News

(By Randy Lane) When I asked Brian Phillips (President, CMT Networks and previous award-winning radio programmer) his perception of radio after being in television for several years, his response surprised me. “Radio is an audio medium that generally does a poor job with audio.”

(By Ronald Robinson) From time to time, a local station will crank out a brilliant piece of creative advertising. The staff will gather around, howling with delight while offering kudos all around. “Let’s enter it for an award!” Salespeople will hold their tongues and grudgingly wince out a qualified smile as they wonder to themselves: “Nice. But, will it sell anything?”

The 2017 NAB Show will explore the Alexa voice-service technology that powers the popular Amazon Echo device. The Alexa Skill Building Bootcamp will be held Saturday, April 22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Designed for software developers and non-developers alike, the Bootcamp will provide participants with an in-depth overview of voice-user technology.

As promised, WYMS 88.9-FM will continue to support local artists. And now it will be broadcast and streamed around the clock on 414Music.fm, a new HD2 radio channel and stream that 88Nine Radio Milwaukee will launch June 20.

The People’s Morning Show with Nipsey, Jen and Earl on Harrisburg, PA’s WQXA-FM 105.7 THE X was honored by Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals with the English Radio Personality of the Year Excellence Award.

The Jim Pattison Broadcast Group, located in Canada, owns 43 radio stations. Thursday the company announced it was partnering with SoCast to centralize digital operations for all of its radio stations.

In February, Jon Grayson resigned from the Overnight America show on KMOX in St. Louis. On Thursday, the station hired Ryan Wrecker to take over that shift. Wrecker moves to St. Louis from Fort Wayne, where he most recently served as PD for WOWO-AM. He's also been a regular writer for Radio Ink Magazine with a focus on digital.

Fred Jacobs shares the sad news that Tim Davis, who worked for jacapps, passed away at the age of 49 after a brief illness. His wife Kathy has set up a fund for their kids' college fund. GO HERE to support their children. For Xander (whose name appears as Robert), enter J2Z-J3V. For Alyssa, enter N3P-C07.

Minnesota Public Radio will rename its Saint Paul headquarters and broadcast facilities the Kling Public Media Center, after its visionary founder, William H. Kling. The MPR Board of Trustees made the decision but decided to wait until the occasion of the organization’s 50th anniversary to officially make the designation.

It's a small club but it includes 20 of the best people in radio. On Monday, Radio Ink's newest list will be unveiled -- The 20 Best Leaders in Radio. This list was chosen by the radio industry. In an extremely exciting and close vote, that included about 50 people when we first started, thousands of votes were cast on our website to help decide the final 20 names that will appear in Radio Ink Magazine next week. Forcht CEO Mike Tarter is one of those 20 leaders.