Headlines

Beasley Media CEO Caroline Beasley has written a letter thanking company employees who worked through Hurricane Irma, which left a path of incredible destruction in Southwest Florida. Beasley not only has stations in Southwest Florida, Naples is also where the company has its headquarters.

Hip Hop station WQHT HOT 97 FM, is bringing HOT 97’s Summer Jam festival back to Tokyo on November 11, 2017. HOT 97 Summer Jam Tokyo sold out in minutes last year and tickets were difficult to find. New this year will be the addition of the Festival Stage

If the trend continues, 2017 will be the third straight year of growth for the music industry. It's still a far cry from the glory days of the 90's when CD sales were booming. This new growth spurt can be attributed to streaming and to specific services like Spotify and Apple Music.

Jim Watkins is the General Manager at WHUR at Howard University in Washington DC. He’s also one of Radio Ink’s Best Managers of 2017. Watkins is credited with building WHUR, 46 years ago. He's not only the General Manager of this top tier heritage radio station, he's also a mentor to some of the industry's most notable radio personalities and executives.

(by Deborah Parenti) As a promotion director, I helped marry two cardboard boxes, which resulted in some national press for our station. Later, when I was a sales manager, we commandeered time on the 6 o’clock news by sending reps dressed as Mideast oil titans in a stunt to get attention of area car dealers struggling with sluggish sales and excess inventory during the early ’90s oil crisis. It worked!

(By Eric Rhoads) I’d never be one to predict the death of radio, or any medium, but if this trend were to occur everywhere, the current revenue model would need to be replaced with a new one. What’s my point? Change in the media world is happening at the fastest pace in history, and fighting change is a fool’s game.

Radio legend Art Laboe will begin his 75th consecutive year on the radio this Sunday, September 24, on 93.5 KDAY-FM, and in the process break the Guinness World Record for the longest career as a radio presenter/DJ. Laboe’ s professional career began at KSAN/San Francisco on September 23, 1943.

Westwood One and 1-800-Flowers.com are launching a nationwide initiative to educate, engage, and connect individuals on the subject of expressing sympathy. The national dialogue will be anchored by Westwood One syndicated radio talent John Tesh and Lia Knight each week on their programs.

Eric Mastel is the Market Manager for Cumulus in Savannah. He's also one of Radio Ink's Best Managers for 2017. Mastel got his first job in radio as an AE, got handed the phone book and some cassettes called, “tiger tapes”, 33 years ago. His first managers position was GSM for WKFM in Syracuse in 1987.

According to SNL Kagan's latest annual outlook, radio revenue will decline 0.3% in 2017 to $17.65 billion, down from $17.7 billion in 2016. Kagan says increases in digital and off-air sales will help offset declines in national and local advertising. And even with the return of political in 2018 the firm is only projecting an increase of 1.3% for radio, to $17.89 billion.