Headlines

Steve Goldstein and Fred Jacobs, and their companies Amplifi Media and jācapps, are launching a company called SonicAi, aimed at creating voice-command solutions for the radio and podcasting industries.

Lowes jumped into the top spot of the Media Monitors weekly chart last week by airing over 46,500 commercials on radio stations all across the country. The Home Depot was nudged out of the top spot but still ran 41,328 commercials. Walgreens was third with 37,069, followed by GEICO with 36,747 and Macy's with 28,997.

Viva Media is purchasing KQFX-FM in Borger, Texas, which also serves the Amarillo market. The seller is Tejas Broadcasting and the price is $650,000. Bill Whitley of the Dallas office and George Reed of the Jacksonville office of Media Services Group served as the exclusive brokers representing the seller. Dave Garland Brokerage represented the buyer.

Chris Oliviero is the Executive VP for Programming at CBS Radio. Among the many nominations he received for Radio Ink's first-ever 20 Best Leader's list included this comment: "In a business of difficult decisions, Chris is a thoughtful leader who conducts himself in a manner that's respectful, ethical, and valuable. He's the glue that makes CBS Radio the great company it is today."

The radio industry cheered when it became known that Ajit Pai would be elevated from FCC commissioner to the chairmanship thanks to President Trump’s 2017 designation. Pai has been a great friend and cheerleader for radio, and an advocate to fix the FCC’s archaic rules governing the industry. And, he's on the cover of the April 17 issue of Radio Ink Magazine.

(By Deborah Parenti) A week later, the United debacle has continued to spread its wings, with panel discussions, analyses, and commentaries featured as part of this weekend’s news programs on cable and broadcast networks. And now that the lawyering-up has begun, we can expect this will not subside anytime soon.

(By Bob McCurdy) Reach is hot. It’s getting some well-deserved love in this fragmented media landscape for good reason: Companies typically grow by expanding their customer base, not by getting current customers to buy more often.

(By Randy Lane) When I asked Brian Phillips (President, CMT Networks and previous award-winning radio programmer) his perception of radio after being in television for several years, his response surprised me. “Radio is an audio medium that generally does a poor job with audio.”

(By Ronald Robinson) From time to time, a local station will crank out a brilliant piece of creative advertising. The staff will gather around, howling with delight while offering kudos all around. “Let’s enter it for an award!” Salespeople will hold their tongues and grudgingly wince out a qualified smile as they wonder to themselves: “Nice. But, will it sell anything?”

The 2017 NAB Show will explore the Alexa voice-service technology that powers the popular Amazon Echo device. The Alexa Skill Building Bootcamp will be held Saturday, April 22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Designed for software developers and non-developers alike, the Bootcamp will provide participants with an in-depth overview of voice-user technology.