Longtime New York radio personality Race Taylor told listeners Friday morning he is leaving the morning show at Audacy Classic Hits 101.1 WCBS-FM.
The station has not announced who will take over the 6–10 a.m. slot. Taylor, a fixture in the New York market since 1999, moved into mornings at WCBS-FM only in June 2025 after five years in middays. He joined the classic hits station in July 2020 following two decades at Cumulus Hot AC 95.5 WPLJ, where he was on the air for the station’s final broadcast and sign-off in May 2019.
During his tenures with Cumulus and Audacy, Taylor also voiced tracked shifts in other markets.
WCBS-FM has not outlined next steps for mornings. Taylor’s on-air goodbye came without a publicly named successor or a stated reason for the exit.
Taylor’s New York run spanned the last years of WPLJ as a contemporary station and the later classic-hits era at CBS-FM, giving him a long relationship with Tri-State listeners across formats.
Industry accounts have also noted his voice work for ABC-TV promotions and other national radio and television projects alongside his local air shifts.
A Tennessee court has barred Dolly Parton’s nephew from her business operations after her manager’s company accused him of threats and demands for money — while family members insist there is no inheritance fight and a source claims the manager wants relatives sidelined.
She’s Alive LLC, the entity Parton created to protect her brand after death and run by longtime manager Danny Nozell, obtained a temporary restraining order this week against Bryan Seaver. A Nashville chancellor ordered Seaver to stay at least 1,000 feet from estate employees and partners, stay off estate property, and stop alleged harassment ahead of an Oct. 7 hearing.
Court filings say Seaver, Parton’s head of security for more than 20 years and the relative who announced her Aug. 25 death at age 80, mounted a campaign of intimidation that began weeks before she died of cancer.
The company alleges he threatened to “destroy the entire brand,” start a podcast to ruin partnerships unless paid, and invoked a military-contractor background, weapons access, and statements such as “I’m a killer” and “All I do is warfare.” Some employees reportedly quit or feared coming to work. The estate values the empire — Dollywood, hotels, catalog, and other holdings — at about $450 million.
A federal judge on Thursday declined to immediately approve the proposed antitrust settlement that would clear Paramount Skydance’s roughly $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, instead directing the parties to answer concerns raised by Sen. Cory Booker.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, overseeing the case brought by 12 state attorneys general, held a virtual hearing to address “outstanding questions” about the consent decree. She ordered Paramount and the states to respond by noon Monday, Sept. 29, to Booker’s letter urging an independent public-interest review before the court enters the settlement.
The judge also asked for a clean written copy of the decree with any proposed amendments marked, plus identification of the state committee that would monitor compliance. She allowed opponents, including the Block the Merger coalition and the League of United Latin American Citizens, to file amicus briefs by 12:01 a.m. PT Friday.
A 30-second television advertisement featuring clips of President Donald Trump, anti-communist rhetoric, and boasts about tax cuts and law-and-order policies aired this week on Fox News and Newsmax with the on-screen disclosure “Paid for by the U.S. Government,” prompting Democrats to accuse the Trump administration of illegally using taxpayer money for partisan midterm messaging.
The 30-second spot includes the disclosure "Paid for by the U.S. Government." https://t.co/3v0CXnawom
The spot, which tracking firm AdImpact said cost about $14,000 and ran during conservative programs, opens with Trump declaring, “Together we will defeat communism, socialism and Marxism in America. America will never be a communist country.”
Only 10% of U.S. adults ages 18–24 watched local TV news in the past week, compared with 64% of adults 65 and older — a 54-point generational gap, according to a survey released Thursday.
The Future Of TV Live Report from Ring Digital, is based on a September poll of 1,376 U.S. adults weighted to Census age and gender data, also found daily television viewing at 31% among 18- to 24-year-olds versus 81% among those 65 and older. Founder Brian Ring said the problem for local broadcasters is not only pay-TV decline but that younger viewers are forming a different relationship with news and television.
The finding echoes a long-running claim in radio: that Generation Z and Generation Alpha rarely use FM and may barely know AM exists. That radio argument remains debated.
Nearly half of U.S. adults say they are extremely or very concerned about possible restrictions on press freedom, according to a recent Pew-Knight Initiative report.
That 46% figure puts press freedom in the same range of public worry as several other core rights: 50% express high concern about limits on free speech, 47% about the freedom to assemble peacefully, and 46% about the right to vote. The overall numbers mask a sharp partisan split.
