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| 1954-2026 |
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| Chris Petlak, Nikki Chuminatto, Whip, and McCabe |
Rock station Z93 (WKQZ-FM) and Z93 Program Director Matt Bingham have raised $127,950 in community donations for the American Cancer Society as part of the organization’s annual Men Wear Pink fundraising campaign. All funds raised benefit the American Cancer Society in Mid-Michigan and the fight against breast cancer. Z93 and Bingham have participated in Men Wear Pink for the last eight years, raising a total of more than $200,000, which helps provide lodging and rides to treatment for patients, patient education, and breakthrough research that is vital and necessary in the fight against breast cancer.
iHM Earnings: iHeartMedia reported third-quarter revenue of $1.03 billion, a 3.3% increase from a year earlier, as growth in podcasting and political advertising more than offset declines in its traditional broadcast and network businesses. MORE
Loan Extension...But: MediaCo Holding has obtained a one-month extension on a key loan, giving the multicultural broadcaster a short additional runway while its lenders continue to acknowledge ongoing defaults. MORE
CEO Change: SiriusXM has announced Anjali Sud will become its chief executive officer on Jan. 1, 2027, succeeding Jennifer Witz, who is stepping down after nearly 25 years with the company. MORE
Media Industry
Big Changes: Skydance Corp. is preparing for major operational shifts in 2027 following its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, as executives target significant cost reductions to manage a debt load exceeding $80 billion. MORE
ESPN Scores: Disney-owned ESPN has secured exclusive media rights to an expanded 24-team College Football Playoff beginning with the 2027-28 season. MORE
Romo Return: Tony Romo made a surprise return to television Monday night, appearing remotely on Pat McAfee’s ESPN2 “Monday Night Football Field Pass” alt-cast during the Buffalo Bills-Minnesota Vikings game—his first on-air media appearance since a July operating-while-intoxicated arrest in Wisconsin that led to his departure from CBS Sports. MORE
U-S News
On Defense: Facing a looming impeachment vote in Congress, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth dug his heels in at a combative news conference Tuesday, the latest show of defiance in the face of persistent questions about his political future.
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| Kate Smith |
➦In 1938...32-year-old Kate Smith first sang Irving Berlin's 'God Bless America' on her CBS radio network show. Smith was a major star of radio. She began with her twice-a-week NBC series, Kate Smith Sings (quickly expanded to six shows a week), followed by a series of shows for CBS: Kate Smith and Her Swanee Music (1931–33), sponsored by La Palina Cigars; The Kate Smith Matinee (1934–35); The Kate Smith New Star Revue (1934–35); Kate Smith's Coffee Time (1935–36), sponsored by A&P; and The Kate Smith A&P Bandwagon (1936–37).
The Kate Smith Hour was a leading radio variety show, offering comedy, music, and drama with appearances by top personalities of films and theater for eight years (1937–1945). The show's resident comics, Abbott and Costello and Henny Youngman, introduced their comedy to a nationwide radio audience aboard her show, while a series of sketches based on the Broadway production of the same name led to The Aldrich Family as a separate hit series in 1940.
Smith continued on the Mutual Broadcasting System, CBS, ABC, and NBC, doing both music and talk shows on radio until 1960.
"God Bless America" is an American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin in 1918 and revised by him in 1938. The later version has notably been recorded by Kate Smith, becoming her signature song.
Irving Berlin wrote the song in 1918 while serving the U.S. Army at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, but decided that it did not fit in a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank, so he set it aside.
In 1938, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Berlin, who was Jewish and a first-generation Russian immigrant, felt it was time to revive it as a "peace song," and it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938, sung by Kate Smith on her radio show. Berlin had made some minor changes; by this time, "to the right" might have been considered a call to the political right, so he substituted "through the night" instead. He also provided an introduction that is now rarely heard but which Smith always used: "While the storm clouds gather far across the sea / Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free / Let us all be grateful for a land so fair, / As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer." (In her first broadcast of the song, Kate Smith sang "that we're far from there" rather than "for a land so fair".)
➦In 1950...a radio comedy series 'The Magnificent Montague' starring Monty Woolley debuted on NBC. It may rank as radio’s last original sitcom. Ironically, its final airing was exactly one year later, as TV continued to steal the radio audience.
➦In 1956...Billboard magazine's DJ survey reveals that Elvis Presley is the country's number one male artist on both the pop and country charts.
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| White and Trump |
After Trump posted Saturday on Truth Social that he wanted the UFC CEO to take the position, conflicting reports circulated about whether White would consider Trump's push to "please take the job" that has been open since Katie Zacharaia left after only five days in the role.
