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Jermaine Wiggins: NFL Shouldn’t Have Objected So Hard To Joe Buck

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What happened on Monday night in Cincinnati is a moment many of us will never forget. Not only will Damar Hamlin laying lifeless on the field as first responders performed CPR for nine minutes to revive him be a part of the memory, so will the belief that initially, the NFL planned to give players just five minutes after the ambulance left the field to get ready to resume play.

The NFL has denied this is true. Joe Buck, who announced that plan on ESPN, insists that this was the information the network was given from the league.

On WEEI Wednesday morning, former tight end Jermaine Wiggins told his colleagues on The Greg Hill Show that the league made a mistake in not acknowledging that this was a brand new experience for everyone involved. It wasn’t right to insinuate the voice of the game was a liar or didn’t know what he was talking about.

“It was all about the whole Joe Buck thing where it looks like they’re gonna go back out there. They’re gonna get five minutes to warm up and then they’re gonna continue the game,” Wiggins said. “Just say ‘we were in a situation we have never run into before. Maybe it was misinterpreted the way we wanted to continue.’ Just say that.”

He added that he actually thinks some of the criticism has been unfair. No one can definitively say they knew exactly what to do when it was clear Hamlin was not getting up.

“Listen, I give the NFL credit. This is something they have never seen before. I have been around a lot of football and I have never seen anybody get CPR on the field. We’ve heard from plenty of people that have been around football a lot longer than I have that say they have never seen that before. So, I give them credit of being in a situation where this was all brand new to them and they had no idea how to handle it in the moment.”

The show’s producer, Chris Curtis, took Roger Goodell to task. He wondered why the commissioner did not face the media and acknowledge that in an effort to do things right, the league got it wrong.

Twitter Ending Ban on Political Ads

BNM Staff
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Twitter Ending Ban on Political Ads

Twitter has announced it is ending it’s ban on political advertising, claiming the move aligns itself with that of traditional media outlets.

Twitter originally stopped accepting political advertising in October 2019 as then-CEO Jack Dorsey announced it was anticipation of the upcoming 2020 election. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” Dorsey tweeted. “A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.”

Now owned by Elon Musk, Twitter Safety has reversed course on it’s previous ban. “We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics,” the company tweeted. “Today, we’re relaxing our ads policy for cause-based ads in the US. We also plan to expand the political the political advertising we permit in the coming weeks.

“Moving forward, we will alling our advertising policy with that of TV and other media outlets. As with all policy changes, we will first ensure that our approach to reviewing and approving content protects people on Twitter. We’ll share more details as this work progresses.”

The social media platform has experienced a massive drop in advertising revenue after it was purchased by Musk in 2022. According to a report from NPR, 50 of the platform’s top 100 advertisers left after it was purchased by Musk.

In November, The New York Post reported advertising agencies were advising clients to “pause” their spending with Twitter. “A lot of high profile chief marketing officers are very worried about Twitter,” The Post reported. “They’re working with agencies to create contingency plans for moving money away from Twitter.”

Microsoft Bulking Up Bing to Compete With Google

BNM Staff
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Microsoft Bulking Up Bing to Compete With Google

According to a report from The Information, Microsoft is planning to launch a new version of its search engine Bing with new features that will help make it more competitive against Google.

Utilizing ChatGPT — which is powered by AI company OpenAI — will purportedly provide “humanlike answers” to questions placed with the search engine, rather than just links that match the searched query.

However, Google has claimed it will wait to launch its own AI-powered search engine due to the posed “reputational risk” if it does not work properly from the outset.

“We are absolutely looking to get these things out into real products and into things that are more prominently featuring the language model rather than under the covers, which is where we’ve been using them to date,” said Google Head of Artificial Intelligence Jeff Dean in an interview with The Verge. “But, it’s super important we get this right.” Pichai added that Google has a “a lot” planned for AI language features in 2023, and that “this is an area where we need to be bold and responsible so we have to balance that.”

Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI goes back several years, with the company investing $1 billion in the Artificial Intelligence organization in 2019. Microsoft holds the exclusive license for AI GPT-3.

Sports Media Reacts To Tension Between Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe

BSM Staff
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The sports media is not the biggest business in the world. Everyone knows what everyone else is up to and there is always an opinion to share.

That was clear Wednesday morning during the opening moments of FS1’s Undisputed. The show began with Shannon Sharpe attempting to address why he was not on Tuesday’s episode of the show. He noted that because of personal experiences, he knew he would not be capable of talking about Damar Hamlin’s collapse during the first quarter of Monday Night Football on a public platform.

As a result, yesterday’s show was a solo act for Sharpe’s partner Skip Bayless. During the early moments of the Tuesday show, Bayless attempted to explain a tweet he sent on Monday night wondering how the NFL could ever finish the game between the Bills and Bengals.

