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 Separately, Poynter and Public Media Company launched a Future of Public Media Initiative a year after Congress rescinded more than $1 billion in future CPB funding.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.

Radio History: Sep 13

➦In 1928...KOH-AM in Reno NV signed-on.

The debut broadcast was to be on November 11, 1928 (to honor Armistice Day)  but on-the-air testing between 4AM and 8AM the morning of October 27, 1928 proved so successful that KOH went directly to full-time broadcasting running 100 watts on 1370 kHz. This early debut also allowed KOH to take advantage of the lucrative political advertising for the upcoming 1928 Presidential Elections in November. In fact, KOH even carried the election returns in a joint effort with the Reno Evening Gazette on November 6, 1928. KOH had a seven man crew, which was the largest for a radio station in Nevada up to that time. KOH was the first professionally operated, commercial radio station in Nevada.

Today the station is KKOH 780 AM is owned by Cumulus Media and airs a News/Talk format.

➦In 1932...Legendary personality Dick Biondi born. (Biondi died June 26, 2023). Calling himself The Wild I-talian, he was one of the original "screamers," known for his screaming delivery as well as his wild antics on the air and off. In a 1988 interview, Biondi related he had been fired 23 times; both fits of temper and jokes gone wrong were part of the tally. Over many years and many frequencies, Dick's close-of-the-program line was, "God bless, bye, bye, Duke. Thanks a million for dialing our way."

Biondi gained national attention in the 1950s and 1960s as a disc jockey on leading AM radio stations in Buffalo, New York; Chicago, Illinois; and Los Angeles, California. Besides being among the first to play Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, and other early rhythm and blues artists, he was able to meet them also. The early Rock and Roll era meant "record hops" where disc jockeys would make personal appearances at local schools and clubs; they often included appearances by the artists whose records were being played.

Biondi is credited as the first U.S. disc jockey to play the Beatles, on Chicago's WLS 890 AM in February 1963, with the song "Please Please Me".  Later, while working at KRLA 1110 AM in Los Angeles, he introduced the Beatles and Rolling Stones at their Hollywood Bowl concerts.

Dating back to 1984, Biondi was a mainstay on Oldies stations in the city where he first earned his reputation, Chicago.  On 2 May 2010, Dick Biondi celebrated the 50th anniversary of his first Chicago broadcast.  WLS-AM and WLS-FM presented a 5-hour simulcast special from 7 PM to midnight, featuring memorable moments in his career and special celebrity guests, with Biondi as its host.

➦In 1937...the first successful radio soap opera set in the world of doctors and medicine Road of Life debuted on the NBC Red network.  Writer/producer Irna Phillips‘ story of handsome Dr. Jim Brent and his wife Jocelyn ran simultaneously on CBS for much of its 22 year run.

➦In 1960...the FCC formally banned the practice of payola — in which record companies paid disc jockeys to play certain records.

Alan Freed

Prosecution for payola in the 1950s was in part a reaction of the traditional music establishment against newcomers. Hit radio was a threat to the wages of song-pluggers. Radio hits also threatened old revenue streams; for example, by the middle of the 1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in the USA went into jukeboxes. Still, in the 1950s, independent record companies or music publishers frequently used payola to promote rock and roll on American radio; it promoted cultural diversity and disc jockeys were less inclined to indulge their own personal and racial biases.

Radio personality Alan Freed, an early supporter of rock and roll (and also widely credited for actually coining the term), had his career and reputation greatly harmed by a payola scandal. Dick Clark's early career was nearly derailed by a payola scandal, but he avoided trouble by selling his stake in a record company and cooperating with authorities.

Fed Judge Orders Paramount, CA AG To Schedule Talks

A federal magistrate judge has ordered Paramount and California Attorney General Rob Bonta to schedule two consecutive days of in-person settlement talks at the end of October in the antitrust case challenging Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. 

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson directed the parties Friday to confer and submit specific dates by the close of business Tuesday. 

Once set, the conference would begin at 10 a.m. on the chosen days and include the Writers Guild of America, which is also a plaintiff. The talks are a standard part of the proceedings and do not guarantee a deal. 

The case is the remaining U.S. legal obstacle to Paramount Skydance’s roughly $110 billion to $111 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery after the U.S. Justice Department and dozens of foreign regulators cleared the transaction. Twelve states led by Bonta, plus the WGA, allege the merger would illegally reduce competition in theatrical film distribution and basic cable programming. 

