News

The Hermitage, TN outfit won the final competition event at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville. Radio Romance will receive national radio airplay on Cumulus Media radio stations, and a recording contract under the Big Machine Label Group umbrella.

Is this the start of the end for Cumulus or the first step to a refinance and manageable debt load? Cumulus was scheduled to make an interest payment of $23.6 million on 7.75% senior notes due 2019. In an SEC filing Wednesday, Cumulus' board of directors authorized the company to forgo that interest payment and a 30-day clock is ticking.

It didn't take long for iHeartmedia to replace expert Radha Subramanyam. The company named Dr. Michele Madansky Executive VP of Insights, Research and Data Analytics.

The radio landscape across the country will look a whole lot different when the Entercom/CBS merger closes in mid-November. On Wednesday, Entercom announced a series of deals to satisfy a civil antitrust lawsuit filed by The Department of Justice and move the CBS merger ball closer to crossing the goal line.

As a result of the LMA deal between Bonneville and Entercom, Carl Gardner will move from Seattle to San Francisco to become Market Manager for Bonneville in that market. He was running the Bonneville cluster in Seattle. Bonneville will retain Steve Cottingim from CBS Radio as Market Manager in Sacramento.

The CBS Corporation has named analytics expert Radha Subramanyam Executive VP and Chief Research and Analytics Officer for the CBS Television Network. For almost six years Subramanyam has been President of Research, Insights and Data Analytics for iHeartMedia. Subramanyam's replacement at iHeart could be named as early as Thursday.

Marv Nyren has been named Cumulus' new Market Manager in Chicago, replacing Peter Bowen who left in September. Nyren joins Cumulus from Chicago Public Media, where he was VP for Corporate Sponsorships for WBEZ-FM. Before that he was President/Regional VP for iHeartMedia’s 13 stations in Jacksonville and Brunswick.

iHeartMedia has named Tommy Chuck Senior VP of Programming for its 14 Tampa-Sarasota stations. Chuck will also program Country outlet US 103.5 in Tampa. He said, “My family and I are grateful to once again call Tampa Bay home. I'm honored to be chosen to lead such legendary brands."

iHeartMedia already had six stations in Boston and six stations in Seattle before picking up four Boston stations (two from Entercom and two from CBS) and adding three CBS stations in Seattle in this massive transaction to help Entercom close its merger with CBS.

Mike Duffy is the new Program Director for Active Rocker WBSX-FM in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Duffy joined the station seven months ago as midday host. He'll hold onto that shift in addition to taking on the PD role.