News

The NAB has hired Garrett Levin as Deputy General Counsel for Intellectual Property Law and Policy. NAB CEO Gordon Smith says, “Garrett has a wealth of experience and expertise dealing with intellectual property issues on Capitol Hill, at the federal government agency level, and in the private sector. He will provide a seasoned voice on behalf of NAB and our members in areas that include music licensing, TV program exclusivity, and other complex copyright matters.”

Meyer is joining Townsquare as the company's Vice President, Original Programming and Head of Video. He'll oversee the company's video programming on all digital platforms, as well as for linear TV and branded entertainment.

(By Buzz Knight) Nowhere else in our country is the blur of messaging so apparent than in Las Vegas. To suggest that there is a lot of marketing noise would be an understatement. Brand differentiation must be a major obstacle within every product category. So, hot on the heals of my visit to the Consumer Electronics Show 2017, I'm here to reflect on what I feel is happening within many sectors represented  at the show and how it has created a fragmentation conundrum. 

Alpha Media Mason City, IA, raised $13,000 with their 19th Annual Polar Bear Swim on December 4 at Clear Lake City Beach. More than 3,000 brave souls took the frigid plunge into the lake to raise the funds for Toys for Tots and Make a Wish of North Iowa.

CBS Radio's AC station in St. Louis, KEZK-FM, has signed midday host Trish Gazall to a multi-year contract extension. Details of the new deal were not released. Gazall's been hosting middays for the past 18 months. Before that she hosted the morning drive show for two years.

"Marc" (Marc Jason) has joined Veronica and Kevin on Tampa's WQYK Morning Show, 5-10 a.m., Mondays through Fridays, calling it his "dream job."

Phoenix Country station 102.5 KNIX has named Tim Hattrick morning personality for the new Tim, Ben & Brooke Show, joining Ben Campbell and Brooke Hoover, effective January 9. The Tim, Ben & Brooke Show will broadcast Monday to Saturday, 5-10 a.m.

August Wallace is the new Operations Manager of Cumulus’ five radio stations in Flint, MI. Wallace will continue to program Urban AC WDZZ-FM in Flint. The company has also promoted Tim Shickles to PD at NASH FM 95.1/WFBE-FM and Sports Xtra 1330/WTRX-AM, also in Flint.

That's what iHeart CEO Bob Pittman told Bloomberg in an interview from CES on Friday, when asked by a reporter about the company's debt. He said there's probably not many other media companies that can make that claim. "The operating business has been doing very well. From the standpoint of transferring it from an old media company to a new media company with digital plays, events, social, etc. and this company has always had a lot of debt."

There had been whispers that SiriusXM was a possible buyer of the streaming pure play. However after some comments SiriusXM CFO David Frear made last week to kill those rumors, Pandora's stock dropped over 5%. Frear said, "With respect to all the chatter about acquisitions, you have to look at them as sort of being not very likely." Frear was speaking at the Citi Internet, Media & Telecommunications Conference in Las Vegas.