Broadcasters dispute Times ad *

The president of the Southern California Broadcasters Association has a bone to pick with a recent L.A. Times house ad claiming the paper has more reach to offer advertisers than the area's top radio stations. From a footnoted post by Mary Beth Garber on the group's website:

Perhaps The LA Times should face the facts instead of distorting them. In the Los Angeles DMA, THE LA TIMES' daily circulation and readership has diminished every year since 2004. In that same time, the number of people listening to Radio each week in the LA market has increased each and every year.

On the average day, nearly 90% of the Adults 18+ in the Los Angeles market will spend over 3 hours with Radio, and 70% of that will be spent with just their favorite Radio station.

We don't question that THE LA TIMES could have a place at the table in a given media mix. We do question why they have to resort to distorting the facts in order to get there....

I'm also angry and appalled that one of the nation's largest newspapers would attack another medium based on such loosely gathered and poorly put together facts. I can only guess that by presenting their attack as an ad, instead of a news article, THE TIMES hoped to preserve their remaining journalistic integrity. No such luck.

And the correction o' the day: Oops, the Santa Monica psychotherapist isn't gay. "The reporter misunderstood the name of his partner and misinterpreted references in the conversation, and incorrectly assumed Graber to be gay," says a For the Record in today's Times.

* Times replies: "We made no errors."