San Antonio billionaire investor B.J. “Red” McCombs picked up the phone and called his friend and former business partner L. Lowry Mays a few months ago.
McCombs (News-Express foto)
The friendship is decades old. Mays, with McCombs as a partner and close adviser, had built up Clear Channel Communications into the world’s largest radio and billboard company from the early 1970s until it was sold in 2008.
According to David Hendricks at the San Antonio News-Express, their recent telephone conversation, though, focused on the news that the company, with different owners and now called iHeartMedia Inc., was conducting pre-bankruptcy talks with lenders and bondholders after declaring that the company by February may not be able to meet some of its maturing $20.4 billion in debt.
The company’s daunting repayment schedule, stemming from the 2008 leverage buyout by two Boston-based private equity firms, makes iHeartMedia one of the country’s largest corporate debt dilemmas.
Mays (undated AP foto)
In his rather lengthy story Hendricks reports the 82-year-old Mays said McCombs surprisingly suggested that they buy back the company, which owns about 850 radio stations across the U.S.
McCombs, 89, said he put it this way: “If it ends up in a refinancing mode, I told him (Mays) that I would have some interest in it. (Mays) said, ‘Count me in.’”
But the one conversation is as far as it has gone for now, Mays and McCombs said.
Mays also said any future involvement in the company “depends” on where values go “if the company goes into a restructuring.”
But as Mays and McCombs watch, San Antonio-based radio and billboard giant iHeartMedia inches toward bankruptcy, a step expected by credit-rating agencies and corporate debt analysts alike. The eventuality would mark another new direction in the company’s already twisted 44-year existence. Read More Now
Top administration officials on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's criticism of what he calls San Juan, Puerto Rico mayor's "poor leadership."
During a series of interviews on the Sunday political talk shows, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney attempted to qualify Trump's attacks on Saturday of Carmen Yulin Cruz, reports BusinessInsider.
In the wake of Hurricane Maria, which left millions of residents without water and electricity, she has begged the administration for help, and received Trump's ire in several tweets over the weekend.
On "Meet The Press," Mnuchin dodged host Chuck Todd's repeated question about whether Trump regretted criticizing the mayor, and why Trump said Puerto Ricans "want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort."
"Why did he attack the mayor?" Todd asked. "She's in a situation, a pretty desperate situation. He seemed to lack a little bit of empathy for the situation at the time."
"When the president gets attacked, he attacks back," Mnuchin said. "And I think the mayor's comments were unfair, given what the federal government has done."
In an interview on CNN, Mulvaney also refused to directly answer host Jake Tapper's question about who Trump was referring to when he said "they" wanted everything done for them.
"I think what the president is trying to get at is folks think this is going to be easy," Mulvaney said. "They saw what happened in Texas, they saw what happened in Florida, and they thought 'Oh, this is easy to do,' and it's not."
But the director also criticized the San Juan mayor, saying it was "unfortunate" Cruz wanted to "go against the grain."
"My understanding is that as of yesterday, she had not even been to the FEMA operation center in her own city," Mulvaney said.
Cruz has emerged as one of the loudest local voices calling for help in the wake of the storm, saying the administration risked "genocide" if it did not deliver vital resources to the island, which is still without power, food, or water in many areas.
Trump is scheduled to visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday. Cruz said she would meet with him if he asks her for a meeting.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Crus
Meanwhile, The Daily Caller reports Cruz, who attacked President Donald Trump for his response to the hurricane devastion in Puerto Rico, has previously praised FALN terrorist leader Oscar Lopez Rivera.
Yulin Cruz is a member of Puerto Rico’s Popular Democratic Party that wants the island to remain a U.S. territory. But she sounded more like a member of the island’s Independence Party in a video that surfaced back in January when President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Rivera Lopez.
The mayor is shown praising the convicted Puerto Rican terrorist.
Lopez Rivera was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his involvement in the FALN, a Puerto Rican separatist group that was responsible for more than 100 bombings in the U.S. during the 1970s and 1980s.
Four people lost their lives in 1975 when an explosion happened at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, an attack the FALN was responsible for. The organization was also responsible for seriously injuring three NYPD officers in several bomb attacks on New Year’s Eve in 1982.
