iHM Promotion: iHeartMedia has named Ben Marcotte program director of active rock Rock 105.3 KIOZ and heritage classic rock 101.5 KGB-FM in San Diego.
Cumulus Exit: Kenny Smoov has left Cumulus Media after 23 years, including 21 as program director of Nashville’s 92Q (WQQK), to launch independent projects through his new firm, Nashville Brown LLC.
Connoisseur Layoffs: Connoisseur Media layed-off almost 70 employees across its radio stations in a companywide round of cuts that began Tuesday, according to staff who were let go. More specific details are not available.
Media Industry
9/11 Observances: Broadcast and cable newsrooms are treating Friday’s 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks as a full commemoration day, with live reports from New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., plus primetime specials.
ABC Refutes Kimmel Story: ABC refuted a report that Jimmy Kimmel's show will end in 2027, stating the claim is inaccurate and speculative, as the 25th season launches with guest appearances and the host remains under contract through May 2027.
CMA Noms Thursday: CMA and ABC have revealed that 12-time CMA Award winner Lainey Wilson will return to host “The 60th Annual CMA Awards,” marking her third consecutive year in the role and second consecutive year as solo host.
U-S News
Trade Wars: The Trump administration announced bans on a range of Canadian imports, including dairy, alcohol, whey protein, and motorcycles, set to take effect in about three weeks as part of an escalating trade dispute.
Hold-Out Juror 'Arrogant': Jurors from Lindsay Clancy's murder trial described an arrogant holdout juror who refused to consider reasonable doubt, leading to a mistrial after a week of deadlocked deliberations.
Missing Kids Found: A monthlong operation led by the U.S. Marshals Service found 79 reported missing and endangered children across Ohio, officials announced Tuesday, calling it the "largest missing child operation" in state history
iHeartMedia has named Ben Marcotte program director of active rock Rock 105.3 KIOZ and heritage classic rock 101.5 KGB-FM in San Diego.
The appointment moves a 14-year company veteran into one of the country’s most storied rock clusters. Marcotte will oversee on-air programming as well as social and digital strategy for both stations and will report to iHeartMedia Executive Vice President of Programming Gene Romano.
KGB-FM, which signed on in 1950 and became a pioneering album-oriented rock station in the early 1970s, remains San Diego’s long-running classic rock brand. Sister station KIOZ, branded Rock 105.3, carries an active rock format and has been a local rock fixture since the mid-1990s. Both are part of iHeartMedia’s San Diego cluster.
Ben Marcotte
Marcotte arrives from Indianapolis and St. Louis, where he most recently served as senior vice president of programming. In Indianapolis he programmed classic rock Q95 WFBQ and classic alternative Indy 103.3 WOLT, including a stretch as afternoon host on WOLT after that station launched in 2020. He added Q95 programming duties in 2022 and was elevated to SVP for both markets in 2025.
His earlier iHeart roles include program director of 96.5 JACK-FM KJAQ and Alt 102.9 KFOO in Seattle, plus programming work on Portland’s Radio 102.3 / Alt 102.3 and Spokane’s Alt 96.1. He joined the company in 2012 as assistant program director and music director in Spokane, where he also worked as a night jock, and earlier held production roles at WLS in Chicago.
“Ben’s broad background in rock makes him a perfect fit,” Romano said. “He’s always curious and creative on how to keep up with listener’s always evolving tastes. He’ll bring some full volume fun with him to the west coast!”
“This felt like one of those opportunities you don’t overthink,” Marcotte said. “Two legendary stations, incredible teams, and a chance to do great radio in San Diego. Excited to get started.”
Kenny Smoov has left Cumulus Media after 23 years, including 21 as program director of Nashville’s 92Q (WQQK), to launch independent projects through his new firm, Nashville Brown LLC.
Kenny Smoov
As Cumulus vice president of urban formats, Smoov oversaw urban brands and talent nationwide and approved programming hires in markets such as Shreveport and Memphis. Through Nashville Brown he plans media, content, consulting and entertainment work and said he remains open to another executive, programming or media leadership job.
“This has been an incredible chapter of my life and career, and I’m extremely proud of what we built, the people I’ve had the opportunity to work with, and the relationships I’ve developed both in Nashville and nationally over the past two decades,” Smoov said. “But I’m also excited about what comes next. I still have a lot of ideas, energy, and great work ahead of me.”
