Headlines

In an effort to work on its crippling debt, Cumulus has completed a discounted prepayment of a portion of its $1.8 billion senior secured term loan facility due in December 2020. The Company purchased $28.7 million of its senior secured term loan for $20.0 million, a discount of 30%.

CES begins this week and getting an early jump on the major Vegas event, Buzz Knight spoke to the President and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association Gary Shapiro. The CTA is the trade association representing more than 2,200 consumer technology companies and produces CES.

Radio Ink magazine, in association with SONY Music Nashville, will honor the best Program Directors in Country Radio during CRS in February. Today is the deadline to make your nomination. GO HERE to make your nomination. Your deadline is 5:00PM.

(By Bob McCurdy) Pierre Chandon, a L'Oréal Professor of Marketing, Innovation and Creativity at INSEAD, a respected global business school, recently wrote an article titled, “The First Bite is the Sweetest.” In it he summarized the results from several cuisine-focused studies he’d undertaken in the U.S. and France.

The Palm Beaches have a new radio station: True Oldies 93.5. The JVC Broadcasting station hit the air Monday and is serving up a healthy diet of hits from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. And the launch has those hits churning out in one, big, commercial-free block.

Top 40 is out and "The Spot" is in for CBS Radio in Houston, as the station is relaunched as an Adult Hits format. The format will include a variety of hits from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s, and the station says it's "designed for listeners who need a break from the everyday stresses of life, and features artists including Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Madonna, U2, Prince, and others."

Kathy Voltmer has worked in radio in Chicago since 1986, and at Hubbard's WDRV-FM The Drive for the last 15 years. She posted on Facebook that Friday was her last day at the station. Amidst the well over 200 comments on her Facebook page, Hubbard President and COO Drew Horowitz wrote...

Redrock Broadcasting’s MIX 103.1, KOOL 98.9, and COYOTE 102.3 held a 12-hour radiothon on December 19, and their listeners stepped up big time. The St. George, Utah, stations broadcast to benefit the Learning Center for Children and Families, which specializes in providing therapies and skill development for children with developmental challenges. 

The City of Leominster, MA, is firing up its own community radio station in a few weeks. And a big reason for that, according to Mayor Dean Mazzarella, “When we lost cable and we lost everything in the big storms that we had, the two big ones, radio was oftentimes the only thing that’s left."

They talk for three hours. They talk for four hours. Some talk for more than five hours. It could be morning drive, middays, or afternoon drive. It’s every day, five days a week. They are passion­ate about the sports teams and stars in their cities, although that’s not all they talk about every day. While many are successful when they stick strictly to sports, others find great success sprin­kling in the news of the day, comedy bits, politics, their knowledge of music (mostly rock), or their personal lives.