Chicago Radio: Jordan Gorman OUT At WKSC-FM

Jordan Gorman

iHeartMedia/Chicago has parted ways with WKSC 103.5 Kiss FM personality and Assistant Program Director Ryan "Jordan" Gorman.

All mentions of his being part of the station have been removed from the WKSC-FM website and his public "Jordan" social media accounts are now gone, reports CRM.

Having spent his entire professional radio career with iHeartMedia/Clear Channel, the 30-year-old Gorman previously worked in Tampa, FL; Jacksonville, FL; New Haven, CT; and Hartford, CT.

He started in 2002 as an intern and assistant to WFLZ-FM Tampa.

Gorman joined Chicago's WKSC-FM in October 2010. In February 2012, he was given the additional duties of APD for the station. At the start of this year, his late afternoon/early evening shift moved earlier, running from 2:00pm-6:00pm. Ratings were high for his shift, usually beating all other competitors for the station's target demographics.

Little Big Town To Host WW One Holiday Special

Grammy, ACM, and CMA award-winning Country group Little Big Town will be hosting Westwood One’s “Celebrate the USA,” a giant all-star Independence Day party and 4th of July holiday special.

In honor of America’s 239th birthday, Little Big Town will host this exclusive music special alongside their famous friends, including Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Florida Georgia Line, Keith Urban, Jason Aldean, Carrie Underwood, Eric Church and more.

These Country superstars will break out some cool tunes, play patriotic classics, and share their favorite July 4th memories.

More than 200 stations projected to air “Celebrate the USA”--including NASH-FM, New York; KYGO-FM, Denver; WKDF-FM, Nashville; WXXQ-FM, Rockford IL; KPLM-FM, Palm Springs, CA; WQHK-FM, Fort Wayne, IN; KFGE-FM, Lincoln, NE and many others.

Little Big Town is currently making their way to the top of the charts with their platinum single, “Girl Crush.”  The critically acclaimed Country group – consisting of members Karen Fairchild, Phillip Sweet, Kimberly Schlapman, and Jimi Westbrook – first entered the music scene more than 15 years ago with hits such as “Boondocks,” “Bring It On Home,” “Good As Gone,” and Grammy-nominated single “Little White Church.”

Little Big Town fulfilled a career milestone and lifelong dream on October 3, 2014 when Reba McEntire asked them to become the newest members of the Grand Ole Opry. They were officially inducted two weeks later. For more information on Little Big Town visit www.littlebigtown.com.

Stations can air Westwood One’s July 4th holiday special any time Friday, July 3 through Sunday, July 5, 2015, between 6:00 am and 12 midnight. For more information, contact Donny Walker: dwalker@westwoodone.com (615) 727-6987.

Ocean City Radio: Jimmy Steele New SVP/Programming For iHM

Jimmy Steele

iHeartMedia/Salisbury, MD, has announced the appointment of industry veteran Jimmy Steele as SVP/Programming.

The six stationlocal cluster includes Country WWFG-FM Froggy 99.9 FM , AC WQHQ 104.7 FM Q105, Top40 WKZP Kiss 95.5 FM, AC WBSY Magic 989.9 FM, N/T WDJY 1470 AM and Sports WTGM 960 AM.

Steele previously served as iHeartMedia's Operations Manager in San Diego and Regional VP/Programming in Columbus, OH.

"Jimmy has an extraordinary record of success in leading operations, developing formats and coaching top-tier personalities. This, coupled with his remarkable skill for driving breakthrough revenue growth set Jimmy apart from the pack," said Regional Market President Chris Walus. "Our team is excited and eager for him to start."

"I'm truly grateful and excited for the opportunity to reunite with iHeartMedia and greatly look forward to working with Regional Market President Chris Walus, along with SVP/P Jon Zellner and RPM Dave Symonds in advancing our strong and diverse Delmarva brands in the Salisbury-Ocean City market," added Steele.

New Media To Acquire Columbus Dispatch

The Dispatch Printing Company has reached an agreement to sell its print publications to the New Media Investment Group Inc., based in New York, N.Y.

