At Deadline - January 24, 2000

Emmis and Primedia Battle for L.A. Mag
A bidding war for Los Angeles magazine raged into last weekend between suitors Emmis Communications and Primedia, according to a source close to the magazine. Disney's 183,373-circulation monthly is expected to fetch as much as $35 million, considered a steep price for the struggling regional title. The dueling publishers have much to gain from establishing a foothold on the West Coast. Indianapolis-based Emmis, publisher of Texas Monthly and Atlanta, already owns the top-rated radio station in Los Angeles, KPWR-FM, and sees potential synergies from the purchase. For Primedia, owner of New York and Chicago, landing Los Angeles would give it properties in the nation's three largest media markets. Officials at both Emmis and Primedia declined to comment.

Anchors in a Champaign Jam
After squabbling over an expanded work schedule, a married news anchor couple walked out of Champaign, Ill., CBS affiliate WCIA-TV last week and were slapped with a lawsuit by station owner Nexstar Broadcasting. "We want them back," said Nexstar president Perry Sook. Sook, who wants anchors Marta Carreira and Jerry Slabe to work a seven-hour day and attend news planning meetings, said that the two log only eight hours per day combined. "We try to apply the same standard of fairness to every news employee across the company," Sook said.

Hundt Supports McCain on Pax
In another example of strange political bedfellows, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt last week defended Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) for McCain's letter to the FCC urging members to vote in favor of Paxson Communications' deal with a Pittsburgh TV station. In a missive to The Washington Post, Hundt wrote: "Nothing was objectionable in the letters that you mysteriously find offensive If you think John McCain's opinions and actions can be bought, your opinion flies in the face of all my experience of the man." McCain and Hundt, a powerful Democrat, often found themselves at odds during Hundt's 1993-98 tenure at the FCC.

Clear Channel Buys 5-Station Cluster
As it waits to close on its $23.5 billion deal to buy AMFM, Clear Channel Communications last week picked up five stations in Binghamton, N.Y., from Majac of Michigan for $20 million. The four FMs and one AM had $2.9 million in 1998 revenue, or 32.2 percent of the Binghamton radio market, according to Duncan's American Radio. Clear Channel operates more than 800 radio and 19 television stations.

Skipper, Walsh Join ESPN Internet Group
In an effort to push ESPN's sports expertise deeper into the new media world, Disney last week handed John Skipper and John Walsh, two of ESPN's highest-ranking sports media executives, leadership roles at ESPN Internet Group (EIG). Skipper will become senior vp and general manager, while Walsh will pick up the title of senior vp and executive editor of EIG. Skipper was senior vp/general manager of ESPN the Magazine. Walsh will continue to have editorial responsibility for ESPN as senior vp and executive editor of ESPN Inc. "They [Walsh and Skipper] know how to spark the interest of sports fans in any medium," said Steven Bornstein, chairman of Disney's Go.com, under which EIG operates.

Addenda: Lee Kelly, a former president of Petersen's Motor Trend Group, has joined Primedia's McMullen Argus Publishing as vp/group publisher of Automobile magazine and the McMullen Argus International Performance Group Industry Standard Communications has raised $30 million in venture capital to expand its operations, including The Industry Standard magazine AT&T and merger partner MediaOne Group filed a federal lawsuit against Henrico County, Va., last week, claiming the county's "forced access" provision violates state and federal laws ABC News and The New York Times will produce a joint political newscast for their respective Web sites Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, one-third of the hip-hop group TLC, has signed a deal to host seven episodes of the syndicated hip-hop show Russell Simmons' Oneworld Music Beat Nielsen Media Research has postponed its plans to increase the sample of Spanish-speaking households in markets with large Hispanic populations, a change that had been set for Feb. 1.

Correction: The "Market Profile" on Raleigh-Durham, N.C., in last week's issue incorrectly described some radio data from Arbitron's Summer 1999 Radio Market Report. A section discussing the top five stations in the market used numbers that were not total-day shares but were rather the four-book average quarter-hour rating for the demo group adults 25-54, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays