People in the News

Emma Villanueva is the new Community Engagement Manager at WBGL in Champaign, IL. Emma joins the station after graduating from Cedarville University earlier in May with a degree in Broadcasting and Digital Media.

Dr. Nino Japaridze comes to Edison Research to fill the new role of Vice President for Public Affairs Research. Japaridze will be based in Washington, DC, and lead Edison’s public affairs and international research practice, delivering strategic insights to public and private sector clients, and international media and development organizations.

Matthew “Doughboy” Florence is loading up the truck and making the move from Albuquerque to Southern California for a June 1 start at Rhythmic CHR station KVYB/103.3 The Vibe. Florence will be the station’s PD and afternoon personality.

Programming vet Maurice DeVoe joins iHeart's St. Louis market as PD for Hip Hopper "100.3 The Beat." DeVoe joins iHeartMedia from Cumulus, where he was Corporate PD for its Urban and Rhythmic formats, and PD of KMJK-FM in Kansas City. In 2016, DeVoe was named one of Radio Ink's Top 50 PDs.

TV guy Lucas McFadden will be going out over the radio waves of WRHI-FM 100.1/AM 1340, Rock Hill, SC, as of May 18, co-hosting Palmetto Mornings with Freddi Hammer. And he is plenty happy about it.

Northern Michigan radio icon "Big Dog" Dave Sherbert is retiring May 19 after being a presence on the air since there since the 1970s. He is a familiar voice for Blarney Stone Broadcasting’s Q-100 (WQON, 100.3-FM). “It’s time,” Sherbert said.

Salem's Chicago GM Jeff Reisman has been promoted to Operational Vice President for Salem's Radio Division. Reisman joined Salem in 2004 as GSM in Chicago. He was promoted to GM in 2010. Reisman will now oversee the Boston and Philadelphia markets in addition to Chicago.

Beasley Media Group has named Heidi Raphael as Vice President of Corporate Communications. She replaces Soni Dimond who left the company to pursue other opportunities. Raphael is no stranger to many of the Beasley stations, having served as Senior VP of Corporate Communications at Greater Media before Beasley purchased that company.

Jim Brown is the new Sales Manager for Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, as well as local traffic ad sales across the CBS Radio Philadelphia cluster. Brown began his career in Philadelphia media in 1983 as an AE at KYW-TV3, now CBS-3. He's worked as as SVP and D.O.S. at Shadow Networks and he was a founding partner at Traffic.com.

The Classic Hip Hop jocks debut their new weekend show May 20. The two-hour show is called Weekend Blast and has been taken up in 15 markets to date, including Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Dallas. Ed Lover (pictured) is a Grammy-nominated member of the the Hip Hop Hall of Fame.