Delmarva-based Draper Media has completed its acquisition of MTS Broadcasting in Cambridge, Maryland, which comprises WAAI-FM, WTDK-FM, WCEM-FM and WCEM-AM.
“Our audience will have more choices for music, information about local events and more access to WBOC’s local news and weather with the addition of these four radio stations,” says Craig Jahelka, president Draper Media.
As a family-owned company tracing its service to Delmarva back nearly 80 years, Draper Media plans to improve the quality of the FM broadcast signals as well as the variety of programming the stations offer.
The company’s four new radio stations reach people in both Maryland’s Eastern Shore and Delaware. With four television stations, five radio stations and a full digital media division, Draper Media provides a variety of entertainment and information in both English and Spanish.
Within a few days WCEM-FM will be rebranded as 106.3 Chesapeake Country, playing today’s hottest country music hits from artists such as Florida Georgia Line, Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini, and Luke Bryan.
WCEM 106.3 FM (6 Kw) Red=Local Coverage Area
Listeners who enjoyed WCEM’s previous adult contemporary music format can tune to Draper Media’s 50,000 watt existing radio station, WBOC 102.5 FM for music from artists such as Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Pink, and Ed Sheeran.
WAAI 100.9 FM will concentrate on classic country hits, as 100.9% Classic Country, featuring artists such as George Jones, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, and George Strait.
WTDK 107.1 The Duck continues to play classic hits from artists such as The Beatles, Elvis, and The Rolling Stones.
WCEM-AM 1240 features an adult standards format with artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Michael Buble’.
All of Draper Media’s radio stations will carry WBOC-TV’s local news and weather as well as community event information and public affairs programming, concentrating on what’s important to Delmarva. Draper Media comprises WBOC-TV, FOX21 Delmarva, WBOC Classics, Telemundo Delmarva, 102.5 WBOC-FM, 100.9% Classic Country WAAI-FM, 106.3 Chesapeake Country WCEM-FM, 107.1 The Duck WTDK-FM, and 1240 Adult Standards WCEM-AM.
An apparently frustrated Mike Huckabee resigned from the board of the Country Music Association Foundation after just one day Thursday, saying the music industry is intolerant to those with conservative, religious beliefs.
On Wednesday, the former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential candidate was announced as a new board member of the charitable arm of the group that runs the annual CMA Awards and CMA Festival.
But prominent music industry leaders swiftly criticized Huckabee's appointment, including some who singled out his support for gun rights and traditional family values.
In his resignation letter to the CMA Foundation, Huckabee called his critics bullies, but said he was resigning to end an "unnecessary distraction" for the foundation.
Got home from 28 hour trip from Taipei that lasted longer than my time on CMA Foundation board. Read my FULL letter of resignation and see that "Hate Wins" and bullies care about themselves than kids needing music. https://t.co/uDzMD6NbFc
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) March 2, 2018
"If the industry doesn't want people of faith or who hold conservative and traditional political views to buy tickets and music, they should be forthcoming and say it," Huckabee wrote. "Surely neither the artists or the business people of the industry want that."
More Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to give up Facebook, Snapchat and other social media.
According to USAToday citing a survey published Thursday by the Pew Research Center, 40% of respondents said they would find it hard to give up social media, up from 28% four years ago.
The Pew survey also found the younger you are, the harder it is to part ways with social media. More than half (51%) of social media users age 18 to 24 said it would be hard to give up social media, compared to 40% of users ages 25 to 29. Users over 50 had the easiest time logging off, with 66% saying it would not be hard to give up social media.
While Facebook remains among the most popular social media services, its growth appears to have flattened, according to Pew. About 68% of U.S. adults say they use Facebook, trailing only YouTube at 73%.
Instagram is a distant third at 35%, while Pinterest (29%) and Snapchat (27%) round out the top five.
However, the Pew survey shows a large majority of users between the ages of 18 and 24 use Instagram and Snapchat. Findings show more than three-quarters of U.S. adults in that age bracket use Snapchat, while 71% are on Instagram.
Levy’s warm tenor, easy-yet-pointed wit and genuine interest in the world around him entertained generations of Ocean County listeners as the area grew from a sandy outpost to a bustling community. Levy of Toms River applied his talents to a range of shows over the years, including the talker “Topic A” on Sundays and local sports broadcasts.
