Every station has an on-air voice, a sales team, and a signal. What separates the ones that thrive is who’s steering the whole operation. This month, Radio Ink goes inside the job that is measured by the sum of all departments: the general manager.
From the first female GM in WGN Radio’s history to this year’s Best Managers in Radio list, September is about the people who hold a station together and what the role is becoming as the industry changes around it.
Cover Interview: WGN Radio VP/General Manager Mary Sandberg Boyle
She started as Steve Dahl’s assistant with no management background and no template to follow. Now she runs one of Chicago radio’s most storied institutions. Boyle talks with Radio Ink Editor-in-Chief Cameron Coats about growing up on WGN, working under one of radio’s greatest chaos agents, and why a GM’s job interview never really ends.
Her take on WGN’s identity, what watching parent company Nexstar’s TV side taught her about local news, and why she believes radio’s intimacy is still its edge over every platform trying to out-scale it is a must-read for any leader, present or future.
The Best Managers in Radio 2026
Radio Ink again recognizes the GMs, MMs, and RVPs carrying the weight of protecting budgets, brands, and licenses. This year’s honorees weigh in on their management philosophy, where the GM role is headed in the next five years, how they keep smaller stations from feeling like an afterthought, and what’s made the biggest difference in their day-to-day.
The Memo
Twenty-five years after 9/11, one of the most repeated stories about that era’s radio coverage may not have happened the way it’s always been told. Radio Ink investigates the origins of the so-called “Clear Channel memorandum” with the company’s former CEO Randy Michaels and Nexstar President of Networks Sean Compton, and looks at the real, lasting marks the attacks left on the industry.
Radio’s Elevator Pitch, Revisited
Six months after the NAB State Leadership Conference fly-in, we check back in with Minnesota Broadcasters Association President Wendy Paulson on the push to get the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act across the finish line, and what it takes to keep lawmakers engaged between visits to Capitol Hill.
Publisher’s Beat: Why Managers Matter
Radio Ink President and Publisher Deborah Parenti makes the case that as groups eliminate or regionalize the GM role, the job’s real value of connective tissue between programming, sales, and community is harder to replace than an org chart suggests.
Technology Corner: Visualizing Revenue
Is an aging or non-HD-capable transmitter quietly costing your station ground on the dashboard? We talk with Nautel President and CEO Kevin Rodgers about why he rejects the either-or between infrastructure and programming spend, and how stations are already turning Visual Radio into a sellable “billboard on the dashboard.”
PLUS:
- Loyd Ford on why September sellers should lead with solutions, not inventory
- Grace Agostino on starting the year’s second half with a clearer sense of what you stand for
- Dara Kalvort’s Prompt Perfect on turning “the budget’s already committed” into a Q4 opportunity
- Roy H. Williams on the difference between abstract and concrete language in advertising
- People on the Move
- Signoff with Audacy Chief Marketing Officer Jenny Nelson
- Blast from the Past: Miami’s Gayle Garton
You won’t read this on our website or anywhere else. Ensure that you never miss another issue: click here to subscribe for as low as $3.33 per month! Already a subscriber? Renew your subscription or consider a gift subscription for a colleague or team member!
