May 10, 2010

http://www.nyc.gov/film MOFTB Proposes Processing Fee for New Project Applications

May 10, 2010 - For over forty years, the NYC Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting has been the agency providing one-stop clearance and permit operations for film and television productions in the City. As part of these services, the office continues to coordinate and provide free police assistance, free parking privileges and access to most exterior locations free of charge, including 300 square miles of City streets. Because all City agencies are facing unprecedented budget challenges, MOFTB is proposing a permit application processing fee of $300.

Full Story >Television That's So New York - NYC life Launches New Lineup May 10, 2010 - Life in New York City just got more interesting...NYC life, the flagship channel of NYC Media brings New Yorkers interesting, entertaining and educational content that embraces the energy and diversity of the City that never sleeps.

Full Story >Sign Up for the NYC Media NewsletterMay 10, 2010 - Find out what's airing on NYC Media's various channels, like NYC life (channel 25), and get all the latest news about NYC Media by signing up for the NYC Media newsletter.

Full Story >Writing for Film and Television: Local Students Learn from Professional WritersMay 10, 2010 - Aspiring writers were in for an enlightening evening on April 26, as the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, in conjunction with the Writer's Guild of America, East, presented Careers in Entertainment: Writing for Film and Television at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Full Story >";Made in NY" Production Crafts Training Program UnderwayMay 10, 2010 - The first class from the "Made in NY" Production Crafts Training Program is currently taking place.

Full Story >";Made in NY" Vendors are 'Quintessential' This MonthMay 10, 2010 - New vendors continue to join the "Made in NY" Discount Card program, which offers discounts at local businesses to productions shooting in the five boroughs.

Full Story >IFP and MOFTB Announce Culmination of Inaugural "Made in NY" Mentorship ProgramMay 10, 2010 - The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) and the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting announce the conclusion of the inaugural year of its "Made in NY" Mentorship Program, a career development program supporting and promoting diversity in the New York City entertainment workforce through mentorship, workshop and networking opportunities and job placement support.

Full Story >";Made in NY" Mentorship Program Next Recruitment Cycle Coming Soon May 10, 2010 - The "Made in NY" Mentorship Program will soon be recruiting applicants for its next cycle. Check nyc.gov/film for updates later this month.

Full Story >Teachers Gather for Blueprint: The Moving Image during Tribeca Film FestivalMay 10, 2010 - On April 30, a group of roughly fifty DOE educators and cultural partners gathered at Borough of Manhattan Community College in Manhattan during the Tribeca Film Festival to participate in a professional development session for the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts: The Moving Image.

Full Story >";Made in NY" Films Flock to the TheatresMay 10, 2010 - Over the past several weeks and throughout May, several "Made in NY" productions are making their way to local theatres and television.

Full Story >NYC Media Wins Five Emmys in 53rd Annual New York Emmy AwardsMay 10, 2010 - NYC Media, the official television network of the City of New York, took home five Emmys at the 53rd Annual New York Awards.

Full Story >Theatre Award Season Underway in MayMay 10, 2010 - Nominees and special honors have already been announced for several prestigious theatrical awards this season.

Full Story >Internet Week Returns to NYC in JuneMay 10, 2010 - Internet Week is back beginning on June 7. Celebrating the City's Internet and digital community, a variety of events will be held throughout the week.

Full Story >Museum of the City of New York Explores the Career of NYC's 103rd Mayor, John Lindsay, in New Exhibit May 10, 2010 - America's Mayor: John V. Lindsay and the Reinvention of New York, an exhibition currently on display at the Museum of the City of New York until October 3, 2010, will examine the controversial career of New York's 103rd mayor, highlighting his ambitious initiatives to redefine New York's government, economy, culture and public life.

Full Story >Film Festivals Introduce Locals to New Works in May May 10, 2010 - In May, local film festivals showcase works of international filmmakers.

Full Story >New Website Launches as Resource Guide for New York's Independent Film and Arts Community May 10, 2010 - BigVisionEmptyWallet.com, a new blog and website offering a fresh perspective on the independent film and arts community in New York City, has launched.

Full Story >FDNY Receives Grant from Taylor & Taylor and Fireman's Fund May 10, 2010 - The FDNY recently received a $32,000 grant from Taylor & Taylor Associates, Inc. and the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company for the purchase of video editing equipment and software to enhance the training of its members.

Full Story >";Made in NY" Bus Shelters Stay Grounded with 'Gravity'May 10, 2010 - Local city bus shelters have highlighted a world renowned film festival and a new "Made in NY" TV series in recent weeks through the "Made in NY" Marketing Credit.

Full Story >Industry Star of the Month: Javonne ParkerMay 10, 2010 - Filmmakers and location scouts looking for a usual way to capture the New York City skyline know to get in touch with Javonne Parker.

Full Story >PA of the Month: Martin PetersonMay 10, 2010 - Martin Peterson gets to know a lot of people on his job.

Full Story >By the Numbers: Free Places to Visit This SpringMay 10, 2010 - The City of New York is home to more than 500 galleries, 375 nonprofit theater companies, 330 dance companies, 150 museums, 96 orchestras, 38 Broadway theaters, 24 performing arts centers, five zoos, four botanical gardens, and an aquarium.

Full Story >Location of the Month: Cromwell Ave at Exterior Place, Bronx p

Mayor's Office of Film Theatre & Broadcasting

1697 Broadway Suite 602

New York, New York 10019

http://www.nyc.gov/film

BP has long record of legal, ethical violations - KansasCity.com

An oil-soaked bird struggles against the oil slicked side of the HOS Iron Horse supply vessel at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. Photo: AP

The BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig sank about 80 kilometres south-east of Venice, Louisiana on April 22, two days after an explosion that killed 11 workers.

The riser pipe that had connected the rig to the wellhead now lies fractured on the seabed nearly two kilometres below spewing out oil at a rate at about 5000 barrels a day. Untold damage is already being done by the 83,000 barrels estimated to be in the sea so far, but the extent of that harm will rise exponentially if the only solution is a relief well that will take months to drill.

There are also fears that the slick, which covers an area of about 5200 square kilometres, could be carried around the Florida peninsula if it spreads far enough south to pick up a special current.

BP began a first relief well a week ago, but said it would take up to three months to drill, by which time about 480,000 barrels of crude could have streamed into the sea and ruined the fragile ecology of the Gulf.

BP has long record of legal, ethical violations - KansasCity.com

By RICHARD MAUER AND ANNA M. TINSLEY
McClatchy Newspapers

The causes of the disastrous blowout and gas explosion on BP's leased Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico are a long way from being determined.

Yet already BP's actions are facing unprecedented scrutiny, thanks to a years-long history of legal and ethical violations that critics, judges and members of Congress say shows that the London-based company has a penchant for putting profits ahead of just about everything else.

Over the past two decades, BP subsidiaries have been convicted three times of environmental crimes in Alaska and Texas, including two felonies. It remains on probation for two of them.
It also has received the biggest-ever fine for willful work safety violations in U.S. history and is the subject of a wide range of safety investigations, including one in Washington state that resulted last week in a relatively minor $69,000 fine for 13 "serious" safety violations at its Cherry Point refinery near Ferndale, Wash.

While BP has said it accepts responsibility for the spill, it denies that it's guilty of a systematic pattern of safety and environmental failures.

