Headlines

GEICO has upended The Home Depot after the big-box chain was radio's number one advertiser for 18 weeks in a row. According to Media Monitors, GEICO aired 43,287 commercials last week as The Home Depot aired only 35,468, way down from the 72,599 spots it ran a week earlier.

(By Randy Lane) The one-two punch that propels female-targeted shows to big ratings is the combination of a sticky relationship benchmark and relevant personal stories from the cast. Those stories connect best with the female audience (and the male audience) when they are vulnerable, self-deprecating, and humorous.

Providence College Athletics has announced a five-year agreement with Cumulus Media to become the official radio home of the school's men’s basketball on NewsTalk 99.7FM & AM 630 WPRO. John Rooke and Joe Hassett, who have been the voices of Friar Basketball for more than 30 years, will call all Friar games this season.

Radio Ink Editor Ed Ryan was a guest on The New Media Show with Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee. They discussed the relationship between the radio industry and the podcasting industry. Is there a great divide? Find out by watching the show HERE.

The CEO's and President's of ten radio companies have joined forces to pen a long letter to the radio industry in full support of more deregulation. The group want to keep the pressure on the FCC as it considers lifting ownership caps during its upcoming quadrennial ownership review. They also want to rally the industry to their side.

Bonneville announced on Friday it has entered into an agreement with Entercom to purchase four stations in San Francisco and four in Sacramento for $141 million. Bonneville has been programming the stations, which have been held in an FCC disposition Trust, under “LMAs” since November 17, 2017. The stations are:

(By Bob McCurdy) In today’s listening landscape, many stations are separated by only a tenth or two of a rating point, which greatly impacts rank and, in reality, statistically speaking, there’s little if any actual audience difference between these stations. The reason for this...

Sports gambling info outfit VSiN have announced a partnership with KNBR 680/1050 that taps VSiN to deliver daily Bay Area-focused updates for the sports station. Beginning August 6, the station will run VSiN Action Updates covering how the sports betting markets are reacting to Bay Area sports teams, with one report in the 9 a.m. PT hour and another in the 5 p.m. PT hour each weekday.

The net revenue increase was $600K (1%) in Q2 for Beasley Media Group. Wilmington, Philadelphia, Augusta, Boca, and Boston were all called out as high-performing markets. Consumer services was Beasley's number one category in the quarter, followed by retail (which was down) and automotive (which was up). What about Beasley's digital revenue?

Milwaukee and Tulsa have been sold, netting the company $28 million so far and more announcements are coming soon, according to Scripps executives. Scripps has 27 more radio stations it plans to unload, and during a conference call Friday Local Media President Brian Lawlor said, "We are well on our way to divesting our radio group."