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TWST: Lee, as you look at these complicated issues, could you sort out some stocks for investors?

Mr. Westerfield: In regard to the spectrum issue, it doesn’t have as much access reach that’s extraordinary and unparalleled. It does lend me a great deal of confidence to realize that CNBC is also a significant investor in Paxson (AMEX:PAX), and that partnership is developing. One has to look very closely at the terms of NBC’s option strikes, and the specific collapses of price in stock to be purchased at specific strikes, in order to understand how the trading might occur on Paxson, which is $10 today, and how it might get to $22. But, setting that aside, there is no question that Paxson enjoyed the largest exposure digitally, both in the 60 to 69 spectrum as well as broadly speaking in the TV spectrum. It’s tough as an investment because it’s binary: either you get a resolution to the maze of issues that we have been talking about or you don’t. For me, I prefer to invest in things I can touch and feel. Right now that’s at levels of advertising growth, and I bet they’re still stronger in radio, especially going into the non-election year in 2001. And, again, I hope for full reprieve from regulators in the free television arena.

TWST: Lee, would you give us some perspective on how the battle for eyes and ears is shaping up in the TV and in the radio sector? Are there any notable shifts in market share? And, of course, is anybody winning or losing the battle?

Mr. Westerfield: One of today’s new stocks that we’re currently hearing about relates to radio listenership. Like all media, except the Internet, there’s modest erosion of newspaper circulation, book readership, radio listenership and television viewing, both in cable and broadcasting. But when you look within various media, broadcast networks have stabilized their market share erosion to cable and they’re actually showing a revival in their share due to tons of households using television. That’s a remarkable bottom and, frankly, recovery for broadcast TV. In radio listenership over the last decade, the bottom has been about 2%. But, in fact, if you look at the demographic part, radio, through consolidation, is now reaching a broader swatch of the population that it did a decade ago. A lot of that is a real credit to being able to construct clusters that reach more widely out from just the 18- to 35-year-old bracket in adult contemporary. So demographics are probably the biggest myth with a limited understanding within the investment community on how to evaluate it.

TWST: Lee, how much did this creative programming have to do with winning back market share?

Mr. Westerfield: Look at Survivor and Regis Philbin; consumer tastes change over time. So whether it migrated from sitcoms to dramas in the late 1980s or, more recently, going to a real-life genre and back to the game show format, programming is an enormous challenge, gauging where consumer tastes will be directed next year. So you’re programming a slate for the years to come. There’s no question that viewership this summer was higher than is customarily the case. The broader point here is that programmers are always trying to expand the polls of consumership.