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Bill Stakelin is a very well-known name around the radio industry. We recently spoke to Stakelin for our special feature on the 1996 Telecommunications Act. His company back then, Regent Communications, was right in the thick of the activity when the buying floodgates opened (he eventually sold to Randy Michaels). Stakelin will be featured in an upcoming issue of Radio Ink about the '96 Act. We took the opportunity during that interview to get his views on the radio industry today. Here's what he had to say.

The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council has sent a letter to the new administration called "Twelve Imperatives to Close the Digital Divide and Advance Multicultural Media and Telecom Ownership and Procurement in the First 100 Days of the New Administration." Point number 12: Create a “Glide Path” for the Short-Term Survival and Long-Term Humane Decommissioning of the AM Band in a Manner that Preserves Minority Ownership.

Jinny Laderer has always been around radio. In addition to being a coach in the NFL, her dad was a radio station owner. Radio paid the bills. Jinny’s first husband (she married at 21) was a radio station manager. With a family of her own, Jinny decided to work from home so she could spend quality time with her four children, and she became a Mary Kay consultant. When her youngest entered preschool, she was ready to get back to radio. Today Jinny Laderer is Living The American Dream. Here is her story.

We could be in the early stages of big Clear Channel AM stations battling with smaller mom and pop AM stations that are looking to serve their local communities when the sun goes down. It's an issue the NAB does not take a position on because there are many stations on both sides of this issue.

The two biggest problems with radio advertising have always been too many ads and too many bad ads. Now, one of radio's biggest cheerleaders -- on the agency side -- is trying to solve problem number two. Horizon CEO Bill Koenigsberg has always been a fan of radio and now he's forming a new audio creative and production division called Wordsworth & Booth.

This April the team at Hubbard Radio's WTMX in Chicago will be rewarded for all the hard work it does for the community of Chicago. The station will be honored with the NAB Crystal Heritage Award for winning five Crystals. The award is given for exceptional year-round community service, which is exactly what WTMX excels at.

If the FCC is to help the broadcast industry survive and flourish, Commissioner Ajit Pai may be the man to make it happen. Hear his thoughts on the state of the FCC at the Hispanic Radio Conference!

The election for a new United States President is finally over. In January, Billionaire businessman Donald Trump will take over for President Barack Obama. Exactly what that means for radio, or regulations guiding radio, if anything, will not be known for months if not years. Is all-out Republican leadership good for the media ownership rules or foreign ownership? How will the FCC stack up once Chairman Wheeler departs? Could there be even more deregulation? Radio Ink surveyed CEO's and other executives around the industry to get their opinion on what lies ahead. Here's what they had to say...

The decision on whether iHeartMedia is allowed to move shares of Clear Channel Outdoor to a subsidiary called Broader Media is now in the hands of a judge. Closing arguments in the week long case were heard Friday and State District Judge Cathleen Stryker is expected to make her ruling this week.

It's clear musicFIRST has been lobbying the mainstream media to take up its case against the radio industry. They have found a willing ally at The Washington Post. An opinion piece in The Post written by Sonny Bunch starts out with this sentence, "Every time you listen to the radio you’re partaking in the exploitation of musicians."