News

The comments former CBS Radio CEO Dan Mason shared about Nielsen's Portable People Meter at the 2016 Radio Ink Hispanic Radio Conference have created a lot of buzz throughout the industry. SBS New York City Market Manager Eric Garcia interviewed Mason at the show. Garcia asked Mason the question about PPM. Because of how much feedback we've been getting on that story, we wanted our readers to hear Dan Mason's entire answer. LISTEN HERE

Country station Y96.9, Colorado Springs, announced Monday that its 10th annual Country Cares for St. Jude Kids radiothon raised more than $101,000 to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The on-air fundraiser took place on February 25-26 from 6 a.m. – 6 p.m. each day.

Automotive News reports that the month of March could be one of the strongest months ever for the U.S. auto industry. Sales are expected to increase at least 7 percent from a year ago.

Paid media spending will rise by 5.1% to $192 Billion in 2016 according to eMarketer. The election and Rio Olympics are two of the reasons for the projected increase in spending. TV still has the largest share of media spending -- 36.8%. Digital is now 35.8%. Print advertising is expected to bring in $26.74 billion this year -- down from $28.16 billion. And eMarketer says radio will slip to $14.12 billion from $14.27 billion.

“Macarena” all the time is what listeners will hear on 93.3 in Nashville as The Cromwell Radio Group performs engineering tests for its fifth station in the market. Cromwell president Bud Walters says “This is the culmination of a 13 year project. It all began in 2003 when the FCC initiated rules to permit Metro FM signals and then later issued rules pairing them with AM stations”. Cromwell is pairing 93.3 with its WQZQ AM830 licensed to Goodlettsville, Tennessee.

Hubbard Radio has hired David Moore as Program Director for 100.7 KSLX. Moore will officially begin in his new position in April, 2016. Moore says, “Programming KSLX for Hubbard means getting to work with Trip Reeb, Greg Solk, and Greg Strassell — a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Friday marks the 10th anniversary of The Charlie and Debbie Show driving people home weekday afternoons 3p.m.-7p.m. on The New 1037 (WSOC). Charlie and Debbie Nance have been married for 22 years and hosting radio shows for 21 years at various stations.

The debate over whether Telos' Voltair unit improves your ratings or not just got a little more interesting. In a Thursday press release, The Telos Alliance — parent company of 25-Seven, the makers of the Voltair — said new findings show Voltair "still provides broadcasters with a significant ratings advantage, even on enhanced CBET."

It's been awhile since we've heard from the team at Telos. Once Nielsen released its enhanced CBET technology and started rolling it out to PPM markets late last year, the debate about Voltair pretty much fizzled out. A flurry of new activity on the topic this week promises to reignite the debate. We reached out to Telos CEO Frank Foti to ask him about his press release, which claims that Voltair still significantly improves ratings in PPM markets. Here's what he had to say.