Smoov joined Cumulus in 2003 and was named 92Q program director. The Tennessean named him Favorite Radio Personality of the Year in 2017. He launched The Kenny Smoov Morning Show in October 2018 and was promoted to VP of urban formats in June 2019 while continuing to run 92Q.He left mornings in July 2025 when 92Q introduced The 615 Wake Up, then spent his last year as program director and midday host.
Connoisseur Media laid off close to 70 employees across its radio stations in a companywide round of cuts that began Tuesday, according to staff who were let go. More specific details are not available.
Eddie Volkman
Chicago radio veteran Eddie Volkman reportedly among the lay-offs. Volkman had been hosting mornings on suburban Joliet classic hits station The 9-6-7 WSSR and spent the past decade across the cluster that now includes Connoisseur’s Chicago-area stations.
He is best known for co-hosting mornings at B96 WBBM-FM from 1986 to 1994 and again from 1997 to 2008. “Today was my last day with the company, and I am another unfortunate casualty of the radio industry,” Volkman wrote. “Luckily, I really wasn’t doing it for the money, but rather for my love of the radio and the business.”
Connoisseur, based in Westport, Connecticut, and led by founder and CEO Jeff Warshaw, grew sharply after completing its acquisition of Alpha Media in September 2025. The combined company has operated more than 200 stations in dozens of markets. Since the deal closed, Connoisseur has sold or shuttered stations in smaller markets, including clusters in Iowa, while shifting resources toward larger markets such as the San Francisco Bay Area.
The company has not publicly detailed the scope of Tuesday’s cuts or named all of the stations involved.
Jeff Warshaw
When the Alpha deal closed last year, Warshaw said Connoisseur planned to add staff rather than cut its way to growth. The latest reductions come as other major radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Audacy and Cumulus, have also trimmed on-air and programming jobs this year.
When Connoisseur closed on Alpha in September 2025, Jeff Warshaw framed the deal as a scale play for a local operator. Connoisseur jumped from 11 stations to more than 200 across 47 markets and into the top 10 U.S. radio groups. The pitch: large local sales staffs, live talent, events, community presence, and digital marketing layered on top of radio. He explicitly rejected the iHeart-style “cut your way to prosperity” model and said the company would add people, not strip them.
Alpha was attractive because it already had strong positions in midsize markets Connoisseur liked—Portland, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, San Jose, Louisville, Palm Springs—but had been starved of investment after bankruptcy and later staff cuts. Warshaw’s bet was that Connoisseur’s operating style could improve stations Alpha could not fund.
The public philosophy is localism and staffing. The portfolio math pulls the other way.Alpha arrived with many tiny markets—Warshaw cited towns as small as 7,000 people—and those stations cannot support “huge sales staffs” and live lineups. He has said Connoisseur could not keep subsidizing operations that jeopardize the whole company. That is why the small-market purge is explicit and unfinished.
Broadcast and cable newsrooms are treating Friday’s 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks as a full commemoration day, with live reports from New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., plus primetime specials.
NBC: Today airs a special edition at 7 a.m. ET, with Savannah Guthrie at Ground Zero and Craig Melvin co-anchoring. At 8:30 a.m., Guthrie anchors an NBC News Special Report covering the moments of silence; that report also streams on NBC News Now. Tom Llamas is set to anchor special editions of NBC Nightly News and Top Story from Ground Zero. At 10 p.m., Lester Holt hosts a Dateline documentary that revisits New Yorkers filmed by NBC on Sept. 11, 2001, and follows them 25 years later. NBC News Now later streams NBC Nightly News Presents: Great Americans: Service and Sacrifice. Coverage also runs on Meet the Press and NBCNews.com.
ABC: Good Morning America, World News Tonight, Nightline, This Week and The View are carrying remembrance pieces. At 7 p.m., ABC News Live and WABC stream a one-hour Prime from Ground Zero with Linsey Davis, Sade Baderinwa and Mike Marza. At 8 p.m., David Muir, Robin Roberts and Diane Sawyer anchor the live hour 9/11 Tribute in Light: Live from Lower Manhattan on ABC, Disney+, Hulu, National Geographic and ABC News Live, produced with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and ending with the Tribute in Light beams. From 9–11 p.m., ABC repeats Michael Strahan’s two-hour special 9/11: United We Stand – 25 Years Later.
Audacy news station 1010 WINS will air live, wall-to-wall coverage of 25th-anniversary 9/11 commemorations on Friday, Sept. 11, beginning at 8:30 a.m. ET with the annual ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial.
Reporters Juliet Papa and Scott Stanford will co-host from the studio through the first moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the time American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower.
