Headlines

The weekly one-hour golf talk show on WFAN-FM/New York will be hosted by golf expert Ann Liguori and air Sunday mornings from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. ET, June 17 through September 2. The inaugural show will be broadcast live from the 2018 U.S. Open in Shinnecock Hills, NY.

It's clear Journal Communications and Scripps knew they had a superstar in Beverly Brannigan. Brannigan made it to the Market Manager level from the programming side, which is something we do not see a lot of in our business. Since 2014, Brannigan has been the Vice President and General Manager for the Scripps radio cluster in Wichita. She's also the Vice President of Programming for the entire Scripps radio group. And, of course, she's on Radio Ink's 2018 Most Influential Women in Radio list.

The discussion about advertising agencies and radio has certainly caught fire this week. Yesterday, we heard from two ad agency executives who asked to remain anonymous. They threw out the following list of questions and statements and asked us to see how you might react and answer them. Have at it...

On Wednesday, the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology passed the PIRATE Act. The "Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act’’ calls for an increased penalty of up to $2,000,000 for anyone convicted of operating a pirate station. The bill moves to the full House Energy and Commerce Committee for a vote.

In this latest Hispanic Radio Podcast hosted by RBR+TVBR Editor-in-Chief Adam R Jacobson, veteran national sales pro Jose Villafañe — recently appointed Head of Sales and an Advisory Board member for MLC Media — discuss the top things a radio station should consider when evaluating syndicated programming for a key daypart. 

We are pleased to announce that former Greater Media CEO Peter Smyth is the recipient of Radio Ink's 2018 Lifetime Leadership Award. The award is presented as part of the annual Radio Ink Forecast summit, held at the Harvard Club in New York City. Forecast this year will be held on November 14.

The ongoing debate about the way advertising agencies treat radio, and vice versa, started by Roberty Christy and expanded upon by Brian Winnekins, caught the attention of our good friends at the Radio Advertising Bureau. We spent some time on Tuesday discussing the issue with RAB CEO Erica Farber.

Total local ad spend in Los Angeles will come in at approximately $9.1 billion this year, according to BIA. That's half of all the advertising money spent in the entire state, according to BIA's California market intelligence report. A total of $18.8 billion will be spent in California’s 12 media markets with radio bringing in $1.66 billion.

San Antonio’s KXTN 107.5 -- “Tejano & Proud” -- celebrates 30 years of serving its listeners and community on June 15 and 16 with a free, family-friendly festival. It will include tributes to three of the genre’s biggest stars as well as a concert with top performers.

The Johnjay and Rich #LoveUp Foundation and the Arizona Department of Child Safety surprised a group of graduating eighth-grade foster kids with new Chromebook laptop computers through a new pilot program that aims to put technology in the hands of kids in Arizona’s foster care system.