The sale includes The Dispatch, owned by the Wolfe family for 110 years; ThisWeek Newspapers, a collection of 24 suburban weeklies; and seven magazines, including Columbus Monthly, Columbus CEO and Capital Style.

Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.

The Wolfe family will continue to own and operate its broadcast holdings: WBNS-TV, the CBS affiliate in Columbus; WTHR-TV, the NBC affiliate in Indianapolis; RadiOhio Inc., which operates WBNS AM & FM radio stations; and the Ohio News Network, which supplies news, weather and sports to 70 radio stations across Ohio.

John F. Wolfe, chairman and publisher of The Dispatch, said the decision to sell was extraordinarily difficult, and only made after several years of careful assessment of the changing media landscape.

“We are proud of our 110-year legacy of family ownership of The Dispatch, and the newspaper’s heritage of quality journalism and community involvement,” Wolfe said.

“However, the past two decades of accelerating and challenging change in the newspaper industry made it clear to us that maintaining a single-city, family-owned paper in this environment was untenable long-term,” he said.

New Media Investment Group is a holding company that emerged from the bankruptcy of GateHouse Media Inc. in 2013. The company controls 126 dailies among its 550 publications in 32 states. The dailies include The Repository of Canton, Ohio, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, The Providence Journal and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. New Media also operates a national network of advertising and digital marketing businesses.

Global Newspaper Revenue: Circulation Overtakes Advertising

2014 Print Newspaper Circulation and Ad Trends By Region

Globally, revenues from newspaper circulation exceeded advertising revenues last year for the first time this century, reports the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in its latest annual World Press Trends survey.

Marketing Charts reports of the estimated US $179 billion in circulation and advertising revenue generated last year, $92 billion derived from print and digital circulation compared with $87 billion for advertising.

The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has previously detailed a shifting revenue mix for newspapers in the US, though advertising had remained the dominant source of revenues at the time.

Although print ad spending has been on the decline in the US, newspaper ads still have a significant influence on consumers’ purchase decisions, especially when measured against their reach, according to a newly-released MarketingCharts report. In fact, newspaper ads are behind only direct mail and TV ads among paid media in stated purchase influence, per the study, which also analyzed attention to advertisers across various media.

Returning to the WAN-IFRA study, the data shows that print circulation revenues grew by 6.4% in 2014 and has increased by 16.4% over 5 years. However, print advertising spending declined by 5.2% year-over-year and by 17.5% over the 5-year period.

The report indicates a wide disparity in newspapers’ fortunes when sorting by region.

Other Findings:

• While newspapers’ digital ad revenues aren’t expected to overtake print ad revenues, they grew by 8.5% in 2015 and by nearly 60% over 5 years.
• Roughly 2.7 billion people globally read print newspapers, and more than 770 million read them on desktop digital platforms.

The 2015 Radio Mercury Award Winners Are...

Winners for the 2015 Radio Mercury Awards were announced Wednesday evening at the 24rd annual awards reception at le Poisson Rouge in New York. This year’s $50,000 Best of Show award was presented to Wieden+Kennedy for their “Mandroid” Campaign for Old Spice.

“The 2015 winners all exemplify our mission of recognizing and rewarding the best creative storytellers who engage consumers, help build brands, and keep the spirit of creative radio writing alive,” said Erica Farber, president and CEO, Radio Advertising Bureau and chair of the Radio Creative Fund. “‘Mandroid’ and all of this year’s winners were inspiring and creative, and continue to meet and exceed the high bar that we set.”

LISTEN TO MANDROID AD: Click Here

“‘Mandroid’ was above and beyond the most captivating and creative campaign we heard,” noted Jim Elliott, global chief creative officer, Arnold Worldwide, and this year’s chief judge. “This year’s winners are great examples of truly original and effective radio creative spots and campaigns.”

While presenting the Best of Show Award, chief judge Jim Elliott also commented on the Best Promotional Use of Radio category. “This year, the final round judges and I heard several contenders in the Best Promotional Use of Radio category, but no clear winner, and after much consideration, we made the decision not to give an award in the category,” noted Jim Elliott. “However, what struck us most in both the Promotional and Most Innovative Use of Radio categories was an emerging use of new technologies, technology, along with social media and other channels, to reach and strengthen the connection with their listeners.”

