News

With the Wisconsin primary one week away, Donald Trump joined Sykes for an interview Monday. Sykes is a conservative backing Senator Ted Cruz. He told Trump, “Here in Wisconsin we value things like civility, decency, and actual conservative principles.” And the interview got nastier from there.

Perhaps Bernie Sanders' big win on Saturday was propelled by his domination on radio last week. According to Media Monitors, Sanders' campaign ran 3,358 spots and another 696 were run by the Healthcare Workers’ PAC National Nurses United For Patient Protection. That made his grand total for the last 10 days 4,054.

No succession plan or CEO search for Pandora. The abrupt change was announced in a press release Monday that founder Tim Westergren is back as CEO, replacing Brian McAndrews. McAndrews succeeded Joe Kennedy in September of 2013.

Shares of the Internet pure-play dropped nearly 10% following the CEO announcement so, at least for now, Wall Street is not looking at the change too positively. Westergren taking over follows a swirl of rumors about Pandora possibly being bought.

In his latest blog, immediately following the change at the top of Pandora, Cumulus/Westwood One CMO Pierre Bouvard asks the question, "Will Pandora be to streaming what MySpace was to social media?" Bouvard says Edison Research's latest Share of Ear study reveals why trouble is brewing for Pandora, specifically in the 18-24 demo.

Rick Martinez has been appointed to the newly created position of Vice President of News and Information Programming for Curtis Media. Martinez rejoins Curtis from the staff of Governor Pat McCrory where he was Deputy Communications Director.

The pharmacy chain surged to number two (from 18) on the Media Monitors weekly chart, airing just over 32,000 commercials on radio stations across the country last week. GEICO held on to the number one spot with 39,656. Rounding out the top five were AutoZone (30,105), Nissan Dealers (25,421), and McDonald's (25,007). Along with Walgreens, other big movers included Macy's (from 22 to 8) and Sprint (from 27 to 9).

In his latest blog, broadcast attorney David Oxenford reminds broadcasters not to go too far with jokes and pranks on Friday, April 1. He points out the FCC’s rule against broadcast hoaxes prevents stations from running any information about a “crime or catastrophe” on the air if the broadcaster knows the information to be false, it is reasonably foreseeable that the broadcast of the material will cause substantial public harm, and public harm is in fact caused. Oxenford writes, "Air a program deemed a hoax, and expect to be fined by the FCC."

Sonya Blakey will host mornings from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. and Marcella Jones will host afternoons from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., weekdays, on Inspiration 1390AM, live in-studio beginning Monday, April 4, 2016.

89.3 WFPL News in Louisville has named Bill Burton (pictured) as the local host and producer of the NPR flagship news program, Morning Edition. The station has also hired Kathi Lincoln as WFPL’s new midday host and producer of The Diane Rehm Show, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Here and Now, and Kentucky’s statewide newscast.