News

It's clear Journal Communications and Scripps knew they had a superstar in Beverly Brannigan. Brannigan made it to the Market Manager level from the programming side, which is something we do not see a lot of in our business. Since 2014, Brannigan has been the Vice President and General Manager for the Scripps radio cluster in Wichita. She's also the Vice President of Programming for the entire Scripps radio group. And, of course, she's on Radio Ink's 2018 Most Influential Women in Radio list.

The discussion about advertising agencies and radio has certainly caught fire this week. Yesterday, we heard from two ad agency executives who asked to remain anonymous. They threw out the following list of questions and statements and asked us to see how you might react and answer them. Have at it...

Sun Broadcast Group and Fitz have signed a multi-year extension of their syndication agreement that will continue all Fitz radio products into the next decade. The renewal covers both the daily Fitz Show as well as the weekend Hit List with Fitz countdown show.

Rob Sanchez is iHeartMedia Boston's new Vice President of News, Talk and Sports programming. The iHeart Boston cluster has six stations and Sanchez will be responsible for programming on WBZ NewsRadio 1030, The Newswatch Never Stops, WRKO-AM 680, The Voice of Boston, and Talk 1200, Boston’s Conservative Talk.

Janda Lane has joined Chicago’s WDRV-FM “The Drive.” Roberts will contribute content and information to the station’s afternoon show, hosted by Steve Seaver. She will also provide multifaceted assistance to The Drive’s programming department.

On Wednesday, the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology passed the PIRATE Act. The "Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act’’ calls for an increased penalty of up to $2,000,000 for anyone convicted of operating a pirate station. The bill moves to the full House Energy and Commerce Committee for a vote.

Josh Roberts has been named Operations Manager for Neuhoff Media Springfield, which includes stations WCVS-FM, WXAJ-FM, WFMB-AM, and WFMB-FM. Roberts joins Neuhoff from Great Plains Media in Bloomington, Il.

In this latest Hispanic Radio Podcast hosted by RBR+TVBR Editor-in-Chief Adam R Jacobson, veteran national sales pro Jose Villafañe — recently appointed Head of Sales and an Advisory Board member for MLC Media — discuss the top things a radio station should consider when evaluating syndicated programming for a key daypart. 

Smadex is a mobile programmatic technology company. Smadex will become part of Entravision’s Headway business unit which is a data-driven media buying company for marketers. Headway helps brands optimize and target ad campaigns. Financial details were not disclosed. 

The longest-running federal IT program in the industry, Ask the CIO, now has an expanded Web presence at AskTheCIO.com. The site features audio of the program, as well as an expanded look at federal IT and CIO news, podcasts, and a new feature – “Ask the CIO Insider."