"We are a responsible and professional company," said BP Alaska spokesman Steve Rinehart. "We work to high standards. Safety is our highest priority."

A review of BP's history, however, shows a pattern of ethically questionable and illegal behavior that goes back decades.

BP's best-known disaster took place in 2005, when an explosion at its refinery in Texas City near Galveston, Texas, killed 15 workers, injured 180 people and forced thousands of nearby residents to remain sheltered in their homes.

An investigation of the explosion by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board blamed BP for the explosion and offered a scathing assessment of the company. It found "organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation" and said management failures could be traced from Texas to London.

The company eventually pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act, was fined $50 million and sentenced to three years of probation. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration assessed BP the largest fine in OSHA history - $87 million - after inspectors found 270 safety violations that had been previously cited but not fixed and 439 new violations.
BP is appealing that fine, but BP's legal and ethical problems go back much further.

In Alaska, BP first brought unwelcome attention to itself more than 20 years ago in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Exxon was BP's partner in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oilfield, the nation's largest, and shared in the ownership of the trans-Alaska pipeline system, known as Alyeska and headed then by a BP executive who was on loan to the pipeline company.

After a series of documents were leaked to news reporters and Congress that showed how Alyeska failed to live up to its promises to contain spills, that executive, James Hermiller, in February 1990 ordered an undercover operation to track down the leaker.

Hermiller's chief suspect was Chuck Hamel, a former congressional aide and oil broker in Alexandria, Va., who became a conduit between industry whistleblowers and reporters. With Hermiller's blessing, Alyeska hired Wackenhut Corp., a security company in South Florida, to catch Hamel and identify his whistleblowers.

Wackenhut set up a phony environmental law firm and attempted to get Hamel to use it to pursue public interest lawsuits against Alyeska and Exxon. They stole Hamel's trash, bugged an office he used and hired a beautiful blonde to pretend she was an environmentalist in order to get Hamel to talk.

But the scheme collapsed seven months later when one of the Wackenhut operatives came to believe that it was Hamel who was honorable, not Alyeska, and switched sides, bringing the Wackenhut spies with him.

Hermiller retired at the age of 57 in 1993 in the wake of subsequent investigations and congressional hearings and was eventually replaced by a new BP official, who vowed to clean up Alyeska's corporate culture. Hamel successfully sued and used some of his damage award to continue his watchdog pursuit of the industry.

BP ran afoul of federal environmental laws in Alaska after it was discovered that from 1993 to 1995 a BP contractor, Doyon Drilling, had illegally dumped hazardous materials down oil well shafts on the North Slope, the giant Alaska oil production area bordered by the Brooks Range mountains to the south and the Arctic Ocean on the north.

Doyon pleaded guilty in federal court to a felony violation of the Clean Water Act and was fined $3 million. BP was convicted on Feb. 1, 2000, of failing to report the dumping as soon as it learned about it, a felony. BP was fined $500,000, placed on five years' probation and ordered to create a nationwide environmental management program that cost the company at least $40 million.

A BP official told the judge, "We are committed to ensuring this never happens again."

But BP was still on probation when new problems erupted, this time in its North Slope corrosion control program.

Despite warnings from a leak-detection system, a badly corroded 34-inch-diameter pipeline in Prudhoe Bay lost oil for at least five days before a worker driving down a nearby service road on March 2, 2006, smelled oil and spotted the spill, which covered at least two acres of tundra. At 200,000 gallons, it was the largest ever on the North Slope.

Just five months later, on Aug. 6, 2006, a second spill of about 1,000 gallons was discovered on another line. Subsequent investigation found the line was riddled with corrosion, with 176 places where more than half the original diameter had been eaten away.

Congressional hearings held to probe the spills immediately focused on claims that BP actively discouraged workers from reporting safety and environmental problems. The British-born chief of BP's corrosion unit, Richard Woollam, who'd left the company in 2005, took the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination during the hearings, which uncovered a 2004 report by the Houston law firm Vinson & Elkins warning BP that employees faced retaliation for reporting problems.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, suggested BP had decided to "bet the farm" that the pipeline wouldn't fail before Prudhoe Bay would run out of oil, saving it the cost of replacement. He accused the company of fostering a "corporate culture of seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues."

In 2007, BP pleaded guilty in federal court in Anchorage to another violation of the Clean Water Act for the 2006 spill. This crime was a misdemeanor, but it still cost BP $20 million in fines and restitution and three more years of probation. Prosecutors said the spill occurred because BP was more interested in cutting costs than in maintaining an aging oil field.

A BP vice president told the judge that the corrosion problems were "out of character" for the company. BP had learned its lesson, he said.

But in November last year, 46,000 gallons of oil and water gushed from an over-pressurized BP pipeline on the North Slope, prompting the EPA and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to open another criminal investigation of BP. An EPA investigator declined to comment last week on the probe's status.

It's the 2005 Texas City explosion, however, that drew the harshest accusations against BP - from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which issued a 341-page report in March 2007, two years after the blast, and from a separate commission led by former Secretary of State James Baker III.

Both groups faulted BP's management at all levels for overlooking problems.

"Warning signs of a possible disaster were present for several years, but company officials did not intervene effectively to prevent it," the Chemical Safety and Hazard probe concluded. "Cost-cutting, failure to invest, and production pressures from BP Group executive managers impaired process safety performance at Texas City."

As an example the board cited a blowdown stack where the first explosion occurred when a geyser of flammable liquid erupted from it. A kind of chimney, the blowdown stack was described by the board as antiquated equipment of unsafe design originally installed in the 1950s.

The Baker panel also concluded that BP safety efforts were hurt by bad management and cost cutting. The panel said that the company had "a false sense of confidence" about safety and didn't always make sure that "adequate resources were effectively allocated" to safety issues.

After the 2005 explosion, BP officials said they created a panel to study safety practices at its site, increased the number of people responsible for safety and environmental issues, and spent more than $1 billion on upgrades and repairs.

A new chief executive, Tony Hayward, came on board in 2007 and made even more changes, hiring a management consulting firm and an analyst, among others, to identify needed changes. The company has spent millions of dollars on TV ads talking about how the company is a pioneer for efforts to move "beyond petroleum."

The efforts have won some praise. Lynne Baker, a spokeswoman for the United Steelworkers Union, which represents many of BP's refinery workers, has told reporters that BP has " worked hard to get themselves in a better position in all the refineries," and Kevin Banks, the director of the oil and gas division of Alaska's Department of Natural Resources, cautiously says BP has made improvements, though "it has some ways to go yet."

But others say it is unlikely BP has changed a profit-driven culture that's so deeply entrenched.
"They push all their people to maximize the profitability of their sector," said Brent Coon, a Beaumont, Texas, attorney who amassed millions of documents representing workers and residents in lawsuits against BP for the 2005 Texas City explosion.

Coon says he's already contracted new clients over the Gulf spill and expects to take BP to court again.

"By all evidence I've seen," Coon said, "every operation they've ever engaged in, they take capital out of infrastructural repairs to put it into profits and into expansion."

(Richard Mauer, of the Anchorage Daily News, reported from Anchorage, Alaska; Anna Tinsley, of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, reported from Fort Worth, Texas.)

