News

Memorial Day weekend will see a pair of special three-hour shows broadcast by the network:  America Remembers and Kelsea Ballerini’s Summer Road Trip.

Northern Michigan radio icon "Big Dog" Dave Sherbert is retiring May 19 after being a presence on the air since there since the 1970s. He is a familiar voice for Blarney Stone Broadcasting’s Q-100 (WQON, 100.3-FM). “It’s time,” Sherbert said.

Is CEO Mary Berner's turnaround at Cumulus working? As she closes in on her two year anniversary in September, Berner sounds cautiously optimistic. "As our Q1 results demonstrate, we have arrived at a financial inflection point in our turnaround. We are now starting to see the positive impact those efforts have had on our financial results."

Even though there seems to be a glimmer of hope that one of radio's biggest companies may be turning the corner, CEO Mary Berner said on the Cumulus earnings call yesterday that they have not crossed the finish line yet.

Westwood One Spot Sales, the national spot platform for Cumulus Media, will now participate in Expressway, Katz's programmatic ad-buying exchange. Eleven Cumulus markets are now live, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Detroit, and Washington, DC. All Cumulus markets are expected to be online by July.

Salem's Chicago GM Jeff Reisman has been promoted to Operational Vice President for Salem's Radio Division. Reisman joined Salem in 2004 as GSM in Chicago. He was promoted to GM in 2010. Reisman will now oversee the Boston and Philadelphia markets in addition to Chicago.

SoundExchange has acquired the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency, a music licensing collective representing the majority of songs recorded, sold, and broadcast in Canada on behalf of music publishers. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. CMRRA, founded in 1975, will continue to operate out of its Toronto headquarters.

Beasley Media Group has named Heidi Raphael as Vice President of Corporate Communications. She replaces Soni Dimond who left the company to pursue other opportunities. Raphael is no stranger to many of the Beasley stations, having served as Senior VP of Corporate Communications at Greater Media before Beasley purchased that company.

Jim Brown is the new Sales Manager for Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, as well as local traffic ad sales across the CBS Radio Philadelphia cluster. Brown began his career in Philadelphia media in 1983 as an AE at KYW-TV3, now CBS-3. He's worked as as SVP and D.O.S. at Shadow Networks and he was a founding partner at Traffic.com.

The Classic Hip Hop jocks debut their new weekend show May 20. The two-hour show is called Weekend Blast and has been taken up in 15 markets to date, including Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Dallas. Ed Lover (pictured) is a Grammy-nominated member of the the Hip Hop Hall of Fame.