Also, The mayor of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico cast serious doubt Saturday on the claims made by San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who has repeatedly attacked President Trump and accused him of abandoning Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
Guaynabo’s mayor, Angel Perez, said in an interview with The Daily Caller that his experience with the federal government has been different from Cruz’s, in part because — unlike Cruz — he has been participating in meetings with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies.
PR Governor Ricardo Rossello
Puerto Rico’s governor says efforts to restore cell service, gas and other basic needs to the island’s rural residents are progressing, even as many in those towns report feeling forgotten.
“I recognize that right now, whether it’s the gas line or the ATM line, we’re limited,” Governor Ricardo Rossello told Reuters in an interview on Saturday at the Puerto Rico Convention Center, the government’s temporary headquarters.
“But if you see the numbers,” he said, “you see there is a steady path to improvement.”
More than half of Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million people lack access to drinking water 11 days after Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. territory, and 95 percent remain without power, according to the U.S. Defense Department. Some are expected to be without power for months.
But on Saturday, Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) officials reported that a third of the island’s telecommunications network had been restored, and some 765 gas stations - well over half - had fuel, though it was not clear how much.
Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera grilled San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz on Sunday after President Donald Trump attacked her on Twitter for complaining about his government’s response to Hurricane Maria.
Trump lashed out at Cruz in a series of tweets over the weekend after she pleaded in an interview for him to “save us from dying.”
“Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan,” he tweeted angrily.
On the ground I see the suffering-but feel deeply that attacking @realDonaldTrump for the ravages of nature &neglect is politicizing tragedy
On Sunday, Rivera seemed to take Trump’s side during an interview with the mayor, according to TopBuzz.
“There are all people at all municipalities literally starving, dehydrating,” the mayor told Rivera. “We have had our hospital try to go back to speed but then the electricity goes off and we have to do all the bacteria testing, which takes three to four days.”
“But are people dying?” Rivera interrupted. “I’ve been traveling around, I don’t see people dying. I spoke to the doctors, they say they saw 53 patients and they had a person who was septic, but nobody dying.”
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz is deliberately withholding food and supplies from her hurricane-ravaged city as part of a publicity stunt, according to gotnews.com.
The video features a panicked female voice who identifies herself as a police officer from Guaynabo, a suburb of San Juan, calling into a New York City Hispanic WSKQ 97.9 FM. The caller accuses Cruz, San Juan’s anti-Trump mayor with a penchant for supporting and befriending convicted terrorists, of staggering negligence and dereliction of duty in the wake of Hurricane Maria:
The voice purporting to be a police officer begins by pleading with the U.S. Military to go directly to the people of Puerto Rico with its aid, as current efforts to work through Governor Ricardo Rossello and Mayor Cruz are proving futile. “What us Puerto Ricans need is the U.S. Armed Forces to come in and distribute the aid. And that they stop the Governor, Rossello, and the Mayor, Yulin, from continuing on doing what they’re doing. It’s an abuse; it looks like communism, in our own island.”
“There are dozens and thousands and thousands of food [boxes] and when people ask, we cannot give anything away because Carmen Yulin says that we cannot take anything out, because everything is a soap opera here – everything is a show,” the caller explains. “There have to be cameras here and there because, you know, they are just looking for votes for the upcoming years.”
The Eagles will team with SiriusXM for an invitation-only concert at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville on Sunday, October 29. It will mark the first time the band has performed at the iconic venue.
Variety reports the performance — featuring Eagles members Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit, with Vince Gill as well as Deacon Frey filling in for his late father, Glenn Frey — will air on SiriusXM’s Eagles Channel, a limited-run channel curated by the band which will launch in Mid-November. The Grand Ole Opry show is slated to air over Thanksgiving Weekend.
“One of the greatest, biggest-selling bands in history playing the storied Grand Ole Opry House for the first time ever will make for a historic event and a great evening for SiriusXM subscribers,” said Scott Greenstein, President and Chief Content Officer of SiriusXM.
Added Eagles manager Irving Azoff: “The Eagles performing at the Grand Ole Opry House will be an unforgettable evening and SiriusXM is the perfect partner for this event.”
One of the most successful morning talk shows in Atlanta radio history will return to the airwaves as a team for the first time in more than a decade, according to the Atlanta Business Journal.
