News

Meruelo Media has closed on the sale of KPWR-FM, Power 106 Los Angeles from Emmis Communications. The station has been programmed by Meruelo for the last month under an LMA. Meruelo paid Emmis $82.8 Million for the station. 

Bloomberg Radio has begun programming with the intent to purchase WNBP-AM and its translator at 106.1 FM in Newburyport, MA. The stations will be a 100% simulcast of Bloomberg Radio programming that airs on WRCA 1330 AM and 106.1 FM.

Radio's largest advertising category continues to struggle after years of very healthy growth. The annualized pace of U.S. car and light truck sales in July fell to 16.73 million vehicles. That's down from 17.8 million in 2016. Sales of large pickups was also off, by 4 percent. Large SUV's dropped 20 percent. In July, Ford was down 7.5%, Fiat Chrysler dropped 10 percent, Honda was off 1%, Nissan was down 3% Only Toyota was up, with a 4% gain.

Beasley Media Group has hired Steve Mills to program WDRR-FM in Augusta. Mills most recently served as a producer for Sound Solutions, a subsidiary of Cumulus Media. Previous to that, he worked as the Operations Manager for Midwest Communications and was the Corporate Digital Manager for Cumulus and Westwood One in Atlanta.

Mat Bates is the new PD at Cumulus-owned KFOG-FM in San Francisco. He was most recently Head of Programming for Rock Formats at Pandora. Before Pandora, Bates was Global Head of Music and Curation at Rdio and Sr. Manager for Radio Programming at Slacker. Prior to going to the dark side of audio, Bates spent a decade in radio at 91X, KXTE, KQXR, and KRZQ.

(By Michael Botta) I often say to my salespeople, “Nobody woke up this morning wanting to buy an ad schedule, but they did wake up this morning with problems in their business.” And that’s true. Every business across this country has problems, every single one of them; but an ad schedule won’t fix those problems.

(By Steve Goldstein) Sometimes technological innovation takes away. Sometimes it gives. Digital has changed so much of media. The music business was famously rocked by theft and sharing on platforms like Napster. The movie industry filed suit against VCR makers, but later made billions with VHS tapes, DVDs, and streaming video.

It's not quite what the folks at NextRadio want from Apple but it's probably the next best thing. NextRadio has launched a free app for iPhone users, but this one will use data because it utilizes streaming as a way to allow listeners to tune into local radio. Until Apple decides to unlock the FM Chip in all of its phones, streaming will have to be the way of the world for iPhone users.

The Adult Contemporary station is teaming up AJ Machado and Sara Perry as co-hosts of the new AJ Mornings morning show beginning Monday, August 7, weekdays from 6:00 to 10:00 a.m. AJ Machado previously hosted The AJ Show for the past five years on ENERGY 103.7 – sister station to KyXy 96.5. 

The podcast giant has hired Dean Canter as their new National Sales Manager. In his new role, Canter will oversee all regional sales offices for the company, in addition to developing strategic initiatives, innovating new advertiser opportunities, and driving industry trends in the rapidly-growing podcast market.