“He was a legend,” said Michele Amabile, disc jockey for WWZY 107.1 The Boss in Long Branch and a correspondent for Variety. “Growing up in Monmouth and Ocean county and listening to his sonorous voice gave inspiration to kids like me who wanted to have a career in radio. We all should be blessed to have the kind of career he had.”
Levy was inducted as a charter member into the New Jersey Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2012 and he’s a member of the Lakewood High School Hall of Fame. The Townsquare Media-owned WOBM 92.7-FM broadcasts out of the Bob Levy Broadcast Center in Toms River.
“His greatest attribute was his honesty,” Williams said. “He didn’t turn the mic on and pretend.”
Bill Burkette, the original lead singer of Turtle Creek-based vocal group The Vogues, died Thursday, according to to triblive.com.
Burkette lived most of his adult life in Murrsyville, PA. He was 75 and had lymphoma, according to his wife of 54 years, Elaine.
"He was always singing," his wife said. "The singing was a great part of his life. That's what he loved to do."
The Vogues, who emerged from Turtle Creek High School, were known for the hit songs "Five O'Clock World," "You're the One" and "Turn Around, Look at Me."
"You're the One" reached No. 4 on Billboard's Top 100.
The original lineup comprised of Burkette, the lead singer, Don Miller, Hugh Geyer and Chuck Blasko. They were together as a musical act for about eight years, Elaine Burkette said.
"It was a lot of fun," she said. "We traveled and we saw quite a bit of the entire country. We took the kids with us. It certainly was interesting."
When the group formed in high school, it was known as the Val-Aires. Members briefly split up after high school as they joined the military or attended college. They reformed in 1965 as The Vogues.
The band's commercial success lasted until the early 1970s. After that, Burkette told his wife, "I guess it's time for me to get a regular job," she said, laughing.
He worked as a sales manager for a home improvement company, living in Murrysville.
➦In 1897...Marconi was granted the first wireless patent.
Marconi travelled to London in early 1896 at the age of 21, accompanied by his mother, to seek support for his work; Marconi spoke fluent English in addition to Italian. Marconi arrived at Dover and at Customs the Customs officer opened his case to find various contraptions and apparatus. The customs officer immediately contacted the Admiralty in London. While there, Marconi gained the interest and support of William Preece, the Chief Electrical Engineer of the British Post Office.
The apparatus that Marconi possessed at that time was similar to that of one in 1882 by A. E. Dolbear, of Tufts College, which used a spark coil generator and a carbon granular rectifier for reception. A plaque on the outside of BT Centre commemorates Marconi's first public transmission of wireless signals from that site. A series of demonstrations for the British government followed—by March 1897, Marconi had transmitted Morse code signals over a distance of about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) across Salisbury Plain. On 13 May 1897, Marconi sent the world's first ever wireless communication over open sea.
➦In 1942...Hall of Fame rock 'n' roll singer, guitarist, and songwriter Lou Reed was born. He died Oct. 27, 2013 at 71.
➦In 1950...Singer Karen Carpenter, one half of the duo The Carpenters with her brother Richard, was born.
She died Feb. 4, 1983 at 32 from heart failure caused by chronic anorexia. Karen's death brought media attention to anorexia nervosa and also to bulimia and it encouraged celebrities to go public about their eating disorders, among them actress Tracey Gold and later, Diana, Princess of Wales. Medical centers and hospitals began receiving increased contacts from people with these disorders. The general public had little knowledge of anorexia and bulimia prior to her death, making the conditions difficult to identify and treat.
➦In 1974....Super WCFL 1000 AM Chicago Survey From March 2, 1974
➦In 1981...Howard Stern started broadcasting on WWDC radio, Washington DC. It was at this station that Stern came into his own as a ‘shock-jock.’ ➦In 1983…Compact Disc recordings (CDs), developed by Phillips and Sony, were introduced in the United States.
➦In 1984...From R&R March 2, 1984...
➦In 1999...British singer Dusty Springfield, who recorded such 1960s hits as “Son of a Preacher Man” and “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” died at her English home after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 59.