The original three hosts of “The Morning X” on 99X (WNNX-FM) -- Steve Barnes, Leslie Fram and Jimmy Baron -- will host a four-hour show from 6-10 a.m., the original time of the show, on Oct. 26 for the 25th anniversary of 99X.
Barnes has been teasing the return on his verified social media accounts with Fram unofficially endorsing them with shares from her non-verified social media accounts.
99X debuted in 1992 on 99.7-FM and was for years a strong and beloved source for alternative music in the city. In 2012, Atlanta-based Cumulus Media killed what little was left of 99X when the company replaced the station with 98.9/The Bone, a hard rock format. Most recently, the station operated as Nash ICON, a country music station. 99X officially came back to the airwaves Jan. 1, 2016.
Fram is the only personality to have continued with a career in the music industry. She came to Atlanta in 1990, joining Power 99, which became 99X in 1992. She was program director and the co-host of the 99X morning show until January 2008, when the station moved to an online format.
Currently, she is a senior vice president at Country Music Television in Nashville.
Today, Barnes is president of Barnes Creative Studios, which specializes in 4K aerial drone video, Matterport 3D virtual tours and corporate video content production
Now that The Juice is loose, he's expected put the squeeze on TV networks for millions for rights to an exclusive interview, sources close to O.J. Simpson told TheNYPost.
“He’s not talking for free,” a longtime confidant told The Post. “It has to be the big one because he’s only going to do it one time and it has to be worth his while.”
The disgraced gridiron great is expected to ask for $3 million to $5 million to sit down with the likes of NBC’s Matt Lauer, Megyn Kelly or Lester Holt; ABC’s Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan; or CBS’ newest “60 Minutes” correspondent Oprah Winfrey, the source said.
Simpson’s team has reached out to several outlets to gauge their interest. It’s not known if the interest is mutual.
While the major networks maintain that they don’t pay for interviews, it’s an open industry secret that popular shows like Good Morning America, Today and others pay big bucks to “license images and video.”
“They pay and he’s got photos from jail with his family and friends; he’s got some other stuff, too, that people have never seen before and this could be a major deal for any network, any show,” the source said.
While a TV interview could reap a windfall, Simpson isn’t entirely banking on it. A backup plan hatched by his associates includes pitching a reality television show.
The government is suing CBS Stations Group of Texas over allegations that its Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate refused to hire a longtime traffic reporter because of her age.
According to The Dallas Morning News, KTVT-TV (Channel 11) violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act when it refused to hire Tammy Dombeck, allegedly because of her age, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Tuesday.
Lori Conrad, director of communications for Channel 11, said in an email Tuesday that "KTVT respectfully disagrees with the EEOC's current assessment and looks forward to resolving this matter."
Dombeck, 44, worked for Channel 11 as a "freelance, non-staff traffic reporter" beginning in February 2013.
After CBS 11's morning full-time traffic reporter resigned, Dombeck told the station's management of her interest in the position and applied for the job.
Dombeck did freelance fill-in work for Channel 11, and when the full-time traffic reporter left in October 2014, Dombeck's morning responsibilities increased, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in 2015.
The job requirements listed for the position said that the "ideal candidate" would have a strong knowledge of traffic in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and that applicants "must have at least 5 years professional broadcasting experience."
Channel 11 went on to hire a 24-year-old Chelsey Davis who, according to the suit, didn't have five years of professional broadcasting experience or any broadcast experience in Dallas-Fort Worth.
After more than three decades with the Kansas City Royals, a team “legend” is saying goodbye, reports KSHB-TV.
Don Free has worked up in the home radio booth as the network’s producer and engineer since 1986. He’s the man responsible for checking circuits, testing microphones, making sure the pregame and radio show always run smoothly.
“It’s been my office for 81 games a year,” he told 41 Action News with a chuckle. “ And the road has been my other office.”
Now after 32 seasons with the Royals and a World Series ring, Free is saying goodbye— completing a 50-year career in broadcasting.
“When I started out, I had a little case with a mixer in it and some headsets. And that was it. And microphones. Now I carry three cases on the road plus a backpack and a briefcase with all the stuff in it,” Free said.
Once he retires, Free plans on spending more time with his family and helping with radio production for Kansas State football games.
“It’s just been a great ride. And we are all part of the family. That’s what’s cool about it,” he said.