The broadcast will continue through the reading of the names and later silences honoring those killed on Sept. 11, 2001; victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and people who have since died of 9/11-related illnesses.
WINS reporters will file live reports from sites across the region, including the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, ceremonies in Atlantic Beach, Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, and events tied to the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund.
The 25th anniversary is a major milestone in New York and national remembrance.
WINS plans extensive on-air reporting, interviews and eyewitness accounts throughout the morning as the city marks the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Fox News Media has ended Maria Bartiromo’s shows and said she is no longer with the company, a sudden break that stunned politics and cable news even as she remains under contract—and entitled to pay—through 2028.
A Fox spokesperson said Thursday, “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media.” The network called the move “a business decision.” Bartiromo last hosted Mornings With Maria on Fox Business on Aug. 7 and her Fox News program on Aug. 9. She was then told her shows would end and that she would not return even for an on-air sign-off. Executive producer Patrick Ignozzi left after the announcement.
The rupture followed a July dispute over coverage of President Trump. On July 15, Fox Business senior vice president of programming Ralph Giordano texted Bartiromo’s producers, including Ignozzi, directing them not to cover Trump’s planned primetime speech on election integrity. Trump delivered the speech July 16, repeating long-disproven doubts about the 2020 election, alleging Chinese interference and calling for stricter voting rules before the midterms.
Ignozzi forwarded the guidance to Bartiromo. According to Peter Navarro, speaking Friday to Puck’s Dylan Byers, Bartiromo screenshotted the message and sent it to him, saying management would not let her cover the speech—or was “censoring” it. Navarro said he passed that information “up the chain.”
WAMO/W297BU (610/107.3), an Audacy station in Pittsburgh, elevates KiKi B. Jones to Brand Manager, where she will lead the station’s content strategy, talent, operations and branding. Jones will continue to host the station’s midday show weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET.
“I've had the privilege of knowing KiKi for over 10 years and have watched her continue to grow,” said Skip Dillard, Rhythmic AC and Throwback Format Vice President, Audacy. “I'm so happy for her elevation and can’t wait to see her lead the station into its next evolution.”
“I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to lead WAMO 107.3, a station with such a rich history and deep connection to Pittsburgh. Radio has taken me on an amazing journey. Still, there’s something especially meaningful about stepping into this role in my hometown and helping shape the future of a brand that means so much to our community,” said Jones.
Star 94 has dropped its six-year dance-pop and hip-hop lean and returned to a more traditional adult pop format, now sounding much closer to longtime ratings leader B98.5.
The change follows last month’s cancellation of the Kevin & Taylor morning show. Star’s new slogan is “Atlanta’s best variety of the ’90s to today,” replacing “Atlanta’s upbeat variety.” B98.5’s slogan is “‘90s, 2K and today.”
B98.5 has outrated Star for much of the past 20 years. Star still plays current tracks by artists such as sombr, Ella Langley, Djo and Olivia Dean. It has also brought back 1990s and early-2000s hits it once played in heavy rotation, including Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” (1997), Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” (1998) and Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” (2002).
Harder hip-hop titles the station was still airing days ago—T-Pain’s “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” Baby Bash’s “Suga Suga” and Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot”—are largely gone.
Veteran Atlanta radio and TV personality Christopher “Crash” Clark, recently laid off as morning host at 99X, has been hired to cover traffic at WSB Radio. He starts Monday, Sept. 14.
Ken Charles, WSB director of operations, branding and programming, announced the hire in a staff note Friday that Clark shared on Instagram. “I’m excited to announce that well-known local traffic personality Crash Clark is joining the WSB traffic team,” Charles wrote. “Crash’s knowledge of Atlanta traffic and his long time experience in the market make him a great addition to our award winning traffic team.”
ESPN’s studio programming continued its strong performance in August as fan interest in the upcoming NFL and college football seasons, combined with MLB pennant races and a busy summer sports calendar, drove audiences across the network’s daily lineup.
Multiple programs delivered their best August viewership on record, while overall studio show audiences increased 13% year over year.
Among the month’s top performers, NBA Today delivered its best August on record, posting a 64% year-over-year increase. ESPN’s weekday morning and early afternoon block also reached new milestones, with Get Up, First Take (tying its record set in 2025) and The Pat McAfee Show all achieving their best August audiences. The 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET editions of SportsCenter likewise set new August viewership highs.
August milestones across ESPN’s daily lineup:
Record August performancesGet Up (8 a.m. M-F) averaged 378K, a YOY increase of 19%.
First Take (10 a.m. M-F) averaged 419K viewers, tying 2025’s mark for the show’s best August.
