News

Programming vet Maurice DeVoe joins iHeart's St. Louis market as PD for Hip Hopper "100.3 The Beat." DeVoe joins iHeartMedia from Cumulus, where he was Corporate PD for its Urban and Rhythmic formats, and PD of KMJK-FM in Kansas City. In 2016, DeVoe was named one of Radio Ink's Top 50 PDs.

TV guy Lucas McFadden will be going out over the radio waves of WRHI-FM 100.1/AM 1340, Rock Hill, SC, as of May 18, co-hosting Palmetto Mornings with Freddi Hammer. And he is plenty happy about it.

As expected, the FCC is moving forward with a plan to eliminate the Main Studio Rule. At its regularly scheduled meeting, Thursday, the Commission released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, proposing to eliminate the main studio rule, which requires each AM, FM, and television broadcast station to have a main studio located in or near its local community.

Commissioner Minon Clyburn voted in favor of eliminating the main studio rule at Thursday's FCC meeting, however, she's not so convinced it needs to go. She says the main studio is often the only physical tie a broadcaster has to the local community and by eliminating the rule, "we are embracing a world in which automated national programming is the new normal."

Again following through on an issue they said they would address, the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai will be reviewing the rules by which the media operates with a goal of modernizing them for a very digital world.

(By Georgia Beasley) Recently, I was lucky enough to be selected as a panelist at Radio Ink’s Hispanic Radio Conference. The session was a discussion geared towards bridging the gap between Gen X and Millennials. Millennials make up the largest population of our workforce, however out of the four panelists I was the only millennial—and by a long shot!

In honor of Chris Cornell's musical legacy, the Mix Group created a one-minute-13-second audio tribute for stations to use. The Soundgarden lead singer was found dead, Thursday, apparently due to suicide. The complimentary audio includes clips of Cornell's hit songs and profound quotes pulled from various interviews. CLICK HERE

iHeartMedia's Hip Hop station, KMEL-FM in San Francisco, are hosting a town hall Sunday from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. called Street Soldiers Live. The discussion will focus on violence in the community and how to improve relations between the local police and youth in the community.

The new Borrell Associates study concludes that, for the first time, in 2017, local advertisers will spend more money in digital than they will in print and broadcast. The report says it's hardly a shocker, "given that digital media advertising has enjoyed two decades of relentless double-digit growth rates while traditional media has struggled."

Borrell says the average radio station made $216,816 in digital revenue in 2016. An average four-station cluster made $1,061,690. Small-market stations grew nicely over 2015, up 54%, compared to only 8% growth in larger markets. Some large-market groups reported flat or lower digital revenue last year and here's why Borrell believes that happened...