Sharp brought the tweet up on Wednesday and even mentioned that he hoped Bayless would consider taking it down. That is when the tensions started to boil over.

“Time out. Time out. I am not gonna take it down, because I stand by what I tweeted,” Bayless said.

Sharpe threw his pen down on the desk and told Jennifer Hale to just forget what was planned and to get on with the show.

“I mean, I can’t even get through a monologue without you interrupting me,” he told Bayless. “I was just gonna say, Skip, I didn’t want to yesterday get into a situation where Damar Hamlin wasn’t the issue. We should have been talking about him and not get into your tweet. That’s what I was gonna do, but you won’t even let me finish my opening monologue without you interrupting.”

On air spats between the two are not new. Just last month Sharpe accused Bayless of publicly disrespecting him on the show. It is something that many of their sports media colleagues brought up as they reacted to the segment on social media.

ABC Leads Coverage of Volodymyr Zelensky Capitol Speech

BNM Staff
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ABC Leads Coverage of Volodymyr Zelensky Capitol Speech

It was a busy news week as it approached Christmas Day in 2022, with several news items creating a race for victories for news outlets like ABC News, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN.

The January 6th committee that investigated the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol held its final public hearing on Monday Dec. 19. It presented the case to the Justice Department that there’s evidence to pursue multiple criminal charges against Donald Trump, including obstruction of justice, defrauding the United States, making false statements and assisting or aiding an insurrection. (Later in the week, on Friday Dec. 23, a full committee report was released further advising that Trump should be barred from ever running for public office again.)

The viewership figures of the cable news outlets for this Dec. 19 hearing (from 1:07-2:17 p.m. ET) held the same pattern as the previous committee hearings since the summer of 2022: MSNBC (2.665 million, over CNN’s 1.964 million) led in total viewers, CNN No. 1 in the key 25-54 demo (332,000, over MSNBC’s 317,000) and Fox News (1.041 million total viewers; 102,000 adults 25-54) trailed them in both ratings categories.

A special joint session of Congress was held at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. on Wednesday Dec. 21 with a visit from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. It marked ten months since Russia first invaded Ukraine. Zelensky, who sought reinvigorated support from the U.S. and other global allies, addressed to Congress that his country still stands “against all odds” and it “will never surrender” to Russia as democracy itself is being tested.

Nearly 16 million across six networks tuned in for Zelensky’s historic prime time address, according to Nielsen Media Research. ABC, the usual network leader in the early evening with World News Tonight and most of its affiliates carrying Wheel of Fortune and/or Jeopardy!, was tops in coverage among total viewers with 4.229 million. CBS (3.208 million) was runner-up. MSNBC was first place on cable and third overall with 2.424 million, besting its parent network NBC (2.375 million). It was then Fox News Channel (2.237 million) followed by CNN (1.41 million from 8-9 p.m. ET).

Closing out the holiday week was the weather occurrence called a bomb cyclone which put most of the United States into a deep freeze. Many cities and towns experienced near-zero or sub-zero degree temperatures, as holiday travel and outdoor events (including several NFL games) were hampered. Not surprisingly, The Weather Channel (as noted in the network averages below) had its most-watched week since Hurricane Ian had made landfall in Florida during the week of Sep. 26, 2022.

Cable news averages for December 19-25, 2022:

Total Day (Dec. 19-25 @ 6 a.m.-5:59 a.m.)

  • Fox News Channel: 1.189 million viewers; 152,000 adults 25-54
  • MSNBC: 0.830 million viewers; 96,000 adults 25-54
  • CNN: 0.514 million viewers; 95,000 adults 25-54
  • The Weather Channel: 0.186 million viewers; 31,000 adults 25-54
  • HLN: 0.145 million viewers; 40,000 adults 25-54
  • CNBC: 0.117 million viewers; 30,000 adults 25-54
  • Fox Business Network: 0.110 million viewers; 12,000 adults 25-54
  • Newsmax: 0.087 million viewers; 8,000 adults 25-54

Prime Time (Dec. 19-24 @ 8-11 p.m.; Dec. 25 @ 7-11 p.m.)

