News

Former RAB CEO Gary Fries had been battling cancer since his retirement. He died Friday morning at the age of 76. Here's what radio executives are saying about the man who did so much for the radio industry.

The Dayton area Broadcasters Hall of Fame induction ceremony was recently held. Pictured here with Radio Ink Publisher Deborah Parenti are the 2017 inductees Christopher Geisen, WTUE-FM, Jeff Stevens, SVP/Programming for iHeartMedia and John King, the recently retired SVP/Market Manager for Alpha Media.

Drew Steele is returning to Fort Myers, and to his seat as morning show host on WFSX. Steele hosted mornings from 2012 to 2016 before taking a job at KSL in Salt Lake City. Tray Radal (pictured) will move to afternoons (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.)

(By Gary Berkowitz) By now, everybody knows the pain and devastation that was caused by Hurricane Irma. Since the beginning, coverage of storms like this have been radio’s strength. Radio people love emergency coverage and, if I must say so myself, nobody does it better.

(By Bob McCurdy) The owner of ad agency Coming of Age, Jim Gilmartin, wrote a blog titled, “Don’t Put Ten Pounds Of Copy Into A Five Pound Bag,” and as the title implies, he believes when it comes to copy that “less is more.” But he also touched on another concept, “conditional positioning,” which plays to a unique strength of radio.

Now that we've heard from Cumulus CEO Mary Berner that, operationally, the company has turned the corner, what about the debt issue? That was another topic we discussed with the two-year Cumulus CEO in our interview that will appear in the October 9 issue of Radio Ink Magazine.

The AP is reporting that Chuck Brennan has taken KBAD-FM off the air after a ruling from state banking regulators. A note on the station website says the station is now for sale.

In a fantastic effort, Spanish media in the city organized a fundraiser for earthquake-stricken Mexico City in one day – and $11,400 was raised in a single afternoon on Friday. The radio groups involved were Lotus Broadcasting, Lazer Broadcasting, and Entravision. Donations can still be made.

It almost feels like Puerto Rico got lost in the maelstrom of hurricane relief. But Spanish Broadcasting System is doing its bit to fix that. Over the weekend, SBS sponsored an airlift and participated in a cruise shipment, sending 100,000 pounds of food and supplies raised by the company and its South Florida audiences, to U.S. territory this weekend.

John Linder, who grew up with and led the Radio Mankato group in Minnesota, as well as other broadcasting stations, died Friday morning after a nine-month battle with cancer, reports the Mankato Free Press.