News

(By Barry Cohen) The radio industry does a great job of teaching people how to sell, and how to sell our medium. We don’t always do as good a job teaching them how to make it work. Let’s start with the answer to the burning question posed above.

Triton Digital’s November 2016 Ranker reports that Sports showed the biggest listening gains over the previous month, with a 10.71 percent increase in Average Active Sessions (AAS), Monday to Friday, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Read on and get all the results...

On Monday, our 2017 Radio Executive of The Year issue will be released. By now you know, on the heels of the year's biggest deal, Beasley Media CEO Caroline Beasley is on that cover. In our interview with Caroline she talks to us about how her family would stop at every radio station while on vacation, what it will take to get radio revenue growing again, and of course, the integration of Greater Media. In this excerpt from that interview we asked Caroline to give us an idea if more growth was in the cards for Beasley Media.

KLOS-FM in Los Angeles and Cumulus are holding a Celebration of Life for the legendary Bob Coburn this Saturday. Coburn was the voice of the longtime syndicated rock program called Rockline and KLOS was his radio home since 1980. He died of lung cancer in December. The event will be held at the Malibu Presbyterian Church at 2 p.m. Saturday.

The streaming pure play blasted out several press releases late Thursday hoping to convince investors the company is strong and has an eye toward making a profit. The company expects to exceed its previously announced Q4 revenue numbers due to a strong advertising quarter.

Up until now, Pandora has been in a hiring mode. New salespeople were being hired in major markets all over the country. Smart techies were being hired to improve Pandora's algorithm brains, the Music Genome Project. It looks like that all came to an end Thursday as CEO Tim Westergren said the company is "undertaking operational efficiency measures to reduce overall operating costs in 2017." Radio folks know that terminology well. It means hide under your desk, here come the pink slips.

First they were, then they weren't, now it appears they are again. According to The New York Post, SiriusXM Chairman Greg Maffei told some shareholders this week that the satellite company is still interested in buying Pandora. The Post reports Maffei saying, “Sirius would look at [Pandora] at the right price.”

Paterson, New Jersey resident Conroy Dawson is in big trouble with the feds. Dawson's accused of running a pirate radio station called "WBLR - Big Link Radio," at 97.5, and not only refusing to shut it down but trying to dodge the law by moving it to different locations after being warned.

Beasley has promoted Debbie Mazella to Program Director at WMGQ-FM in Central New Jersey. Mazella started her career at WMGQ in 2007 and added APD duties a year later. She'll continue hosting the midday slot on the station. She becomes the first female PD in the station's history and replaces Jeff Rafter.

There's been a lot of national press here in America about what's happening to FM Radio in Norway. Norway is moving to digital broadcasting by shutting down its "national" FM radio broadcasts. That, of course, is followed with the question, could this happen in the U.S.A. NAB Chief Operating Officer Chris Ornelas took on that question in an NAB blog posted Thursday.