Alpha Media, West Palm Beach changed WMEN 640 AM has rebranded from Fox Sports 640 to 640 The Hurricane as of Tuesday. The station will still be an all sports Fox affiliate, but carry more edge and attitude.
640 The Hurricane is also the new radio home for the Miami Hurricanes. The “Canes” will join a play by play lineup that features the New York Yankees, Florida Panthers, and weekly NFL games. In addition to the play by play, the station will offer top-notch talent including; Dan Patrick, Colin Cowherd, and Doug Gottlieb.
Alpha Media, West Palm Beach, SVP/Market Manager Elizabeth Hamma commented on the announcement, “640 The Hurricane is like a CAT 5 storm that will whip up the South Florida market with relevant and entertaining content for men. It’s a station designed for the passionate sports fan.”
WMEN 640 AM (7.5 KwD, 460 wattsN, DA2)
“With big brands and big names we will be the fan’s evacuation route from boring sports talk radio. 640 The Hurricane will give the sports format a much-needed edge in the market,” remarked Paul Mason, WMEN Program Director.
Bloomberg Radio, the world’s only global 24-hour business and radio station, in conjunction with Beasley Media Group, Inc. hAS announced that starting tomorrow July 4th at 12:00pm ET, Bloomberg Radio can now be heard on Beasley Media Group’s W291CZ 106.1 FM, WRCA 1330 AM and WBOS 92.1 FM HD2.
Bloomberg Radio will continue to broadcast on iHeartMedia's WXKS 1200 AM / WJMN 94.5FM HD2 for the next few months.
“We have been eager to expand our presence in the Boston area to deliver the best of Bloomberg Radio to this important market of those who manage money, move markets and shape the future of global business and the innovations of tomorrow,” said Al Mayers, Global Head of Bloomberg Radio and Television.
WRCA 1330 AM (25 Kw-D, 17 Kw-N, DA2)
“We’re excited to partner with a global news and business leader of Bloomberg’s magnitude,” said Beasley Media Boston Vice President and Market Manager Mary Menna. “This unique programming underscores the company’s commitment to providing our listeners with the very best content and compliments our five existing music brands in Boston.”
W291CZ 106. FM ( 99 watts)
Listeners will also be able to tune in to Bloomberg’s broadcast of the 2017 Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, tomorrow at 8:00pm ET. Bloomberg is the exclusive media partner of this year’s concert.
Voice-driven technology in today’s connected home is creating new opportunities for terrestrial radio broadcasters to tap a market, even as the sales of tabletop radios have evaporated in the United States, experts say, according to Randy J. Stine at RadioWorld.
Smart speaker systems like Amazon Echo and Google Home can readily stream radio stations, via web streams like TuneIn and iHeartRadio, and can be programmed to find individual station streams.
Smart speakers use voice-recognition technology and artificial intelligence to act as a multi-purpose — and relatively inexpensive — in-home entertainment device.
In Jacobs Media’s 2017 Techsurvey 13, approximately 11 percent of core radio listeners had an Amazon Echo or a Google Home. Estimates are that up to 10 million Amazon Echo internet-connected “smart speakers” have been sold in the United States, so the numbers are substantial, and soaring sales are expected, underscoring the opportunity for the radio industry. RBC Capital Markets predicts Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa could generate $10 billion in worldwide revenues for that company by 2020.
Mike Cooney, chair of the NAB’s Radio Technology Committee and VP of engineering of Beasley Broadcast Group, said his company’s digital development team has already developed a set of rules to describe each station so they can be found easier, typically involving a combination of call letters, frequency, location and slogan, as if programmed for a search engine.
“When I first began using [Echo]in late 2016 it didn’t always find our radio stations. That was before we knew much about it. We have learned it’s very important how you put your radio station information in TuneIn or iHeartRadio,” Cooney said.
Radio futurologist James Cridland agreed with Cooney’s observation. “Many of my friends claim that their Amazon Echo has not just replaced their radio, but that they listen to more radio as a result.”
