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About a month ago Urban One flipped Praise 107.9 (Gospel) to Classix 107.9 (R&B) and listeners in Philadelphia are not happy about it. The Tribune reports that local executives, artists and hosts held a meeting to come up with ideas to save Gospel music in their hometown

Kudos to our friends at Compass Media Networks. Once the Super Bowl ticker tape flies in Atlanta bringing the 2018-2019 season to an official close, it will also put a bow on a decade of broadcasting NFL games to radio for Compass.

When the 2019-2020 NHL season starts up, the St. Louis Blues will have a new flagship station, 101 ESPN. The team will finish out this season on KMOX, where they've been for 12 years. The ESPN deal is for four years.

Following Learfield's abrupt closure of their Nebraska Radio Network, Rockcastle Media Networks has launched the Radio Nebraska Network. The first newscast will be available Monday on a market-exclusive, 100% barter basis.

The application window is now open for the Mentoring & Inspiring Women in Radio 2019 Mildred Carter MIW Group Mentoring Program. Currently in its 18th year, the program pairs up-and-coming women, who currently work in the radio industry, with female professionals recognized as leaders. The deadline to apply is Wednesday, February 20, 2019.

In part two of our week-long series on the future of radio, we turn to MVP Capital Managing Director Elliot Evers to get his thoughts on where the radio industry is headed now that Cumulus is over the bankruptcy hurdle and iHeart is about to cross the finish line.

SiriusXM CEO James Meyer detailed them in the company conference call on Wednesday. He said the number one challenge was active users and listener hours. And then there's that little bugaboo about actually making money. SiriusXM is expected to close on its purchase of Pandora tomorrow.

SiriusXM CEO James Meyer says he quickly made the decision to consolidate the G&A functions and have the Pandora business units report directly to him. "My goal is to streamline decision-making, increase the speed of integration, and manage the businesses holistically from day one."

There's certainly no doubt that SiriusXM is a player in the vehicle. The company reports it now has 34 million people who pay for their service. They also report that 117 million vehicles now on the road are equipped with their radio service. So that's at least 83 million vehicles with inactivate satellite radios, compared to 100% activation of traditional radios, of course.