Monty Hall, who co-created and hosted the game show “Let’s Make A Deal” for nearly 40 years, died of heart failure Saturday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif.
“Let’s Make a Deal” premiered in 1963 and has been a staple of television ever since.
CBS, which revived the show in 2009 with comedian Wayne Brady as host, called Hall “a television legend.”
“Monty’s infectious enthusiasm, humor and warmth were a winning combination that was evident to everyone he encountered, whether returning to make appearances on the current version of ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ or gracing us with his presence at a photo shoot celebrating CBS Daytime earlier this year,” said Angelica McDaniel, CBS’ executive VP of daytime programs and syndicated program development. “On screen, Monty made the ‘Big Deals,’ but in the game of life, he himself was one.”
Hall hosted various game shows and other programs in his early career until he developed “Let’s Make a Deal” with creative partner Stefan Hatos. The show became legendary for encouraging audience members to dress up in outlandish costumes in order to attract Hall’s attention in the hopes of being given the opportunity to win big.
At the end of the show, the two biggest winners were given a shot at the Big Deal. They could trade their winnings for whatever was behind one of three doors: a new car, perhaps, or $15,000 in cash, or, if they were not so lucky, something worth less than what they had traded. All the while, the affable, smooth-talking Hall gave no hint of where the treasure might lie.
“Monty had to be a very likable con man; he had to convince people to give up a bird in the hand for what’s in the box,” David Schwartz, the author, with Fred Wostbrock and Steve Ryan, of “The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows,” said in an interview.
According to The NYTimes, Hall kept “Let’s Make a Deal” moving for most of almost 5,000 broadcasts on NBC, on ABC and in syndication. The show ended its original daytime run in 1976 on ABC. A concurrent syndicated nighttime version lasted until the next year. It occasionally resurfaced over the next decades and, after being off the air for a while, was revived in October 2009 on CBS, with Wayne Brady as host. That version is still on the air.
Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr., who as the owner of The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest and other magazines wielded vast influence over American culture, fashion and social taste, died on Sunday at his home in Manhattan.
Newhouse, known as Si, and his younger brother, Donald, inherited an impressive publishing empire from their father, Samuel I. (“Sam”) Newhouse, and built it into one of the largest privately held fortunes in the United States, with estimates of the family wealth running over $12 billion at the turn of the 21st century. While Donald led the more profitable newspaper and cable television operations, Si took charge of the more glamorous magazine division.
S.I. Newhouse
Much of that glamour was created under Si Newhouse’s direction. Though himself a shy man often painfully awkward in public, Mr. Newhouse hired some of the most charismatic magazine editors of the late 20th century, among them Tina Brown and Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair and Diana Vreeland and Anna Wintour at Vogue, and encouraged them to behave like the celebrities they extolled in his publications.
It helped that he rewarded them with salaries, expense accounts, clothing allowances and housing loans that were the envy of their peers. Newhouse editors also enjoyed spectacularly generous budgets at their magazines, which often ran deep in the red for years before turning profits. The Chicago Tribune reports Newhouse was chairman of Advance Publications Inc., which Forbes magazine in 2017 ranked as the 40th-largest private U.S. company, with an estimated $8 billion in revenue and 25,000 employees. In four decades at the helm of its magazine unit, Conde Nast Publications, he created new titles, entered markets around the globe and helped reengineer magazines as thick, glossy periodicals in which paid advertisements seem to complement rather than interrupt the articles.
His father, Samuel Sr., died in 1979 as a self-made media chieftain. He owned 31 newspapers with a total circulation of more than 3 million, plus the Sunday supplement Parade, seven magazines including Vogue and Glamour, radio stations and cable-television systems. In 1971, Syracuse University's journalism school, acknowledging its main benefactor, was renamed the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
The largest source of Newhouse's wealth was derived from the $10.4 billion sale of cable operator Bright House Networks LLC to Charter Communications Inc. in May 2016. Another sizable portion came from his stake in Discovery Communications Inc., which owns Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet.
Newhouse gave $15 million to Syracuse University.
Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr. was born Nov. 8, 1927, in New York.
➦In 1890...“The one, the only, Groucho” (Marx) was born in New York City. In fact his birth name was Julius Marx. He topped the Marx Brothers` vaudeville & film career as host of the radio & TV quiz show You Bet Your Life.