Radio Reaches: Radio + podcasts dominate ad-supported audio — The 83/15 split has been consistent and strengthened the case for including both in media plans. MORE
News/Talk Tops: Spoken-word is resilient and streaming-friendly — News/Talk leads overall and dominates streams (especially among older listeners). Sports benefited from seasonal events. MORE
Holiday Hits: P1 Media Group surveyed 400 radio listeners ages 25–54 across the nation’s top 50 radio markets and tabulated a list of the Holiday's Favorites. MORE
Media Industry
TWH Spox Candidate: Dana White will discuss President Donald Trump's offer to become press secretary during an in-person meeting on Monday. MORE
Ultra No-No: Ultra-Left libs Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan, hosts of the popular left-wing podcast “I’ve Had It,” apologized Saturday for laughing at a joke about Charlie Kirk. MORE
Lighter, Later: Trump Not Giving up On Sunshine Protection Act MORE
In Memphis, Tennessee, after World War I, he was a reporter for the Commercial Appeal, and when the newspaper launched its own radio station, WMC-AM, in January 1923, he became a late-night announcer at the station. His popularity increased and in May 1924 he left for WLS-AM in Chicago, where he served as the announcer on a program that became National Barn Dance.
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| George D Hay |
The show was originally named WSM Barn Dance, and Hay billed himself as "The Solemn Old Judge." The Barn Dance was broadcast after NBC's Music Appreciation Hour, a program featuring classical music and grand opera. One day in December 1927, the final music piece on the Music Appreciation Hour depicted the sound of a rushing locomotive. After the show ended, "Judge Hay" opened the WSM Barn Dance with this announcement:
“ Friends, the program which just came to a close was devoted to the classics. Doctor Damrosch [host of the program] told us that there is no place in the classics for realism. However, from here on out for the next three hours, we will present nothing but realism. It will be down to earth for the 'earthy'. ”
Hay then introduced the man he dubbed "The Harmonica Wizard," DeFord Bailey, who played his classic train song, "The Pan American Blues," named for the crack Louisville and Nashville Railroad passenger train The Pan-American. After Bailey's performance, Hay commented, "For the past hour, we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera. From now on we will present the Grand Ole Opry."
During the 1930s, he was involved with Rural Radio, one of the first magazines about country music, developing the Opry for NBC and working on the movie Grand Ole Opry (1940). He was an announcer with the radio show during the 1940s and toured with Opry acts, including the September 1947 Opry show at Carnegie Hall.
He was featured in Hoosier Holiday, a 1945 film from Republic Pictures, in a cast that also included Dale Evans. Hay was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame two years before his death in 1968.
➦In 1925...the three day Fourth National US Radio Conference began in Washington, D.C. During the year since the previous conference, the number of US stations with 500 watts or more had nearly doubled from 115 to 197.
➦In 1925...KQP in Portland Oregon signed-on and the station changed its call sign to KOIN on April 12, 1926.
WQXR-FM is the outgrowth of a "high-fidelity" AM station, WQXR 1560 AM, which was founded in 1936 by John V. L. Hogan and Elliott Sanger. Hogan began this station as a mechanical television station, W2XR, which went on the air on March 26, 1929.
One of the station's listeners was the inventor of frequency modulation, Edwin Howard Armstrong. When Armstrong put his experimental FM station, W2XMN, on the air, he arranged to rebroadcast some of WQXR's programming. This ended in 1939, when Hogan and Sanger put their own experimental FM station on the air, W2XQR on this date, just down the dial from Armstrong at 42.3 MHz.
When the Federal Communications Commission began licensing commercial FM stations, W2XQR moved to 45.9 MHz and became W59NY; the special FM call signs were later dropped and the station became WQXQ. Today WQXR airs classical music at 105.9 FM.
➦In 1953...Buddy Holly and Bob Montgomery (billed as “Buddy & Bob”) appeared on radio station KDAV in their hometown of Lubbock, Texas, in the first of a series of Sunday country music shows.
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| WNYL logo |
Following the sale of the WHOM stations to SJR Communications, the FM station became WKTU, taking on an adult contemporary format that began on June 5, 1975. At that point, WKTU was positioned as a "soft rock" station and called "Mellow 92". Ratings were relatively low. The station held on to the format in spite of low ratings until 1978.
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Listeners 18+ |
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| Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN |
Edward Segal’s article in Forbes this week argues that Martha Stewart’s Halloween costume controversy shows how a seemingly well-intentioned act can become a reputational crisis—especially when audiences see it as mocking people facing homelessness and hunger, rather than raising awareness. The promotional mention of her products added to the perceived insensitivity. Her later apology accepted responsibility, but several initial statements prolonged the story before she fully acknowledged the harm.
