Headlines

47 year veteran programmer Chris Kampmeier is retiring from the radio business in less than two weeks. His final position in the business was Region VP of Programming for iHeartMedia’s North Florida Region. Before he sprints out the door into retirement, we had a chance to ask him about his career as a star programmer and leader. In part two of our interview we asked Chris if he would share some secrets that lead to his many years of management success. Luckily for all of us, he said yes.

That's according to a revised forecast from MoffettNathanson Research which now says traditional media will see a 6% decline in total advertising next year. Most of that decline is on the TV side. Radio will be down 1.5%...and that's good news when compared to other media.

And as a result of Nielsen's November connectivity problem that impacted December ratings, the Media Ratings Council says it is withholding its accreditation for the affected markets.

As a result of the long-term deal, Nielsen will provide ASCAP with expanded U.S. radio airplay data along with metadata and unique identifiers for recordings. ASCAP says this will allow it to provide members with, "unprecedented transparency as ASCAP brings together the verified recording information with its authoritative data on the underlying works."

MasterCard jumps from 40th to 1st on the Media Monitors chart of advertisers after airing over 47,300 commercials on radio stations across the country last week. GEICO was pushed down to a distant second with 38,907 spots. Walgreen's came in third for the second week in a row airing 36,708 commercials, followed by Macy's (35,137) and Burger King (29,582).

It's called Univision Deportes, a new national sports radio network. The network will launch in 10 markets and will include sports commentary, live games, original content, and other programming beginning the first quarter of 2017.

In tandem with Bruce Dye and Brigadoon Fitness, and King of Carts, WOWO-AM/FM raised an impressive $171,904 during its annual Penny Pitch Radiothon. That total will be matched by a local sponsor to $343,808 and split between the Community Harvest Food Bank's program Hope for Heroes, and Super Shot.

In a letter to Irving Azoff, the band Anthrax says including its songs in GMR's repetoire of music "presents a skewed and unjust misrepresentation of the complete facts." Anthrax has recorded and released more than 150 songs over 35 years. And the band says it does not want radio programmers to think that they cannot play any of those songs because Azoff has included them in his fight against the RMLC. Here's the full Anthrax letter to Azoff...

Bob Coburn was the voice of the longtime syndicated rock program called Rockline. KLOS has been his radio home since 1980 and the radio station announced Sunday Coburn has died of lung cancer after being diagnosed earlier this year. The station says Coburn was not in pain and he was surrounded by his family. (Picture courtesy KLOS website).