TuneIn and other aggregators are so far serving radio broadcasters well, but Cridland wonders if radio needs to reconsider its long-term strategy for smart speaker success.
“If the U.S. radio industry is happy about leaving the default ‘skill architecture’ to TuneIn — a company which isn’t in the radio business, doesn’t care about radio’s future, is a gatekeeper that you don’t control and one that actively sells ads in front of your streams — then I might suggest the radio business needs to take a long hard look at itself,” he said. He’d like to see radio broadcasters “work together to ensure a strong radio experience in the United States and each country.”
Radio, TV host Maria Menounos has announced that she is leaving E! News following her February brain tumor diagnosis.
“My deal ends this August and after that I’m gonna take some time and focus on some passion projects and see what’s next,” the 39-year-old tells PEOPLE. “I’m not rushing into anything.”
The Sirius XM radio host had been with the company for three years after first joining the E! News team in 2014. In a statement, E! officials thanked Menounos for her “many contributions” over the years.
“Our thoughts and support go out to Maria and her family and we wish them all the best knowing that Maria will tackled this with the same fierce dedication she is known for,” they said in their statement.
The news comes just weeks after Menounos underwent a complex, seven-hour surgery, in which doctors were able to remove 99.9 percent of a benign brain tumor.
“[The doctor] said there’s a six to seven percent chance that we’ll see it come back,” she tells PEOPLE in the magazine’s exclusive new cover story. “But I’ll take those odds any day.”
She first began recognizing troubling symptoms in February –“I’d been getting lightheaded on set and having headaches,” she says. “My speech had gotten slurred and I was having difficulty reading the teleprompter."
She remained at the hospital for six days after the June 8 surgery before returning home to heal alongside her mother, Litsa,who has stage 4 brain cancer.
“I don’t have my balance fully yet but as long as I’m holding on to Keven, I’m sturdy and fine,” Menounos says. “My face is still numb. This is something that takes at least a month of healing, but I’m getting stronger and stronger every day and I’ll be back to normal very soon.”
(Reuters) -- President Donald Trump stepped up his feud with the media on Sunday by tweeting a mock video of himself tackling and repeatedly striking a man with a CNN logo super-imposed in place of his head, followed by a logo saying "Fraud News Network."
The video appeared to be a modified version of a 2007 appearance by Trump at World Wrestling Entertainment's WrestleMania 23 promotion, in which Trump "takes down" WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. In Sunday's video, McMahon's head has been replaced with the CNN logo.
After Trump appears to beat on the CNN effigy, a logo, "FNN Fraud News Network" appears at the bottom of the screen in script similar to that of CNN.
Trump appointed McMahon's wife, Linda McMahon, as the head of the Small Business Administration, a Cabinet-level agency. She was active in the management of WWE for many years.
As a presidential candidate and as commander-in-chief, Trump has repeatedly made known his disdain for the media, calling it "the enemy of the American people" and frequently referring to mainstream news organizations as "failing" or "fake news." He has been particularly scathing of CNN.
The video takes his criticism to a new level and drew criticism from CNN and on social media.
"It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters," CNN said in a statement.
"Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his health care bill, he is instead involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office," CNN said.
Thomas Bossert
Trump leaves later this week for a trip to Poland and Germany, where he will attend a meeting of Group of 20 leaders including the Russian president.
White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Thomas Bossert said the tweet was not a threat.
"I think that no one would perceive that as a threat. I hope they don't,” Bossert said on the ABC program "This Week."
"But I do think that he's beaten up in a way on cable platforms that he has a right to respond to," Bossert said.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a group that advocates for journalists' rights, condemned the president's tweet and said it "glorified physical violence against members of the press."
Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator and editor-at-large of The Weekly Standard, compared Trump's actions to behavior that caused the fall of the Roman Empire.
"The speed with which we're recapitulating the decline and fall of Rome is impressive. What took Rome centuries we're achieving in months," Kristol wrote in a Tweet.
