News

Net revenue for the recently renamed radio company in Q1 2021 was $240.8 million, down 19% compared to $297.0 million in 2020. Digital revenue (including podcasting) was up 17% to $49.8 million.

With podcast revenue increasing from $15.9 million in Q1 of 2020 to $38.4 million this year, iHeartMedia's podcast division got a lot of air time on Thursday's earnings call. If you're keeping score at home, that's a 141.9% increase.

Jacobs Media, with an assist from Veritone, presented its annual Techsurvey Thursday afternoon, which takes a look at trends in the mobile, social, and “connected car” spaces. Over 40,000 listeners participated in an online survey. Here are a few highlights.

Just in time for Mother's Day, Edison Research has released new data from its Moms and Media 2121 study which showed 46% of moms now own a smart speaker device. That's up 13% from the same time last year.

NAB Chief Diversity Officer and NABLF President Michelle Duke hosted a panel on diversity, equity and inclusion at the 2021 NAB State Leadership Conference this week. Michelle's guests were Sarah Harris, VP of Social Impact at Audacy and Katherine Barnett, SVP for Human Resources at Hearst. WATCH

The Audacy station is pairing up Melissa McGurren and Austin Huff to host morning drive on WUSN-FM. McGurren spent most of her career on WTMX’s The Mix Morning Show in Chicago as a traffic reporter sidekick turned co-host. Huff is a Nashville native with over 10 years of radio experience on the air.

With Ed Christian sidelined from the Saga earnings call Thursday because of a pulled back muscle, the company reported net revenue of $22.3 million in Q1 this year compared to $26.1 million in Q1 of 2020.

For the first quarter of 2021 Salem Media's broadcast revenue declined to $45.2 million from $44 million. Digital revenue was up 5.7% to $9.6 million and publishing was up big, 43.4% to $5.7 million. Total revenue for the company increased 1.9% to $59.4 million.

Cumulus has hired veteran Rock radio programmer Dave Rossi, as PD at WKSM/99ROCK in Fort Walton Beach-Destin. Rossi joins Cumulus from iHeart Nashville where he was PD at Classic Rock WNRQ-FM and WNRQ-HD2/ALT983.

Valerie Smaldone is wrapping up her nearly three year run on WNYM-AM in New York City where she hosted the weekly show, “Bagels and Broadway,” the only radio show in New York dedicated to food and theatre. She'll be bringing back the show as a podcast later this year.