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/08/1933081/bp-has-long-record-of-legal-ethical.html#ixzz0nXvaDscw

Judge’s Ruling Could Have ‘Chilling Effect’ on Documentaries

By DAVE ITZKOFF

The director Michael Moore says that a federal judge’s ruling to allow Chevron to subpoena footage from the documentary “Crude” could have dire consequences on the documentary filmmaking process, and urged that film’s director to resist the subpoena if he can.

On Thursday, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court in Manhattan said that Joe Berlinger, the director of “Crude,” would have to turn over more than 600 hours of footage from that documentary.

The film chronicles the Ecuadorians who sued Texaco (now owned by Chevron) saying an oil field contaminated their water. Chevron said that Mr. Berlinger’s footage could be helpful as it seeks to have the litigation dismissed and pursues an international treaty arbitration related to the lawsuit.

In a telephone interview on Thursday night, Mr. Moore, whose films include “Bowling for Columbine” and “Capitalism: A Love Story,” said that he had never heard of such a ruling.

“If this isn’t overturned, it would make a lot of documentary filmmakers afraid,” Mr. Moore said. “People are going to have to start getting rid of all their extra footage now, right?”

Should the decision of Judge Kaplan be upheld and a subpoena be served for Mr. Berlinger’s footage, Mr. Moore said, “The chilling effect of this is, someone like me, if something like this is upheld, the next whistleblower at the next corporation is going to think twice about showing me some documents if that information has to be turned over to the corporation that they’re working for.”

Mr. Moore said that in making his documentary films like “Roger & Me,” he has spoken in confidence to corporate employees who have revealed sensitive information or shared internal documents.

“I’ve never had to deal with any corporation suing me to find out how I gather this information,” he said. “Obviously the ramifications of this go far beyond documentary films, if corporations are allowed to pry into a reporter’s notebook or into a television station’s newsroom.”

Mr. Moore said he hoped the judge’s ruling would be overturned on appeal, and said that if it is not Mr. Berlinger should resist the subpoena “if he can.”

“I think that he’ll find that he’ll have the support of hundreds of filmmakers who will back him in this,” Mr. Moore said.

An Ecuadorean cancer victim’s reflection in an oil- polluted

stream near her home, in the documentary “Crude.”

Juan Diego Pérez/Entendre Films

“Documentaries are a form of journalism,” he added.

The lawyers for Mr. Berlinger said they would ask Judge Kaplan to stay the subpoena while they appeal the decision.

Related Posts

Filmmaker ‘Shocked’ by Judge’s Order for Subpoena

Joe Berlinger, the director of the documentary “Crude,” said he was dismayed by a judge’s ruling to allow Chevron to subpoena the footage from his film but that he would comply with a subpoena if one is issued, after exhausting his legal remedies.

Ric Burns Says Judge’s Ruling on Film Could Be ‘Killer Blow’

The director Ric Burns said that a judge’s decision to permit Chevron to subpoena the footage from the movie “Crude” could deliver a “killer blow” to how documentary filmmakers cultivate their sources and tell their stories. Mr. Burns said the ruling “contributes to a general culture of contempt for investigative journalism.”

Judge Rules That Filmmaker Must Give Footage to Chevron

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court said that the director Joe Berlinger would have to turn over more than 600 hours of footage from his documentary “Crude.” The film, which was released last year, chronicles the Ecuadorians who sued Texaco (now owned by Chevron) saying the operations of the companies’ oil field at Lago Agrio contaminated their water.

Director of ‘Crude’ Will Resist Chevron’s Request for Footage

Mr. Berlinger said that if the oil company obtained his footage, “it would have a serious chilling effect on these kinds of investigative films.” “If I can’t promise my subjects that kind of confidentiality, I fear I and others won’t be able to make these kinds of films again,” he said.

FCC Probes Honolulu Three-Station TV Agreement

The shared services agreement between Raycom Media and MCG Capital that combined the operations of all three Honolulu television stations was challenged by Media Council Hawaii in a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The FCC has determined that due to public interest in the matter, the proceeding will be treated under “permit-but-disclose” ex parte rules.

In doing so, the Commission ruled in favor of the Media Council over the objections of the two television companies, which hoped to restrict access to information on the proceedings.

According to a May 5, 2010 RBR-TVBR report, HITV License Subsidiary Inc., the license subsidiary of MCG, had argued for restricted status, but the FCC said, “Contrary to the assertion of HITV, we believe that classifying this proceeding as permit-but-disclose is in the public interest because the proceeding raises issues upon which the public has a demonstrable concern, especially within the affected market. In view of this and in order to assure the staff’s ability to discuss and obtain information needed to resolve the issues presented expeditiously, adoption of modified ex parte procedures is appropriate.” See http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/23990.html



Treating this case as a "permit but disclose" proceeding, means that parties are not confined to the usual process of arguing their cases through written submissions served on all parties (or meetings at which all parties are present). Instead, interested parties can now meet with FCC decision-making staff (including FCC commissioners) on their own, as long as they file an "ex parte" notice in the record summarizing the presentations that they made. This process is usually used only for high-profile decisions with potential far-reaching impact or where new policy is potentially to be made.

In a Broadcast Law blog posting at http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/, Davis Wright Tremaine attorney David Oxenford noted that this treatment of the Honolulu case signals that the FCC is taking a serious look at such local combinations as part of this year’s Quadrennial Review of media ownership regulation.



The blog post continues, "In recent years, as competition in the video marketplace has become more intense, in a number of broadcast television markets, competing stations have teamed up to combine certain of their operations to achieve economies while still allowing for some degree of independence of programming."



"Under these "shared services agreements", one station will provide back-office support and often advertising sales for another station in the market. Where the station providing the support programs less than 15% of the programming hours of the station being supported, the contractual arrangement is not "attributable under the FCC's multiple ownership rules."



"Thus, these services can be provided in circumstances where the supported station could not be owned by the station that is providing the services. Nevertheless, a number of these arrangements have been under attack from public interest groups, and recent Commission actions indicate that the FCC may well be reviewing its position on these sorts of agreements."

Many public interest groups despise these sorts of arrangements, arguing that even if combined stations have their own news programming, the news comes from one controlling management perspective and diminishes diversity of viewpoint and consumer choice.

Some members of the broadcasting management community argue that without such arrangements, many smaller stations would fail, particularly in smaller markets, and a failed station completely eliminates diversity of viewpoint and consumer choice.

Members of IBEW, NABET-CWA, and IATSE locals representing broadcast engineers at television stations around the country have voiced support for Media Council Hawaii in opposing such station consolidation and shared services agreements. These consolidation of facilities and shared serices agreements sacrifice quality, objective news reporting in exchange for the abilitiy to increase operating profits through staff reductions.

The use of shared facility and services agreements and the use of Local News Services (LNS) to consolidate news gathering crews (ENG) has raised a number of restraint of trade (through creation of barriers to market entry) issues being looked at by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as well as a possible Department of Justice (DOJ) probe of alleged anti-trust violations. If critics create enough buzz, the Justice Department’s Christine Varney might well scrutinize potentially anti-competitive practices and behavior by media companies.

The FCC will consider both the public interest diversity issue and the financial challenges facing broadcasters in the current competitive economic environment before coming to a decision. It will be interesting to see which way the Commission rules.

Tags: Multiple Ownership Rules, Television, competition between television stations, cooperative arrangement between local television stations, joint sales agreement, ownership of television stations, quadrennial review of FCC ownership rules, shared services agreement


Tribune Files For FCC Cross Ownership Waivers

The Tribune Company has filed FCC requests to keep certain properties together that require FCC waivers under its new proposed ownership structure.



