Crucial Vote On Potential Future of AM Radio Expected This Week

A House vote this week on the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act is the radio industry’s highest-stakes policy test in years: a chance to lock AM receivers into new cars before more automakers, especially EV makers, drop them from the dashboard. 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise scheduled a standalone vote after a plan to tuck the measure into a larger transportation bill stalled. The bill — H.R. 979 in the House and S. 315 in the Senate — would require the Transportation Department to mandate AM radio as standard equipment in new vehicles, including electric models, at no extra cost to buyers. Even after a House win, the Senate would still have to act before the measure could reach President Trump, who has said he supports keeping AM in cars.

Why broadcasters say the vote is existential

Radio’s business still runs through the car. Nielsen research tied to the industry has found tens of millions of monthly AM listeners and strong consumer resistance to vehicles that lack AM/FM. Stations argue that if new cars ship without AM, they lose the last guaranteed, free, no-subscription pipe into drivers — the audience that underwrites local news, talk, sports, religion, farm reports and weather.

Public safety is the political core of the campaign. AM’s long-distance signal can reach rural areas and keep working when cell towers congest or fail. FEMA’s Emergency Alert System still uses broadcast radio as a backbone. Fire chiefs, emergency managers and AARP have lined up with the National Association of Broadcasters, which has treated the bill as a must-pass after years of lobbying. Combined House and Senate co-sponsorship has topped 370, with Reps. Gus Bilirakis and Frank Pallone and Sens. Ted Cruz and Ed Markey as lead sponsors.

CBS Says Tony Romo Is On Leave 'Until Further Notice'

CBS Sports has placed NFL analyst Tony Romo on leave “until further notice,” the network said, after he pleaded no contest to an operating-while-intoxicated charge from a July arrest in Wisconsin.

Romo, 46, wrote on Instagram that he is focusing on “my health, my family and, in time, my return to CBS.” 

He lost his driving privileges for six months. His blood-alcohol level was measured at .15, nearly twice Wisconsin’s legal limit. Video from the arrest has circulated widely.

Romo still has four years and $72 million remaining on the 10-year, $180 million contract he signed in 2020. That deal followed a three-year, $10 million rookie TV pact and came as CBS sought a long-term No. 1 analyst with NFL media rights talks approaching.

CBS has already reshuffled its booths. The network promoted J.J. Watt to work with Jim Nantz on the No. 1 team and paired Ross Tucker with Ian Eagle, Watt’s former partner. Watt performed well with Eagle last season and now has a path to keep the top analyst job.

Romo and Nantz were expected to become CBS’s signature NFL pairing — calling AFC Championship Games and Super Bowls when the network had them. Instead, the pairing faded, much as Nantz’s earlier run with Phil Simms did late in that partnership. 

Critics have said Romo’s analysis has slipped for several seasons and that CBS has pressed him to put more work into the craft

.Whether Romo returns — and in what role — is unresolved. A move back to the No. 1 team appears unlikely for now. A No. 2 pairing with Eagle is possible but considered a long shot. More plausible is a negotiated exit that leans on a morals clause and other contract language to settle the remaining $72 million, a process that could end in a legal fight over how much he is paid to leave.

Until CBS and Romo reach a resolution, his status is expected to remain one of the NFL season’s central media storylines.

Atlanta Radio: Big Tigger Returns To WVEE Morning Show

Charges against WVEE V-103 morning host Big Tigger have been dropped, and he will return to the air Monday after more than two months off.

The Fulton County district attorney’s office decided not to prosecute after reviewing the case, according to a Sept. 4 court document obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The facts and evidence of this case have been reviewed and after full consideration of the evidence, it is the decision of the District Attorney not to prosecute,” the filing said. It was signed by Simone N. Hylton, an executive district attorney in the office’s domestic violence division.

V-103 announced Friday that Big Tigger, whose real name is Darian Morgan, will be back on the morning show. His attorney, Gabe Banks, said his client is “excited to get back to work.” Banks said the station and the host “knew from the beginning that Big Tigger was innocent, and the dismissal of charges only affirms what he has maintained all along.”

Big Tigger posted Friday that the period had been “one of the most difficult times for my family and I, but happily, I can finally exhale and close this chapter.” He said he would focus on raising his son “in a positive, loving environment” and on his work on and off the air.