With Jim Elliott’s guidance, moving forward the Radio Mercury Awards will now fold these two categories into one new Award, “Most Innovative Use of Audio,” to recognize forward thinking, innovative, tech-based applications and promotions that harness the power of audio.  The new award will be an opportunity to showcase the biggest audio ideas and technological advances coming from the radio and ad worlds.

Brooke & Jubal

This year’s Marketer of the Year Award was presented to Subway.

The lively ceremony was hosted by Jubal and Brooke from Hubbard Radio’s MOVIN’ 92.5 FM in Seattle and included the following presenters: Kelly Ford, NASH FM 94.7 NY/Westwood One; Megan Ryte, HOT 97 NY/Emmis; Shoboy & Nina, The New 92.3 AM Radio/CBS NY; Bronson & Christine, 106.7 LITE FM/iHeartMedia NY. DJ Whutevva from iHeartMedia’s Power 105.1 NY served as the guest DJ for the night.

This year’s event was produced by the Radio Advertising Bureau, presented by Hubbard Radio in partnership with iHeartMedia Inc., and sponsored by: Alpha Media, Beasley Broadcast Group, Bonneville International, Buckley Broadcasting, CBS Radio, Connoisseur Media, Cox Radio Group, Emmis Communications, Entercom Communications, Greater Media, Inc., Katz Radio Group, Lincoln Financial Media, Marketron, Miller Kaplan Arase LLP, MoreFM Philadelphia, Nielsen Audio, Neuhoff Communications, Salem Communications, Townsquare Media, vCreative, United Stations Radio Network, and WestwoodOne.

To listen to all of the work awarded: Click Here

News Anchor Makes It To HBO Sitcom

Here's a screen shot from HBO’s "Veep" . That’s Westwood One very-own News anchor Michael Toscano appearing as the King of Jordan.

In the scene he's meeting with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as President Selina Meyer in the HBO sitcom.

Toscano had interviewed the show’s casting director, who later called him thinking he would make the perfect Jordanian King.

Toscano can also be seen later this month in the 40th anniversary release of the first big summer blockbuster “Jaws,” where you can see a youthful anchor-to-be in the beach scenes.

D/FW Radio: KLIF-FM Hosts Grads At Six Flags

The Class of 2015 was out in full force last Friday, May 29, at the KLIF HOT 93.3 FM High School Senior Spirit Takeover at Six Flags Over Texas.

HOT 93.3 presented a concert from Kalin and Myles to thousands of Dallas-Fort Worth area high school seniors at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, TX.

As part of the promotion, the station awarded a local high school senior class with 500 tickets to the park. The winning high school senior class was from Byron Nelson High School in Trophy Club, TX. They voted over 60,000 times online over a two week period to win free passes to Six Flags and the Kalin and Myles concert for their entire senior class.
 
Louie Diaz, Program Director for HOT 93.3 said: “We had a break from all the terrible weather in DFW that evening and it was a great time for the high school seniors of Byron Nelson and DFW at Six Flags Over Texas. Thank you for a great performance by Kalin and Myles and congrats to the class of 2015!”

S-A Radio: Alpha Media Station Listeners Donate Flood Relief

Alpha Media San Antonio, TX supported and promoted the aid in the relief of the 2015 Texas Flood. On Saturday, May 30th Alpha Media San Antonio’s radio stations; N/T KTSA 550 AM / 107.1 FM, Top40 KTFM 94.1 , Variety Hits 102.7 JACK-FM, Alternative 103.3 THE APP, ESPN 1250AM / 94.5FM, LA LEY 95.7 FM, NORTENO 720AM / 104.1FM & ESPN Deportes 103.1 FM, came together to collect donations for those affected by the floods in surrounding areas including, Wimberly, Austin, Dallas and Houston, TX.

Alpha Media Executive VP of Programming, Scott Mahalick commented on the event, “I am so proud of our San Antonio team for their selfless commitment and effort over the weekend to support their fellow Texans. Live and Local radio allows our stations the ability to react quickly and assist those in need when necessary and they did just that.”

