Headlines

On Friday, April 8, The Rush Limbaugh Show held its 26th annual on-air Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Cure-A-Thon. Limbaugh dedicated portions of his three-hour nationally syndicated radio program to encourage listeners to join the effort to find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life for patients and their families.

Flint, Michigan's NASH FM 95.1 (WFBE) hosted a benefit Thursday, April 7, for Hurley Children’s Hospital and Hurley Children’s Clinic, to help kids who have been exposed to lead from the city’s water.

WTOP announced it is the recipient of eight National Headliner Awards for excellence in journalism. The station won three first-place awards, four second-place, and a third-place.

The Mix Group and ReelWorld are teaming up to create a first-of-its-kind imaging event. ReelMIX 2016 is a two-day event Sept. 28-29 in Miami. Participants will engage in hands-on imaging classes with producers from both companies. There will also be presentations by designers on trade software, plugins, and hardware, and debates about the current and future state of imaging and production.

(by MaryBeth Garber) With the average urban commuter spending 42 hours a year stuck in traffic jams, a recent commuter study by Edison Research provides insight into how Americans deal with their daily commute. Given AM/FM radio’s firm hold on its in-car audience, it’s easy to see why streaming services, such as Pandora, want to break AM/FM’s connection to its listeners — but they remain unsuccessful.

Our Friday story on Edison Research's latest in-car study caused quite a stir around the industry. What really hit everyone's hot button was how Pandora quickly flipped the data into a White Paper the company will show advertisers. Radio Ink was denied access to the full Edison study (they told us it was proprietary for clients) so the most specific detail we had was what Pandora pulled from the research to use in its White Paper presentation. But now we see more...

Radio executives were quick to react to Pandora's Friday white paper which quotes a recent Edison Research study that says consumers switch radio stations 22 times during their commutes. Of course, the automobile is extremely important to radio because it's where most listening is done. Cumulus/Westwood One CMO Pierre Bouvard was the first to strike back at Pandora in his latest blog. Bouvard says Pandora is clueless about listening in the car and barely anyone listens to them while driving.

It was less than two weeks ago many of you were part of a very lively discussion about how many commercials you should be playing on your radio station. We also debated just how successful an ad campaign could really be when a commercial is 6th or 7th in a long commercial pod. It appears Pandora has just been handed a wealth of data that contributes to the very real belief that you're playing way too many commercials.

The NAB says it will add additional security to the week-long convention that begins this Saturday in Las Vegas.