News

In March, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters launched a “Use Your Power” campaign directed at listeners of African-American-targeted radio stations. Phase One of the campaign was designed to educate audiences about the $1.2 trillion dollar consumer buying power of African Americans and to encourage them to use that power wisely. NABOB announced Thursday it is ready to launch Phase Two.

106.5 The Arch’s morning show Spencer’s Neighborhood hosted a successful “Digital Diaper Drive” with a goal of raising 1,000 diapers for the St. Louis Area Diaper Bank. Nearly 2,000 diapers were collected. This week, Spencer, Cassiday and Brando delivered the donated diapers to the St. Louis Area Diaper Bank's Kathy Meyer.

Radio Ink has announced that Forecast 2019 will be co-chaired by Marci Ryvicker, Managing Director and Senior Equity analyst of Wells Fargo Securities. She joins Caroline Beasley, CEO of Beasley Media Group, in co-chairing the annual industry summit.

Linda Byrd is the President, North Florida Region, for iHeartMedia. She manages the Orlando cluster of nine radio stations and a state network for iHeartMedia. She also oversees the Central/North Florida region which includes Sarasota, Tampa, Melbourne, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Panama City, and Brunswick, Georgia. And she's on Radio Ink's 2018 Most Influential Women in Radio list.

Bryan Cooke, an assistant of Steve Harvey's co-host, Kier “Junior” Spates, was found dead at a hotel room in Atlanta on Sunday. Spates asked hotel staff to check on Cooke after he was unable to get a hold of him.

iHeartMedia and entertainment creative house Einhorn’s Epic Productions announced a new partnership to produce Lethal Lit -- an iHeartRadio Original six-episode mystery podcast series for teen audiences. The show will launch this fall.

After an 8-year run, Randy Falco is retiring as CEO of Univision. He'll stay with the company as an advisor until the end of 2018 so the company can make a smooth transition to its new leadership. Vincent Sadusky (pictured), former Chief Executive Officer of Media General, has been hired to succeed Falco. Sadusky will take over this Friday.

High 5 Media is the parent company of YEA Networks. It has acquired a majority interest in podcast company Spoke Media, which creates podcasts in narrative journalism, serial fiction, and interview/chat shows. Spoke Media was founded by audiobook director Keith Reynolds.

The Sports Broadcast Journal interviewed former CBS Radio CEO Dan Mason this week and asked him about Mike Francesa unretiring at WFAN in New York. WFAN was a CBS Radio station before the company merged with Entercom. We learned several things from the Mason interview.

The changes continue at Entercom's KWFN-FM in San Diego, the home of the San Diego Padres. Adam Klug will take over as Program Director on June 11. It was back in April when Entercom moved completely toward sports and away from a combination of talk, sports, and rock, called "The Machine." You may also recall it as the station of the infamous Kevin Klein bridge tweet.