News

Emmis is bringing the Hip Hop festival to Tokyo in July. HOT 97 signed a multi-year license agreement with Japan-based Avex Live Creative, an entertainment and production company in Asia.

Zac Wellsandt, also known as Mayhem, has been promoted to Director of CHR/AC Operations for the Central Texas Region. He'll oversee KXXM, KZEP, KQXT, and KQXT-HD in San Antonio, and KHFI, KPEZ, KVET-HD, and KASE-HD2 in Austin.

The question we raised in our headlines Tuesday launched a day-long discussion about how many commercials is too many commercials to play every hour. Let's keep the conversation going today. If you missed our story yesterday, here it is again. Feel free to leave your opinion at the end of the story.

After being pushed down to number two by iHeartMedia's KISS-FM in Los Angeles in 2014, Hubbard's all-news WTOP in Washington D.C. has recaptured the title of top billing radio station in America. Hubbard's all-news outlet in Washington DC took in $65 million in 2015, beating iHeart's KISS-FM by $300,000.

Five of the top 10 stations on BIA/Kelsey's highest billers of 2015 come from iHeartMedia's New York and Los Angeles clusters, totaling $234.9 million. CBS owns four of the top 10 billers, making up another $175.3 million in revenue. Three CBS stations come from New York City, the other from Chicago. Four of the top 10 stations were from the AM dial. Here's a chart of all 10 of the 2015 top billing radio stations in the country.

iHeartMedia's Los Angeles news-talker KFI squeezed back into the top 10 after being MIA for the past two years. The station that was bumped out was CBS Los Angeles alternative rocker KROQ. KFI took in $37.8 million according to BIA/Kelsey. Back in 2011, KFI was the third highest biller in the country with $48 million on the books. In 2012, it had dropped to number six with $46 million, and by 2013 it was off the list.

That's according the first-quarter edition of BIA/Kelsey’s Investing In Radio Market Report. That's slightly down from 2014, which BIA/Kelsey said was $14.9 billion. And it's way off from the number the RAB reported in early March ($17.3 billion).

As a result of our Tuesday commercial load story, with former CBS Radio President Dan Mason, Meredith College Professor of Mass Communication, Doug Spero reminded us of a piece he recently wrote for The Huffington Post called, We'll Be Right Back After These Messages." In it Spero quotes consultant Becky Brenner who said listeners are responding to all those ads. (pictured).

The leadership at PodcastOne is hopeful the roster of talented podcasters they've assembled will be worth paying for. Until now, running ads within podcasts was the primary way to make money at podcasting. PodcastOne is trying to add another revenue stream.

Yvonne Lacey is the new VP of Digital Sales Development for at AdLarge. Lacey will be the point person for the sales team on all things digital and report to Chief Revenue Officer, Don Wachsmith.