Greg Martin, Operations Manager/KTSA Program Director added, “This is what Texans do. People helping people. We were overwhelmed with the generosity of our community and their support of the flood victims. In addition to the goods, collected we also had nearly $4,000 in on site cash and gift card donations, plus another $15,000 in online donations for the day.”

“We wanted to do something to truly help our community and what better way to do that than to donate some time on a Saturday to collect much needed items for those that were affected in the devastating floods. From non-perishable food/drinks to clothing, toiletries, baby and pet supplies, we wanted to help make a difference and we did just that. We are very appreciative of all that came out to donate their time, items and money as well as Cornerstone Church who we gave our donations to and have been making deliveries every 12 hours to the affected areas,” remarked Natalie Berkley, Promotions & Event Manager.

Des Moines Radio: WHO Gets $20K Donation During Fund Raiser

Simnon Conway & friend

Simon Conway, Talk host for WHO 1040 AM was stunned during a remote fundraiser when a woman dropped-off a single $20,000 donation.

Conways was recently broadcasting from a local restaurant on behalf of the Puppy Jake Foundation, which acquires, trains and delivers service dogs to wounded combat vaterans.  According to Conway, during the broadcast  a woman who wished to remain anonymous came in and donated $20,000 to the charity.

Conway said, “I was numb for a few seconds.  The lady wanted complete anonymity.  Her dad was a Vietnam vet who had left her some money and she wanted it to go to a Veteran’s cause. She said she'd been listening to me for weeks and simply had to come in and make the donation. Just incredible.”

The restaurant donated 10% of its profits from the broadcast to the cause.

ME Radio: Non-Com WMEA Knocked Off-Air

Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s Portland-area radio station went off the air in much of its broadcast area Monday morning after a 30-year-old transmission line became overheated and burned itself out, according to the Press-Herald.

The outage left loyal listeners without their favorite station for three days, but repairs were completed around 5:50 p.m. Wednesday, according to Gil Maxwell, chief technology officer for MPBN, and the station was back up and running.

Maxwell said WMEA 90.1 FM will remain on the air into Thursday morning before a temporary shutdown is put into effect to finish “some cleanup work.” Thursday’s shutdown will begin around 9 a.m. and last for four to five hours, Maxwell said.  The station will continue streaming.

The episode highlights, in a harsh way, the network’s battle to maintain and replace aging equipment at a time when government funding and grant programs continue to dwindle.

Mark Vogelzang, president and CEO of MPBN, said that cuts in federal grants for equipment create a “dilemma” for the network as it tries to decide which equipment to replace first.

WMEA 90.1 FM (24.5 Kw) Red=Local

“We’re trying to prioritize (the replacement of equipment) and take care of the most urgent needs,” said Vogelzang. “But sometimes something like this surprises us. We don’t know if a line will last 25 years or 50 years.”

WMEA went off the air Monday about 1 a.m. because a 30-year-old, 1,600-foot transmission line overheated and burnt itself out. The line, which runs from a transmitter to the top of a 1,500-foot tower atop Winn Mountain in Sebago, had corroded over time, Maxwell said.

WMEA’s signal stretches from Augusta to Massachusetts, and it often shows up in radio rating surveys as Portland’s most-listened-to station. A survey by the Nielsen ratings firm in the fall of 2014 estimated WMEA has having the largest weekly audience, more than 140,000 listeners, of stations in southern Maine. Classic rock station WBLM was listed second, with 121,300 weekly listeners and pop/rock station WHOM was estimated to have 120,900 weekly listeners.

Radio Express To Rep jcapps' Radio Apps

Radio Express, the world’s leading supplier of entertainment programming to radio outside the U.S., announces that it has entered into an agreement with Jacobs Media to exclusively market and sell Jacobs’ radio apps in Latin America and Africa through their app company, jacapps.

Radio Express will take jacapps’ all new V4 platform for radio internationally for the first time since its introduction in the U.S. earlier this year, providing stations with their own branded app on smartphones and other mobiles devices at an affordable price.

The apps give stations more than a stream, with integrated social media that allows listeners to see the station’s social stream and interact without ever leaving the app. and on-demand content, and deliver a cost effective solution for stations to get their brands and products onto the mobile devices of millions of consumers and engage their audiences wherever they are.