NFL Week 2 games averaged 20.4 million viewers, the most-watched second week on record dating to 1998 and a sharp rebound from a soft opening weekend. The figure is up 6% from last year’s Week 2 and lifted the league after Week 1 averaged 19.5 million, a 13% year-over-year drop.
Through two weeks, the NFL is averaging 19.9 million viewers per game — still down about 4% from 2025’s 20.7 million pace, but the third-best two-week start on record, behind only 2025 and 2015.
The Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs continue to drive the national audience. Dallas has appeared in the two most-watched games of the season so far: Fox’s Commanders-Cowboys window drew 27.2 million, the largest telecast of 2026 to date, and NBC’s Week 1 Cowboys-Giants Sunday Night Football game drew 25.7 million.
Kansas City ranks just behind, with its overtime win over Indianapolis on Sunday Night Football averaging 24.3 million — the best Week 2 SNF audience since 2015 — and its Week 1 Monday Night Football game against Denver placing among the season’s top five.
Radio political advertising is already running far ahead of recent election cycles as midterm buying accelerates, with Kinetiq Political Insights reporting $73.5 million booked from January 1 through September 11.
That total is nearly double the $38.9 million radio had booked at the same point in the 2024 presidential cycle and more than double the $33 million recorded in the comparable stretch of the 2022 midterms. The bookings account for about 2.9% of the $2.5 billion in political advertising KPI has tracked so far across television, cable, and radio.
FOX Sports Radio announced today the launch of “College Football with Stugotz & The Bear.” The new show debuts Friday, September 25, 2026, with iHeartPodcasts.
“College Football with Stugotz & The Bear” is a twice-weekly celebration of everything that makes college football great. From legendary rivalries and iconic venues to star players, game-day traditions and can't-miss tailgate food, multiplatform sports personality Jon “Stugotz” Weiner delivers his signature blend of passion, humor and uniquely entertaining takes on the sport he loves.
Joined by FOX Sports personality, veteran college football analyst and sports betting expert Chris “The Bear” Fallica, the duo will take listeners on a fun, fast-paced ride through the biggest stories and best moments in college football.
The Detroit Tigers have signed multiyear contract extensions with television play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti and radio play-by-play announcer Dan Dickerson, keeping both as the primary voices of Tigers baseball on Detroit SportsNet and the Tigers Radio Network.
Ryan Gustafson, president and CEO of Ilitch Sports + Entertainment, said the club is “incredibly proud” to retain the pair and grateful they chose a deeper commitment to the organization. He said improving the fan experience several years ago included building a stronger broadcast, and that Benetti, Dickerson, and others now deliver “an entertaining and informed broadcast that is among the best in baseball.”
Lionel Richie will return as a judge on American Idol Season 25 despite three heart-related hospitalizations since June, fellow judge Luke Bryan confirmed Thursday during a concert in Nashville.
Richie, 77, will again sit alongside Bryan and Carrie Underwood, with Ryan Seacrest returning as host.
The panel will be together for a third straight season. ABC renewed the series in July; Season 25 is expected to premiere in 2027. Auditions are already underway through the virtual Idol Across America search.
The confirmation comes days after Richie was hospitalized for the third time since June and underwent a procedure for atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat. A representative said the procedure “went perfectly,” that Richie is “doing great,” and that he will take time off before returning to the stage. AFib is common and not immediately life-threatening, but it can cause fatigue, dizziness, palpitations and shortness of breath and can lead to complications.
The latest episode forced cancellation of three dates on his Sing a Song All Night Long tour with Earth, Wind & Fire, in San Francisco, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio. In late August he struggled through a St. Louis show, asked for a chair during “All Night Long,” left the stage and later spent days in the hospital, including time in intensive care. In June he cut short a St. Paul, Minnesota, concert after a dizzy spell while performing “Dancing on the Ceiling,” then postponed two more dates. He later told fans he was doing well.
He is still expected to resume his Lionel Richie: King of Hearts residency at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas beginning Oct. 14. Richie has judged American Idol since ABC revived the show in 2018. A four-time Grammy winner and former Commodores frontman, he is known for “Hello,” “All Night Long,” “Three Times a Lady” and co-writing “We Are the World.”
