News

The Radio Television Digital News Foundation awarded ABC Radio VP/GM Steve Jones the First Amendment Service Award this week. The award honors those in local or network news who work in an off-air, management, largely behind-the-scenes role. Here Jones is accepting the award from ABC News’ Robin Sproul who introduced him at the event in Washington, DC.

(By Bill Duerden) For quite some time now, this is a question that has been swimming in my head. In my lifetime, I have heard folks (read, industry experts) declare the death of radio more times than I can count. But, for the first time, I'm starting to wonder if our industry is truly starting to walk down the Green Mile.

Las Vegas Hip Hip/R&B station REAL 103.9, has a new APD and MD: the exotically named Roxy Romeo. Romeo is currently the 10 a.m.to 3 p.m. personality with the station and she’ll retain that role as well. REAL features artists like Drake, Future, Chris Brown, J Cole, and Migos.

It's certainly a complicated scenario the financial minds at iHeart have put together, but the goal is to try to put the company in a much better financial position moving forward. And if one scenario is approved, Clear Channel Outdoor will be separated from iHeartMedia.

At 4:30 this afternoon we'll hear from Cumulus CEO Mary Berner and her team as the company reports 4th quarter 2016 and full year earnings. Cumulus has been struggling through a turnaround and with trying to fix its balance sheet which includes about $2 Billion in debt. Berner has now been in charge of the company for 18 months.

Sacramento’s 92.5 The Bull has brought in Bryan (B-Dub) Washington from KMLE-FM in Phoenix to be PD and afternoon drive host for the Country station. Washington will be responsible for the day-to-day programming operations of 92.5 The Bull.

This new agreement should give the folks at NextRadio additional credibility with advertisers. Nielsen will now evaluate TagStation's NextRadio data. Part of what NextRadio does, in addition to delivering FM radio to smartphones, is capture precise data about a radio station’s listeners.

National Public Radio says it now has 37.4 million listeners, which is their largest audience in history. NPR's Senior Vice President of News and Editorial Director Michael Oreskes says, “At a time when many news organizations have been forced to contract, NPR is expanding coverage and focusing resources on the local and national issues that listeners care about.

U.S. Air Force Captain Nathan Nelson, who was paralyzed from the chest down during his third tour in Afghanistan, is in need of a home to accommodate his needs.  Bones and his on-air crew announced they would donate proceeds from the sale of camouflage #PimpinJoy T-shirts on TheShopForward.com. The response has been amazing.

The company’s pair of Dallas radio stations (WBAP-AM and KLIF-AM) snared multiple awards in the 2016 Texas Associated Press Broadcasters Contest. And it was all achieved from a pool of 47 competing stations submitting 788 entries.