Headlines

This past week was Rincon Broadcasting’s 8th annual Radiothon, and Radio Bronco 107.7 (KIST) and La Musical 94.5 (KSPE) surpassed last year’s total by more than 21%. The final total was a whopping $95,735. With donations still coming in, this year’s radiothon may yet break the $100,000 mark.

YEA Networks announced that Simple Booth, its next-generation platform for one-touch social sharing of live events through digital photo booth experiences, has hit the 400-radio-station mark with the recent addition of Saga Communications’ six-station radio group in Charleston, SC and additional units in multiple markets.

We'll find out on September 27 at The Radio Show in Orlando. On Monday, The National Association of Broadcasters announced the finalists. Fighting it out for legendary station of the year will be KKBQ-FM in Houston, KOA-AM in Denver, WBAP-AM, Dallas, WHIO-AM, Dayton and WOKV FM, Jacksonville. Here are all the 2018 Marconi finalists...

Monday was a big day for the hosts at Boston’s sports station WBZ-FM The Sports Hub. The new Beasley station, picked up from CBS as part of the Entercom/CBS merger, began broadcasting from the station’s brand new state of the art studios in Dorchester, MA.

William Puig of Homestead, Florida is accused of operating an illegal radio station from a commercial property on 92.1-FM and a company called Rockaway154 is accused of operating a pirate station from a residential property on Rockaway Parkway in Brooklyn at 93.7-FM.

Hubbard's WWFD (820-AM) "The Gamut" in Washington, DC has turned off its analog signal and is now all digital. The station has turned to a partnership with HD Radio to broadcast in digital (the format is a music station playing "A to Z and everything in between"). PD and station engineer Dave Kolesar says AM needs to start trending in this direction.

On Monday, Entercom relaunched Fresh 102.7 as NEW 102.7 FM in New York. The station (WNEW), will remain a Hot AC format. Additional announcements regarding the new programming lineup will be made shortly.

Listeners from Hubbard's “Real Rock Radio” KSHE-95 FM in St. Louis turned out in large numbers for one of the nation’s largest and longest running blood drives - the 34th Annual KSHE Summer Blood Drive, held July 6th and 7th. More than 2,000 donors participated in the two-day event, held in nine locations across the St. Louis metropolitan region.

Our thanks to Rod Schwartz for introducing us to Dr. James DeVleming, an optometrist in Pullman, WA. DeVleming has been doing a series of informational features called "Ask Dr. DeVleming" on a daily basis for over 20 years now. Those features have helped DeVleming establish himself as the eye care authority in town. As you can hear in this sample, he rarely says "Come see me." His approach to marketing is to: "Talk to your eye care professional," a very counter-intuitive, and effective, way to advertise. Our weekly advertiser success stories are sponsored by Sun & Fun Media.

(By Randy Lane) I was a new PD at Q101 in Chicago in the early ‘80s when I noticed a strange phenomenon. At 3 p.m. all of the radios in the offices switched over to (competitor) WLS-FM to hear Steve and Garry. What was going on with Steve Dahl and Garry Meir to attract so much attention?