He died from pneumonia Aug 19, 1977 at age 86.
➦In 1896...the ultimate straight man (to partner Lou Costello) (William Alexander) Bud Abbott was born in Asbury Park New Jersey. Movies, radio & TV all garnered laughter from Abbott & Costello.
Bud outlived his partner by 15 years, succumbing to cancer Apr 24, 1974 at age 77.
➦In 1900...talented radio actor Barton Yarborough was born in Goldthwaite Texas. He is famous for his roles in the Carlton B. Morse productions I Love a Mystery, where he played Doc Long, and One Man’s Family, where he spent nineteen years portraying Clifford Barbour. He also spent three years as Ben Romero on Jack Webb‘s Dragnet.
He started work on the Dragnet TV series in 1951, but the day after he filmed the second episode, he suffered a heart attack and died four days later Dec. 19, 1951 at age 51. ➦In 1928...The first professional recordings in Nashville took place as DeFord Bailey lays down eight tracks in Victor Records (later RCA) Studios.
DeFord Bailey
Bailey was an American country music and blues star from the 1920s until 1941. Bailey was both the first performer to be introduced as playing on the Grand Ole Opry and also the first African-American performer on the show. He played several instruments but is best known for his harmonica tunes.
Bailey also had several records issued in 1927-1928, all of them harmonica solos. In 1927 he recorded for Brunswick records in New York City, while in 1928 he recorded eight sides for Victor in Nashville, of which three were issued on several labels, including Victor, Bluebird and RCA. Emblematic of the ambiguity of Bailey's position as a recording artist is the fact his arguably greatest recording, John Henry, was released separately in both RCA's 'race' and 'hillbilly' series.
He was a pioneer member of the WSM Grand Ole Opry, and one of its most popular performers, appearing on the program from 1927 to 1941. During this period he toured with many major country stars, including Uncle Dave Macon, Bill Monroe, and Roy Acuff. Like other black stars of his day traveling in the South and West, he faced many difficulties in finding food and accommodation because of the discriminatory Jim Crow laws.
Bailey was fired by WSM in 1941 because of a licensing conflict with BMI-ASCAP, which prevented him from playing his best known tunes on the radio. This effectively ended his performance career, and he spent the rest of his life shining shoes and renting out rooms in his home to make a living. Though he continued to play the harp, he almost never performed publicly. One of his rare appearances occurred in 1974, when he agreed to make one more appearance on the Opry. This became the occasion for the Opry's first annual Old Timers' Show.
He died on July 2, 1982 in Nashville and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery there.
➦In 1930...“The Lutheran Hour” began its weekly broadcasts which continue on today, on some 800 radio stations worldwide. It is the longest running Christian broadcast in the world.
➦In 1933...“Red Adams” was heard for the first time on NBC radio. Later, the program was retitled, “Red Davis” (starring Burgess Meredith), “Forever Young,” and, finally, in 1936, “Pepper Young’s Family” (starring Mason Adams).
(Mason would later find TV fame as Lou Grant’s boss, and the voice of Smucker’s Jams.) Pepper Young’s Family kept daytime radio listeners tuning in for another 23 years.
Pepper Young's Family was one of radio's more popular daytime drama series, with various format and title changes during its long run from 1932 to 1959. It was created and written by short story author and playwright Elaine Sterne Carrington. With Burgess Meredith in the title role, the program began as Red Adams, about high school athlete Red Adams, his family and friends. The 30-minute series was broadcast on the Blue Network, airing on Sunday nights at 10:30pm. When Beech-Nut Gum signed as a sponsor, they wanted no mention of their competition, Adams gum, so the title changed to Red Davis, a 15-minute series heard three times a week from 1933 to 1935. The series was again retitled, and the 15-minute Forever Young was heard on NBC weekdays at 3pm from January 13 to June 26, 1936. Three days later, on June 29, it became Pepper Young's Family, continuing on NBC for the next 23 years with Procter & Gamble's Camay as the sponsor.
➦In 1939...the most celebrated portrayal of Sherlock Holmes came to the US airwaves, as Basil Rathbone debuted in the title role on The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on the NBC Blue network. As in the movies, Nigel Bruce played the bumbling Dr. Watson.