Trump's Sunday tweet followed his scathing and highly personal Twitter attack on two MSNBC anchors last week, which drew condemnation from Republicans, including Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan, and Democrats alike.
Trump, who is spending a long weekend at his property in Bedminster, New Jersey, took to Twitter on Saturday to call the media "fake" and "fraudulent."
At an event honoring veterans at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Saturday evening, he told the crowd that the media had tried to stop him from coming to the White House.
President Trump has a new target in his war of words with “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski: their NBC bosses.
“Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!” Trump tweeted at 9:20 am Saturday, according to the NYPost.
Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!
The former Fox News host’s MSNBC show lasted just six months. AdWeek reported she had the No. 30-rated cable news show. Her main competition at 6 p.m., Fox Newser Bret Baier, ranks No. 5.
Julie Roginsky, a Democratic Fox News contributor suing the network over alleged sexual harassment by its former CEO Roger Ailes, said on Thursday that she is leaving the company.
"I've enjoyed it; I've enjoyed you. Thank you so much for watching 'The Clapback,' thank you so much for watching me on TV all these years," she added. "One of the joys in my life was interacting with you, whether it was agreeing with you, or clapping back at you."
Roginsky, a former Democratic strategist, joined Fox News as a contributor in 2011 and hosted the web series "The Clapback," according to The Hill.
Roginsky filed a bombshell lawsuit against Fox News, Ailes and then-co-president Bill Shine in April, alleging that Ailes had sought a sexual relationship with her in exchange for a regular hosting spot on the show "The Five."
In the lawsuit, filed in the New York Supreme Court, Roginsky says she refused Ailes's proposition and that by doing so, the network denied her certain on-air opportunities.
Ailes resigned as chairman and CEO of Fox News in July 2016 amid a slew of allegations that he sexually harassed female employees. He passed away in May.
Shine, a close ally of Ailes, was forced out at the network in May. He faced accusations that he sought to cover up Ailes's behavior and failed to address sexual harassment complaints by Fox News' female employees.
Roginsky did not specify her reason for leaving the company in her farewell message on Thursday.
WDFN 1130 AM lost yet another voice after a staffing trim.
The Detroit Free Press reports Gregg Henson, one of the afternoon drive time hosts, revealed on Twitter that iHeart Media let him go. He was not heard on Friday's show which was simulcast on WMAX 96.1 FM in Grand Rapids.
One of the original employees of WDFN when it switched to all sports in 1994, the 49-year-old Henson eventually became program director there. He later was hired by WXYT 1270 AM when it got into the all-sports format and hosted a show there.
WDFN lost morning show host Matt Shepard back in May when his job was eliminated. The weekday afternoon show, still hosted by McCarthy and Costa, is the lone locally produced show on the station.
Once the leader of local sports talk in Detroit, WDFN has struggled in the ratings race, especially since WXYT 97.1 FM jumped into the format.
What’s old is new again at radio station KTGP-LPFM Mix99.5, “The Heart and Soul of St. Louis.”
The old school R&B-heavy station brings back a number of veteran St. Louis radio personalities, some off the air the years, and gives them a new home, according to stltoday.com.
The station officially launches Monday after rolling out quietly six months ago, and is available online at mix995FM.com.
Longtime St. Louis radio personality Lou Thimes Jr., a.k.a. “The Real JR,” senior vice president and operations manager at 99.5, says the radio station fills “a longtime void in the marketplace for a locally-owned, locally-managed, locally-operated radio station.”
MIX 99.5 FM comes loaded with many names known in St. Louis radio, some formerly employed at stations past and present such as Majic 104.9, WESL 1490, Foxy 95.5 and Gospel 1600. In same cases, programs and segments that were popular on those stations will be resurrected on the new station.
Among those newly on-air at MIX 99.5 are Jim Gates, Niecy Davis, Tossin’ Ted, Nappy DJ Needles, Calvin King, Edie B, DJ VuDu, Darrel “EZ” Eason and others, not to mention Thimes himself.
