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Artist Melissa Ferrick has sued Spotify for "wholesale copyright infringement." She accuses Spotify of using her music without properly licensing her work, marking the second such suit in two weeks. She's asking for $200 Million. This suit comes shortly after Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery brought a separate class-action case against Spotify. Read more at The L.A. Times

The iHeart station pulled the mock PSA after receiving national attention about the announcement. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault twice, in 2008 and 2010. He served a 6-game suspension in 2010 for violating the NFL's personal conduct laws. Here's the text from the "PSA" WLW aired before pulling it. They called it a "Big Ben Warning" for females age 18-40.

A new year’s article about radio would not be complete without a tentative prediction. Here’s one: Radio will continue to be so seriously pooched!

As you work on your priorities in 2016, being visual and using video can be a key part of your effort to encourage more engagement from your current audience and listeners most like the fans you already attract on your social media platforms and on air.

They were company wide and amount to about $7.5 million in cuts across the company. Emmis revenue was down 5% in September, October, and November, typically some of the best revenue-performing months of the year for radio. Emmis' CEO Jeff Smulyan said it was a challenging quarter for Emmis, and it was a challenging quarter for the radio industry.

CFO Ryan Hornaday told investors national revenue was down 12% in September, October, and November while local was down 5.5% and digital was up over 8%. September finished down 2%, October was off 11% and November was off 1%.

It's no secret that iHeartMedia is carrying a massive amount of debt and hasn't been able to nudge it south. While walking the floor at CES, CEO Bob Pittman was interviewed by Fox Business Host Liz Claman who said to Pittman, eventually the two major creditors, Canyon and Goldman Sachs, are going to want their money back. Claman asked Pittman point blank if iHeartMedia was going to have to restructure. Here's what Pittman said...

Day two of CES 2016 and another day of gadgets to blow your mind. Expanding my convention center experience, I made my way over to the Sands Expo, which is a whole "other" convention center to navigate. Walking in to the fitness, sports-tech wing with my old friend Steve Goldstein from Amplfi media, and seeing Fitbit, Vert, Wahoo, Invoxia, and many other connected fitness items, he said, "The smartphone has enabled all of this and helped to create this category. It's the catalyst."

Scripps-owned WTMJ in Milwaukee is presenting a two-hour special Saturday night, with expanded coverage on their website, on the prosecution of Steven Avery, which has become one of the most popular programs on Netflix.

The FCC's enforcement bureau says it has reached a $540,000 settlement with Cumulus over a sponsorship identification issue at WOKQ (97.5 FM) in Dover, New Hampshire. The station broadcast 178 announcements in support of the Northern Pass hydro-electric energy project without identifying the sponsor of those announcements, in this case a company with a financial interest in the project. This is the largest payment in FCC history for a single-station violation of the Commission’s sponsorship identification laws.