Headlines

Very well, according to Nielsen. The ratings firm says Black and Hispanic consumers make up a third of American radio listeners. And, Nielsen says radio is America’s top weekly reach platform, both overall and with Black and Hispanic consumers — 75 million of whom tune in each week.

According to Nielsen, McDonald's was the biggest advertiser on Urban and Rhythmic Radio in both 2016 and 2017, although spending is off by about $1.5 million. That confirms what Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins has been saying on his quarterly earnings calls. McDonald's spent $12.3 million on Urban radio in 2016 and that dropped to $10.8 million in 2017.

Six years ago, Kansas resident Mary Ann Sause was listening to Westwood One’s syndicated host Michael Savage when police showed up to field a complaint that her radio was too loud. She eventually opened the door and began to pray when, she says, police told her she might be taken to jail.

Envision Networks is getting the holiday spirit early and offering programming options to stations that want to beat the holiday rush and relax during the winter blitz. Here are some of the options available...

The Home Depot was radio's biggest advertiser for the 15th week in a row, according to Media Monitors, airing 56,559 commercials on radio stations across the country. GEICO (40,520) and Lowes (35,789) held their 2nd and 3rd positions respectively. Pepsi was 4th with 29,493, followed by AutoZone, up from 22nd, rounding out the top five with 28,088 spots.

The Washington Post’s Research, Experimentation and Development team has developed a technology called Rhapsocord, which inserts ads automatically into podcasts. According to the website Ad Exchanger, Rhapsocord automatically identifies pre-roll, midroll and post-roll spots, inserts ads and updates the files.

The New York Post is reporting that the five private equity owners of Univision are bracing for a 2019 revenue decline of 4 percent for the Spanish language broadcaster. The paper also says the five PE firms - Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners, TPG Capital, THL Partners and Haim Saban — may also be looking to generate cash by selling assets.

A few days after Bubba The Love Sponge settled his ratings tampering case with Nielsen, the syndicated morning host lost another affiliate. Bubba had been airing on 96 K-ROCK (WXRK) in Fort Myers for 10 years. He's off the station as of this week. K-ROCK is now playing music in the morning and will announce a new show next week.

Boss Life Construction, IJustGotHit.com, and Radio One Houston are teaming up to give members of the Houston community a chance to win a previously existing renovated home. The contest is open to previous homeowners in Houston who lost a home last year in Hurricane Harvey. 

(By Ronald Robinson) I have heard it argued that the staggering dearth of effective, never mind interesting or, gawd forbid, creative advertising being continuously foisted on advertisers and audiences might be cause for some kind of class-action suit. This is unlikely, because, well, guess who has the most expensive lawyers and the deepest war chests for just such a contingency.