Rick Caffey, chairman emeritus and former Atlanta market manager for station owner Audacy, told staff the station was “pleased to welcome him back on Monday and look forward to him reconnecting with our listeners and continuing to do what he does best.”

Morgan was arrested June 20 by Sandy Springs police and accused of aggravated battery against his wife, Alicia Brown, in a May 9 dispute at his Sandy Springs home. Part of the incident was captured on a Ring camera. Brown was briefly hospitalized with a deep cut above her eye.

Persons 6+

Morgan left the air after the arrest. On July 5 he said he was stepping away “to focus on my family and give my legal team the room they need.” 

“The Big Tigger Morning Show” stayed listed on the V-103 website, and co-host Francesca Amiker and substitutes such as Frank Ski continued to mention him.

FCC's Carr Slams TX Candidate as Running a ‘Hoax’

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr accused Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico of staging a “hoax” to generate clicks and campaign donations after ABC moved Talarico’s interview with Jimmy Kimmel off broadcast television and onto YouTube. In a Saturday night post on X, Carr said Talarico was “just running the same hoax he did a few months ago on Colbert for the purpose of getting clicks and donations — he’s banking on people not understanding the statute or operating as partisan lemmings.” 

Carr attached a meme showing Kimmel carrying Talarico in a baby backpack before crashing the bicycle. The YouTube interview had drawn about 6.8 million views by Saturday evening, after Kimmel announced Wednesday that it would not air on ABC. 

Carr's X Meme

Kimmel said the decision was made “out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense,” and later argued the FCC was targeting the show for “the crime of interviewing political candidates.” 

At issue is the FCC’s equal-time rule, which generally requires broadcasters to give opposing candidates comparable airtime. Talk shows long relied on a “bona fide news” exemption. Under 2026 guidance from Carr’s FCC, that exemption may not apply if a candidate interview is judged to be motivated by partisan purposes. Kimmel said he had previously hosted Donald Trump and other candidates without similar restrictions. 

Carr and the White House deny any threat tied to the Talarico booking. Assistant White House Press Secretary Davis Ingle called Kimmel’s account “play acting” and said Carr “has not threatened him regarding interviewing James Talarico, or any other candidate.” Talarico, who is challenging Republican Sen. Ken Paxton, called the episode “the most dangerous form of cancel culture.” 

Variety said his campaign had not immediately commented on Carr’s latest post. The clash echoes a February dispute with Stephen Colbert. CBS did not air Colbert’s Talarico interview on broadcast, citing legal guidance that it could trigger equal-time obligations; the segment went to YouTube instead and drew millions of views. Carr then labeled that episode a “hoax” as well, saying CBS had options to comply and that Talarico was exploiting public assumptions about censorship. The FCC also opened an equal-time inquiry into Talarico’s earlier appearance on ABC’s The View.

Trump: 'Whoever Wins AI, Wins'

President Donald Trump dismissed apocalyptic warnings about artificial intelligence on Sunday, calling them “things that won’t happen” and arguing the United States must keep racing ahead because “whoever wins AI, wins.” 

Speaking to reporters at his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, Trump said the United States is already ahead of China and that staying there matters more than slowing development. “We’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins,” he said.  He added that “we can put guardrails” but that “a lot of negative voices” are “bringing up things that won’t happen.” 

The remarks came a day after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging the industry to pace frontier development, arguing safety work is lagging as models advance faster. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk publicy backed a slowdown. 

Amodei has warned that, at the current pace, advanced systems could within months be capable of coordinating large-scale internet disruption. Trump’s comments also followed high-profile departures from Anthropic. 

Safety researchers Joe Benton and Jacob Coxon quit in protest and warned that leading labs were racing toward self-improving superintelligence. Coxon wrote that some people building the technology “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” Anthropic alignment leader Evan Hubinger has said he personally puts the chance that AI “could kill all humans” within a decade above 10%. 

Asked earlier in the week whether he had concerns about existential risk, Trump said, “No, I don’t have any.” He said his concern was that “if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position,” claiming the United States leads China “by a pretty good period.” 

That stance puts him at odds with some lawmakers in both parties. Sen. Bernie Sanders has called even a small chance of human extinction “much too risky” and urged a halt to superintelligent AI. Sen. Ted Cruz has called the risks “deeply concerning” while still warning against falling behind China. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said AI executives should brief Congress on safety laws but has resisted a moratorium. 