The Pat McAfee Show (noon M-F) averaged 405K viewers (linear + digital), up 19% YOY.
NBA Today (3 p.m. M-F) was up 64% YOY, averaging 328K viewers.
CMA and ABC have revealed that 12-time CMA Award winner Lainey Wilson will return to host “The 60th Annual CMA Awards,” marking her third consecutive year in the role and second consecutive year as solo host.
The announcement was made live on ESPN’s “College GameDay,” timed to the show’s own milestone 500th show on the road from Louisiana State University in Wilson’s home state. Wilson will lead the star-studded evening as the CMA Awards celebrate 60 years of shining a spotlight on the industry’s most outstanding talent and unforgettable moments. Country Music’s Biggest Night™ broadcasts live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 8/7c on ABC, Disney+ and will be available next day on Hulu.
Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” is Billboard’s Songs of the Summer No. 1 for 2026, leading a historic country sweep of the season-ending top three.Langley’s hit sits at No. 1, Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” is No. 2, and Langley’s “Be Her” is No. 3 — the first time country songs have occupied the entire top three on the ranking.
The 20-song tally measures cumulative performance on the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot 100 from Memorial Day through Labor Day, covering charts dated June 6 through Sept. 12. Songs that appeared on the 2025 Songs of the Summer chart or peaked on the Hot 100 during or before summer 2025 were ineligible.“Choosin’ Texas” has spent 21 weeks and counting at No. 1 on the Hot 100, including 11 straight weeks since the chart dated July 4.
During its run, country titles that had hit Hot Country Songs claimed the Hot 100’s entire top five for a week in August — another first.Country’s summer dominance has grown this decade. Genre songs finished 1-2 in both 2023 and 2024. In 2025, Morgan Wallen occupied Nos. 2, 3 and 4 with three tracks from I’m the Problem.
“Choosin’ Texas,” released in October 2025, is a rare Songs of the Summer champion that originated the previous year. The last such winner was OMI’s “Cheerleader” in 2015, after a May 2014 release; that song, however, first hit the Hot 100 in 2015. Langley’s track is the first season-ending Songs of the Summer No. 1 to have debuted on the Hot 100 in a prior year in 30 years. Los Del Rio’s “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)” won in 1996 after debuting in September 1995 and spending 14 weeks at No. 1.
FOX News closed August 2026 leading all broadcast networks with YouTube views, according to Emplifi.
Throughout August, FOX News posted 287 million views leading the broadcast competition including ABC News (138 million views), NBC News (109 million views) and CBS News (45 million views). FOX Business was also number one on YouTube amongst business brands for the 58th consecutive month in August, with 39 million video views, according to Comscore Social.
Year-to-date, FOX News (3.1 billion views) continues to dominate the competition leading MS Now (2.3 billion views), CNN (1.6 billion views), ABC News (1.1 billion views), NBC News (892 million views), CBS News (410 million views) and the New York Times (103 million views).
Once again ranking number one in social engagement in August, FOX News nabbed 82.8 million social media interactions across Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok, according to Emplifi & Comscore Social.
FOX News garnered 25.6 million Facebook interactions, 14.2 million Instagram interactions, 4.7 million X interactions and, according to Comscore Social, 38.3 million TikTok interactions (up 76% year-over-year). Collectively, FOX News drove 1.4 billion total social video views throughout the month.
➦In 1908...Early radio actor, announcer Ed Prentiss born (Died at age 83 – March 18, 1992). He was perhaps best known for portraying the title role on the radio version of Captain Midnight. He was announcer on another kid’s radio favorite, Jack Armstrong the All-American Boy.
He was also the narrator for a number of daily hour of NBC radio soap operas.
➦In 1926... the National Broadcasting Company was created by RCA, the Radio Corporation of America.
NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. In 1986, control of NBC passed to General Electric (GE), with GE's $6.4 billion purchase of RCA. GE had previously owned RCA and NBC until 1930, when it had been forced to sell the company as a result of antitrust charges.
After the 1986 acquisition, the chief executive of NBC was Bob Wright, who remained in that position until his retirement. He was succeeded by Jeff Zucker. The TV network is currently part of the media company NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, which formerly operated NBCUniversal in a joint venture with General Electric from 2011 to 2013 (and before that, jointly owned by GE and Vivendi). As a result of the merger, Zucker left NBC and was replaced by Comcast executive Steve Burke.
