Iowa State is a #2 Seed. Kentucky was a #7 seed.

In the call for Reinvention, we have to stretch our minds and think even bigger.  Given the evolving AI disruption of Marketing, ThunderHouse envisions the necessity of a New Age Communications Group that will be mission critical to global marketers with the advent of Agentic Marketing.  We're working on an Action Plan to make that happen on a fast track.

Straight out of the gate Dokoupil looked like a clown. It went on for days — crying, appearing confused, experiencing numerous technical issues & dead air. He admitted, like a stooge: "First day, big problems here." He was seen questioning a producer regarding news coverage priorities. He made errors in reporting, including misnaming Minnesota. He's a clown and will never again break 5 million short of the new 9/11+Covid combo lockdown we all know they've got planned. DON'T COMPLY!!!

Dan, you are no doubt correct that Trump didn't kill CBS's radio news operation. What everyone is ignoring is there isn't enough listening  to support the number  of radio stations that were launched  in the 1970s-2000 period. AM/FM radio listening time is down but the number of radio stations competing for listeners has tripled  and radio news delivers a mostly older audience which is easily reached via TV.  So CBS radio was undoubtedly either barely breaking even or a money loser  and now it's gone. There simply isn't enough spare advertiser money  lying around to fund it  profitably any longer.

As for the CBS TV weeknight news here, also, we see the same problem. Three nightly newscasts --all featuring basically the same information ---worked when an average person devoted four hours a day to linear TV and cable news was still evolving while there was no internet, social media, etc. But now, the the average adult watches only two not four hours of linear TV daily so there are fewer nightly viewers available. The problem is that all three broadcast TV networks feel constrained to continue with their evening news reports as a matter of prestige and, to be fair, they still attract a fairly large collective audience--albeit mainly a 55+ audience.

I think that CBS made a mistake installingt a young guy as its host--or main anchor. Like it or not, heavy news consumers are and always have need older adults. Also, were I CBS, I'd be investigating a time change so as not  to compete directly with NBC and ABC--as well as new casting and formatting ideas. Why must all three networks run their early evening news at exactly the same time? What would happen if CBS moved to an earlier time slot--say at 6PM--assuming that the affiliates would agree to this? Would that oblige NBC and ABC to make a similar move? Who knows--but what's to lose by thinking out of the box? Moving to 6PM is an idea that could be tested--in a few local markets--in my opinion.

@Brian - So your position is that it is Trump that has caused CBS News ratings to sink to their lowest levels in decades?  Far behind their competitors?  CBS Radio News AQH ratings are in the toilet because Trump is the president?  Have you seen CBS Nightly News ratings?  This is Trump's fault?

Your argument about integrity is counter-intuitive.  You can easily argue that the lack of journalistic integrity has led to legacy media's demise - which is proven poll after poll about the American viewer's confidence in the legacy media networks - the forcing of narratives and the forcing of ideological driven commentary vs. delivering the facts and letting the viewer decide is what has led to historic distrust in the public's eyes when it comes to legacy news media.

How convenient all of you eye rollers ignore the fact that all of the media outlets and social networks testified in congressional hearings that it was the Biden administration that made threats to close them down and threaten them if they did not supress facts about Covid, its origins, problems with the vaccines, and alternative ways to stay healthy.

You're making a counter-intuitive emotional argument when it's a business decision.  It's very easy to tell others to keep a sinking ship afloat when it's not your money and blaming Trump for legacy news ratings reaching historic lows indicates you are driven by your own ideology vs. the reality of running a business.

Uhh, the end was not "effective immediately on Friday." CBS radio continues to produce top-of-the-hour newscasts thru May.

Being out of their Demographic, I had to use GOOGLE to find out what TURTLE BEACH is?  Please,  next time tell the entire story.

I hope that the BBC will win the lawsuit VS Trump and doesn't settle like ABC & CBS did. No TV owner should lose their lincense that is just plain wrong in my opinion I don't like censorship by either party and no one is above it in my opinion, I didn't like Biden admin doing it with social media and now with the Trump admin wrong is wrong in my opinion.

