Headlines

Latin music station 92.5 MAXIMA (WYUU-FM/Safety Harbor, Florida) and Walmart have teamed up for a Hurricane Relief Drive in Tampa, Florida, to help the people of Puerto Rico. There will be two locations for the drive, which will be held this weekend, September 24-25.

...On Curt Crafts recent blog about crappy remotes. He's clearly struck a nerve. What are your thoughts? Do they make the industry look unprofessional? Is it time to ban the dreaded remote broadcast? If you've pulled off a successful remote recently, send us pictures so we can share what remotes SHOULD look like.

The radio industry might be smart to re-activate a lobbying effort to get the government to mandate FM Chips in all cell-phones using the natural disaster angle. This year has been especially strong when it comes to Hurricanes (See Puerto Rico. See Southwest Florida. See Houston) and talk about activating the FM Chip, which is already in all cell-phones, has never been higher.

It's not easy to reach a broadcaster in Puerto Rico right now, or any resident for that matter. The island was slammed by Hurricane Maria and 100% of the residents on the island lost power. Broadcast attorney Frank Montero, who represents the Puerto Rico Broadcasters Association, has been working with the FCC's Lisa Fowlkes to get the Commission in touch with broadcasters on the Island to assist with emergency alert activations.

Sarah Frazier is the Market Manager for CBS Radio in Houston. She's also one of Radio Ink’s Best Managers of 2017. And that should come as no surprise, Frazier is consistently one of The Most Influential Women in Radio and on our Best Managers list. Frazier has been in radio since college, when she worked as the sales manager, traffic manager, and operations manager at KJHK at the University of Kansas.

Beasley Media CEO Caroline Beasley has written a letter thanking company employees who worked through Hurricane Irma, which left a path of incredible destruction in Southwest Florida. Beasley not only has stations in Southwest Florida, Naples is also where the company has its headquarters.

Hip Hop station WQHT HOT 97 FM, is bringing HOT 97’s Summer Jam festival back to Tokyo on November 11, 2017. HOT 97 Summer Jam Tokyo sold out in minutes last year and tickets were difficult to find. New this year will be the addition of the Festival Stage

If the trend continues, 2017 will be the third straight year of growth for the music industry. It's still a far cry from the glory days of the 90's when CD sales were booming. This new growth spurt can be attributed to streaming and to specific services like Spotify and Apple Music.

Jim Watkins is the General Manager at WHUR at Howard University in Washington DC. He’s also one of Radio Ink’s Best Managers of 2017. Watkins is credited with building WHUR, 46 years ago. He's not only the General Manager of this top tier heritage radio station, he's also a mentor to some of the industry's most notable radio personalities and executives.

(by Deborah Parenti) As a promotion director, I helped marry two cardboard boxes, which resulted in some national press for our station. Later, when I was a sales manager, we commandeered time on the 6 o’clock news by sending reps dressed as Mideast oil titans in a stunt to get attention of area car dealers struggling with sluggish sales and excess inventory during the early ’90s oil crisis. It worked!