➦In 1949...the popular family comedy, The Aldrich Family, became one of TV’s first hits, as the longtime radio show appeared on NBC-TV for the first episode in a 4-year run. It thus earned the distinction of being the very first TV sitcom.
Elvis at Grand Ole Opry
➦In 1954...Elvis Presley bombs at the Grand Ole Opry, which does not approve of his take on traditional country music. The Opry's talent director, Jim Denny, famously tells Presley he should go back to driving a truck. Elvis swears never to return.
➦In 1962...Johnny Carson made his debut as host of the The Tonight Show. Johnny went on to host The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson for 30 years and became one of the biggest stars of the 20th century.
➦In 1965...The Hot 100...It was up against tough competition but the McCoy's reached #1 with "Hang On Sloopy". Barry McGuire slid to 2 with "Eve of Destruction" and the Beatles made an incredible move from 45 to 3 with "Yesterday". Any doubt what would be the #1 song the following week? The Dave Clark Five were stuck at 4 with "Catch Us If You Can" and the former #1 "You Were On My Mind" from We Five was still at #5.
The rest of the Top 10: The great instrumental "The 'In' Crowd" from the Ramsey Lewis Trio, Roy Head was up from 12-7 with "Treat Her Right", the Fortunes cracked the Top 10 with "You've Got Your Troubles", followed by two songs from Sonny & Cher--"Baby Don't Go" and "Laugh At Me" finished the list.
➦In 1971...The Album Chart..Rod Stewart was making an impact as a solo star as Every Picture Tells A Story reached #1 on the Album chart. Carole King of Stanley, Idaho was three weeks short of setting the record for weeks at #1 (18) with her masterpiece Tapestry. The Moody Blues were a solid #3 with Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Isaac Hayes was up to 4 with Shaft and Paul & Linda McCartney were at position #5 with Ram.
The rest of the Top 10: Who's Next from the Who, the Carpenters' self-titled release, Master of Reality by Black Sabbath, The Partridge Family Sound Magazine and John Lennon moved from 134 to 10 with his first solo album Imagine.
➦In 1976...The Hot 100...Newcomer Wild Cherry remained at #1 with "Play That Funky Music", leader of a great Top 10. A new duo on the scene, England Dan & John Ford Coley, would have to settle for having one of The Top #2's of the Rock Era* with "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight". Walter Murphy had one of The Top 100 Instrumentals of the Rock Era with "A Fifth of Beethoven". For laughs, we had Rick Dees with "Disco Duck" and Boz Scaggs' great song "Lowdown" remained #5.
The rest of the Top 10: Cliff Richard's biggest hit "Devil Woman", War with "Summer", Chicago had their 22nd career hit and 11th Top 10 with "If You Leave Me Now", K.C. and the Sunshine Band's former #1 "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" and Orleans moved up to #10 with "Still the One".
➦In 1976...The Album Chart...Former Humble Pie member Peter Frampton was enjoying great success with the double-live album Frampton Comes Alive!--it was #1 for a ninth week. It had to be a special album to hold off Silk Degrees from Boz Scaggs. Hasten Down the Wind was right behind by Linda Ronstadt.
The rest of the Top 10: Wild Cherry with their debut, the Greatest Hits album from War, Spirit by John Denver at #7, Jefferson Starship's Spitfire, Steve Miller moved into the Top 10 with Fly Like An Eagle and Chicago's ninth consecutive Top 5 album (Chicago X) was now at #10.
➦In 1998...career New York radio actor Lon Clark, who starred for 12 years as Mutual radio’s Nick Carter, Master Detective, died at age 87.
➦In 1998…Singer/actor/MLB team owner/radio station group owner (Golden West)/Country Music Hall of Famer Gene Autry, "The Singing Cowboy," died of lymphoma at the age of 91.
➦In 2003...It was announced that talk show host Rush Limbaugh was being investigated for allegedly buying thousands of addictive painkillers from a black-market drug ring.
➦In 2014...CBS Radio, Beasley Media agreed to swap stations. Beasley announced today that it entered into an asset exchange agreement with CBS Radio, whereby Beasley will exchange five stations in Philadelphia and Miami for fourteen CBS Radio stations in Tampa-St. Petersburg, Charlotte and Philadelphia.
Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, there is no cash consideration or other contingent consideration to be paid by either party beyond the asset exchange.
