Headlines

Albany, Georgia's first-ever radio station, WGPC-AM, is gone for good. The station went dark on January 2 after a big storm came through town twisting its tower to pieces and depositing three trees in the studio. WALB-TV reports that Cumulus has surrendered the license back to the FCC. WGPC signed on in 1933, and was Albany's only radio station until 1941.

It only took six months for former City Council president Monica Conyers to lose her weekday afternoon hosting job on WDFD-AM in Detroit. The Detroit Free Press reports that Conyers was fired for violation of corporate policy. Conyers disputes what the radio station claims and says she left on her own and did not want to be associated with the station any longer.

14 Representatives and 2 Senators have joined as cosponsors of a resolution the NAB has been pushing that opposes "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act now has 156 cosponsors in the House and 17 in the Senate. Here are the latest Washington lawmakers that are now on your side...

The station won five awards for Excellence in Broadcasting from the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters. WBEB won for outstanding achievements in radio and television across the state of Pennsylvania. Here's a list of the awards the station took home...

Westwood One will be broadcasting the upcoming NCAA Men’s Final Four in Spanish, the championship’s first-ever Spanish language broadcast on any platform. The event will be produced by Westwood One an ESPN Deportes. The trio of Rafael Hernández Brito, Greivis Vásquez, and Clemson Smith Muñiz will announce all the action.

CRS 2017 was a huge success as well as a cornucopia of valuable information. Now available to CRS 2017 registrants, the panel sessions and educational handouts from this year’s event are online for streaming. To access them, registrants should visit www.CountryRadioSeminar.com and log in using the username and password they created upon registering.

That $2.1 million increase in Q4 of 2016 was mainly due to an increase in political and double-digit increases in Tampa, Charlotte, and Las Vegas. Beasley Media CEO Caroline Beasley said the Greater Media stations, which the company closed on back in 2016, decreased 6.1% ($2.3 million) in Q4 with about 60% of the decline coming from the Philadelphia market. Beasley said that decline was due to the ownership change and transition.

Beasley Media CEO Caroline Beasley says the company will recognize a $45 million gain from the Greater Media transaction, based on the value of the assets and the price the company paid. She said the integration of Greater Media is on track and should be completed within the schedule the company set when it closed the deal.

The heart and center of Hispanic radio is heading to Fort Lauderdale as the industry’s most forward-thinking companies, researchers, and programmers attend the Hispanic Radio Conference, March 28-29. Record numbers of Hispanic radio broadcasters will be there, discussing revenue and ratings — and how to increase them — and sharing sales strategies, market research, programming tips, and crucial projections about the hottest market in media.

Tim Leary has been in radio since the age of 18. That includes doing weekend overnights for Loren (Loren and Wally) in Boston, tech producing for Steve Dahl, and writing and doing on-air characters for Mancow. He's worked in Boston, Chicago, Sacramento, Reno, Providence, Cleveland, and Savannah/Hilton Head, where he's settled in working for Alpha.