“They’re heavily recognizable names, marketable names. They’re people I grew up with, who I have an emotional attachment to,” he says. “We have market credibility and market leverage with these names. And we need these names to lure people from other stations.”
KTGP-LPFM 99.5 FM (8 watts)
The daily rundown at MIX 99.5 begins with “The Mix Morning Madness Sho;w” (6 a.m.-10 a.m.) with Tossin’ Ted, DJ Vudu, Deneen Busby, Ladyre Richardson and Theo Louis Clark. “The Midday Mix with Niecy Davis” (10 a.m.-3 p.m.) follows. Then it's “The Real Afternoon Show” with Thimes (as the Real J.R., 3p.m.-6 p.m.) with Khandy Kane and traffic from Tony J, “The World of James Earl” (6 p.m.-9 p.m.) with “Gentleman Jim” Gates, Darrel “EZ” Eason (9 p.m.-1 a.m.) and “Your Lady” Edie B. (1 a.m.-6 a.m.)
Netflix Inc.’s popularity among U.S. consumers is on the rise this year, according to Morning Consult Brand Intelligence data, with similar increases in both subscribers and share price as the company’s second quarter drew to a close on Friday.
Fifty-four percent of Americans said they have a “very favorable” opinion of Netflix as of June 29, up from 41 percent at the beginning of the year, according to Morning Consult Brand Intelligence. In October, that level of favorability was as low as 31 percent.
This year’s gains in popularity come alongside a rise in subscription numbers and the company’s stock price, which has jumped more than 18 percent since the beginning of January. The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company added 1.42 million U.S. customers and 3.53 million international subscribers — both below expectations — in the first three months of the year.
Some of those competitors include Hulu LLC and YouTube Inc., which both debuted live television subscription services this year. Amazon.com Inc. launched its video service globally in December 2016.
➦In 1913...columnist & TV panelist Dorothy Kilgallen was born in Chicago. For 27 years she wrote a gossip column for Hearst’s New York Herald American, halfway through which time she achieved national fame as a panelist on Goodson Todman’s Sunday night TV institutuion, What’s My Line? Beginning in 1945, she co-hosted a long-running breakfast radio talk show on WOR, with her husband Richard Kollmar. She died after an alcohol-and-seconal-fuelled heart attack Nov. 8 1965, just 12 hours after her weekly TV game show, dead at age 52.
➦In 1939…Chic Young's comic strip character "Blondie" became a radio sitcom, initially as a summer replacement for "The Eddie Cantor Show" on CBS. When Cantor did not return in the fall, "Blondie" continued on the air and bounced between several networks until 1950.
➜In 1940…In 1940, the legendary comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello debuted their own network radio show on NBC. After two years of wowing the audience of the Kate Snith Show the duo replaced Fred Allen for the summer months. In the fall of ’42 they began a seven year run with their own Thursday night show. In 1952 Abbott and Costello produced 52 episodes of one of the most successful and repeated programs in TV history. A cartoon version of The Abbott & Costello Show followed in 1966.
➦In 1949...Actress Jan Smithers, Bailey Quarters on WKRP in Cincinnati, was born
➦In 1955...Tom Clay, a Buffalo DJ on WWOL-AM, staged a famous billboard publicity stunt in Shelton Squareconducts his famous Billboard stunt in Buffalo's Shelton Square.
Tom Clay
Clay in the 1950s was a popular radio personality in the
Detroit area on WJBK-AM both as a DJ, and for his on-air comic characterizations.
In the early 1950s Clay, using the pseudonym "Guy King," worked for
WWOL-AM/FM in Buffalo, New York; on July 3, 1955, he conducted the stunt in which
he played "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets
repeatedly from atop a billboard in Buffalo's Shelton Square, an incident that
led to his firing and arrest. In the
mid-1950s he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and was equally popular.
