News

Robin Faller will take charge of all of Connoisseur's digital sales efforts after the company hired her this week. Connoisseur is purchasing the Connecticut operation of a digital company called Drive Local. Faller was an employee of that company. She will be based in the corporate office in Westport, CT.

According to the RMLC it's because the lawsuit filed in November 2016 was filed in Pennsylvania and the RMLC says GMR is taking that out on Pennsylvania radio stations by refusing to cut licensing deals with them. "GMR has been clear that it does not want to litigate this case in front of this court; it would prefer to litigate in its home court in Los Angeles."

Chuck Tyler is now the Director of Programming for all of Salem's Los Angeles stations, and Scott Valentine of The Fish morning show Scott & Sam also gets promoted to PD at The Fish in L.A.

Many of you will remember the 2012 lawsuit filed against SESAC for attempting to monopolize the market. SESAC was not subject to the same government consent decree as BMI and ASCAP. RMLC filed suit against the smaller PRO, which it was on the road to winning, before SESAC agreed to a 20-year deal with the radio industry.

The Radio Music License Committee has filed a motion, it says, to protect radio stations across the nation, and specifically in Pennsylvania, against Irving Azoff's Global Music Rights. The RMLC filed an antitrust lawsuit in the federal court in Philadelphia, last year against the music licensing organization, based on GMR’s "attempt to require commercial radio stations to pay prices for music performance licenses that are unfairly high and anticompetitive." This injunction is radio's latest move in its fight against Azoff.

NRG Media has named Matt Derrick to lead its Omaha FM Operations team. Derrick will oversee KQKQ Sweet 98.5, KOPW Power 106.9, and KOOO 101.9 The Keg. Prior to joining NRG Media, Derrick was a Regional Programming Manager and SVPP for iHeartMedia-Norfolk/Virginia Beach. He's also worked in Houston, San Francisco, and Tulsa.

Radio Ink reached out to Azoff's organization to get a response the RMLC's latest motion. GMR says the motion is frivolous and a transparent attempt to create jurisdiction in Pennsylvania – a state where neither organization has offices or employees, where no GMR songwriters or publishers live, and where no relevant meetings ever took place.

The three-time Grammy Award-winning musician is also an avid golfer and he’s taking that passion for the game into the hosting role of a new monthly show on the SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio channel. On Par with Darius Rucker will debut July 26 (3:00-4:00 p.m. ET).

Once the merger with CBS Radio is complete Entercom will pay COO Weezie Kramer a base salary of $700,000, according to a new 8K filed last night. She will also be eligible for a performance bonus of $500,000. Following the closing, Kramer will be granted shares of restricted stock with a target value of $625,000.

Luckily, it appears from the reporting, nobody was seriously injured. It all took place at CBS Radio's Hot 93.7 Hot Jam concert in Hartford on Friday night. In addition to the 90 people hospitalized, 50 were charged with underage drinking. The concert featured Chance the Rapper. Twenty-one thousand people attended the concert.