Through the station’s fully customized app, stations can present their best content front and center and also enable their listeners to send audio, video and photos upstream, bringing station events to life on mobile devices. Stations can customize the look and features of their dedicated app with jacapps’ new user-friendly content management system.

FCC To Allow Cable To Raise Rates Without Local Okay

Reversing a 22-year-old stance, the FCC has adopted a change where cable providers can raise their rates on basic programming without getting the OK from local governments, an agency source tells Bloomberg.

It's a move that broadcasters opposed but reportedly passed unanimously as the agency sees national satellite providers offering competition across markets.

The change isn't a tremendous watershed -- recently, the FCC has been approving nearly all cableco requests to get free of local rate-setting. And Comcast says only about 17% of its subscriber base was subject to local regulation.Still, it frees a burden from the cablecos (the burden of proof now lies on localities) while broadcasters worry that their audience could be cut if and when cablecos put broadcast signals into a pricier tier.

A collection of Senators have written FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler worried that the move would give "unnecessary" benefits to large cablecos when Congress wanted simpler procedure for smaller cablecos.

The FCC said it was changing its 22-year-old rule because the market has changed, with nationwide competition from satellite television. Neil Grace, an agency spokesman, in an e-mail called the proposal “a common-sense update for today’s video marketplace to reduce regulatory burdens on all cable operators -- large and small.”

Mel Greig Talks About Her Depression Over Radio Prank Call

Former 2Day FM host Mel Greig has spoken out about her overwhelming depression and guilt following a prank call made during the Duchess of Cambridge's first pregnancy with Prince George, according to The Daily Mail.

Speaking at the Mumbrella 360 conference in Sydney on Wednesday, the 33-year-old said she felt like she had 'personally killed a mother' after the call went terribly wrong and was linked to the suicide of a nurse two days later.

According to Mashable, Greig had found it difficult to get back into the workforce following the tragedy.

'Basically, our integrity failed, commonsense failed and the process failed when that call was aired,' Greig said.  'I felt the most amount of guilt, I felt I personally killed a mother.

'My name was in the letter. No matter what I thought, this woman thought of me before she killed herself and I couldn't come to terms with that and I really did blame myself.'

Greig and fellow 2Day FM co-host Michael Christian posed as the Queen and Prince Charles as part of the prank in 2012 to gain information about the Duchess of Cambridge during her stay at The Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital in Paddington.

Jacintha Saldana was the nurse who took the call at King Edward Hospital in London, taking her life two days later and mentioning the Australian radio hosts in a note she left behind.

Nearly two years later, the former radio personality has landed a new job at an advertising agency.

SRN Talker Michael Medved Reports He's Cancer-Free

Michael Medved

Salem Radio Network personality Michael Medved reports his doctors have officially declared him to be cancer-free.

Medved missed most of the first quarter of this year to undergo treatment for throat cancer.

He made the announcement on his show Wednesday:

"As you know, my personal struggle with cancer has been a very big part of the show. I ended up missing 11 weeks -- had wonderful guest hosts -- but it was very hard for me to miss the show while I was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation therapy -- everyday radiation therapy, which is not fun -- for throat cancer. And yesterday, right before the show, I went in for what's called a PET scan, where they use a very complicated machine, look over your whole body, try to determine if cancer has returned or if there is a cancer growing. 

I'm very pleased to say that I am now officially cancer-free. 

We got the results and that helps to explain why I'm feeling so much better and obviously getting that message out yesterday from my doctor, from my oncologist, and from the hospital where I was treated. They inject you with fluid and then they look at you and it's unbelievable. And then they show you the pictures. And the great thing for me was seeing a picture from last December that showed this horrible tumor that was going to kill me and then that same part of my throat and neck where it's all gone. It's clean as a whistle. 

So again, for those people who only listen every day to get their blood pressure up because they disagree with what I have to say, you'll be able to have that privilege for the foreseeable future."

SRN VP of News & Talk Programming Tom Tradup said in a statement: "It has been quite an adventure... with ups and downs (but mostly 'ups'). What a blessing to Michael, his family, his audience, and all of his colleagues here at SRN."

