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If New Jersey Governor Chris Christie continues to get the national publicity he's getting for WFAN auditioning for Mike Francesa's time slot, WFAN VP of Programming Mark Chernoff may have an interesting decision to make. A heated exchange Christie had with a regular caller Monday went viral and received a lot of national publicity. The only problem...it had nothing to do with sports.

The NAB announced the finalists for the 2017 NAB Marconi Radio Awards, honoring radio stations and on-air personalities for excellence in broadcasting. The five stations up for Legendary Station of the Year are CBS Radio's WCBS-AM in New York and KNX-AM in Los Angeles, Emmis' WBLS-FM and WQHT-FM in New York, and iHeartMedia's KIIS-FM in Los Angeles. Here are all the finalists from every category.

Red Hills Broadcasting is selling its cluster in Tallahassee to Adams Radio. The stations are WHTF-FM licensed to Havana Florida, WWOF-FM and WQTL-FM in Tallahassee, and WANK–FM licensed to Lafayette, Florida. This is the fifth market for Adams, which owns and operates clusters in Las Cruces, NM, Fort Wayne, IN, suburban Chicago (Northwest Indiana), and Salisbury-Ocean City, MD.

Broker Frank Boyle tells us that the $648,000 deal for WRYM-AM from Eight Forty Broadcasting to Trignition Media and Parthenon Holdings has closed. It took 15 months to get this one finalized. The station is in New Britain, Connecticut, and operates at 840 on the dial with 1000 watts during the day and 130 watts at night. The format is Tropical and Ethnic. Dick Kozacko was the broker for the buyer, Boyle for the seller.

It’s a seven-year extension between University of Alabama Athletics and Townsquare Media Tuscaloosa, taking the partnership all the way through 2024. Crimson Tide games and related programming will be broadcast on Townsquare’s 95.3 FM The Bear, Tide 102.9 FM, Catfish 1230 AM and 1001.1 FM, and Praise 790 AM and 93.3 FM.

Townsquare Media announced it has entered into an agreement to buy six stations and two FM translators in and around the Pittsfield, MA market, from Gamma Broadcasting and Berkshire Broadcasting. Here are the details...

Scott Herman, who's held leadership roles with CBS for decades, will not be joining the merged company. In December Herman will be completing his 39th year in the radio business. His first job was a News Production Assistant at 1010 WINS in NYC owned by Group W, Westinghouse Broadcasting, which was eventually purchased by CBS. 2017 will mark the 11th year Herman appears on Radio Ink's 40 Most Powerful People in Radio list.

Mike Francesa is retiring from WFAN at the end of 2017 and as its been widely reported over the past few days, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is getting a tryout for Francesa's slot. Several others are also getting an audition for the shift...

Chron.com reports that the popular conservative host passed away Sunday, July 9, after announcing on air the previous Wednesday that he would no longer have treatment for the aggressive cancer he’d been fighting for two years. He was 58.

The fourth annual Confer Radio Talent Institute opens today at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. It runs for 10 days. Students with a desire and drive to be in radio were accepted from nine different universities. Lifelong broadcaster and Forever Media Partner Kerby Confer said, “We want to make a difference, to give back and give this next generation a good firm foundation in how the communications business works."