News

Cox Media Group has named Paul Curran Market Vice President for Orlando. Susan Larkin recently left the radio side of the business in Orlando at CMG to take a VP role at Entercom. Curran will now manage all CMG radio, TV, digital, and event brands in Orlando.

Our thanks to Penny Leal, night host for HITS 96 in Chattanooga for sending us this story. She's a native Houstonian with ties to KRBE in Houston. "They gave me my first shot at radio as in intern for Roula and Ryan."

Alpha Media, Louisville, has announced the addition of 102.3 Jack FM to WXMA. The station previously known as 102.3 The Max switched to Jack FM, August 31. The station will play artists like Aerosmith, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, and Kid Rock. Louisville radio veteran Sarah Jordan will continue as Program Director of Jack 102.3 FM.

The network will kick off its 2017-18 regular season college football schedule with a doubleheader featuring four ranked teams on Saturday, Sept. 2, beginning with No. 17 Florida vs. No. 11 Michigan in Arlington, Texas, at 2:30 p.m. ET, immediately followed by No. 1-ranked Alabama vs. No. 3 Florida State in Atlanta.

Leslie Scott has been selected as the inaugural mentee for the Mentoring & Inspiring Women in Radio-Nielsen Music Mentoring Program. This new collaborative initiative is aimed at increasing the number of women in radio programming positions. The mentorship runs for one year.

The NAB was quick to defend radio with a detailed response to the Miller Report. NAB Executive Vice President of Communications, Dennis Wharton took apart Miller's findings, point by point, calling the report "silly" and highlighting how radio continues to thrive with millenials and remains relevant after nearly 100 years in existence. Here's exactly what Wharton had to say.

Larry Miller is the Director of the Steinhardt Music Business Program at New York University, and for some reason he's written a report that dumps all over you. The release of this report, backed by SoundExchange, comes at a most interesting time -- when just about every radio station in America is giving up airtime to help the residents in Houston and the Gulf Coast.

According to the June Triton Digital ranker, the Boston market showed the largest increase at 2.2% compared to May 2017. Seattle-Tacoma was next with an increase of 1.78%, followed by Philadelphia at 1%. The biggest fall-off was in Denver, off 5.2%, Washington DC was next at 5%, and Phoenix was at 3.79%. For the month of June (M-F/6A-8P) Pandora lead all listening, followed by Spotify, iHeart, and NPR. Check out the ranker HERE.

The market Mark Thomas will oversee includes the stations WSGW-AM, WSGW-FM, WTLZ, WGER, and WCEN. Thomas has over 30 years experience, including working for iHeart in Riverside and as Market Manager and Regional VP with Regent Communications/Townsquare in Flint, Evansville, and Grand Rapids.

Fanpage, a startup whose app allows users to create fan pages, connect with others based on compatibility, and compete to become the biggest fan, has raised $3 million and is partnering with Townsquare and iHeartMedia. The company plans to spend a major portion of the money on user acquisition, including radio, digital, and live event campaigns with iHeart and Townsquare.