News

Houston contemporary Christian music station 89.3 KSBJ recently held its most successful Sharathon, an annual four-day on-air fundraising event. On Friday alone, over 50% of funds needed to reach the Sharathon goal were raised, along with the largest one-time gift in KSBJ history, $150,000 from an anonymous donor.

Jam Productions is one of the largest independent concert promoters in the United States and now, as a result of this deal, Ticketfly will be the exclusive ticketing provider for three of Chicago's most popular venues...

Lazer Broadcasting has named Lino Alvarez as GSM for its Oxnard/Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Santa Maria markets. Before joining Lazer, Alvarez served as V.P. of Sales for MundoFox in Los Angeles, GSM for Estrella TV in Los Angeles, and VP of Sales for NBC Telemundo in Arizona.

CBS's Country station in Detroit has a permanent midday host once again. Roxanne Steele has been filling in since Jack Shell left in January and now PD Tim Roberts says the gig is hers. "Roxanne is a proven winner and talented major market personality with a great friendly delivery that fits perfectly into the WYCD on-air Family."

It's the 16th year for the NAB Education Foundation's Broadcast Leadership Training program and 15 broadcasters graduated from the 10-month Executive MBA-style program. With this class, 270 participants have graduated from the program.

News director and morning show co-host Shelia Hamilton at Alpha's KINK in Portland has signed an extension on a multi-year deal. The five-time Emmy-winner began her career in documentary film before producing and reporting two-decades of television investigative news for such television stations as Portland’s KATU and Salt Lake City's KTVX. She was also voted Best Radio Personality in 2013.

When the NAB caught wind of Wheeler's fact sheet, the trade organization representing radio and TV was not happy. NAB Executive Vice President of Communications Dennis Wharton said, "It is shocking that regulators who bless mammoth mergers like AT&T/DirecTV and Charter/Time Warner Cable would still bar common ownership of two TV stations or broadcast/newspaper combinations in a local market." Here's the full NAB statement...

In his May 26 blog entitled "Court Chides FCC For Not Doing Its Job," Broadcast attorney John Garziglia predicted the FCC might just take the easy way out and basically do nothing to the ownership rules. And, for sure, The Commission did nearly exactly what Garziglia opined last month. He also wrote about what the court might do if the Commission did decide to do nothing.

A fact sheet (READ IT HERE) on the FCC's ownership rules has been circulated by FCC Chairman Wheeler that will finally address the Commission's responsibility to review media ownership regulations. Called the Quadrennial Review, the Commission is late in addressing this issue by several years. Wheeler's fact sheet, for the most part, leaves the current rules in place.

Chris Mosser will start hosting mornings on Emmis' KGSR-FM (AAA) starting Wednesday, July 6. Austin listeners might already recognize Mosser’s voice as he was most recently the AM Drive and Program Director for 103.1 iHeart Austin and PM Drive and Texas Regional Programming Director for KVET-FM.