Trump has repeatedly framed AI as a contest on the scale of the internet or the Industrial Revolution. In recent interviews he has said medical breakthroughs already show the upside and that the United States “cannot afford to lose to China.” He has also argued guardrails exist and that China does not impose comparable limits. 

Report: PSKY Exit Would Devastate Calif Economy

A leaked Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation report warns that moving Paramount Skydance out of California would cost the state thousands of jobs and billions of dollars, with immediate losses of 2,750 to 5,550 job-years and $1.01 billion to $2.03 billion in economic output from Oct. 1, 2026, through Sept. 30, 2031.

Once a full relocation of headquarters and other operations was complete, California would permanently lose about 28,990 to 57,980 full-time jobs across all industries and $10.6 billion to $21.2 billion in annual economic output, according to the report published by Variety.

The analysis follows David Ellison’s threat to leave the state unless California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of other state attorneys general settle their lawsuit seeking to block Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Ellison set an Oct. 1 deadline to start the move and has pointed to Georgia, Texas and Tennessee as possible destinations.

On that date, Paramount Skydance also begins paying a $7 million-a-day “ticking fee” to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders until the deal closes. A trial is set for March 2; without a settlement, that fee could total about $1.3 billion.

Settlement talks briefly appeared to gain traction in late August when Bonta and Ellison scheduled an Aug. 24 meeting. Bonta canceled it at the last minute, accusing Paramount of leaking discussion details. The company denied the claim. Bonta said he will not resume talks until Paramount puts a “lid on their lying leaks.”

NFL Sunday Ticket: Higer Price, Fewer Games

NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers are paying more for fewer games as the league moves more matchups into stand-alone national windows.

The package carried 191 games last season, down nearly 10% from 211 in 2021, according to Wall Street Journal research. Early Sunday afternoon games fell 13% to 127 over that span. Sunday Ticket is expected to offer about 200 games this season, still below the 2021 total.

The regular price for YouTube TV subscribers is now $378, nearly 30% higher than the $293.94 DirecTV charged existing customers in its final years with the package. Viewers without YouTube TV can pay as much as $480, though promotional discounts are common.

The NFL has shifted games to Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday and added international and holiday contests. Netflix carries Christmas games and will add a Thanksgiving Eve matchup this season. Amazon has the Black Friday game. Those contests are sold separately and are not part of Sunday Ticket, which is limited to out-of-market Sunday afternoon games. Popular teams also appear more often in national broadcasts, leaving the package with fewer high-profile matchups.

The shift reflects the NFL’s effort to create more broadcast windows and raise media-rights revenue. That helps the league but raises questions about the economics for distributors. YouTube reportedly pays more than $2 billion a year for Sunday Ticket, up from about $1.5 billion under DirecTV, even though it receives fewer games.YouTube sees the package as a long-term way to attract subscribers and advertisers. Alphabet has said YouTube TV subscriber growth accelerated after Sunday Ticket arrived. 

Morgan Stanley previously estimated YouTube could lose nearly $9 billion over the seven-year deal.

The same fragmentation affects Netflix, Amazon, Fox and CBS, which are paying large sums for narrower slices of NFL rights. Live football still draws mass audiences, but distributors must decide how much those viewers are worth when fans can subscribe selectively or wait for discounts.

Sunday Ticket has about 1.8 million subscribers, according to Antenna. Whether YouTube can convert those customers into broader subscription and advertising growth will determine if the package becomes a valuable gateway or an expensive loss leader.

Here's Where Viewers Are Watching TV

Most U.S. TV households still treat the living room as the main screen, but bedroom sets are common and, in about one in seven homes, they are the most-watched TV, according to the DASH Mid-Year 2026 release.

Among households with at least one TV, 86% have a set in the living room, and in 71% of those homes that living-room TV is the most-watched. Nearly two-thirds of TV households also have at least one bedroom set. In 15% of TV households — roughly one in seven — a bedroom TV, not the living-room set, draws the most viewing.

Bedroom viewing is not simply living-room viewing moved to another room. It peaks later and leans more toward streaming. Among people watching TV from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., 27% primarily used a bedroom set. From 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., that share rose to 34%, matching living-room viewing. During prime time, nearly 30% of streaming-video viewing occurred on a bedroom TV.