➦In 2004...the talented radio actress Mercedes McCambridge (I Love a Mystery, Abie’s Irish Rose, CBS Radio Theatre) died of natural causes just days short of her 88th birthday. For 35 years she guested in episodic and anthology TV. Her non-broadcast achievements included an Oscar for “All the King’s Men,” and providing the demonically-possessed voice in the movie “The Exorcist.”
➦In 2004...95-year old Alistair Cooke retired from BBC Radio after 58 years of hosting the weekly “Letter From America”. He had become a US TV star as host of the PBS Sunday fixture “Masterpiece Theatre.” He would be dead within a month.
➦In 2014…Pittsburgh radio legend (WKFB, WLSW, WWSW, WNRZ, KQV, WAMO, WHOD)/Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Craig "Porky" Chedwick died at the age of 96.
He began his career at WHOD in Homestead (which took the call letters, WAMO — an acronym for the Allegheny, Monongehela and Ohio rivers — in 1956), when the low-power AM signed on, August 1, 1948. When he responded to an ad in a local paper, advertising for on-air talent at the new radio station, his popularity as a play-by-play announcer won him a 10-minute Saturday sports and music show. The music portion was gradually expanded, in response to the public's reaction. WHOD, known as "The Station of Nations," was created to serve the diverse European and eastern bloc immigrant population that worked the Pittsburgh area mills. Most of his young listeners, who turned an ear toward Chedwick's music and off-the-cuff rhymes and patter (he may have been the first white rapper), had no idea that he was Caucasian. Years later, when the fact became apparent, the outcry from some parents, religious and civic leaders made him a local anti-hero. and he was banned from appearing in some neighborhoods. The suggestion that he was trying to corrupt the (white) youth of America was put to rest when he was commended by Senator Estes Kefauver for his work organizing youth baseball teams to combat juvenile delinquency. He even had a few youths remanded to his custody from juvenile court.
In spite of WHOD's low wattage, Chedwick became Pittsburgh's "Pied Piper of Platter". By the early 1950s, black music record labels were hearing about the noise Chedwick was making in Pittsburgh with old R&B stock, so they began inundating him with new material. He introduced the new material to his "movers and groovers," never accepting payola though payola was the norm at the time. Still, oldies would dominate his playlist. Shortly after being honored by WAMO for his years of service in 1984, he was let go by the station. He would work at various other stations in the Pittsburgh market until executives from Sheridan Broadcasting (WAMO's parent company) asked him to come back in 1992.
➦In 2017…Former radio broadcaster (WAMU, WWDC) Fred Fiske, whose career in Washington, DC spanned 64 years, died at age 96.
Embattled iHeartMedia Inc. is circulating documents for a bankruptcy filing that could come as soon as this weekend for the biggest U.S. radio broadcaster.
According to Bloomberg, advisers to some of iHM’s senior creditors have been shown bankruptcy papers that would be used on the first day of court proceedings, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Despite a year of negotiations on a restructuring plan, a formal support agreement still isn’t in place with the most-senior lenders, and the creditors aren’t in restricted talks with the company, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private negotiations. Creditors typically agree to restrict some of their activities in exchange for non-public information when talks heat up.
A bankruptcy filing is all but certain, with iHM and creditors each swapping proposals in recent weeks for a consensual restructuring. But pressure is mounting on iHM after it missed a Feb. 1 interest payment, with a 30-day grace period about to run out. On top of that, the broadcaster on Thursday skipped payments on two more sets of bonds. If the company files without a pre-negotiated restructuring plan in place, the bankruptcy could turn into a free-fall, with some of the biggest and most contentious specialists in distressed companies potentially tussling for years over about $20 billion of debt.
Billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media stepped in with a last-minute offer to senior creditors that would help salvage iHM by injecting cash and financing a trip through bankruptcy, but analysts have said the bid isn’t high enough to win over creditors. Still, talks remain fluid and ongoing between the secured creditor group and Liberty Media, according to the people.
Meanwhile, iHM and creditors are positioning themselves for what could come after a the bankruptcy filing, with the company disclosing a bonus plan for Chief Executive Officer Bob Pittman and junior bondholders controlling more than $200 million of unsecured debt suing in a New York state court. They’re accusing iHM of secretly using assets for years to secure other borrowing. The suing bondholders include funds run by Angelo Gordon & Co., a distressed-debt investor that had been accumulating shares of iHM’s billboard advertising company, Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc.