  • Fox News Channel: 1.574 million viewers; 189,000 adults 25-54
  • MSNBC: 1.276 million viewers; 133,000 adults 25-54
  • CNN: 0.552 million viewers; 108,000 adults 25-54
  • The Weather Channel: 0.189 million viewers; 28,000 adults 25-54
  • CNBC: 0.182 million viewers; 62,000 adults 25-54
  • HLN: 0.157 million viewers; 46,000 adults 25-54
  • Newsmax: 0.097 million viewers; 10,000 adults 25-54
  • NewsNation: 0.090 million viewers; 16,000 adults 25-54
  • Fox Business Network: 0.060 million viewers; 10,000 adults 25-54

Top 10 most-watched cable news programs (and the top programs of other outlets with their respective associated ranks) in total viewers:

1. The Five (FOXNC, Mon. 12/19/2022 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 3.075 million viewers

2. The Five (FOXNC, Tue. 12/20/2022 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 3.048 million viewers

3. The Five (FOXNC, Thu. 12/22/2022 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.971 million viewers

4. The Five (FOXNC, Wed. 12/21/2022 5:21 PM, 39 min.) 2.914 million viewers

5. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Wed. 12/21/2022 8:03 PM, 57 min.) 2.822 million viewers

6. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Tue. 12/20/2022 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.775 million viewers

7. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Mon. 12/19/2022 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.749 million viewers

8. The Five (FOXNC, Fri. 12/23/2022 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.747 million viewers

9. January 6th Hearings “Hearing Final Meeting” (MSNBC, Mon. 12/19/2022 1:07 PM, 70 min.) 2.665 million viewers

10. Jesse Watters Primetime (FOXNC, Mon. 12/19/2022 7:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.634 million viewers

30. Attack on Democracy “Jan 6th Hearings 12/19/22” (CNN, Mon. 12/19/2022 1:07 PM, 70 min.) 1.964 million viewers

316. Weekend Recharge (TWC, Sat. 12/24/2022 10:00 AM, 60 min.) 0.442 million viewer

369. Forensic Files II “The Ambush” (HLN, Fri. 12/23/2022 12:00 AM, 30 min.) 0.355 million viewers

401. Kudlow (FBN, Wed. 12/21/2022 4:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.314 million viewers

489. Shark Tank “Shark Tank 614” (CNBC, Thu. 12/22/2022 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.249 million viewers

850. Newsnation: Rush Hour (NWSN, Fri. 12/23/2022 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.159 million viewers

Top 10 cable news programs (and the top  programs of other outlets with their respective associated ranks) among adults 25-54:

1. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Wed. 12/21/2022 8:03 PM, 57 min.) 0.413 million adults 25-54

2. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Tue. 12/20/2022 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.394 million adults 25-54

3. The Five (FOXNC, Mon. 12/19/2022 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.381 million adults 25-54

4. The Five (FOXNC, Wed. 12/21/2022 5:21 PM, 39 min.) 0.370 million adults 25-54

5. The Five (FOXNC, Thu. 12/22/2022 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.357 million adults 25-54

6. The Five (FOXNC, Tue. 12/20/2022 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.332 million adults 25-54

7. Attack on Democracy “Jan 6th Hearings 12/19/22” (CNN, Mon. 12/19/2022 1:07 PM, 70 min.) 0.332 million adults 25-54

8. MSNBC Special Coverage “Pres. Zelenskyy Address To Congress” (MSNBC, Wed. 12/21/2022 7:39 PM, 26 min.) 0.320 million adults 25-54

9. January 6th Hearings “Hearing Final Meeting” (MSNBC, Mon. 12/19/2022 1:07 PM, 70 min.) 0.317 million adults 25-54

10. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Thu. 12/22/2022 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.305 million adults 25-54

204. Forensic Files “Tooth or Consequences” (HLN, late Tue. 12/20/2022 4:00 AM, 30 min.) 0.114 million adults 25-54

276. Shark Tank “Shark Tank 1220” (CNBC, Tue. 12/20/2022 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.092 million adults 25-54

283. Weekend Recharge (TWC, Sat. 12/24/2022 10:00 AM, 60 min.) 0.089 million adults 25-54

752. Newsnation Prime (NWSN, Sun. 12/25/2022 7:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.037 million adults 25-54

797. Cavuto Coast To Coast (FBN, Thu. 12/22/2022 12:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.035 million adults 25-54

Source: Live+Same Day data, Nielsen Media Research

Zach Krantz Leaving The Joe Rose Show For New Role at WQAM

BSM Staff
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Zach Krantz Leaving The Joe Rose Show For New Role at WQAM

WQAM afternoon co-host Zach Krantz has departed The Joe Rose Show for a new role at the station.

In a tweet Tuesday, Krantz revealed he has left the show to become the new Digital Content Producer for Audacy and WQAM.

“It’s a great opportunity for me to be me and my presence on WQAM.com will be huge,” Krantz said.

Krantz has worked for the Audacy-owned station since 2007. He worked as the Executive Producer for The Joe Rose Show before transitioning to co-hosting afternoons with March Hochman and Channing Crowder before returning to the morning drive slot as co-host with Rose.

