Interviews

Part of Radio Ink's mission is to find radio's future stars and bring you their stories. Brandy “Beasy Baybie” Henshaw is the afternoon host on Alpha Media's Hot 103.9/93.9 in Columbia, SC. She's also featured in the upcoming Radio Ink issue "Future African American Leaders in Radio," which starts mailing across the country on March 19.

Does the radio industry take creative seriously enough to help clients succeed? Why do many advertising agencies lack the desire to spend time on radio creative, caring mostly about a television commercial that takes so much more time to produce and costs so much more than radio? Why do radio stations allow awful-sounding advertisers to record their own commercials? We turned to a very successful creative services company to try to find the answers.

(By Gary Krantz) Lee Harris is an air talent on one of the country’s biggest stations, but his experience across other segments of the radio business have inspired a company and products that may just reshape the industry’s future. We got a look at his thought process.

The radio industry's top leaders do not just fall into their positions of leadership. They work harder, they work smarter, and they find ways to put themselves into positions to advance their careers. We turned to four of radio's top leaders and asked them exactly how they do it. Why are they the ones leading people? What did they do to educate themselves? Here's what they had to say.

As Gordon Smith heads into his eighth year as president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, many in our industry are glad that position carries no term limits for the former Senator. Smith is very popular among the NAB radio membership and his calmness, stability, and professionalism serve the radio industry very well (in addition to the great team he has working for him). Smith is among Radio's 40 Most Powerful People and has been ever since he took the NAB leadership job eight years ago. His official ranking on the list will be revealed next week when our Top 40 issue mails.

Leslie Whittles' job for Cumulus in Houston is to grow the KRBE product and brand with a focus on how the station can best serve the community. That, of course, includes all facets of what comes out of the speakers as well as the overall image of the station. The most important part of her responsibility is to make sure her entire team understands and is focused on the goals.

Something we love to do here at Radio Ink is to find and highlight stations that produce great content. 1010 WINS in New York City is a station that makes our job easy. A year ago the station produced a series addressing the growing heroin epidemic that's gripping the nation. Here's what Director of News and Programming Ben Mevorach and his team are up to now...