news919rr

September 19, 2007

New Group to Syndicate HD Radio-Targeted Programming

By Jeffrey Yorke

Hoping to take advantage of expected exponential growth of HD Radio, Sovereign City Communications LLC intends to launch a nationally syndicated hybrid AC music service April 2, 2008 that will begin with a live, personality-driven evening program. The round-the-clock service will include automated music programming wrapped around the live show, but a new live-hosted program will be unveiled each quarter until the service is live personality and music 24 hours a day, newly named president and COO Joseph Giganti tells R&R.

Giganti said the company aims to develop high-quality music and talk radio formats for HD channels and main stations. "There is a certain secret sauce in what we are trying to develop here," says Giganti, a veteran radio programmer who previously served as president of Veritas Media Group, a Washington, D.C., public relations and production firm where he led numerous talk radio P.R. and marketing campaigns. He also worked to improve the overall quality of numerous conservative talk radio programs produced in the nation's capital. In his latest endeavor, Giganti intends to "bring back a little old-time radio, a combination of music and personality that touches the audience. Radio has to be more competitive with iPods, but intimacy is what radio can do that none of them can do. It makes a direct connection to the listeners and the host."

He says the company has identified the debuting show's personality and that Sovereign City is "working through lineups and how we will pair things. Some of the process is done, and the quarter-by-quarter process will allow us to move forward quickly. Mornings will not sound like evenings, but there is a common thread that ties it all together."

Giganti believes the company can create high-quality programming and deliver it to HD Radio side channels and to main channels around the country for less than it would cost radio to produce it. His aim, he says, is to "give the audience a compelling reason to go to that channel and stay with that channel at a reasonable cost to the station."

Sovereign City is a 10-month-old Green Bay, Wis.-based company started by Mark Follett, who serves as its chairman and CEO. Follett's other media ventures include Relevant Radio and Starboard Media Foundation Inc., two companies that operate almost as one in delivering Catholic faith-oriented programming to radio stations. The company's motto is "talk radio that bridges the gap between faith and everyday life."

In naming Giganti to his new post, Follett said, "Joe Giganti has a rare combination of knowledge, drive and zeal for using the media to meaningfully reach the hearts and minds of all people. He is a genuine and trusted leader whom people who want to make a real difference in this world will get behind." He added, "Joe is an innovator and extraordinarily capable executor, and I am confident that his team will deliver to radio owners across this nation a high-quality network of programming delivered with excellence and with what really matters to the audience."

	Sovereign City Communications, LLC P. O. Box 272 Green Bay, WI 54301 920.271.1000 - fax:920.271.1010