News

(Communication Tips from the Front Lines by Heidi Raphael) If you do interviews on behalf of your station or company on a regular basis, you may want to consider investing in media training. Here's what I mean and why...

Steve Goldstein and Fred Jacobs, and their companies Amplifi Media and jācapps, are launching a company called SonicAi, aimed at creating voice-command solutions for the radio and podcasting industries.

Lowes jumped into the top spot of the Media Monitors weekly chart last week by airing over 46,500 commercials on radio stations all across the country. The Home Depot was nudged out of the top spot but still ran 41,328 commercials. Walgreens was third with 37,069, followed by GEICO with 36,747 and Macy's with 28,997.

Viva Media is purchasing KQFX-FM in Borger, Texas, which also serves the Amarillo market. The seller is Tejas Broadcasting and the price is $650,000. Bill Whitley of the Dallas office and George Reed of the Jacksonville office of Media Services Group served as the exclusive brokers representing the seller. Dave Garland Brokerage represented the buyer.

Chris Oliviero is the Executive VP for Programming at CBS Radio. Among the many nominations he received for Radio Ink's first-ever 20 Best Leader's list included this comment: "In a business of difficult decisions, Chris is a thoughtful leader who conducts himself in a manner that's respectful, ethical, and valuable. He's the glue that makes CBS Radio the great company it is today."

The radio industry cheered when it became known that Ajit Pai would be elevated from FCC commissioner to the chairmanship thanks to President Trump’s 2017 designation. Pai has been a great friend and cheerleader for radio, and an advocate to fix the FCC’s archaic rules governing the industry. And, he's on the cover of the April 17 issue of Radio Ink Magazine.

iHeartRadio has won a Shorty Award for Best In Live Events. Shorty Awards recognize "the most influential, popular, and culturally relevant brands and influencers across social media." For the second year in a row iHeartRadio is a winner for Best In Live Events for the iHeartRadio Music Festival. iHeartRadio also won the category’s fan-voted Audience Honor for the festival.

ESPN's Scott van Pelt was playing golf when a member of The University of Maryland's student-run radio station reached out to him on Twitter. The station needed another $1200 to stay funded and keep operating. Van Pelt graduated from the school.

(By Deborah Parenti) A week later, the United debacle has continued to spread its wings, with panel discussions, analyses, and commentaries featured as part of this weekend’s news programs on cable and broadcast networks. And now that the lawyering-up has begun, we can expect this will not subside anytime soon.

(By Bob McCurdy) Reach is hot. It’s getting some well-deserved love in this fragmented media landscape for good reason: Companies typically grow by expanding their customer base, not by getting current customers to buy more often.