Forget The FCC, Jimmy Kimmel Must Make Mickey Happy

Jimmy Kimmel wants to stay on ABC past May, but Disney is opening renewal talks with a hard condition: cut the budget of Jimmy Kimmel Live!

After his summer break, Kimmel told Disney he wants to re-up beyond his current deal, which expires in May. Debra OConnell, the Disney Entertainment Television chair who oversees ABC, agreed to talks only if the show’s cost comes down, Puck reported Friday. The price tag is the immediate issue. JKL! costs roughly what CBS spent on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show — about $100 million a year — before CBS canceled that franchise last fall. 

Late-night budgets have been under pressure industry-wide; Colbert’s fate is the closest comparison, and ABC’s ask follows the same pattern of squeezing a high-cost nightly franchise before deciding whether to keep it. The money is hard to separate from politics. Disney is suing the FCC over Chair Brendan Carr’s early review of its broadcast licenses. The commission has framed the review around DEI and other regulatory concerns; Kimmel’s staff and others around the show see Carr’s pressure as aimed more at Kimmel’s relentless Trump jokes. 

Young Viewers Watching More Sports

Younger sports fans are watching more live games than they did a year ago, with the sharpest gains among teenagers, according to new data from Hub Entertainment Research. Fans under 18 are about seven times more likely to say they are watching more sports on television than less, more than double the ratio among sports fans overall. 

Viewers ages 13 to 17 reported watching 50 percent more sports on TV than a year earlier, including 17 percent who said they watch “much more” and 32 percent who said they watch “somewhat more.” 

The increase is driven more by rising interest than extra free time. Among teens who said they were watching more, more than two in five pointed to stronger interest in sports generally or in a specific team or athlete. Older fans, by contrast, more often cited additional free time. 

Podcast Study: Host-Read Ads Get Better Response

Podcast ads drove a median 2.23% website response rate in the first half of 2026, Magellan AI reported, with host-read spots and video shows outperforming other formats.

The company’s Q2 2026 Podcast Measurement Benchmark Report analyzed campaigns that ran from Jan. 1 through June 30. Response rate is defined as the share of unique reached listeners who later visited an advertiser’s website, measured with a 30-day lookback window.

Host-read ads posted a median response rate of 3.22%, compared with 2.09% for produced spots — a 54% gap. 

Video podcasts also outperformed RSS-only shows, with a 2.05% median response rate versus 1.88%. On lead conversion, video podcasts recorded a 4.50% median rate against 2.57% for RSS-only programs, a 75% difference.

McClatchy Newspapers Gut Newsrooms

McClatchy laid off at least 90 journalists Thursday across dozens of newspapers, slashing more than a third of the editorial staff at The Miami Herald and nearly eliminating the newsroom at its Spanish-language sister paper, El Nuevo Herald.

More than 30 roles were cut at The Herald, according to five people with knowledge of the layoffs. 

At Pacific Northwest papers including The Bellingham Herald and The Idaho Statesman, 17 journalists — about a third of unionized workers — were let go, the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild said. The Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky laid off 13 of its 23 newsroom employees.

The full scope of the cuts was not immediately clear. 

Buffalo Radio: WGR 550 Revamps Sports Line-Up

Audacy’s WGR in Buffalo will roll out a new weekday lineup Monday, Sept. 14, bringing Brad Riter back to middays while leaving the morning show intact. 

Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase stay in mornings from 6 to 10 a.m. Riter will host 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., paired with The Athletic’s Tim Graham from 10 a.m. to noon and Owen Parker from noon to 2 p.m. Riter previously worked at WGR from 2000 to 2007 and has remained a familiar voice in the Buffalo market. 

How Much Money Has 'Choosin' Texas' Made?

Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” has generated nearly $13.9 million in estimated label and publisher revenue worldwide since its October 2025 release, according to Billboard’s analysis of Luminate data. 

In the United States alone, the song has brought in nearly $10.5 million. Those totals cover audio streams, video streams, digital sales and U.S. radio airplay. They do not include album sales from Langley’s Dandelion, on which the track is the lead single, and they do not represent what Langley or her co-writers personally earn; those shares depend on private contract terms. 