Tribune is seeking to protect three cross-owned pairs involving one television station and one newspaper which include the pairings of WPIX-TV and Newsday in the New York City DMA, KTLA-TV and the Los Angeles Times in the Los Angeles DMA and WSFL-TV and the Sun Sentinel in the Miami DMA.

The same type of combination with the addition of an AM station in Chicago involving WGN-AM, WGN-TV and the Chicago Tribune has already been approved by a permanent waiver from the FCC.

Another seeks to preserve the existing flagship/satellite relationship between two full-power television stations, WTTV-TV Bloomington IN and its satellite, WTTK-TV Kokomo IN.

Two waivers are required in Hartford CT. For starters, there are two television stations, WTIC-TV and WTXX-TV, combined with The Hartford Courant, requiring a cross-ownership waiver on steroids. And the only reason Tribune was able to have WTXX in the mix in the first place is that it was acquired under a failed station waiver, which it needs to have renewed.



FCC Issues New Comcast/NBCU Comment Deadlines



RBR-TVBR: Interested parties that have something to say about the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC Universal have about a month and a half to get in their first salvo, and with replies and replies to replies factored in, the process will extend into August.


The FCC had asked the principals in the merger to prepare two additional reports on the merger, detailing the economics underlying the benefits the transaction is claimed to offer, and the other discussing the impact the transaction would have on the distribution of online video.


Those reports are in, so the commenting period may now begin.Initial comments, or petitions to deny, are due 6/21/10; replies and/or opposition to petitions are due 7/21/10, and replies to replies/oppositions are due 8/5/10.

Actor's Unions' Appear Ready To Walk Down The Aisle

By Richard Verrier

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com

Hollywood's once-bickering actors' unions appear to be warming up to the idea of a marriage.

That's the takeaway from an upbeat message published in the Screen Actors Guild magazine from a guild task force exploring the idea of merging SAG with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

The guilds earlier this year opted to restore a long-term bargaining partnership that had broken off two years ago because of a host of disagreements.

Although previous attempts at merging the unions failed, relations "have improved significantly" and union leaders are now "openly discussing the potential for a permanent partnership," the task force said.

"Management's ability to divide our work is costing members more than ever," the message read. "Of course, the defining reason to form a single union is clear: Our bargaining power is increased if we cannot be divided. If we give our employers only one outlet for the skilled performers they need, we can maximize our ability to secure strong compensation and protections for the work we do."

The statement follows a similar "open letter" from AFTRA's leaders in which they endorsed the concept of creating a "new, strong national union" that would combine the resources of both organizations, which have about 44,000 members in common. In addition to actors, AFTRA also represents disc jockeys, recording artists and broadcast journalists.

Although the presidents of both unions are on board with the idea, a process for merging has yet to be agreed on. What's more, an overwhelming majority of members in each guild would have to endorse the idea before it could take effect. Such a vote would probably not occur until next year, after the next round of contract negotiations with the studios begins this fall.

Richard Verrier

More in: screen actors guild

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CBS Overpaid Moonves $28 Million, Says Study of CEO Pay

By Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Alexis Leondis
www.bloomberg.com

Kenneth Feinberg, the paymaster at companies rescued by the U.S. Treasury, recently cut cash compensation for executives at American International Group Inc. and General Motors Co. He said some companies are buying into his credo of pay tied to performance.

Pay expert Graef Crystal, a former adviser to Coca-Cola Co. and American Express Co., has concluded that pay for performance is a fiction.

Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS Corp., was the highest paid CEO in the Bloomberg survey, earning $43.2 million in 2009. Photographer: Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg

In a study for Bloomberg News, Crystal examined the compensation of 271 chief executive officers and found the average slipped 4.7 percent last year to $9.95 million, with extremes ranging from $43.2 million for CBS Corp.’s Leslie Moonves to $245,322 for Google Inc.’s Eric Schmidt.

Using formulas he developed over 30 years in the business, Crystal crunched the numbers to see whether higher shareholder returns, the gold standard of performance for investors, led to higher pay, and vice versa. No matter how he sliced the data, the answer was no.

“The return explained none of the variations,” said Crystal, 76, in a telephone interview from his home in Las Vegas. “Simply put, companies don’t pay for performance.”

If CEOs were paid according to shareholder return, Moonves would take a $28 million pay cut under a model that Crystal developed.

At CBS, “more than 85 percent of Mr. Moonves’s compensation is keyed to performance-based measures” and is “closely aligned” to shareholders’ interests, Dana McClintock, a spokesman, said.

$9.29 Million Overpaid

Crystal’s model reapportioned pay according to a formula based two-thirds on shareholder return, and one-third on company size, measured by its sales.

Among those who would lose money in the redistribution were CEOs who received raises in 2009, when most of their peers took pay cuts. After a 61 percent boost to $12.6 million, Eastman Kodak Co.’s Antonio Perez made $9.29 million more than the Crystal model said he should.

AT&T Inc.’s Randall Stephenson -- up 85 percent to $29.2 million in 2009, primarily from an increased pension contribution -- deserved $20 million less, according to Crystal.

The CEO who would receive the most if shareholder return ruled in board rooms: Ford Motor Co.’s Alan Mulally, 64, who would move up to $19.6 million from $17.9 million.

Ford, based in Dearborn, Michigan, was alone among U.S. automakers in avoiding bankruptcy last year. Ford boosted U.S. market share through March to 17.4 percent, up 2.7 percentage points from a year earlier. Its shares rose more than fourfold in 2009 and about 310 percentage points more than the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Eight Times Value

The CEO whose actual pay was most out of line in the Crystal model was Cephalon Inc. founder Frank Baldino Jr., 56. He took home $11.1 million, more than eight times the $1.34 million allotted him by the formula.

Tying Baldino’s compensation to stock price wouldn’t appropriately reflect his value to the biotechnology firm, or the strength of the company, said Sheryl Williams, a spokeswoman for Frazer, Pennsylvania-based Cephalon. “We don’t pay our executives based on changes in the price of the stock,” she said. “We pay them based on growth in sales and earnings.”

The drugmaker reported net income last year of $342.6 million, a 78 percent gain, on $2.19 billion in sales. Shares were off 19 percent for the year as the company had more research and development failures than successes, Williams said.

‘Angers Main Street’

Crystal’s model was devised amid rising concern that executive pay is too high and calls from President Barack Obama and others that CEOs should suffer when companies mess up.
“It angers Main Street when it sees what executive pay looks like, especially on Wall Street,” Feinberg, 64, the U.S. paymaster, said in an interview.

Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in his shareholder letter this year that he wants to see “meaningful sticks” tied to the “oversized financial carrots” that are part of CEO and director pay packages.

Shareholder return is a “much better barometer of performance than any type of guaranteed salary,” Feinberg said.

Ira T. Kay, an independent compensation consultant in New York, said Crystal and Feinberg are talking about the wrong performance gauge. Eighty percent to ninety percent of CEOs’ bonuses in 2009 were tied to earnings growth, which is highly correlated to stock price appreciation, according to Kay.

“It’s a mythology among the American public and media that there is no pay for performance,” he said. “If measured properly, there is tremendous pay for performance.”