The Conclave announces that voting begins today for the First Annual Conclave Radio Awards honoring the Radio Industry’s best radio stations.
The Conclave Radio Awards are determined exclusively by the nominations and votes of radio industry professionals at large and will recognize stations in Major, Large, Medium and Small Markets. Earlier this month, hundreds of nominations were submitted to The Conclave via website and the Top 5 have been determined in each market size. Radio professionals may vote for their favorite radio stations from the finalists listed at: http://www.theconclave.com/conclave-radio-awards-2018/ starting today, Thursday, March 1, 2018, through Saturday, March 31, 2018, 2018 at 11:59pm.
The Conclave Radio Awards will be presented at the 2018 Conclave Summer Learning Conference, #CONCLAVE43, set for Wednesday, July 18, 2018, through Friday, July 20, 2018, at the DoubleTree by Hilton Minneapolis-Park Place. Educational sessions featuring Radio’s biggest innovators and thought leaders and unparalleled one-on-one networking opportunities with Radio’s top leaders and influencers make The Conclave the industry’s “must attend” educational and networking confab of the year.
Lori Lewis
Lori Lewis, Chair, The Conclave, said: “We encourage everyone in Radio to go online today to vote for the radio stations that exemplify the very best our great industry has to offer. The stations capturing the most votes will take home a visually stunning Crystal Mic award from #CONCLAVE43 this July in Minneapolis, where we will announce the winners of the very first Conclave Radio Awards! We’re excited to shine a bright light on Radio’s top stations as determined by fellow radio professionals across the industry and highlight the power and excellence of Radio at its finest.”
#CONCLAVE43 will celebrate 43 years of educating radio broadcasters next summer with premium educational sessions from radio’s top professionals and unparalleled networking opportunities. #CONCLAVE43 is specifically designed to help broadcasters grow their careers and stations by providing access to high-level executives from companies across the radio stratosphere in a relaxed and intimate environment. #CONCLAVE43 will again feature its highly popular “Speed Mentoring Breakfast”, which offers prime one-on-one networking opportunities and valuable insights and tips from industry leaders and influencers.
Registration for this summer destination event is only $249 for a limited time at: TheConclave.com. Stay tuned for forthcoming agenda and speaker announcements.
Being just days away from perhaps declaring bankruptcy, iHeartMedia has decided now is the time to pay three top leaders..a bonus.
According to an SEC filing, iHM has 'accelerated' payments for CEO Bob Pitman, President/COO/CFO Richard Bressley andVP/General Counsel/Secretary Robert Wells.
The company states its compensation committee moved up Pittman’s previously earned bonus payments from 2016 totaling $500,000 and 2017 worth $500,000 under the company’s Supplemental Incentive Plan (SIP). It also approved a $2.325 million bonus Pittman is eligible to receive for each quarter of 2018.
Richard Bressler
But approval for making the Q1 2018 bonus payment to Pittman comes with a caveat that he would have to repay the after-tax value of the bonus if he was terminated for “cause” or voluntarily resigned without “good reason” before March 31, 2019.
Bressler’s 2016 and 2017 SIP bonus payments have also been moved up, under the same terms. And like Pittman, he’s eligible for a new quarterly bonus in 2018. In Bressler’s case that’s $1.325 million with the first quarter payout already approved.
Robert Walls
In addition, executive VP/general counsel/secretary Robert Walls is eligible for quarterly bonuses of $225,000 in 2018.
iHM has been attempting to restructure over $20 billion in debt. On February 1 the company decided to skip a $106 million interest payment that was due today on its 2021 outstanding Senior Notes. That set off a 30-day grace period to make the interest payment before an event of default is triggered. That 30 days is about to end and some analysts are predicting the company may file for Chapter 11.
The iHM board adopted a new incentive package for 2018, but it did not offer any of the three executives’ retention bonuses as it did last January. A year ago Pittman and Bressler were each given $1.75 million and Walls was paid $500,000 for their continued work at the company.