He was caught up in the payola scandal of the late 1950s,
and admitted to having accepted thousands of dollars for playing certain
records. After being fired from WJBK, Clay worked at the short-lived Detroit
Top 40 station WQTE (now WRDT 560 AM) only to be fired again when the station
changed format to easy listening music in 1961. After moving to Los Angeles and
becoming a popular personality on KDAY and KRLA, Clay returned to the Detroit
area and found work at CKLW in neighboring Windsor, Ontario, at the time one of
the foremost Top 40 AM stations in North America.
Clay is best remembered for his single on Motown's MoWest
label "What the World Needs Now Is Love"/"Abraham, Martin and
John", a compilation of clips from the two popular records, interviews,
and speeches of Jack and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King emphasizing
tolerance and civil rights. It went to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. It sold
over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
Clay died of stomach and lung cancer at the age of 66, in Valley
Village, Los Angeles, California in 1995.
➦In 1961...Dan Ingram did his first show on WABC 770 AM, New York. He filled in for Chuck Dunaway.
➦In 1971...Rock Hall of Fame rock singer Jim Morrison of The Doors died of heart failure. He was 27.
➦In 1972...Bob Crane went back to radio - but only for one week.
He was filling in for Dick Wittinghill - his former archrival on KMPC 710 AM in Los Angeles beginning July 5. Wittinghill and Crane battled it out for the morning ratings in Los Angeles from 1956 to 1965, when Crane left to star in “Hogan’s Heroes.”
➦In 1973...KMEN 1290 AM San Bernardino, CA broadcasts an “all-girl” day on Wednesday of this week. Guest DJ’s heard – Jackie DeShannon, Donna Fargo, Sylvia, April Stevens, Jean Knight, Carla Thomas and Maureen McCormick of the Brady Bunch.
➦In 1976...The Los Angeles comedy radio team of Hudson and Landry split.
Bob Hudson wanted to keep it together with their KFI 640 AM radio show, nightclub appearances and possibly more comedy records, but Ron Landry wanted to go into television as a writer and producer. Ron Landry says – “Doing this show was a lot of fun. We had five great years and, I think we did some interesting things in broadcasting.”
➦In 1978...Supreme Court ruled 5-4, FCC had a right to reprimand NY radio station WBAI for broadcasting George Carlin's "Filthy Words".
➦In 1983...KNX-FM – Soft rock in Los Angeles changes calls and format to KKHR (Hit Radio). Looks like it’ll be direct competition for KIIS-FM.
➦In 1986...depression era singer and bandleader Rudy Vallee died following a heart attack at age 84. He had a succession of popular radio variety shows beginning in the late 20’s, introducing a succession of future stars. His biggest hit was the “Stein Song (University of Maine)” in 1930. ➦In 1986...It was announced that Howard Stern, the often controversial New York City DJ/talker, will be syndicated by DIR to other stations.
Stern, who joined rocker WXRK (New York) late last year, has seen his ratings rise from a 1.2 to a 3.4 and up to a 5.2 share in the recent ratings. “The Howard Stern Show” will mix music and talk equally. At WXRK, Stern plays about 6 songs per hour. The national show will be weekly only.
Stern is following a pattern with high-profile DJ’s and national weekly shows: Rick Dees at KIIS-FM, John Lander at KKBQ Houston and Scott Shannon from Z-100 all have national weekly shows, but Stern’s will present or lean heavy personality and will not emphasize the music.
➦In 1987...Tom Snyder will move from TV to radio this fall to host a national call-in talk show announced this week by the ABC Radio Networks. Look for it early September.
➦In 1993…Sports broadcaster (ABC, Superstars, Wild World of Sports, NBC, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox, California Angels, Texas Rangers, Montreal Expos, Los Angeles Rams)/syndicated radio show host (Radio Baseball Cards)/Baseball Hall of Famer Don Drysdale died following a heart attack at age 56.
➦In 2014...the Sirius-XM radio team of Opie & Anthony was forever broken up, as the network fired Anthony Cumia for making a series of tweets following an alleged off-air incident with a black woman on the street. Cumia tweeted that he was punched by the woman while attempting to take a picture in Times Square. The tweets were described by Sirius XM as “racially-charged and hate-filled.”