‘Too Many Influences’

Stock prices can move at the whim of the market and aren’t the best way to evaluate CEO performance, said Tim White, a partner at Dallas-based Kaye/Bassman International, an executive search and recruitment firm. “There are far too many influences on stock price that the leader can’t control,” White said.

Crystal acknowledges his model isn’t perfect. For one thing, he said, it assumes that the aggregate $2.7 billion that CEOs in the study received represents the appropriate level. If it were up to him, CEO compensation would be reduced across the board, he said.

Shareholder return is the best determinant of pay because it’s the only gauge of success that’s external and can’t be manipulated by accounting tricks or shifts in performance targets, Crystal said.

Throughout his career, which began in 1959 after he saw an ad for a wage and salary analyst in the Los Angeles Times, Crystal said he noticed that CEOs rarely saw their pay packages docked when their companies’ stock plummeted.

‘Bargain’ CEOs

“On the down side, it’s never the CEO’s fault,” he said. “Yet if the company has a good year, guys gather around him like he’s Julius Caesar.”

For his study, Crystal included companies in the S&P 500 that had filed proxy statements for their 2009 fiscal years by April 16. Only CEOs who were in the position in 2008 and 2009 were included, for accurate comparisons.

He found that 159 of the 271 CEOs would get raises if the total CEO payroll last year were redistributed according to his return-heavy formula.

The most underpaid of the “bargain” CEOs, Google’s Schmidt, received $245,322 last year, 99 percent below pay adjusted for shareholder return. Schmidt owns 9.4 million shares of the Mountain View, California-based company, according to a company filing. His restraint contrasts with other CEOs who have fortunes in stock and still take big packages, Crystal said.

Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison, 65, who owns shares worth about $30 billion, was paid $56.8 million in the company’s latest fiscal year.

Not ‘Entirely Altruistic’

Oracle, based in Redwood City, California, wasn’t included in the Crystal study because its fiscal year ended May 31, before the latest batch of proxy filings covering the calendar year. Google and Oracle officials didn’t return calls and e- mails seeking comment.

Like Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, 46, of Amazon.com Inc. was rated as underpaid with a $1.78 million package, compared to the $18.3 million he would get under Crystal’s model. Stock of Seattle- based Amazon beat the S&P 500 by 136 percentage points in 2009. Bezos holds 92 million shares worth about $12 billion.

Bezos’s decision to take such low compensation “isn’t entirely altruistic,” because it acts to moderate pay demands by Amazon’s employees, said Steve Wallenstein, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, who studies corporate directors.

A ‘Shared Sacrifice’

On the opposite end of the spectrum was Kodak’s Perez, 64. Kodak, based in Rochester, New York, lost $210 million last year as its revenue fell 19 percent and its shares shed a third of their value. The company, undergoing a transformation from film to digital products, cut 4,100 jobs and has its lowest workforce since the 1930s.

The compensation committee of Kodak’s board approved a 9.8 percent base salary reduction for Perez, which its proxy filing said was larger than guidelines would have dictated, because of Perez’s “desire to lead in the shared sacrifice.” The sacrifice didn’t extend to the rest of Perez’s package -- where directors changed terms in ways that benefited the CEO. The board said it was responding to what it saw as “strong incentive” for Perez to retire this year because parts of his employment agreement were expiring.

Kodak gave Perez an option for 500,000 shares valued at $1.05 million, by amending his employment contract. It accelerated to 2009 an equity payout originally scheduled for 2010, helping Perez get a $6.18 million stock award. The company also retained its 2008 metrics for “target annual variable pay” adding $1.71 million to Perez’s package.

A Successful 2009

Perez’s total pay package was $12.6 million, up 61 percent.

Kodak had a successful 2009 and achieved the profitability and cash generation goals that were communicated to investors early in the year, according to David Lanzillo, a spokesman for the company.

“We have seen a lot of symbolic cutting of cash salaries,” said Brandon Rees, deputy director of the AFL-CIO’s office of investment in Washington. “That’s a tiny fraction of total compensation” versus “the millions of dollars in other forms of compensation.”

Some of the misalignment between shareholder return and CEO pay arises from competition among companies. Compensation committees routinely peg a substantial portion of CEOs’ pay to competitors, often at the 75th percentile. That means that pay flows even when shares fall, so long as CEOs in the selected peer group do well, said Robin Ferracone, executive chair at Los Angeles-based Farient Advisors, an executive compensation firm.

Special Awards

The CEOs of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. each earned at least 89 percent less than the return-driven pay calculation in the Crystal model. After receiving aid under the Troubled Asset Relief Program during the financial crisis, they heeded coaxing from Feinberg and Obama to restrain executive compensation.

In 2010, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan reversed themselves and made special awards to their leaders that they attributed to 2009 performance. Goldman Sachs gave Lloyd Blankfein a $9 million all-stock bonus, and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon was awarded stock and options worth about $17 million.

An exception to the underpaid bank CEOs was Henry Meyer III, 60, the CEO of Cleveland-based lender KeyCorp. Although the bank was barred under TARP from paying cash bonuses, Meyer’s total compensation rose 21 percent as KeyCorp’s stock fell 34 percent. His $8.15 million package was $5.28 million more than the return model dictated.

CEO ‘Fraternity Club’

In its proxy filing, the company said it changed its performance goals for the CEO and his direct reports last year “as a result of the then-unfolding financial crisis and the uncertainty about the compliance obligations to be imposed for TARP participants.”

Meyer’s base salary, paid in shares, was increased $623,193 to $1.64 million. Citing the need to retain talent, the compensation committee boosted his option award by $1.29 million to $2.14 million. The salary shares can’t be sold until the full repayment of the $2.5 billion TARP investment in KeyCorp stock by the U.S. Treasury.

The compensation committee acted to recognize “substantial efforts of management in strengthening Key’s capital levels, liquidity and funding ratios” last year, said William Murschel, a KeyCorp spokesman. The company’s $1.34 billion loss in 2009 narrowed from a loss of $1.47 billion in 2008.

Metrics can shift quickly to accommodate an elite “fraternity club” of CEOs, said Ron Ashkenas, a managing partner at Robert H. Schaffer & Associates LLC, a management consulting firm in Stamford, Connecticut. He said compensation is “based far more on a mythical sense of competitive pressure than on any real indicators of value.”

‘Negative Bonuses’

As ways to better align pay with shareholder returns, Crystal recommends giving stock options that can’t be exercised for five years with a strike price that’s the average of the last 90 days before being awarded. He said he sees that as a way to avoid “opportunistic” option pricing at advantageous prices and to tie performance to long-term results. He also suggests “negative bonuses” -- or placing a portion of bonuses awarded annually into accounts that could be reduced if executives fail to meet subsequent years’ incentive targets.

Some of Crystal’s former clients have called him a Judas for being a part of the system for so long and then turning on it. His standard rejoinder is that he prefers to be compared to Mary Magdalene in the second phase of her life.

“Maybe I was a hooker,” Crystal said. “But I’m hoping to end my life as a saint.”

(Please click here to view an interactive table containing all 271 cases.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Jessica Silver-Greenberg in New York jsilvergreen@bloomberg.net; Alexis Leondis in New York aleondis@bloomberg.net.

CBS First Quarter 2010 Resurgence

Local broadcast a major plus in CBS Q1 resurgence

You couldn’t see CBS Corporation's executives during the company’s 5/5/10 conference call, but you could practically hear the ear-to-ear grins as it announced that Q1 2010 revenues and profits were up, and were pacing up into Q2 and into the future.

