News

WWRZ-FM in Lakeland/Winter Haven, owned by Hall Communications has promoted Eric Michaels to PD. Michaels, has been on the air at WWRZ since 1998 and he'll continue to host the Big Max Morning Show in addition to being the PD.

Fox Sports Radio says The Herd with Colin Cowherd podcast amassed more than 70 million total listens in 2019. The show is also heard on more than 250 radio stations across the country.

ESPN says its podcasts set a new record in December with a unique audience of 6.9 million. That represents an increase of 43% over December 2018 and is the 12th consecutive month of year-over-year growth.

Alana Lujan is the new D.O.S. for Entercom Houston. Lujan will oversee sales at KILT-FM, KKHH-FM, KIKK-AM, KLOL-FM, KHMX-FM and KILT-AM. She previously held the same role for Cox Media Group since March 2019.

Former SummitMedia Wichita President/GM Beverlee Brannigan has been promoted to SVP of Programming of SummitMedia and Todd Johnson, former Wichita General Sales Manager, has been promoted to Wichita President/GM.

For many years Marci Ryvicker was a familiar face at radio's financial conferences, including Radio Ink's Forecast event in New York City. She was highly respected for her analysis of the economy and no-nonsense radio revenue predictions.

For September, October and November of 2019 Jeff Smulyan's company brought in $10.7 million in revenue, down from $10.8 for the same three months in 2018.

Channah Hanberg has been named General Manager for Seattle-based stations KCMS and KCIS. Hanberg is a 15-year veteran of the media industry.

Mary Ellen Kachinske is the new Operations Manager for Cumulus Providence, overseeing all programming for the five-station cluster. Kachinske will also be Program Director for AC station WWLI-FM.

Another CES visit is in the books...now what did we learn? Here's what I learned from my annual trip to Las Vegas, along with a few people I'd really like to thank.