What Is AM Radio? Only 10% of U.S. adults ages 18–24 watched local TV news in the past week, compared with 64% of adults 65 and older — a 54-point generational gap, according to a survey released Thursday. The findings echoes a long-running claim in radio: that Generation Z and Generation Alpha rarely use FM and may barely know AM exists. That radio argument remains debated. MORE
Ca-Ching, Political Dollars: Radio political advertising is already running far ahead of recent election cycles as midterm buying accelerates, with Kinetiq Political Insights reporting $73.5 million booked from January 1 through September 11. MORE
Tigers Extend Broadcasters: The Detroit Tigers have signed multiyear contract extensions with television play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti and radio play-by-play announcer Dan Dickerson, keeping both as the primary voices of Tigers baseball on Detroit SportsNet and the Tigers Radio Network. MORE
Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek is releasing a forthcoming book, Behind the Castle Walls, that blames predecessor and successor Bob Iger for much of what went wrong during Chapek’s tenure and takes little apparent responsibility for his own record.
In the book, Chapek faults Iger for everything from his own indecisive leadership to Disney’s litigation with Scarlett Johansson. He also claims credit for current CEO Josh D’Amaro, writing that D’Amaro was a “relative unknown in the corporate hierarchy before I singled him out.”
Most sharply, Chapek portrays Iger — who earned hundreds of millions of dollars across his tenures as one of America’s highest-paid CEOs — as “complaining about his compensation, that it was inadequate relative to others in the industry.”
That account tracks with earlier reports from Disney executives that Iger privately lamented making less than CBS’s Les Moonves, who oversaw a smaller set of assets.
➦In 1922...WOAI San Antonio signed on the air. At first, it broadcast on 1190 kilocycles with only 500 watts. Over the next several years WOAI was issued permits by the Federal Radio Commission to move the transmitter site and increase its power from 500 to 1,000 watts; then to 2,000 watts, and then 5,000; and finally to 50,000 watts in 1930.
Meaning of call letters: World Of Agriculture Information.
During The Golden Age of Radio, WOAI was an NBC Red Network affiliate, airing its schedule of dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows, children's shows and big band broadcasts. For more than four decades, WOAI was owned by Southland Industries, Inc.
Because it went on the air in the earliest days of broadcasting, the station's call sign begins with a "W." Stations in Texas were in the W territory before 1923, when the dividing line became the Mississippi River. From that point, nearly all stations in Texas received "K" call letters. But WOAI has been grandfathered with its unusual call sign.
Today, WOAI is currently the westernmost station to have "W" call signs. There are still about two dozen W stations in states west of the Mississippi River.
In 1941, WOAI was moved to clear channel frequency 1200 kHz.
➦In 1933...The Tom Mix Radio Show was heard for the first time on NBC. The show ran until June 1950.
Thomas Edwin Mix was born Thomas Hezikiah Mix on January 6, 1880 and died October 12, 1940. He was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies between 1909 and 1935. Mix appeared in 291 films, all but nine of which were silent movies. He was Hollywood's first Western star and helped define the genre as it emerged in the early days of the cinema.
Mix himself never appeared on these broadcasts (his voice, damaged by a bullet to the throat and repeated broken noses, was not fit for radio) and was instead played by radio actors: Artells Dickson (early 1930s), Jack Holden (from 1937), Russell Thorsen (early 1940s) and Joe "Curley" Bradley (from 1944). Others in the supporting cast included George Gobel, Harold Peary and Willard Waterman.
Here's the Tom Mix tie-in to the call sign of Hubbard Radio's WTMX Chicago.
WKBI AM in St. Marys, PA went on in 1950. This was the first of a group of stations that would become the Allegheny Mountain Radio Network headed up by Cary Simpson. In 1966, WKBI-FM went on the air Licensed to Ridgeway, Elk County PA's County seat.
In the 70's WKBI-FM changed formats from Top 40 to Country and at that time changed call letters to WTMX in honor of one of Hollywood's early famous cowboys of the silver screen, Tom Mix. Mix was born in Southern Elk county.
WTMX would become WKBI-FM again in 1983.
In Chicago, WCLR changed it's call sign to WTMX in 1989.
(H/T: Jim Linn Jacksonville.)
➦In 1967...Announcer Bob Hall, Host of Music Til Dawn on WCBS 880 AM died. His program "Music Till Dawn" premiered on April 13, 1953.