President/CEO Leslie Moonves said, “Q1 momentum is continuing into Q2 and beyond.” He noted that CBS is yet another company benefiting from belt tightening. He said three factors have contributed to the successful quarter:

Great success at the network in both regularly scheduled programming and special events;

a remarkable turnaround in local broadcast;

and growth among cable channels.

The $3.53B in Q1 revenues represented a 12% increase over Q1 2009, led by 19% gains Local Broadcast, 15% growth at Entertainment and 8% at Cable Networks.

Even better comps were turned in under the adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization, or OIBDA, category, which was up 40% to $351.3M.

Local TV revenues were up 29% to $323.7M, and radio revenue was up 9% to 282.7M.

Local broadcast’s combined OIBDA was up 148% to $134M.

Radio in particular was thriving in the top ten markets, where revenues were up 15%.

Moonves also noted that radio pacings in Q2 were running in double digits.

In the end, the company lost four cents per diluted share to $26.2M, compared to an eight cents per diluted share loss in the same quarter in 2009.

Moonves commented, “We got off to a tremendous start in 2010, as our businesses across the Company capitalized on the improving operating environment. Network television is enjoying a robust scatter market, and with CBS in first place, we will be able to monetize what promises to be a very active Upfront. Our strength in primetime also establishes CBS as a leading beneficiary of the dual-revenue-stream broadcast model that continues to emerge, rewarding us not only with strong advertising revenues, but also a growing share of the retransmission consent fees that have now become a fact of the business. In addition, we’re building our other recurring revenue streams, including syndication and premium cable – a business that continues to achieve new financial and creative highs.”

“Meanwhile, the economic recovery has also been a boon to our expanding Interactive platform, and our local TV and radio operations, which are in the midst of a dramatic upswing,” he noted.

“Ad sales and pacing for these businesses have been up sharply so far this year, and we expect political advertising to heat up as the November elections approach.”

Moonves continued, “As importantly, with our lower cost structure throughout the Company, the revenue growth we’re seeing is translating to higher margins. Going forward, we’ll maintain our focus on expenses, and add to the recent steps we’ve taken to strengthen our balance sheet and deliver value to shareholders. As always, we will keep creating and distributing the absolute best content out there. That remains the best strategy for success both today and well into the future.”

CBS Corporation Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone summed it all up. “I could not be more pleased with how CBS performed in the first quarter of this year, and I’m confident that Leslie and his management team will build on this success as the economy continues to recover. We’ve focused on strengthening our already solid financial position, building new efficiencies throughout the Company, and investing in our top-quality content businesses – and I look forward to all that we will do to build on these accomplishments this year and beyond.”

CBS and CNN May Combine News Operations

CBS News and Time Warner’s CNN are reportedly in negotiations aimed at creating a news-gathering partnership.

The talks are centered on how their two news divisions can combine operations, cut costs and expand audiences for both networks.

The talks are still fluid, which means that executives would speak only on condition of anonymity, but CNN and CBS began negotiations some time ago. "It's been going on for a couple of months," one person with knowledge of the matter said. "They’re in deep talks."

A joint news operation would allow both networks to use each other's news footage, combine bureaus in Washington and overseas and share expensive equipment.

CBS News, like the other broadcast networks, has been forced into layoffs during this brutal recession. Pairing with CNN would undoubtedly cut its newsgathering costs even further.CNN's sister Turner Networks TBS, TNT and truTV recently collaborated on a deal with CBS Sports to claim rights to the NCAA men's basketball tournament in a 14-year agreement announced last month.

The recent 400 layoffs at ABC News, current tanking CNN ratings, shrinking evening-news audiences, etc., are driving the most recent talks, which have been going on for a couple of months now. Both networks could use each other's news footage, combine bureaus in Washington and overseas and share editing, production and transmitting gear.

CBS President Les Moonves initiated the latest round of bargaining, according to The NY Post, when it became apparent that the network was going to have to cut far more than the reported 100 network news staffers who were let go last January.

CBS, like ABC, lacks a cable channel that could help shelter the costs of staffing a news division. Rival NBC has been increasingly steering its highly paid network talent, from Andrea Mitchell to Tom Brokaw, to its MSNBC cable outlet. Both CBS and ABC have long thought CNN might make an attractive partner.

Katie Couric's $15 million a year contract as anchor of the CBS Evening News will expire next year and CBS will likely not re-sign her at anything close to that. There have also been reports that that Couric is interested in taking over Larry King's CNN show if offered the role. CNN’s Anderson Cooper is also nearing the end of his contract with the network. His nightly show is struggling in the ratings, but his popularity would make him a good candidate for the evening news anchor job at CBS.

CBS News has previously expressed interest in recruiting Cooper, who already appears as a contributor to 60 Minutes. And next May, A combined CBS-CNN might offer more possibilities to negotiate Couric’s new deal while giving her additional opportunities to showcase her interviews.

Unlike Comcast and NBC, this type of merger wouldn't need any government approval, but union issues and the decision regarding which side would run the combined entity could be a tough road.

UNION ISSUES

CNN continues to appeal the National Labor Relations Board ruling in favor of the union regarding charges by NABET-CWA that CNN used a restructuring ploy to illegally void union contracts for 350 CNN field camera crews and other technical workers in its news operations in New York and Washington, D.C. back in 2003.

CNN dropped a long-standing contractual relationship with Team Video Services, whose union-represented workers gathered news for the cable network, and shifted the operation in-house.
CNN re-hired many of the TVS workers, but to get rid of the union, "CNN expanded and packed the D.C. and N.Y. units in order to avoid a successorship obligation to recognize and bargain with NABET-CWA", the board's ruling stated.

Declaring that the workers no longer had representation, CNN immediately slashed wages, benefits and other working conditions and protections.

In his 169-page 2008 decision, Judge Amchan found that CNN was a joint employer with TVS of the subcontractor’s employees and, as a joint employer, the network was obligated to recognize and bargain with NABET-CWA over the decision to terminate the subcontracting relationship, as well as the decision to hire new employees.

The Judge further found that CNN’s Bureau Staffing Project was a sham, used by the network to discriminate against TVS employees in order to limit the hiring of those employees in order to avoid having to recognize and bargain with NABET-CWA. In reaching these conclusions, Judge Amchan thoroughly discredited all of CNN’s witnesses and rejected each of CNN’s defenses.

Judge Amchan’s 2008 order is a comprehensive remedy that requires CNN to recognize and bargain with NABET-CWA, as well as reinstate more than 110 employees who were not hired as part of the Bureau Staffing Project, restore the employees’ working conditions as set forth in the now expired union contracts except for improvements unless requested by NABET-CWA, and to make whole all employees for any loss of earnings and other benefits.

Two years later CNN continues to appeal the decision.

Download a PDF of the decision by clicking here.

CBS has longstanding relationships with AFTRA, IATSE, IBEW, and DGA. A shared services agreement with CNN could adversely impact those relationships and create major collective bargaining issues.

Both CBS and Time Warner declined to comment on the talks about the CBS News–CNN partnership.

-------------------

This merger is bad for employees of both news operations and this merger will mean less news variety and less information and opinion for the viewing public to consume. We’re sure they could make it work, but bottom line, there will be one final decision maker on what goes on the screen, rather than two.

