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With four Institutes in the south and east, Dan Valle's National Radio Talent System now heads to the great Northwest with Institute number five. Hubbard Radio will be the sponsor of the 9-day event to be held at Central Washington University in June.

That will be a topic for discussion at the The A&O&B Pre-CRS Seminar Monday in Nashville. It's also the subject of Mike O'Malley's new blog entitled Satisfaction and Switching - Listener Hot and Cold Buttons and the Impact of Switchers. So what does O'Malley conclude listeners like, and can do with less of on country music stations?

Sun Broadcast Group and Radio Express have jointly announced they have entered into a network partnership that will bring ten new programs and services...

Our special Country Radio Seminar issue of Radio Ink Magazine is a few days from being released and it will be available at The Omni Hotel in Nashville when CRS kicks off Monday. In the issue, we rank Country Radio's top program directors, and on Tuesday night, with the help of SONY, we'll be handing out awards to those top PD's. Also, in this issue is a special interview we did with syndicated morning hosts, Big D and Bubba who have been together now since starting out at WTGE-FM in Baton Rouge back in 1996.

Everyone knows iHeartMedia is strapped with over $20 Billion in debt and radio revenue is not growing fast enough to make any real dent in the number. Bloomberg is reporting the company is planning to sell securities in one of its units to retire $1.4 billion of bonds the company owes.

If you've ever questioned the accuracy of PPM or Diary measurement, just imagine trying to make sense of downloads, logs, listening time, and bytes and explain that technology to your advertisers. That's what public radio is trying to do. And, why not, they've been the most successful broadcasters at podcasting so far.

Rob Greenlee is the head of content for Podcasting platform company Spreaker. He's been podcasting now since 2004 and actually focuses one of his weekly shows on how to be a better podcaster. We asked Greenlee his thoughts on the public radio plan to get all podcasters into one pool and abide by new measurement guidelines. Here's what he had to say.

Bloomberg Business has the details about how Amazon is ramping up investment in podcasts and other radio-style shows. The online company offers the audio programming through Audible, which it acquired in 2008.

It's just the way of the world in radio these days. Managers need to push their people as hard as possible, to get as much work out of them, while keeping them happy and on the team. It works for some people and doesn't work for others. On the programming side, you do your own shift, voicetrack for other markets, cut a few spots, and complete whatever else the boss needs. Thirty-year Cincinnati vet Bobbi Maxwell said that that life wasn't for her and quit.

Broker Michael Bergner tells Radio Ink that the Wilks stations being sold to Radio One and Saga in Columbus have closed. Radio One closed on its $2 million purchase of the former WHOK-FM and WZOH-FM. And Saga closed on its $13 million acquisition of WLVQ-FM. The sales were originally announced back in November.