He added he will continue to fill-in on WQAM when needed, noting that he has “always been a radio dork and always will be.”

Matthew Volk Named New COO at NESN

BSM Staff
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Matthew Volk Named New COO at NESN

Former Audacy Senior Vice President of Sports Matthew Volk has been named the new Chief Operating Officer at NESN.

It’s a return to television for Volk, who worked as the Vice President of Content Strategy for NBC Sports Washington for nearly two-and-a-half years. Before working at the regional sports network, Volk spent 15 years at ESPN, mostly working in programming and acquisitions.

“To now join NESN is a dream come true,” Volk said. “I am thrilled to work with such a passionate workforce, accomplished leadership team, and a brand that has always led the way in the sports media landscape.”

Volk spent the past two years working as leader of Audacy’s sports division. In that role, Volk oversaw the launch of the BetQL Network, the company’s multiplatform sports betting brand. Massachusetts — where NESN is headquartered and most of its content is centered around — is launching in-person sports betting on January 31st, with online sports betting expected to begin in March, according to The Boston Globe.

A graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine, Volk said he’s excited to begin his new role at the regional sports network.

“I look forward to continuing to learn every day, and work towards leading and supporting the team at NESN to accomplish great things.”

Audacy announced Volk’s departure in November. The company elevated Mitch Rosen to oversee BetQL while also promoting Danny Freisinger to the new role of Vice President of Sports which includes picking up some of Volk’s previous duties.

Scott Van Pelt Didn’t Want to Interview Medical Expert During Damar Hamlin Situation

BSM Staff
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ESPN was thrust into news coverage mode Monday night after Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field. Scott Van Pelt, along with several of his ESPN colleagues, received praise from many in sports media circles for their handling of the situation.

However, many observers wondered why ESPN never interviewed a medical expert or doctor during its immediate coverage of the incident. Van Pelt revealed Tuesday he wasn’t interested in doing that interview in the moment.

“My personal preference was that I didn’t want to bring in a physician to speculate,” Van Pelt told CNN’s Oliver Darcy. “I totally see the other side, where a well-trained eye of a physician might recognize something that might totally make sense. But I just didn’t want to be speculating.”

The veteran SportsCenter anchor added it was important to work strictly in fact during the situation.

“I kept leaning into what we know,” he continued. “We’ll deal in what we know, not in what we wish we knew or hope to find out. And the truth is, we knew very little.” 

A Trio of New Hampshire Stations Adds NewsMax’s Rob Carson Show

BNM Staff
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News/talk listeners in New Hampshire can tune into “The Rob Carson Show” daily on Binnie Media’s WTSN-FM, Dover; WTPL-FM, Hillsborough; WEMJ-FM, Laconia.

According to Radio Ink, the trio of stations dubbed “The Pulse of New Hampshire” announced the move effective Tuesday, Jan 3. 

Newsmax expanded into radio in 2021 when it launched Carson’s nationally syndicated show on Baltimore’s WCBM 680. The network claims to serve a combined population of one million people.

“I know firsthand the power of Binnie Media’s talk stations and we look forward to working with their great team and bringing Rob Carson to one of the most politically influential audiences in the country.” Binnie Media VP of programming Michael Czarnecki said. 

Carson’s program is now airing in 16 rated markets. In addition to the radio show and podcast, “Rob Carson’s What in the World,” a humorous review of the week’s news, airs every weekend on Newsmax TV.

“We are thrilled at the addition of Rob Carson as this move, along with the recent addition of ‘America at Night’, and the rest of our dynamic lineup, make for a unique form of talk radio.

Erick Erickson: Donald Trump Has to Fire Social Media Team For Pro-Life Truth Post 

BNM Staff
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Syndicated radio personality Erick Erickson called for former President Donald Trump to fire his social and political advisors after Trump used his Truth Social account to blame pro-life candidates for losing the midterms. 

Erickson was especially critical of Trump’s use of his social platform to launch such an attack. His comments came via the “Erick Erickson Show” Tuesday. 

“I don’t even need to criticize Donald Trump for his refusal to accept responsibility for his pick of bad candidates,” said Erickson. “He may have endorsed something like 253 candidates but only 20 really mattered as far as shaking up Congress and they still lost.” 

“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms. I was 233-20! It was the “abortion issue,” poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the mother, that lost large numbers of Voters,” Trump wrote on Truth. 

“I question the team around Donald Trump,” Erickson said. “The most loyal support Donald Trump has gotten in America has come from Christian evangelical community and it has come because they are committed to a culture of life,” he said. 

Erickson said whoever thought it was a good idea for Trump to go on Truth Social and attack pro-lifers for what happened in November, needs to be fired. 

“His whole damn team needs to be fired,” added Erickson.

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