CBS caters to the right wing and CNN follows suit, so their editorial styles would not conflict.

A 2005 Media Matters for America analysis of CBS Evening News broadcasts since the 2004 presidential election found that the program featured Republicans and conservatives more often than Democrats and progressives.

In 2005, CBS officials refused to air a commercial for the United Church of Christ that promoted inclusion of gays, racial minorities and people with disabilities because they considered it "unacceptable for broadcast," noting in particular the Bush administration's endorsement of the Federal Marriage Amendment as part of their justification for not airing the ad.

In 2009 CBS allowed Tim Tebow's anti-abortion commercial to air during the Super Bowl. This commercial was paid for by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family.

The ever increasing use of shared service agreements, local news services, and multiple media outlet ownership is having a severe impact on diversity of news coverage across America, has created barriers to entry for new news outlets, and has created issues requiring investigation by the FCC, FTC, and DOJ. - BD

THE NEW YORK COALITION OF PROFESSIONAL WOMEN IN THE ARTS & MEDIA

THE NEW YORK COALITION OF PROFESSIONAL WOMEN IN THE ARTS & MEDIA ANNOUNCES THE BIENNIAL COLLABORATION AWARD

Request for Submissions

The New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts & Media (NYCWAM) will present the third biennial Collaboration Award recognizing Women Working with Women. The $1,000 award aims to encourage professional women in the arts and media to work collaboratively with other women on the creation of new works.

Eligible teams are those who have completed a work, are readying a new work, or are continuing a work in progress. Applicants may suggest any form of creative collaboration. Submissions will be judged on the basis of artistic excellence and clarity of the proposal, with special attention given to those proposals involving more than one discipline and which reflect the goals of the Coalition: to advance women and women's issues.

The team that has been selected, plus two finalists, will be invited to be recognized at an awards ceremony in New York in March, 2011.

Women outside of New York may send a designee to speak about their project and accept the award. Teams of two or more women working together on a creative project may apply for a Collaboration Award. Applicants must be members in good standing of an organization with full membership in NYCWAM.

Those organizations are: Actors' Equity Association, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Dramatists Guild, League of Professional Theatre Women, New York Women in Film & Television, Screen Actors Guild, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and Writers' Guild of America.

Funding for the 2010 Collaboration Award has been provided in part, by Backstage editor, Sherry Eaker.

The first Collaboration Award was presented in 2006 to playwright Jennifer Maisel and director Wendy McClellan for their play BIRDS. In 2008, the award was presented to Here Artistic Director, Kristin Marting and playwright, Jennifer Gibbs.

Applications may be downloaded from the NYCWAM website: www.nycwam.org

Completed Applications must be postmarked by July 1.For further information, after reviewing guidelines and application contact: collaboration@nycwam.org

Click here to visit the new AFTRA.com.

Ed Wilson exits as Tribune Broadcasting chief, plus other news

Ed Wilson, chief revenue officer for Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. and president of its broadcasting division, announced Friday he is giving up those titles and becoming a consultant to the media concern.

The exit leaves Jerry Kersting, who was named chief operating officer of Tribune Broadcasting in December, as the division's top ranking executive.

“The time is right for both the company and for make this move,” Wilson said in the announcement. “It has been an amazing ride since I came onboard and I’m grateful to (Tribune Co. Chief Executive) Randy Michaels for giving me this opportunity. The future for Tribune is a bright one.”

Under Wilson, Tribune Broadcasting increased the number of news programs on many of its 23 TV stations, including WGN-Ch. 9, and reinvented its cable channel as WGN America.“Our station group and WGN America have made tremendous progress over the last two years under Ed’s leadership," Michaels said in a statement.

Tribune Co. hired Wilson, then president of Fox Television Network, to head Tribune Broadcasting in February 2008. He was named chief revenue officer in December of that year, the week after Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The revenue post gave him responsibility for growing revenue at all of Tribune Co.'s publishing, broadcasting and interactive operations in December of that year.In four years with Fox, Wilson supervised affiliate relations, advertising sales and integrated marketing operations and opportunities for the network.Before Fox, Wilson helped get what was known as NBC Enterprises up and running, leaving just as General Electric subsidiary NBC finalized its merger with Universal Studios.

Wilson's four years at NBC included responsibility for global distribution, including foreign and domestic syndication, marketing ancillary products such as home video, merchandising, licensing, music and publishing, as well as domestic and international co-productions and co-ventures. He previously served as president and CEO of CBS Enterprises.

Kersting was the only appointment announced today with a former connection to Clear Channel Communications, having served most recently as chief financial officer for the company’s radio division.

“Jerry is respected across the media industry for his strategic vision, depth of knowledge, and ability to see opportunities and potential where others don’t,” said Gerry Spector, Tribune’s chief administrative officer. “He’s the perfect fit for this role, even though he spells his first name incorrectly.”

The company also announced the promotion of several people from within the company:

Jack Rodden, who joined Tribune in 2000 and has served as assistant treasurer since 2007, was named vice president/treasurer for the company. He will be responsible for financing activities, cash management, short-term investments and risk-management programs. Rodden succeeds Chandler Bigelow, who became Tribune’s CFO last month.

Brian Litman becomes vice president/corporate controller effective immediately; he has served as assistant controller since 2005. Litman joined the company in 1997. He will succeed Mark Mallory, who has decided to leave Tribune in early May after assisting with transition issues. Litman will be responsible for corporate financial reporting, planning and analysis.

Naomi Sachs, who has served as director of investments in Tribune’s finance department since 2005, has been named vice president/strategy. She has expanded her duties to include the evaluation of revenue and expense opportunities across the company.

Harry Amsden, who has been vice president/finance for the publishing group since 2006, will become senior vice president/financial operations for Tribune Corporate and be responsible for budgeting, planning and service center activities. Amsden joined Tribune in 1986.

“These are extraordinarily intelligent and energetic people and they are ready to move to the next level,” said Spector. “We recognize their ability and it is a reflection of the depth of management talent within the company—not everyone has to come from Clear Channel or EGI. Our goal is to promote more people like Jack, Brian, Naomi and Harry whenever possible.”

New Tribune Broadcasting president wants 'to shake up' TV news

Jerry Kersting, after five month as chief operating officer of Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s broadcasting division, today formally was named to succeed Ed Wilson as president of Tribune Broadcasting.

Wilson announced Friday that he was stepping down from that position and that of Tribune Co.'s chief revenue officer, leaving Kersting the highest ranking executive in the division that includes WGN-AM 720, WGN America, WGN-Ch. 9 and 22 other broadcast television stations.

Kersting joined Tribune Co. as an executive vice president at Tribune Co. in April 2008. For previous nine years, he had been executive vice president/chief financial officer of Clear Channel Radio -- which used to be run by Randy Michaels, now Tribune Co.'s chief executive -- and had 34 years of credited service with Clear Channel and related companies.

In the company's announcement of his new title, Kersting indicated he intends "to shake up" TV news."Every night, people turn on their local news and see the same thing wherever they flip the channel," Kersting said in a statement. "We intend to change that."

Tribune Co. Buyout to be Studied by Trustee-appointed Examiner
May 03, 2010

(Reuters) — U.S. Trustee William Harrington, a Justice Department monitor of bankruptcy cases, has appointed an examiner to investigate whether the 2007 leveraged buyout (LBO) of Tribune Co. led by real estate developer Sam Zell left the media company insolvent.