As for The FCC it needs 3 indpendents in my opinion and just one liberal & conservative so it isn't so partisan which has been what The FCC has been for decades. I don't Carr I also didn't like Jessica either acting like it was still 3 or 4 channels only with using outdated rules that should be removed. One of the few things I agreed with was denying the group that wanted to revoke FOX29 lincense for what was aired about the 2020 election from FOX News which the big FOX didn't air. As the group didn't seem to get or understand the rules either.

It's great you can say that with a straight face - your comment was hard to read with my eyes so far back in my head.  There is still a market for news radio - I'll agree it's reach and value are on the decline.  What's dying is journalist integrity - whatever tiny shred that's even lett - as well as the freedom of the press and speech.  Weiss is a puppet and has never been confused as either a serious journalist or media executive.  Trump has been clear in his position when it comes to how the news should be reported and the suppression (in the case of CBS news, regime change) of news outlets that  deviate from his world view.  This is just amputating another appendage of professional journalism - and just another chance for the Human Buffalo Wing to flex, feel mighty.  Meanwhile, dedicated employees with decades, centuries of collective experience lost their jobs with little warning.  As a country, another part of our history paved over and plated with fake gold.

Interesting you bring up Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Plato uses it to describe the political life of the city and its citizens. The fire, which is out of sight above and behind them, is a limited source of artificial light, symbolizing the kind of truth available: habit, public opinion, or, in our modern context, mass media. The light makes images visible, but the truth it reveals is not the real truth. The people experience the world only as shadows cast. The world they experience is a kind of simulation. Plato, however, doesn't think the people are capable of knowing the truth directly. Only the philosopher can know the truth, and journeys beyond the cave so he can bring his knowledge to the people in a way that reconciles what he knows as truth with what the people are willing to accept as truth. The philosopher turns toward truth by virtue of his qualities; the people are guided toward it by the philosopher. I fear people have surrendered instead to cults of personality to tell them what truth is, rather than do the work themselves.

Love this!

I understand this is commentary, but the overt ad hominem attacks against Weiss and her boss are eye roll worthy.

Anyone with a business sense can understand that you cannot substantiate the amount of overhead to support such an effort when there is no demand for terrestrial radio where advertising CPMs are in the toilet and will not return.

Gone is the town cryer, newswire over fax, ticker tape, many cable TV networks, many newspapers....yes, the evolution of how people get their information evolves.

Two things can be true at the same time - CBS Radio News is historically significant and CBS Radio News no longer serves the purpose it used to and most people under the age of 40 probably have no idea who Edward R. Murrow or Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite is.

Most probably have no idea who SCott Pelley is.  Hell, I had to google to know that Tony Dokoupil anchors CBS broadcast news.

Mollie, I spent 20 years at BBDO and rose to be one of its directors.--plus a member of the new business team. Though it was a full servce agency, all that mattered in new business pitches as well as handling existing clients was "creative" plus guiding them re new product development, brand positioning, etc. These days the "holding companies" offer a variety of fee based options to clients and separate "media" shops  happen to be  where much--but not all --of their incomes are obtained. But this organizational differencxe does not necessarily mean that a holding company's "creative" shop is giving its clients poor or less than the best service. 

ABC & Disney knew what they were doing naming Taylor Frankie Paul as the new Bachlorette and knew the history as well since it was the very first EP of Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives as I watched season 1 last year when ABC aired it. My opinion is that ABC should've aired it in my opinion as I believe ratings would've gone up a little or about the same. Since I don't watch The Bachlorette I wasn't going to watch anyways.

I don't get why some fall in love with AI chatbots I sure wouldn't fall in love with the AI chatbots. And that is scary to me along withe fake images and looking like real people when their just AI and giving the news as long as it is lable AI in video then I'll tale with a grain of salt or maybe believe that it is true or not. AI is here to stay going to be pro & cons to it. 

Pretty good article Steven and interesting as well.

We've gone through such transitions many times before. The impact data always comes out a few months later than the sales cycle would find convenient. So it won't be easy. What else is new?  People can build the adjustment capability now and plug the data in when it's released. Won't AI figure this out faster than the systems we had back in the day?  Nielsen has never released adjustment data as soon as some folks wished they would. But if the data were made available in, let's say, December the year old data would be older and less protectable to next year too.  Time to put the big boy/girl pants on. 