The radio network officially launched Nov. 15, 1926. On January 1, 1927, NBC formally divided its programming into two networks, called the Red and the Blue. Legend has it that the color designations originated from the push-pins early engineers used to mark affiliates of WEAF (red pins) and WJZ (blue pins), or from the use of double-ended red and blue colored pencils.
The two NBC networks did not have distinct identities or "formats", and, beginning in 1929, they shared use of the distinctive three-note "NBC chimes". The NBC Red Network, with WEAF as its flagship station and a stronger line-up of affiliated stations, often carried the more popular, "big budget" sponsored programs. The Blue Network and WJZ carried a somewhat smaller line-up of often lower-powered stations and sold air time to advertisers at a lower cost. NBC Blue often carried newer, untried programs (which, if successful, often moved "up" to the Red Network), lower cost programs and unsponsored or "sustaining" programs (which were often news, cultural and educational programs). In many cities in addition to New York, the two NBC affiliated stations (Red and Blue) were operated as duopolies, having the same owners and sharing the same staff and facilities.
On April 5, 1927 NBC reached the West Coast with the launching of the NBC Orange Network, which rebroadcast Red Network programming to the Pacific states and had as its flagship station KGO in San Francisco. NBC Red then extended its reach into the Midwest by acquiring two 50,000–watt clear-channel signals, Cleveland station WTAM on October 16, 1930 and Chicago station WMAQ (coincidentally, a CBS Radio Network charter affiliate) by 1931. On October 18, 1931, Blue Network programming was introduced along the NBC Gold Network, which broadcast from San Francisco's KPO. In 1936 the Orange Network name was dropped and affiliate stations became part of the Red Network. The Gold Network adopted the Blue Network name.
In a major move in 1931, RCA signed crucial leases with the new Rockefeller Center management that resulted in it becoming the lead tenant of what was to become in 1933 its corporate headquarters, the RCA Building, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Under the terms of the lease arrangement, this included studios for NBC and theaters for the RCA-owned RKO Pictures. The deal was arranged through the Center's founder and financier, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., with the chairman of GE, Owen D. Young, and the president of RCA, David Sarnoff.
In 1987 NBC sold its remaining radio network operations to Westwood One, which continued using NBC identification for some of its programming until 2014. Beginning in 2016, NBC Radio News has been distributed in conjunction with iHeartMedia.
Elvis outside the Lamar-Airways Shopping Mall in Memphis 1954
➦In 1954...Young Elvis Presley performed at the opening of Lamar-Airways shopping mall in Memphis, and met audience member Johnny Cash for the first time. In November 1954, Presley performed on Louisiana Hayride—the Opry's chief, and more adventurous, rival. The Shreveport-based show was broadcast to 198 radio stations in 28 states.
➦In 1956...Elvis made the first of three appearances on Ed Sullivan's CBS show. (Sullivan had previously announced he would never have such an act on, but ratings prevailed and Sullivan offered Elvis a record $50,000 for the three shows.) With actor Charles Laughton filling in for an ailing Sullivan. Elvis performed "Don't Be Cruel," "Love Me Tender," "Ready Teddy," and "Hound Dog." A record 54 million viewers -- nearly 83 percent of the nation's sets! -- were tuned-in.
➦In 1958...Stereo records and phonographs were introduced.
Summer 2026 was a high-water mark for country music’s cultural reach. The genre didn’t just own its own format—it repeatedly occupied the center of the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, powered by streaming, radio, and a run of sticky, sing-along singles that traveled far beyond traditional country audiences.
The season belonged first to Ella Langley. “Choosin’ Texas” spent the summer locked in as Billboard’s Song of the Summer and piled up historic weeks at No. 1 on both Hot Country Songs and the Hot 100, eventually breaking the record for longest-running non-holiday No. 1. Langley stacked the charts with follow-ups (“Be Her”) and a duet with Morgan Wallen (“I Can’t Love You Anymore”), at one point placing three songs in the Hot 100’s top four. For a stretch, country or country-adjacent records filled the entire Hot 100 top five—an unprecedented snapshot of how thoroughly Nashville product was traveling.
Country radio still did its traditional job even as the pop charts told a bigger story. Taylor Swift’s Toy Story 5 single “I Knew It, I Knew You” became a genuine format event: added everywhere on impact and later reaching No. 1 on Mediabase country radio. Other airplay leaders across the summer included Jason Aldean (“Don’t Tell On Me”), Luke Combs (“Be By You,” “Sleepless in a Hotel Room”), Morgan Wallen (“Don’t We”), Josh Ross, Tucker Wetmore (“Brunette”), and Jelly Roll.
