Stations Must Refocus, Revitalize, Rebuild

Fortunately, we have reached the point where economists have shifted the discussion from when “The Great Recession” started, or how bad it will be, to a debate over the indicators that will signal it’s over. Meanwhile, marketing experts are presenting evidence on some of its longer-lasting effects on consumer behavior.

While this is great news compared to where we stood a year ago, it’s clear that many of the media industry’s challenges, which have been exacerbated by the macro-market developments, are even more pressing than they were before the fall of 2008.

As Charlie Warner, president of Broadcast Finance Inc., a media management consulting firm, who serves as both the Media Financial Management Association‘s conference coordinator and our outsourced chief financial officer, recently summed it up:

“Years of growth stalled, and the mandate was to minimize the slide. ‘Flat’ was the new ‘up.’ Several companies conceded and filed for bankruptcy; many more struggled to stay afloat. Uncertainty and an ever-changing roadmap make the challenges for the media financial executives more difficult than ever.”

At the same time, we are continuing to cultivate new revenue streams and reduce costs through the technological developments and operational best practices that can arise when we respond to adversity with innovation. Charlie and I been working closely with MFM’s conference chair, co-chairs, and our standing committees on planning this year’s annual conference, Media Finance Focus 2010, which has been themed “Refocus…Revitalize…Rebuild: Roadmap to Success” in light of these challenges and opportunities.

The conference, which will be held in Nashville from May 23-25, will provide guidance and direction in many areas, including credit, emerging media, accounting, regulation and management. This year’s MFM/BCCA conference, the first annual educational event since the combination of MFM and members from INFE, the Interactive Newsmedia Financial Executives under MFM’s leadership, will also feature a track of sessions devoted to the interests of financial managers serving the country’s newspaper publishers.

As Charlie commented in his article “Nashville on Our Minds,” appearing in the current issue of The Financial Manager, “Its heady mix of in-depth panel sessions will give attendees new insights into how they can tackle their toughest problems, and the keynote addresses include a banjo virtuoso as well as esteemed media and economic leaders.”

He also points out that our agenda results from a series of hard-working committees, peopled with top experts in their field. Each committee has developed panels focusing on the most relevant and forward-thinking topics of concern to their members. Their efforts have been fashioned into a packed agenda under the guidance and direction of our conference chair, MFM/BCCA Executive Committee Member Cheryl Ingram, SVP, controller and chief accounting officer for Turner Broadcasting System; and Co-Chairs Mark Ross, director of Financial Accounting for The Washington Post and a member of the INFE Transition Advisory Board; and MFM Board Member Dawn M. Sciarrino, founder of Sciarrino & Shubert, PLLC.

Here are some examples of the speakers and sessions in store for this year’s conference attendees:

• The TV Committee has put together sessions that reflect the similar challenges of pushing revenue and containing costs. The sessions will probe the thorny issue of staff reductions — how to minimize a painful process and eliminate as many legal risks as possible.
• Forecasting in this economy has become a nightmare; the TV Committee will address that with a session that also touches on state-of-the-art budgeting techniques.
• Another TV Committee session will address the challenges and opportunities associated with multicasting. It will be moderated by TVNewsCheck Publisher Kathy Haley and include insights from a number of stations and station groups that are deriving additional revenues through their multicasting initiatives.
• We are also planning two sessions on retransmission consent. The first will examine the best practices in affiliate finance that can help local stations optimize these new revenue streams. The second, organized by MFM’s Cable Committee, will focus on the legal and economic issues with presentations from Jane Mago, SVP and general counsel of the NAB, and Rick Chessen, SVP, law and regulatory policy, NCTA.
• Craig E. Moffett, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. is presenting his outlook to our group as part of a Cable Committee session addressing “Changing Technologies in Media and Their Impact on the Competitive Landscape.” Another Cable Committee session will look at new production tax credits and how savings from this program can help the bottom line.

The cable slate is rounded out with a discussion on ad sales finance being moderated by Discovery Communications’ VP Financial Planning and Analysis Matt Deprey. This panel will look at the math behind the numbers including key sales drivers, the effect of the current environment and ad sales’ impact on a network’s bottom line.

With audience measurement and emerging media opportunities on everyone’s mind now, our Radio and Emerging Media Committees have slotted a number of sessions that touch on these subjects including:

• Restructuring traffic management — Operating multiple stations from one location for maximizing efficiency, flexibility and reporting, and for assimilating emerging media.
• Transforming decentralized business functions and processes into centralized ones.
• Electronic invoicing, including local versus national billing issues.
• The finance issues of emerging media — an in-depth look at the financial technical aspects, from measuring clicks to apportioning revenue to tracking billing.
• Measuring social media, particularly its impact on brand relationships and business performance.
• Mobile video distribution — its opportunities and problems, including proven business models, additional revenue streams, V-cast, on demand and legal rights.
• Spectrum allocation — broadcast vs. broadband and the potential impact on our industry.

Attendees looking for an update on the political advertising landscape will have the opportunity to hear from a panel of experts that includes Kantar Media Intelligence’s Evan Tracey and Ann Bobek, NAB general counsel. The panel will review the recent Supreme Court decision, its implications for corporation and union participation in the election process and what revenues the decision is likely to generate for media companies, as well as its impact on the political broadcasting rules.

Credit and collection issues are also on everyone’s mind and we have a full slate of sessions organized and hosted by our BCCA subsidiary. They will include:

• The changing face of Chapter 11.
• The ever-changing world of advertiser/agency liability and “must have” contractual provisions.
• How Wall Street assesses credit.
• Credit assessment of emerging media.
• How credit scoring can help your operation.
• Day to day issues in credit and collections, including the critical areas to watch in order to maintain a healthy aging.
• Managing the credit-sales relationship.
• “Can you top this?” where a panel of credit professionals will present some of their most difficult — and outrageous — credit problems, and how they were resolved.

Not to be outdone, the members of MFM’s Tax Committee, Accounting Committee, Newspaper Committee, and the industry’s Music Licensing Committees have also been diligently at work to organize sessions tracking the latest regulatory and market developments affecting their areas. For a glimpse of the full agenda and more details on the conference, visit our website.

And, as Charlie Warner mentions in his TFM article, this year’s roster of featured speakers includes a banjo virtuoso, Alison Brown, CFO and a co-founder of Compass Records, as well as such esteemed media and economic leaders as David Altig, SVP-director of research for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Jack Myers, a media economist and founder of M.E.D.I.Advisory Group; Josh Sapan, president-CEO of Rainbow Media Holdings, and winner of this year’s Avatar Award; and Steven Waldman, senior adviser to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

It seems only appropriate that this pivotal year for financial issues facing our industry would also mark the 50th anniversary for MFM, the professional association for financial management executives. As the economy begins its slow revitalization, MFM remains a critical source of information, ideas and innovation providing its members with the tools to rebuild and refocus. We hope you can join us in Nashville as part of developing your own road map to success.