Country music icon Reba McEntire joined "CBS This Morning" to announce the nominees for the 53rd annual Academy of Country Music Awards' top categories including entertainer of the year and male and female vocalists of the year. McEntire, who has hosted the awards show 14 times since the late 1980s, also revealed that she will be returning as the show's host.
McEntire learned that she herself is a nominee in the female vocalist of the year category. This is her 16th time being nominated in that category.
ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR
• Jason Aldean
• Garth Brooks
• Luke Bryan
• Chris Stapleton
• Keith Urban
FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR
• Kelsea Ballerini
• Miranda Lambert
• Reba McEntire
• Maren Morris
• Carrie Underwood MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR
• Jason Aldean
• Thomas Rhett
• Chris Stapleton
• Keith Urban
• Chris Young VOCAL DUO OF THE YEAR
• Brothers Osborne
• Dan + Shay
• Florida Georgia Line
• LOCASH
• Tim McGraw & Faith Hill
VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR
• Lady Antebellum
• LANCO
• Little Big Town
• Midland
• Old Dominion
With the first full survey book of 2018 now in the rearview mirror, Nielsen says radio programmers are taking stock of the trends and indicators of what may lie ahead this year for their audiences.
Nielsen’s January portable people meter (PPM) ratings shed light on how Adult Contemporary (AC) stations are still riding the momentum they gained during a big Holiday book spike. Elsewhere, News/Talk stations are also working on their own momentum courtesy of continued interest in the news cycle. And finally, Pop Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) has started the year with slightly less tune-in than we saw last year.
During the holidays, the AC format set an all-time record for highest audience share thanks to the yearly migration to the “all-Christmas” music format. But the payoff for flooding the airwaves with holiday songs didn’t end with the Holiday book. This month’s data show the strongest January results for AC that we’ve seen, with increases across the board compared to the same month in previous years.
News/Talk also had a strong January, which is typical for this time of the year as winter weather affects many of the large northeastern markets, while at the same time the news cycle picks back up following the holiday break. But to really judge News/Talk’s performance (which includes both commercial and non-commercial stations in PPM markets), NIelsen says it’s helpful to look beyond just last year’s results when the Presidential election was still a hot topic. Overall, News/Talk continues to see strong audience numbers in 2018, and news consumption continues to be on the rise in America.
Finally, Pop CHR is one of America’s largest formats. It ranks No. 1 nationwide in terms of total weekly listeners (69.8 million listeners aged 12+) and third in total audience share (7.6% for listeners 12+), behind only Country and News/Talk. In the PPM markets it leads all other formats in audience share among both Millennial listeners (18-to-34) and 25-54 year-olds. However, tune-in during the opening month of 2018 was the lowest on record for Pop CHR in PPM measurement, following the trends set in 2017, the lowest overall year for Pop CHR, particularly among Millennials. While CHR still has a substantial lead with Millennials (Country ranked second in January with 8.4%), NIelsen believes it will be interesting to track the fortunes of Pop CHR as the year goes on, and music cycles and audience tastes continue to shift.
Data used in this article is inclusive of multicultural audiences. Hispanic consumer audiences are composed of both English and Spanish-speaking representative populations.
Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal is reducing the number of commercials that air during its prime-time television shows, an effort to boost the value of its advertising as consumers increasingly avoid ads and replace traditional TV with new streaming options.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the company on Wednesday announced plans to cut the number of advertisements in commercial breaks by 20% and to decrease advertising time by 10% during its original prime-time programming across its broadcast and cable networks. That means viewers will get to watch more programming content during those shows.
Linda Yaccarino
“The industry knows that television is already the most effective advertising medium there is, but we need to make the experience better for viewers,” said Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising and client partnerships at NBCUniversal, in the statement. “We’re reimagining the advertising experience for consumers, marketers, and the entire industry.”
Brian Wieser
Variety reports Brian Wieser, an analyst for Pivotal Research who tracks advertising minutes on TV, found national commercial loads across the industry rose 3.9% on average in January to 11 minutes per hour – a sign that TV networks need to run ads more often to generate the impressions they’ve guaranteed advertisers while audiences erode. “I can’t say it has been successful based on the data I have seen,” said Wieser about reducing ads. “Budgeting for TV will generally be independent of the quality of the ad units available, which means even if reducing is the right thing and networks will be better off in the long-run if they reduced loads, the short-term impact is probably negative, which is why we are seeing continuous increases in overall ad loads, despite individual networks reducing them.”
