The new 24/7 national and local all news audio service from iHeartMedia will be dedicated to providing an “objective, accurate and trusted source of continual news coverage with a Black voice and perspective.” Tony Coles has been tapped as President of the new network.
iHeart will launch the network on stations in Atlanta, Augusta, Charlotte, Cleveland, Columbus, GA, Detroit, Greenville, Macon, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Norfolk, Riverside, San Francisco and Seattle, with more markets added over the next 60 days. The network will also be available on the iHeartRadio app and some of BIN’s content will be distributed every day as podcasts across iHeartRadio’s podcast network.
BIN will be enabled with the support of National Founding Partners, including Bank of America, CVS Health, GEICO, Lowe’s, McDonald’s USA, Sony, 23andMe and Verizon. BIN will be a standalone business for iHeart.
BIN will also provide the news service for iHeartMedia’s 91 Hip Hop, R&B and Gospel stations across the country, including Power 105.1 in New York, Real 92.3 in Los Angeles, WDAS and Power 99 in Philadelphia, WGCI and WVAZ in Chicago, WJLB in Detroit, The Beat in Houston, The Beat in Miami, WQUE in New Orleans, KMEL in San Francisco and more.
Tanita Myers will be Director of News Operations for BIN. Myers was formerly Director of Operations for The Tom Joyner Morning Show; Executive Producer of Rickey Smiley Morning Show; and a reporter in News, Traffic and Weather for various major market stations.
BIN will also have an Advisory Board consisting of leaders of the community from both inside the company and externally.
Coles is Division President of the iHeartMedia Markets Group “BIN: Black Information Network will fill a void by providing continual news and objective information with full focus on the Black community. We began developing our 24/7 Black news source last year, and events of the last few weeks, especially the senseless and tragic death of George Floyd, highlighted the need for this network. Now is the time for our voice to be heard, and I could not be more proud of our work and the team we are assembling at BIN.”
CEO Bob Pittman said, “We are pleased and proud to enable the support the launch of BIN: Black News Network by contributing resources that will have the greatest impact – our reach, our multiple platforms, our technology infrastructure and our broad, in-depth relationships with consumers. The commitment to service, and the immediate need we saw for a news and information destination for the Black community, accelerated the launch of BIN: Black News Network to serve this community in an important new way. We are honored to be joined by some of the most important companies in the world that are also committed to this mission.”
BIN is hiring for various positions. For information on these positions, candidates can visit www.iHeartMediaCareers.com. For more information about BIN: Black Information Network, visit www.BINNews.com.