Connection data tracks the same split. Bedroom TVs were slightly more likely than living-room TVs to connect through smart-TV hardware such as a Roku or Amazon Fire Stick, 39% versus 34%.

For measurement firms, media companies and advertisers, the findings mean a household can look measurable through one platform, device or service while substantial viewing happens on another screen, in another room or through another path. TV fragmentation is not only across platforms; it is also inside the home. The living room remains the anchor, but the bedroom is a large, late-night and more fragmented environment that can change how audiences are measured, reached and valued.

Study: NYTimes Coverage Grossly Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Israel

A peer-reviewed study of 1,559 New York Times articles found that the paper’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war after October 7, 2023, systematically minimized Israeli deaths, Hamas’s continuing role, and Palestinian violence while amplifying Palestinian civilian suffering.

Yale School of Management professor Edieal Pinker published the analysis in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. He examined articles that appeared from October 7, 2023, through June 7, 2024, and concluded that the dominant frame assigned “near-exclusive agency and responsibility to Israel while diminishing Hamas’s role in sustaining the conflict.” 

Ninety-one percent of the articles did not mention Israeli casualties after October 7. A total of 1,423 pieces omitted both those later Israeli losses and deaths among Hamas combatants. Half the articles made no reference to Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and 41 percent did not mention the Israeli dead from the initial October 7 attack. 

Personal accounts of Palestinian and Lebanese suffering appeared on average two out of every three days. Comparable stories of Israeli suffering not tied directly to October 7 were rare. 

Across the dataset, the word “Israel” appeared 27,205 times and “Hamas” 8,499 times—more than a three-to-one gap that, the study argued, placed responsibility almost entirely on Israel. 

Pinker described a recurring narrative: Hamas’s October 7 attack, followed by Israeli military operations and rising Palestinian casualties, with little space for Israeli military losses, Hamas fighter deaths, or later Palestinian attacks. Israel, the paper found, was often presented as the sole aggressor that “seemingly bears no costs from conducting the war except for a loss of international support,” while Palestinians appeared as passive victims. 

The study used ProQuest archives of Times articles together with casualty and incident data from Israeli government sources and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project. 

During the period after October 7 that Pinker examined, those sources recorded hundreds of Israeli soldiers killed, additional civilian deaths inside Israel and the West Bank, and repeated attacks. Most Times articles in the sample did not report those figures or distinguish Hamas combatants from civilians among Palestinian dead. An earlier, non-peer-reviewed version of the paper circulated in 2025; the journal version, accepted in 2026, is described by the author as substantially the same analysis with formal review. 

The findings concern frequency of mentions, omissions, and narrative patterns in one newspaper’s output over eight months, not a claim about every reporter or every story.

R.I.P.: Steve Gretsch, MN Radio Station Owner

Steve Gretsch (1962-2026)

Steve Gretsch, the 64-year-old owner and on-air voice of KLFD Radio in Litchfield,  MN known to listeners as “the Giant,” died Sept. 4, 2026, after a motorcycle crash near Cold Spring. 

Gretsch, of Albany, was riding south on a county road with two other motorcyclists shortly before noon when his motorcycle failed to follow a curve, left the roadway and went into a ditch, striking a fiber-optic cable box and a utility pole. He died at the scene. 

For more than 20 years, Gretsch was the familiar voice of KLFD (AM 1410 / FM 95.9), hosting the morning show, calling local sports and voicing countless commercials. He and his wife, Patty, bought the station in 2005. Colleagues said he was not merely part of the station; he was its voice. 

He began in radio at KASM in Albany.  Off the air he was a golfer who rarely missed a season at Albany Golf Club, a hunter and fisherman, and a motorcyclist who looked forward to the ABATE State Motorcycle Rally each Labor Day weekend in Litchfield.

R.I.P.: Jonathan Roth, Longtime WDIY Lehigh Valley Radio Vet

Roth (1976-2026)

Jonathan Roth, a longtime WDIY on-air music host and veteran of college and community radio, died Aug. 27, 2026. He was 50. Roth spent the past 13 years as a rotating Saturday-night host of WDIY’s Good Clean Fun, playing a mix of new and classic indie and alternative rock. He also filled in occasionally on the station’s weekday afternoon AAA program, The Blend.

He arrived at WDIY already seasoned by earlier stints at WXJM in Harrisonburg, Va., and WMUH in Allentown, Pa., which allowed him to start hosting soon after joining the station.