NBC has evidence to the contrary. Ad prices for”Saturday Night Live” have soared since NBC agreed in 2016 to cut 30% of the show’s commercial load. To be sure, the program now airs in primetime in some parts of the country and has gained new relevance in the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the White House.
After nine years as a start-up, Spotify announced plans Wednesday to go public.
As the most popular and celebrated music streaming platform, the company has its share of boosters. Still, reports CNBC, as it prepares to join public markets it faces the same problem other internet companies have faced before — a balance sheet that's deeply in the red, and a business model that doesn't show an obvious way to profitability.
Perhaps just as important, it will be going up against deep pocketed competitors like Apple Music and Amazon Music, both of which can afford to operate music services forever without making a dime.
Still, the company has some things going for it.
The good
Right now, Spotify is the clear industry leader in the U.S. among streaming music services, with the company reporting 71 million paying subscribers as of December, and more than 159 million active listeners. Its closest competitor, Apple Music, is far behind at 36 million subscribers.
Like many public internet companies, including Snap and -- until last quarter -- Twitter, Spotify does not turn a profit. However its revenue is nothing to sneeze at. It had $4.9 billion in 2017, according to its F1 filing, with a growth rate of 46 percent compared to the prior year. Still, the company posted a loss of $1.5 billion last year (though roughly a billion of that was due to one-time costs).
The bad
Although the company has been able to negotiate better licensing deals with record labels, those are still very costly. Rights holders — labels, songwriters and publishers — get payouts that are tied to a portion of revenue, and as of December 2017 the company said it has paid out $9.76 billion in royalties to "artists, music labels and publishers."
In late January, U.S. copyright royalty judges — known as the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) — sided in favor of publishers and songwriters and agreed to boost the rate for interactive streaming by more than 43 percent over the next five years.
There's also a concern about consumer overload. With so many streaming services, many analysts believe there's a limit to what consumers' budgets — and attentions — can handle.
Spotify has 71 million paying subscribers and has been able to fight off competitors like Apple, Google, Amazon and others, despite the many advantages the well-heeled rivals have.
Apple, USAToday reports, has sold over 1 billion iPhones. Every time an owner hits the music icon, Apple offers to sell them an Apple Music subscription.
Yet the gap between No. 1 Spotify at 71 million and No. 2 Apple at 36 million is quite wide.
Paul Resnikoff
In the end, will that be enough? Apple, Google and Amazon can afford to have loss leader music services, as another way to hold onto consumers and sell them other things, while Spotify doesn’t have another product to pitch.
Paul Resnikoff, the publisher of the Digital Music News blog, believes Spotify can start turning the corner financially at 100 million subscribers.
If it gets there, Spotify will still be looking at some very thin margins. Resnikoff says 73% of every subscription goes to the labels, music publishers and artists, which leaves just 27% for overhead, salaries and costs of doing business.
The labels want to see Spotify succeed, he says, and have a viable competitor to Amazon, Apple and Google. “I’m optimistic Spotify can pull it off," he says.
But history isn't promising. Pandora has been struggling for years. The ad-supported radio service has been around since 2000, is on virtually every major consumer device you can name, from smartphones and connected speakers to smart TVs, but it can’t make money either.
It reported $1.4 billion in revenue for 2017 and a loss of $518 million.
It has been a while since there has been a major change in hosts on either of Boston’s highly rated sports radio stations. But a big one came down Wednesday, according to boston.com.
Michael Holley, who co-hosts PM Drive on WEEI 93.7 FM along with Dale Arnold and Rich Keefe, announced he is leaving the program to join NBC Sports Boston full time. His final show was Wednesday.
Holley, already a co-host of NBC Sports Boston’s weekday evening program “Boston Sports Tonight,’’ will take on an expanded role, though the specifics are not yet certain.
“Leaving this job was not an easy thing for me,’’ said Holley in announcing the decision during the 5 p.m. hour of Wednesday’s show.
