News

Chris Mosser will start hosting mornings on Emmis' KGSR-FM (AAA) starting Wednesday, July 6. Austin listeners might already recognize Mosser’s voice as he was most recently the AM Drive and Program Director for 103.1 iHeart Austin and PM Drive and Texas Regional Programming Director for KVET-FM.

The streaming pure-play announced Monday that Pandora is now integrated directly within the Uber driver app. Uber senior product manager Bob Cowherd said, "Many drivers already use music to get their day started on the right note, but it can be challenging to find high-quality music that both drivers and riders love -- without radio ads and interruptions to the music."

Bob Papper, who is a Professor Emeritus at Hofstra University, has released his seventh annual survey of newsrooms across the United States. Papper reports that salaries in radio newsrooms were up 3.1% from last year – after dropping 4.1% a year ago and barely moving the year before that.

According to the new BIA State of the Industry report, stations in the largest markets account for a disproportionate share of overall industry revenues. Radio stations in the top 50 ranked markets constitute 19.1 percent of commercial radio stations in the U.S. but generated 52.8 percent of all over-the-air advertising revenues in 2015. Check out this chart for more details...

In the new BIA/Kelsey State of The Industry report, the research firm says stations airing those formats attract larger numbers of higher income and higher educated listeners. In contrast a lower share of revenue goes to Spanish language stations.

MediaPost has the details from a new Juniper Research study that says digital advertising revenue will double to $285 Billion by 2020. The study also says ad blocking is expected to cost publishers $27 billion in lost revenues in the next five years. The study also predicts mobile advertising is expected to grow by 64.2% through 2020.

The new deal includes all games being broadcast in WZGC-FM (The Game). Additionally, new Hawks-based content – across digital, social, and radio channels – for both 92.9 The Game and V-103, will be developed as part of the expanded partnership. Steve Holman will begin his 32nd year as the play-by-play announcer for the franchise in 2016-17.

Cumulus news station KARN in Little Rock reported on its website that anchor Donna Kelley passed away over the weekend from natural causes. She was 66. Market Manager Keith Liesmann wrote, "All of us at Cumulus are tremendously saddened by the sudden and shocking passing of Donna Kelley. Donna was an outstanding reporter/anchor who served with the highest degree of journalistic integrity at KARN for a decade and a half."

Midroll Media, which is owned by Scripps, has announced it will host a new podcast festival in late October in Anaheim. It's called "Now Hear This" and will feature Marc Maron, host of the popular WTF with Marc Maron podcast as one of its headliners.

Melissa Harrison will join Mike Rogers and Scott Sams as co-anchor of the KRLD (Dallas) morning news beginning Friday, July 1. Harrison has worked as a television news reporter in New York, Dallas, Birmingham, Jackson, Waco, and Abilene. She was most recently a freelance reporter for KXAS-TV in Dallas.