@Jack Wakshlag: Makes sense to me. But I think a compounding complication is that the currency being used now for upfront share estimates planning is not necessarily the same data that will be used as currency with the start of the new season. There's current currency, soon-to-be-new currency, and then there's impact data on the difference between the two. The problem is having something publicly high profile like The Gauge saying something different than what the share estimates buyers and sellers will be using to negotiate next seasons deals based on. Which probably explains why Nielsen isn't publishing a recalibrated Gauge until the start of next season. But it's leaving everyone with an impression based on old, incorrect data in the meantime.

Shouldn't the data used in The Guage be the same as the simultaneously issued National Currency?  Makes no sense to do otherwise. When the currency changes, so should everything else. If the currency is wrong, it should be fixed now.  Why is this so hard?  Why is it still the same old same old for the last 10 years?

I have a love for radio and radio was inspirational in my youth and early in my career.  The theater of the mind still holds strong, and if Murrow were around today pulling in the numbers he had, CBS News Radio would not fold.

The reality is the amount of money required to keep the division afloat with dismal AQH ratings and advertising CPMs in the toilet for radio does not substantiate the expense.

The landscape has been changing and legacy media has struggled to figure out how to remain dominant (even relevant) in a digital world.  I was around when the execs at NBC, CBS, and ABC were laughing at cable TV thinking there was no way cable could compete.  I was at a major broadcast network in the late 1990s when they thought "this internet thing is a fad" when I thought it was fascinating.

Here we are almost 30 years later and the people who replaced those executives still haven't learned.

Exactly, Maarten. 

Just having a ccontract requiring full disclosure without a much more specific definition of what each line item is and how it is to be audited, isn't good enough. The agency can "hide" fees it is earning by calling tem something else. How many clients have the kind of "media" staffs that can ride herd on such an operation?

What I am recommending is a far more aggressive stance by advertisers seeking lower CPMs above all else--and there are plenty of them--with much greater hands on involvement in the process. Indeed I woulde reccomend that a consortium of like minded agency clients be formed to deal with the agency as full fledged "partners" in such an operation. The two groups would decide what seller --or sellers--are best to do business with, how much the agency earns as its fee, how such incomes are audited, how the spoils are to be allocated  among the clients and how the final rekoning--or post buy analysis--- is to be done--all with total transparency.

Sadly, Maarten, you are probably right about this being too much to ask these days, considering how uninvolved senior client management is with the media buying function.

The key sentence in Ed's comment is "with full disclosure and auditing". The problem appears to be that even when that is in the contract, many agencies have different and/or additional deals that are obscured from the auditors. And advertisers have slid backwards in implementing or mandating such transparency guidelines. These two issues combined are the cause of the ANA's alarm. 

As I wrote: maybe, sometimes, additionally (and not principally), principal media could be part of a lucrative deal for an advertiser. Sadly, the circumstances for that to play out were bad and are now worse. 

Maarten, you are quite right that any marketer who doesn't have a comtract in place with its ad agency to deal with "principal media" is making a huge mistake. 

But  there's much more to this story. 

With everybody consolidating--the media, marketers and ad agencies-- it is possible now for an agency with a number of accounts who use a particular type of media--be it CTV, digital video or display, social media, radio, etc. to combine all of their "budgets" for that media type into a single large buy and approach a seller with the intent to earn a larger CPM discount than each client would have gotten buying on its own. 

If this is done openlly, with full disclosure and auditing, the agency would have negotiated a deal with each participating client which guarantees them an extra saving--say its 10%----in return earning a predetermined extra fee for this service of, say, 3%.  If such a deal is properly set up, with all of the clients actng in unison, with full disclosure and the agency's incomes closely audited, what's wrong with such an operation.? Many advertisers have been doing exactly the same thing--with their brands ---in TV's upfronts for decades. The main objection being how the goodies are being parcelled out--and at what CPMs --to each "partner". 

The advertiisers  often handle such matters via computerized allocation models in a reasonable and fair manner--why not the same with "principal media"?

The key is getting a client to be really involved with media--and the failure to do this is what causes all of the agency bashing and carping about "principal  media"--as if its just another way for those evil ad agencies to "swindle" their clients and "ruin" their media buys. 

There's a lot to be gained from "principal media" buying and selling---if it's executed the right way.

It feels like we're on a sinking ship.