The examiner, Kenneth Klee, is an attorney at Los Angeles-based lawfirm Klee, Tuchin, Bogdanoff & Stern LLP. He also teaches bankruptcy law at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Tribune is the second-largest newspaper publisher in the U.S. The company listed $13 billion in debt for borrowed money and assets of $7.6 billion in the Chapter 11 reorganization begun in December 2008. It owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, six other newspapers and 23 television stations.

In April, Tribune and its creditors agreed to appoint an examiner to determine if Tribune's management, board of directors, lenders and advisors were liable.

Bondholders have blasted the deal as "virtually no money down LBO" and blamed the deal for Tribune's bankruptcy and their investment losses.

The junior bondholders, who hold $1.2 billion of debt, have said their best hope of a recovery from the bankruptcy lies in disallowing billions of dollars of senior claims.

They are seeking to prove the senior lenders extended loans to finance the leveraged buyout, knowing it would render the company insolvent.

The senior lenders will receive nearly all of the company's equity under the proposed reorganization plan, which will wipe out billions of dollars in debt.

The case is In re: Tribune Co et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 08-13141. (Reporting by Santosh Nadgir in Bangalore; Edited by Roshni Menon)

Big Paydays for the Chiefs in the Media

By JOSEPH PLAMBECK

The New York Times
Published: May 2, 2010

The media industry may be going through some rough times, with the landscape changing day to day, but at least one aspect is business as usual: big paydays for the people at the top.

Top executives at the country’s largest media companies continued to reel in multimillion-dollar pay packages in 2009, a year of widespread cost-cutting throughout the industry. In several cases, the packages even increased from the year before.

At the top of the list is Leslie Moonves, chief executive of the CBS Corporation, whose pay package in 2009 totaled almost $43 million, more than twice what he made in 2008, according to an analysis by Equilar, an executive compensation research firm.

Not far behind was Viacom’s chief executive, Philippe P. Dauman, who was paid nearly $34 million, a 22 percent increase over 2008. Sumner M. Redstone, who controls CBS and Viacom, was paid more than $33 million from the two companies combined.

“Anybody who reads the business section knows the margins are being squeezed at media companies, so the fact that there are these huge packages makes no sense,” said James F. Reda, the founder of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm with offices in New York and Atlanta.

At Comcast, the two highest-paid executives, Brian L. Roberts and Stephen B. Burke, were paid $25 million and $31 million. Mr. Roberts’s pay was essentially the same as the year before, while Mr. Burke’s increased about $12 million, much of it because of one-time bonuses related to the company’s purchase of NBC Universal.

For several executives, it was more lucrative to be running a media company in 2009, however wobbly it might be, than a large financial firm, where many boards cut executive pay after the federal financial bailout.

John G. Stumpf, the head of Wells Fargo, was the highest-paid financial executive, earning an $18.8 million package, according to an analysis by Equilar. Lloyd C. Blankfein, the head of Goldman Sachs, made $41 million in 2008 and less than $1 million in 2009, Equilar said, not including a $9 million payout he received this year that was deemed to be for work done the year before but is not included in Equilar’s calculations.

The bankers’ pay will most likely return to past levels if financial reform passes, Mr. Reda said, as Washington’s spotlight will shift elsewhere and the banks will have less incentive to stay in the public’s good graces.

Mr. Reda said, “What is the government going to do after financial reform? Take away their birthday?”

Despite the hard times at many media companies and the uncertainty of maintaining revenue in the digital future, investors did not shy away last year. The stock of CBS jumped 74 percent in 2009, and Viacom’s stock rose 56 percent.

In the case of many of the media executives, including Mr. Dauman at Viacom, most of the compensation is based on the company’s performance. Mr. Dauman’s base salary in 2009, $2.5 million, was unchanged from the year before.

The media industry did rebound in 2009 after a particularly tough 2008, but for many companies that largely meant cutting expenses, including labor costs. Overall revenue declines remained commonplace, but in many cases profits rose.

At Viacom, revenue in 2009 declined 7 percent compared with the year before but the company’s profit rose to $1.6 billion, a 29 percent increase, not far off from Mr. Dauman’s 22 percent pay raise. CBS returned to profitability in 2009 — $227 million — after a huge write-down in 2008.

“Right now, the executive compensation is not what’s driving people to invest or not invest in these stocks,” said Rich Greenfield, a media analyst at BTIG in New York. “Shareholders are more focused on the underlying growth prospects of the companies than executive compensation.”

The pay packages for executives at public companies are made available in corporate filings. Equilar’s calculation includes base salary, discretionary and performance-based cash bonuses, the grant-date value of stock and option awards and other compensation.

Pay increases extended beyond the handful of large media conglomerates to some of the largest newspaper companies as well.

Craig A. Dubow, the head of Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper publisher, was paid $4.4 million in 2009, up 17 percent from the year before.

At The New York Times, Janet L. Robinson, the chief executive, was paid $4.9 million in 2009, 26 percent more than the year before, and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the chairman, made $4.8 million, a 171 percent increase. Gary B. Pruitt, the chief executive of McClatchy, was paid $2.6 million last year, up 61 percent.

But pay did not increase across the board.

Both Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes at the News Corporation had declines in pay, 40 percent for Mr. Murdoch — to about $18 million — and 21 percent for Mr. Ailes, the head of Fox News, who was paid $14.6 million.

Other top executives’ pay fell, too. Robert A. Iger, head of Disney, was paid $21.6 million in 2009, 58 percent less than the year before, and his counterpart at Time Warner, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, earned $19.4 million, a 10 percent drop.

Several analysts said the shifting marketplace and uncertainty surrounding the media business could actually contribute to the large payouts, making companies even more determined to hold on to people they see as gifted executives.

“When you have an industry going through so much tumult, it puts upward pressure on pay because so many people are moving around,” said Don Delves, the president of the Delves Group, a compensation consulting firm in Chicago. “People are looking around a lot, people are moving around and there’s a concern about losing talent.”

He added that big compensation figures were “one of the difficulties in the whole business model.”

A version of this article appeared in print on May 3, 2010, on page B1 of the New York edition.

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2010 IATSE Local 1 Election Results

IATSE LOCAL ONE ELECTION RESULTS 2010

May 3, 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Here are the results of the May 2, 2010 Local One Election of Officers. All Officers will be sworn in at the May 23, 2010 Regular Monthly Meeting.

PRESIDENT: JAMES J. CLAFFEY, JR.

VICE PRESIDENT: WILLIAM WALTERS

RECORDING-CORRESPONDING SECRETARY: ROBERT C. SCORE

ADMINISTRATIVE SECRETARY: EDMOND SUPPLE

TREASURER: ROBERT MCDONOUGH

FINANCIAL SECRETARY: ANTHONY MANNO

THEATRE BUSINESS MANAGER (2): MICKEY FOX and KEVIN MCGARTY

TV BUSINESS MANAGER (2): EDWARD J. MCMAHON III & ROBERT NIMMO

BOARD OF TRUSTEES (3):
PAUL DEAN, JR.
WILLIAM NGAI
DAN DASHMAN

REPLACEMENT ROOM CHAIRPERSON: DAN THORN


Fraternally,

Robert C. Score
Recording-Corresponding Secretary