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It's the 4th annual GAB Radio Talent Institute which is returning to the campus of the University of Georgia. John Dimick, VP of Programming for Cumulus, begins the ten day institute with the opening session. The Institute will conclude with Bill Hendrich (pictured here), Executive VP of Cox Media doing the session “Now is the Time to Start Thinking Like a Pro.”

It all started with tips from now former iHeartMedia employees that they were being pink slipped in several markets throughout the country (we've received the same tips from now former CBS employees). It leaves many people in the radio industry scratching their heads, wondering just how deep you can cut into these companies and deliver a product the consumer continues to love.

Revenues increased $27.3 million, or 3.8%, excluding political revenue. CFO Richard Bressler said it was the 16th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth for iHeart's radio stations, and he added that iHeart was outperforming its peers in the radio industry.

On Thursday morning, there were a lot of questions from analysts about iHeartMedia's debt, higher expenses, and how the company will survive moving forward. iHeartCommunications has $365 million in cash compared to $845 million a year ago. Expenses were up, operating income was down, and debt remained flat at $20.3 billion.

That statement always results in mixed reviews from the radio industry. The bigger companies applaud while the smaller companies and independent operators believe consolidation is what's ruining radio. The Radio One CEO says the reason he believes more consolidation is....

CEO Alfred Liggins said it was a tough quarter, to say the least. Net revenue was approximately $101.3 million, a decrease of 7.1% from Q1 2016. National revenue was off by 8.7% in the quarter, while local dropped 5.9%. All advertising categories were down, including Government (24%), Automotive (13.4%), and Healthcare (9.3%).

It takes a lot of digging to find the radio results when CBS Corporation holds its quarterly earnings calls. The company is all about TV and hopeful that radio is soon in its rear-view mirror, as Entercom gets set to take over the CBS stations. Revenue at CBS Radio stations dropped from $262 million in Q1 of 2016 to $250 million in 2017.

Revenue from Entravision's 49 Spanish-language radio stations in Q1 was $57.5 Million, compared to $58.1 Million in Q1 of 2016. Of course the reason for the decline was the lack of political advertising dollars. The company also reported that both national and local revenue were down in the radio division in Q1.

In Q1, net revenue decreased $1.3 million (4.1%), the exact amount of political Saga was off by in the quarter. Saga CEO Ed Christian said additional problems in Q1 included a bad economy in the state of Illinois, where Saga has two markets, and declining income of farmers, which affects four Saga stations.

Facebook reported first-quarter revenue of $7.86 billion, an increase of 51% over the same period in 2016. Not only does Facebook's revenue continue to grow, monthly users are up. That metric increased 17% in Q1 to 1.94 billion.