Arena Football Concert venues and promotion become Clear Channel’s latest plaything. by Jim Hanas Quick. What do the Wake Up Crew’s Bad Dog McCormack and nubile singing sensation Britney Spears have in common? Well, if a merger announced last week goes through, it could be that they’ll both be managed by Clear Channel Communications. In the wake of mega-deals uniting such media titans as CBS and Viacom, Time Warner and AOL, we’ve seen that media consolidation can be lucrative. That it can be ominous. But who knew it could be so, you know, creepy. Bad Dog and Britney, together at last. Last Tuesday, San Antonio-based Clear Channel announced that it has agreed to buy SFX Entertainment, a 2-year-old company that has quickly consolidated the business of live music. SFX owns 120 venues and last year promoted or produced some 26,000 events, from concerts to sporting events. When Bob Dylan and Paul Simon got together at The Pyramid, the concert was promoted by SFX. The Pace Motor Sports Monster Jam and Pace Motor Sports Ultracross, both of which recently passed through town, are also owned, ultimately, by SFX. And when Britney hits The Pyramid stage on Sunday it will be thanks to an alliance between New Orleans-based Beaver Productions and Pace Entertainment, a division of SFX. Although its stock took a beating after the merger was announced, Clear Channel has clear reasons for acquiring SFX. Combined with its half-million billboard faces and 800-some radio stations, the acquisition of the country’s largest concert promoter will give the company a lock on the means of production of pop culture. Britney-on-the-radio, meet Britney-on-a-billboard, meet Britney-live-at-an-arena-near-you. Oddly, considering the thickness on the ground of Clear Channel properties here (two TV stations, most of the city’s billboards, and seven radio stations, including WEGR-FM “Rock 103,” home of Bad Dog and the Wake Up Crew), the effects of the SFX/Clear Channel deal might be less apparent in Memphis than in markets where SFX either owns venues or promotes more shows. “It’s too early to tell what it will mean to the industry,” says Greg Lowry, director of marketing for The Pyramid. The vast majority of shows at the city’s largest arena are promoted by Beaver Productions, the New Orleans-based hold-out in SFX’s recent spree of consolidations. And as the upcoming Britney concert demonstrates, SFX might continue to rely on Beaver as a partner when booking in Memphis. “Beaver’s got such a good feel for this market that you’ll see those types of alliances happen,” says Lowry. But that doesn’t mean Clear Channel won’t lean on its local outlets for promotion when it brings its newly acquired monster truck extravaganzas to town. All right Bad Dog, repeat after me: “Sunday, SUNday, SUNDAY.” Follow the Leader Despite prognostications to the contrary — spread mainly by some hack columnist at a free weekly here in town — WMC-TV Channel 5’s news coverage continues to win the hearts and minds (read: ratings and shares) of Memphis’ television viewing audiences; this according to the results of the February ratings sweep, which ended last week. Of the big three networks, WMC was, in fact, the only affiliate to see gains over last year in any of its evening news time slots. At 6 p.m., Action News 5 garnered a 14.3 rating with a 22 share, compared to a 13.8 rating and 21 share a year ago. Ratings reflect the percentage of Memphis’ 642,000 television households that are tuned in to a given program. Share reflects the percentage of television sets actually in use that are tuned to a program. Channel 5 saw similar gains at 10 p.m., rising from a 13.8 rating/21 share to a 14.1 rating/22 share. WMC also won the morning news timeslot for the first time in recent memory. WHBQ-TV Fox 13, meanwhile, gained a share point for its 9 p.m. newscast, rising to a 6.8 rating and a 10 share from a 6.5 rating and 9 share last year. WLMT-TV UPN 30 likewise grew its 9 p.m. audience from a 2.9 rating/4 share to a 4 rating/6 share. Market challenger WREG-TV Channel 3, however, took a drubbing, losing significant ground in all four of its evening news time slots, the biggest loss coming at 5 p.m. where the newscast fell to an 8.4 rating/15 share from an 11 rating/20 share a year ago. And WPTY-TV Channel 24, despite being affiliated with a network flying high on Millionaire-mania and despite producing what is arguably the city’s most tasteful newscast, turned up worse numbers at 10 p.m. than The Andy Griffith Show on UPN or Mama’s Family on Fox 13. Who says crime doesn’t pay? Take that, you hack columnist, you.