News

On the Move with Enrique Santos is the first English-language radio show to feature Enrique Santos, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of iHeartLatino, iHeartMedia’s new Hispanic platform. The new show will be a two-hour, music-intensive CHR weekend program debuting April 15 on more than 100 iHeart stations. The show will originate from Miami.

Cumulus has hired Jeff Lyon as VP/GM for its four-station cluster in Abilene. Lyon joins Cumulus from Townsquare, where he was President/Chief Revenue Officer for its four stations in Victoria, TX, for 21 years. Prior to that, he was VP/GM for Sierra Industries' radio stations KSNM-FM and KXDC-FM in Las Cruces, NM.

Commonwealth CEO Steve Newberry has been involved in radio's royalty fight for nearly a decade. He's testified several times before Congress (he's also a former NAB Joint Board Chair) and has been involved in dozens of meetings on this topic. He's one of the radio's best experts on the topic with backpacks full of knowledge on every angle of this issue.

On Thursday, we told you about the latest ploy by Congress to get radio to pay for songs it airs on music stations. Broadcast attorney David Oxenford did the industry an even bigger favor when, in his latest blog, he dug deeper into the bill to grind out the details about just how much it might cost you if the "PROMOTE" Bill was ever passed.

(by Ken Dardis) Please say this with me: It is not a tax that Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) introduced to Congress this week. We got the the immediate, and expected, disapproval from the radio industry. 'It promotes artists.' 'Radio should charge for advertising the song.' 'Lost jobs.' 'Our station will go all talk.'

(Paul Rotella) Every Congress, a few well-meaning, but misinformed legislators appear to forget that they represent the people of their districts and not the foreign-owned record companies, and introduce, in one form or another, the toxic royalty fee legislation commonly known as the “Performance Tax.” It does no one any good at all, and helps stifle the creative growth and opportunities for success of emerging artists...

On the heels of a new piece of legislation introduced in Congress to slap a royalty tax on radio, the NAB ran this ad in The Hill on Thursday to promote radio. The NAB says the ad points out "the indispensable role of broadcast radio as a promotional vehicle for artists, and thanking the more than 180 Representatives and Senators cosponsoring the Local Radio Freedom Act."

Cumulus Media-Albuquerque's NEWSRADIO KKOB celebrated 95 years on the air with a big birthday bash this week. 800 listeners packed the New Mexico Natural History Museum to be a part of the celebration. The station signed on the air April 5, 1922, in Las Cruces, NM, moved to Albuquerque in 1932, and in 1941, went to 50,000 watts. Check out the history of the station in THIS VIDEO.

Phase one of that war will certainly be with Congress thanks to new legislation introduced Wednesday by Congressman Darrell Issa (pictured) and Rep. Ted Deutch. The bill, if passed into law, gives artists the right to pull their music from your radio stations if they decide that all that free promotion just isn't enough to help them move product and fill concert venues. They've even come up with a cute name for the bill: H.R 1914 is called "PROMOTE," which stands for Performance Royalty Owners of Music Opportunity To Earn Act.

(Deborah Parenti) Having served as president of Univision Radio from 2010-2015, Jose Valle understands better than most the challenges and opportunities for those who lead the industry, especially those with whom the future of Hispanic radio lies. And it’s why we asked him to moderate this year’s Executive Leadership Roundtable at the Hispanic Radio Conference.