Roth graduated from Allentown Central Catholic High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from James Madison University, where he played in the award-winning marching band, and a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from Moravian University.

Drums remained a lifelong outlet. He performed with Speedwell, Meredith Bragg and the Terminals, Ghost Wounds, and Blank Stares, including a notable appearance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

He also acted with Muhlenberg College Summer Theater and Civic Little Theatre while living in Allentown. Roth wrote freelance music coverage for Philadelphia’s two.one.five Magazine, The Morning Call in the Lehigh Valley, and The Aquarian Weekly in Little Falls, N.J. He worked as senior technical writer and blog lead at Dorman Products in Colmar, Pa., and as a freelance graphic designer.

R.I.P. Garry Lee Wright, Former Personality At WXRT, WGN Chicago

Garry Lee Wright

Garry Lee Wright, a radio host, stand-up comic and writer who spent two stretches at Chicago’s WXRT-FM and later co-hosted overnight shows on WGN-AM, died Aug. 14 of heart failure. He was 74.

His daughter, Amanda, confirmed the death at her home in St. Charles, where Wright had been receiving palliative care for congestive heart failure and cardiac disease. 

Wright was best known locally for his WGN work and, earlier, as WXRT’s morning host before Terri Hemmert.

Wright and longtime WGN contributor Nick Digilio co-hosted an overnight program for eight years even though they had not met until their first broadcast. Each also hosted solo shows on the 50,000-watt station. “Incredibly, we had never met before the first night we went on the air together, and somehow it worked beautifully,” Digilio said. “We had a great time on the air together.”

After leaving WGN in 2006, Wright self-published the 2012 memoir “Happiness for Beginners,” performed stand-up and one-person shows, wrote a newspaper column, played guitar and hosted the pandemic-era podcast “Pandemic Pirate Radio” through his Bleat Network project.

Wright first arrived at WXRT in 1975 in the sales department. He left in 1976 for on-air jobs in Fayetteville, N.C., and Jacksonville, Fla., then returned in 1978 as a weekend personality. In June 1979 he became WXRT’s morning-drive host.

(1952-2026)

“Garry was incredibly quick of wit, able to find in a flash the right song or the right one-liner to match a final, funny newscast story,” said former WXRT morning news anchor Charlie Meyerson. “He was also kind and compassionate — not a guaranteed combination in the radio world.”

He left WXRT in 1981 for New York, where he guest-hosted for talk pioneer Barry Gray on WMCA and performed at Catch a Rising Star and the Comic Strip. In 1993 he became the first morning host at WEHM in East Hampton, N.Y., a station then part-owned by Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley. He moved to mornings at WBAZ in Southold, N.Y., in 1994, then hosted mornings at WOC in Davenport, Iowa, from 1995 to 1997.

Wright returned to Chicago in early 1998 as a part-time WGN fill-in host. Months later the station paired him with Digilio on the Saturday-night-into-Sunday-morning overnight show; Wright also hosted a weekly Sunday-night program.

“I treasure the time we worked together, the amazing guests we interviewed, the huge laughs we shared, and the incredible skills and wisdom I gained by just being in the same studio with him,” Digilio wrote on social media. “He absolutely helped make me the professional broadcaster that I became.”

Radio History: Sep 14

➦In 1814...Attorney Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics to the "Star-Spangled Banner" after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry, Maryland during the War of 1812.

Key, accompanied by the British Prisoner Exchange Agent Colonel John Stuart Skinner, dined aboard the British ship HMS Tonnant as the guests of three British officers: Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane, Rear Admiral George Cockburn, and Major General Robert Ross. Skinner and Key were there to negotiate the release of prisoners, one of whom was Dr. William Beanes, a resident of Upper Marlboro, MD, who had been arrested after jailing marauding British troops who were looting local farms.

Skinner, Key, and Beanes were not allowed to return to their own sloop because they had become familiar with the strength and position of the British units and with the British intent to attack Baltimore. Thus, Key was unable to do anything but watch the bombarding of the American forces at Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore on the night of September 13–14, 1814.

At dawn, Key was able to see an American flag still waving.