Of the $13.9 million global figure, Billboard estimates nearly $8 million came from label revenue and nearly $6 million from publishing royalties. Radio’s unusually large role helped lift the publishing share: the song has logged more than 977,000 U.S. airplay spins, which Billboard values at more than $2.4 million. 

NBC's TODAY Remains No.1 For Broadcast Morning Shows

NBC News’ TODAY won in total viewers and the key demo A25-54 for the week of August 31-September 6 while remaining the #1 morning news program across the board season-to-date.

TODAY averaged 2.868 million total viewers, leading GMA by +151,000 viewers (+6%) and CBS by +1.267 million viewers (+79%). TODAY also posted its 32nd consecutive week of year-over-year total viewer growth, its longest streak since August 1998.

TODAY delivered 628,000 A25-54 viewers, leading GMA by +171,000 (+37%) and CBS by +358,000 (+132%)

Ratings Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

Audacy Launches "Inside the North" Sports In Multiple Markets

Audacy has announced the launch of “Inside the North,” a brand-new, weekly one-hour sports show dedicated to in-depth coverage of the NFC North division football teams, the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings.

"Inside the North" will be hosted by 104.3 The Score morning show co-host David Haugh and feature a powerhouse panel of football legends representing each franchise in the division, including former Bears head coach Dave Wannstedt, former Packers kicker Mason Crosby, former Lions offensive lineman T.J. Lang and former Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway.

Seattle Radio: The Wolf Unveils Hometown Holiday Lineup

100.7 The Wolf (KKWF-FM), an Audacy station in Seattle, brings back its Hometown Holiday show, presented by Pinky’s Plumbing, on December 3 at the accesso ShoWare Center. The 14th annual event will feature performances from Gavin Adcock, Chase Matthew, Rodney Atkins, Wyatt Flores, Vincent Mason and Flatland Cavalry.

Hometown Holiday is proudly hosted by 100.7 The Wolf – Seattle’s Country Music station – and will feature radio talent including Ellen Tailor, Aaron Crawford and Captain Ron Koons. The trio can be heard weekday mornings from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. PT.

Authority Supports Renaming Nashvlle Airport To Honor Dolly Parton

The Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority’s board of commissioners voted 6-0 on Friday to begin renaming Nashville International Airport in honor of Dolly Parton, the late country music star and Tennessee native who died Aug. 25 at age 80. 

The vote is the first formal step in a process officials said could take months. 

A final name has not been chosen. 

The authority said it is working with Parton’s estate and other parties “to thoughtfully determine how Dolly Parton’s name and legacy will be incorporated.” The airport’s three-letter code, BNA, is expected to stay the same. 

R.I.P.: Judy Markey, Longtime WGN Radio Personality

Judy Markey, the longtime WGN Radio co-host of “Kathy and Judy,” has died at 82. 

Markey died Friday,  according to her obituary, she chose a voluntary assisted death in Switzerland after years of declining health.

With Kathy O’Malley, she co-hosted the unscripted, call-in midday talk show that Chicago listeners knew as “The Girlfriends.” The program ran on WGN from 1989 to 2009, growing from a Super Bowl-weekend special into a multi-hour weekday franchise that often ranked as the city’s top midday show. 

Radio History: Sep 12

➦In 1932...Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 'Tarzan of the Apes' began as a 15-minute show on WOR NYC and several other stations.  The series had Burroughs' daughter, Joan, in the role of Jane.

H.V. Kaltenborn

➦In 1938...While with CBS Radio, commentator H.V. Kaltenborn made broadcasting history on this day.  Kaltenborn was one of the first news readers to provide analysis and insight into current news stories. His vast knowledge of foreign affairs and international politics amply equipped him for covering crises in Europe and the Far East in the 1930s.

His vivid reporting of the Spanish Civil War and the Czech crisis of 1938 helped establish the credibility of radio news in the public mind. Kaltenborn reported on the Spanish Civil War "while hiding in a haystack between the two armies. Listeners in America could hear bullets hitting the hay above him while he spoke."  He was so devoted to his work that he slept in the studio for 18 days while bringing broadcasting updates.

➦ In 1958...electrical engineer Jack S. Kilby was a newly employed engineer at Texas Instruments (TI). Lacking vacation time off, he spent the summer working on the problem in circuit design that was commonly called the "tyranny of numbers", and he finally came to the conclusion that the manufacturing of circuit components en masse in a single piece of semiconductor material could provide a solution.