R.I.P.: NPR News Editor Jim Lesher Dies At 46

Jim Lesher

NPR's Associate Editor for News Operations, Jim Lesher, died Wednesday morning at the age of 46, after a swift and debilitating battle with stomach cancer.

For more than two decades Lesher worked tirelessly behind the scenes coordinating logistics so that NPR not only was heard, but sounded its very best. He was incredibly proud of his work, and he had good reason to be.

"Jim's value to this newsroom was so apparent that I once joked with him that I was going to make up a wanted poster with his photo: 'Jim Lesher: Most Wanted Man at NPR'," says NPR Managing Editor Chuck Holmes.

Lesher embodied a rare mix of methodical attention to detail and unassuming talent that is invaluable in a news room. Beyond his tireless work ethic, Lesher's patience and his stone-faced, dry wit permeated NPR during inevitable moments of high stress and urgency. He had a gift for knowing what someone needed before they knew, and quietly resolved potential obstacles before they even could be recognized as such. No matter the situation, Lesher could and did handle it, and his expansive contributions are irreplaceable for the organization.

"There is an entire news organization full of heavy and broken hearts," says NPR Executive Producer for Newscast Robert Garcia. "If the measure of a man is how much he is loved and appreciated by others, Jim was successful beyond his wildest dreams."

Lesher grew up in the Washington, D.C., area and, according to his high school yearbook, "was a rocker, a roller and an out-of-controller." He joined NPR as an intern soon after graduating from Catholic University with a B.A. in English Literature, in 1990. He was known to regularly rock out to the 1970s rock band Queen.

Tweets about Jim Lesher

R.I.P.: Met Opera Radio Host Margaret Juntwait

Margaret Juntwait

Margaret Juntwait was the mellifluous voice of the Metropolitan Opera's Saturday live radio broadcasts. She was also a longtime host at NPR member station WNYC 93.9 FM in New York.

Juntwait died Wednesday at age 58 of complications from ovarian cancer, according to NPR.

Juntwait was trained as a lyric soprano at the Manhattan School of Music. But in 1991 — with no radio experience — she wrote a fan letter to WNYC host John Schaefer, who promptly hired her as an assistant. She went on to host two music programs on the station.

In 2004 she became the first woman to host the Met's Saturday broadcasts. That same year, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, but continued to host the Met broadcasts for a decade. Her last broadcast was New Year's Eve.

June 4 Radio History

In 1942…Capitol Records opened for business, becoming the first major record label based on the U.S. west coast. The company had been established earlier in the year – by songwriters Johnny Mercer and Buddy De Sylva with Glenn Wallichs – as Liberty Records. It was Wallichs, Capitol's manager, who invented the art of record promotion by sending free copies of new releases to disc jockeys.


In 1962...The Beatles signed their first record contract with EMI, though it's merely to produce a series of demos. The band will have to pass its upcoming audition to get signed to make actual records.

In 1963…"Pop Go the Beatles" was first broadcast on BBC radio.

Each edition of Pop Go The Beatles began and ended with a rock ‘n’ roll version of the nursery rhyme Pop Goes The Weasel recorded by The Beatles.

In 1973…WNBC 97.1 FM  switched format to “The Rock Pile”

In 1998… WNWK NYC changes call letters to WCAA

The station first came on the air on 105.9 FM in 1964 as WHBI, which was originally owned by Hoyt Brothers Inc.. In the 1980s, the station - by then property of Multicultural Radio Broadcasting - went by the call letters WNWK, and aired leased-access ethnic programming.

In 1998, the station, under new ownership, started playing hit Spanish music as "Caliente 105.9" ("Hot 105.9"), with the call letters WCAA. In September 1999, the station changed its slogan to "105.9 Latino Mix" ("105.9 Latin Mix"). In February 2004, the station's owner, Univision Communications bought the 92.7 FM frequency in Garden City, New York which was the home of WLIR-FM and made it a western Long Island simulcast of 105.9 under the call letters WZAA.


One year ago in Media Confidential...

New report indicates Country is most popular U-S radio format. Click Here.