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It's true. The former Univision executive is leaving radio to join Cirque du Soleil. As of April 4th Valle will be the VP of sales for the company, based out of Las Vegas. Valle told Radio Ink he didn't want to leave radio but this opportunity with Cirque is just to epic to pass up. Valle is moderating the Hispanic Radio Executive Leadership Roundtable at our upcoming Hispanic Radio Conference.

(By Bob McCurdy) A study recently featured in an eMarketer e-blast titled, “Six Ad Blocking Stats That Deserve Your Attention,” caught ours. The “fifth stat” focused on a Wells Fargo and Optimal.com study that chronicled the type of ads consumers found to be the most annoying/intrusive.

(By Ronald Robinson) One of the many components of radio communications that has, I suspect, never been addressed, is the use of the many forms of the negative. It is the case where we, as natural speakers of the language, have always used the negative in our everyday speech and, of course, we use it on the air and in copywriting as well.

The Amarillo station’s annual Jude Country Cares Radiothon was a corker, raising $50,639 and topping last year’s total by $8,000.

According to the 2017 Infinite Dial Study, 82% of the U.S. population listens to AM/FM radio every month in their vehicles. CDs are next at 52%, digital music is at 45%, and online radio, which includes streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify, lags way behind at 26%.

Whether it's Pandora, iHeartRadio, or your local radio station. Whether it's on a phone, a table, or an Amazon Echo, "Time Spent Listening" to online audio continues to grow, according to the latest Infinite Dial study. Edison Research and Triton presented the data yesterday and here's what they said...

Radio lost a little ground to YouTube when it comes to music discovery, according to Infinite Dial 2017. Friends and family remains the number one source for music discovery (68%), YouTube came in second (64%), with AM/FM radio dropping to third (63%). Pandora was a distant fourth (48%) and Facebook (41%) was fifth. So how do these numbers compare to 2016?

While Pandora still remains the big dog on the block, iHeartRadio is gaining ground, in terms of consumer awareness. Eighty-six percent of Americans are familiar with the Pandora brand, while 71% are now aware of the iHeartRadio brand. And we have a pretty good idea why it's growing. Radio.

It was a modest 0.3% increase in same-station revenue for the Christian Broadcaster in Q4 of 2016, while all broadcast revenue increased $1.3%. Salem CEO Ed Atsinger said, "We had a successful quarter with overall revenue increasing 2.2%." Here are all the details...

Mark Gray has been named CEO of Katz Media Group, overseeing Katz's radio and television companies. Gray replaces Mark Rosenthal as CEO. After nearly four years with the company, Rosenthal announced his decision to step down as CEO of Katz Media Group at the end of March. Mary Gray is also the 2017 co-chair of Radio Ink's Forecast Conference.