Headlines

After calling it “a privilege” to chair the FCC for the last three years, outgoing FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler focused on digital issues in his farewell speech Friday at the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC.

(By Bob McCurdy) Trust. Success in marketing and advertising depends on it, so it would follow that the more trustworthy the media channel, the more impactful the commercial message. Trust is the foundation upon which much consumer action depends. It facilitates belief, and in advertising belief is usually required for the consumer to act on the commercial messaging.

(By Laurie Kahn) Radio has always been known to pay extremely high compensation to corporate officers and managers, but has not been known to pay well to other positions, especially in sales and on air. Don’t misunderstand here; once a seller is established, they can earn a nice income, but often it can take years to get there. And that can create a major challenge in recruiting.

(By Barry Cohen) The radio industry does a great job of teaching people how to sell, and how to sell our medium. We don’t always do as good a job teaching them how to make it work. Let’s start with the answer to the burning question posed above.

Triton Digital’s November 2016 Ranker reports that Sports showed the biggest listening gains over the previous month, with a 10.71 percent increase in Average Active Sessions (AAS), Monday to Friday, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Read on and get all the results...

On Monday, our 2017 Radio Executive of The Year issue will be released. By now you know, on the heels of the year's biggest deal, Beasley Media CEO Caroline Beasley is on that cover. In our interview with Caroline she talks to us about how her family would stop at every radio station while on vacation, what it will take to get radio revenue growing again, and of course, the integration of Greater Media. In this excerpt from that interview we asked Caroline to give us an idea if more growth was in the cards for Beasley Media.

The streaming pure play blasted out several press releases late Thursday hoping to convince investors the company is strong and has an eye toward making a profit. The company expects to exceed its previously announced Q4 revenue numbers due to a strong advertising quarter.

Up until now, Pandora has been in a hiring mode. New salespeople were being hired in major markets all over the country. Smart techies were being hired to improve Pandora's algorithm brains, the Music Genome Project. It looks like that all came to an end Thursday as CEO Tim Westergren said the company is "undertaking operational efficiency measures to reduce overall operating costs in 2017." Radio folks know that terminology well. It means hide under your desk, here come the pink slips.

First they were, then they weren't, now it appears they are again. According to The New York Post, SiriusXM Chairman Greg Maffei told some shareholders this week that the satellite company is still interested in buying Pandora. The Post reports Maffei saying, “Sirius would look at [Pandora] at the right price.”

Paterson, New Jersey resident Conroy Dawson is in big trouble with the feds. Dawson's accused of running a pirate radio station called "WBLR - Big Link Radio," at 97.5, and not only refusing to shut it down but trying to dodge the law by moving it to different locations after being warned.