40 - 'The 70s and Casey Kasem's American Top 40 - The '80s will continue to be distributed and broadcast by Premiere Radio on more than 200 radio stations around the world.

Radio and Records Goes Out of Business (June 4, 2009)

The website now forwards to the Billboard site http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/index.jsp

The Wires (June 4, 2009)

Tom Taylor of radio-info.com: Clear Channel's Mark Mays rallies the troops against a performance royalty. Yesterday's "urgent" email asks Clear Channel employees to jump into the lobbying fight, and help persuade local House members to see radio's side of the fight. Mays preaches that the royalty "could have a devastating impact on our industry" and says it "would forever change radio as we currently know it." If thousands of CC staffers really do send emails to the right places and make phone calls – that could be a powerful extension of the NAB's grassroots lobbying effort. But radio's got to find better arguments and answers.

Inside Radio: Royalty resolution hits 220. In a move that appears to block efforts by the record labels to win a performance royalty from radio stations, opponents say they've now collected 219 signatures on a House resolution opposing the fee. That's one more than needed -- and is likely to keep Democratic leaders from scheduling a vote on the bill.

The Wires (June 3, 2009)

Kurt Hanson: You may not be as cutting edge as you thought with your in-car Internet access anymore, thanks to increased sales of auto Wi-Fi routers . Autonet Mobile, a company that sells the devices through Cadillac and Chrysler dealers, found that over half of new car buyers want in-car Internet access and that 90% of those polled want Wi-Fi over an in-car DVD player. All in all, some are predicting that in-car Internet access could be a traditional feature by 2016 .

SDNN: San Diego superhero fights crime his own way. It's a bird, it's a plane...no, it's San Diego's Mr. Xtreme. The city may still be safe despite the drop in police officers - thanks to a real-life superher

Tom Taylor: radio-info.com: Latest on the performance royalty bill – Congress is back in session, and NAB has signed up 200 members against the bill. They need 218 House members to block it and they’re going for 230, just to be sure. I’m hearing from multiple sources that the NAB’s district-based lobbying effort turned more heads around during the holiday recess – and somebody says “you should notice that the NAB seems to have new momentum on this since David Rehr announced he was leaving” as CEO. Rehr was respected for several initiatives during his 3-1/2 years at the helm. But some Radio Board members fretted about the situation with the performance royalty. They think the NAB got over-confident following last year’s win and didn’t lay the groundwork to defend its position again this year. Last year’s losers, the RIAA and its allies, toiled hard over the Winter to push H.R. 848. Another possibility for the recent increase in House sign-ons to the “no fee/no tax” bill is one T-R-I has talked about – that Rehr’s “performance tax” strategy rubbed some House members the wrong way. With Rehr leaving (later this week, I think), they’re perhaps more amenable to friendly arm-twisting at the local level. Of course the NAB’s own government relations team is working, too. That’s headed up by EVP Laurie Knight – brought in by Rehr from the National Beer Wholesalers Association, which he was running before he took over the NAB in December 2005.

Tom Taylor: radio-info.com: Newest group to rally against a performance royalty – college and high school broadcasters. More than 80 school-licensed radio stations signed a letter opposing H.R. 848, the “Performance Right Act.” That’s significant, because the RIAA suggests that non-coms would enjoy a sweetheart deal under the new law. The school group says “in the real world, those proposed fees represent large portions of annual budgets for student-operated stations.” College Broadcasting Inc. President Warren Kozireski says “the recordkeeping requirements that will be required by the Copyright Royalty Board alone will add hundreds if not thousands of dollars to the true cost of a performance fee.” The Free Radio Alliance is helping coordinate opposition to the performance royalty. Now it can add in support for its stand from Duke, Harvard, Rice University, Virginia Tech, Washington State University and plenty more.

Inside Music Media: The big four labels are at it again. They’re proving they can still be dangerous – in all the wrong ways. Sony Music has just agreed to make their catalog (two years or older) available to the online music store eMusic, one of the largest music retailers on the Internet with 400,000 subscribers paying $11.99 a month to download 30 songs. That comes out to about 40 cents a song. Far less than iTunes or any other online music site.

The Wires (June 2, 2009)

Deseret News: Brigham Young University radio on Monday joined colleges and high schools from across the country to oppose federal legislation that would impose a fee on student-operated and noncommercial radio stations that play music.

Gary Lycan: John Ziegler and Bill O'Reilly (BO - commentaries only) join the KGIL-AM talk line-up June 8. Ziegler, formerly on KFI-AM, will be on 11 a.m.-1 p.m. weekdays on 1260 and 540 AM. To make room for Ziegler, Glenn Beck and Monica Crowley have had their shows cut one hour.

Mutterings (June 1, 2009)

We are in the final 12 days before the end of full powered analog TV in the U.S. Canada and Mexico TV stations are unaffected. Cable cannot drop analog service until at least 2012. Portable TV sets will be rendered useless unless they live near Tijuana or around a favorite low power TV station.

A pirate operating at 89.1 MHz was arrested last month. Seems that people are getting smarter at spotting radio pirates. Too numerous to mention how many I encountered since 1996.