Headlines

The burgeoning podcast medium will be the focus of a new conference program, show floor pavilion, and recording studio at the 2018 NAB Show, April 7-12 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

This will come as no surprise to Radio Ink readers. According to the latest Infinite Dial survey, smart speaker ownership is exploding, lead by Amazon's Echo and Google's Home. Last year only 7% of Americans, 12 and over, owned one of the devices. In 2018 that number ballooned to 18%.

Austin’s ALT 97.5, “The New Alternative,” announced Thursday a broadcast agreement with the Houston Astros. The station will be the official Houston Astros affiliate in Austin, Texas, and will carry all regular season and post season games for the 2018 Major League Baseball season.

To help AMs and FMs on their path to success, the Radio + Television Business Report and Radio Ink are pleased to present our first series of short podcasts focused on Hispanic radio — and its power — in advance of the 2018 Hispanic Radio Conference, March 13-14 in Miami.

The Michigan Association of Broadcasters Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2018 Scholarship Program. Scholarships were presented during the Great Lakes Media Show on March 7 at the Lansing Center. The MAB Foundation awarded $28,500 in scholarships this year. 

The imaging company today released its fourth annual "Benztown 50 List of Radio’s Biggest Imaging Voices," a listing of the top 50 radio voiceover artists in the U.S. and Canada. Benztown enlisted P1 Media Group to compile and analyze industry data that was the foundation for the list.

The Springfield, MA station's radiothon raised a whopping $245,367 over two days, beating last year’s number and bringing the total raised since 2002 to over $4.5 million. All proceeds go to the Children’s Miracle Network to benefit Baystate Children’s Hospital.

Portland station 92.3 KGON has signed the agreement with The Waterfront Blues Festival. Highlights of the partnership include the return of the festival to its original radio broadcast partner and the switch of KGON-HD2 station to Waterfront Blues Radio, streaming blues music all day.

And the reason for that is to keep others away who may be thinking about filing a competing plan to restructure Cumulus and muddying up the progress that's been made so far. And, Cumulus says it has achieved "significant progress."

Robert Bekune (at 98.5) and Daniel Thelisma (at 90.9) both from Irvington, New Jersey, Troy Cheever from Deltaville, Virginia (at 100.1) and Nelda Jean of Hollywood, Florida (at 91.7) are the latest alleged pirate radio operators busted by The FCC. All were given 10 days notice to end their illegal operations and explain why they were operating stations without a license.