Back in Baltimore and inspired, Key wrote a poem about his experience, "Defence of Fort McHenry", which was soon published in William Pechin's American and Commercial Daily Advertiser on September 21, 1814. He took it to Thomas Carr, a music publisher, who adapted it to the rhythms of composer John Stafford Smith's "To Anacreon in Heaven".  It has become better known as "The Star-Spangled Banner". Though somewhat difficult to sing, it became increasingly popular, competing with "Hail, Columbia" (1796) as the de facto national anthem by the time of the Mexican–American War and American Civil War.

More than a century after its first publication, the song was adopted as the American national anthem, first by an Executive Order from President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and then by a Congressional resolution on March 31, 1931, signed by President Herbert Hoover.

Cecil Brown

➦In 1907...Cecil Brown, radio newsman & commentator, was born in New Brighton, PA.  Some of his most important broadcasts were from the Pacific war front during the early days of World War II. One of the correspondents known as ‘Murrow’s Boys,’ he resigned from CBS in 1943 after being rebuked by CBS news director Paul White for expressing an editorial opinion during an August 25 news broadcast. Brown had stated that "a good deal of the enthusiasm for this war is evaporating into thin air." Announcing his resignation Brown said that he could not subscribe to what he characterized as CBS' policy of "non-opinionated" news.

Brown continued his commentaries with Mutual, NBC and ABC. For his contributions to radio he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He died Oct. 25 1987 at age 80.

Jerry Coleman

➦In 1924...Gerald Francis Coleman born in NYC (Died at age 89 after a fall – January 5, 2014),  Jerry Coleman was a MLB second baseman for the New York Yankees and manager of the San Diego Padres for one year.

Coleman was named the rookie of the year in 1949 by Associated Press, and was an All-Star in 1950 and later that year was named the World Series Most Valuable Player. Yankees teams on which he was a player appeared in six World Series during his career, winning four times. Coleman served as a Marine Corps pilot in World War II and the Korean War, flying combat missions.

He later became a broadcaster, and he was honored in 2005 by the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award for his broadcasting contributions.

Radio News Weekly — Sept. 7–11, 2026

A busy mid-September for broadcast radio: sports rights and talent headlines, a public-media license transfer, research that still favors AM/FM in the car, and Washington items that will matter into mid-month.

Washington & Regulation

🗼The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act remains the industry’s biggest policy story. House leadership has a standalone floor vote scheduled the week of Sept. 14. Cosponsorship is large and bipartisan; NAB is pushing members to finish the job before the calendar runs out.
🗼The Supreme Court stayed a Fourth Circuit ruling that had narrowed lowest-unit political-ad rates to legally qualified candidates only. The stay restores the FCC’s broader reading for now, just as the 60-day pre-election window opened.
🗼The FCC approved WHYY’s acquisition of Penn State’s WPSU radio and TV licenses, clearing the main regulatory hurdle to keep public service in central and northern Pennsylvania. Separately, Poynter and Public Media Company launched a Future of Public Media Initiative a year after Congress rescinded more than $1 billion in future CPB funding. Recommendations are expected in early 2027.
🗼FY 2026 regulatory fees are due 11:59 p.m. ET Sept. 24 via CORES; late payers face an automatic 25% penalty...The Commission also used National Preparedness Month and the 9/11 anniversary to stress-test emergency comms plan...A Senate Commerce hearing next week will take up FCC nominees, including Danielle Thumann Severs.

Sports Radio🗼iHeart Milwaukee renewed a multi-year deal keeping 95.7 Big FM (WRIT) as the Packers’ Milwaukee flagship.,,Audacy named 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM) the Dallas Mavericks’ flagship and launched Inside the North...After an August layoff that drew backlash while he recovered from cancer, Greg Papa is back at Cumulus KNBR with weekday Lunch With Papa and twice-weekly 49ers updates.

barrettmedia.com

Business, research & the car

🗼Edison Research again found AM/FM dominating ad-supported in-car audio; Audacy research said the most tech-forward drivers are also heavy radio users. 

🗼Katz urged sellers to start holiday music and seasonal avails early. 

🗼SiriusXM promoted Sean Gibbons to chief product and technology officer, with 360L, in-car product, and ad tech as priorities.

Watch Next Week:

The House AM-radio vote Monday...FCC fee deadline countdown...and NFL week-one inventory as sports radio stays in the center of the industry conversation....A Senate Commerce hearing next week will take up FCC nominees, including Danielle Thumann Severs.