Radio Ads + In-Car Visuals Generate Significant Brand Effect

The combination of the in-car visual with the over-the-air radio ad generates a major improvement in advertising recall and impact.

The latest Westwood One blog post looks at the results from a MARU/Vision Critical study, commissioned by Westwood One, which looks ng at consumers with vehicles who have next generation HD Radios technology. The study revealed the impact of a retailer’s visual in the in-car display when synced to the advertiser’s radio ad.

Here are the key findings:

• Heavy AM/FM radio listeners and those who spend the most time in their car regularly pay attention to in-car display screens. The more time consumers spend in the car, the more they pay attention. 68% of those who spend 11+ hours weekly in the car regularly pay attention.
• Heavy AM/FM radio listeners recall seeing visual information from in-car display screens. Two-thirds of heavy AM/FM radio listeners have frequently or occasionally seen the advertiser name or logo on their connected vehicle’s screens.
• Consumers who regularly viewed their in-car display were more likely to recall the advertiser radio ads. 66% of regular in-dash radio display viewers could recall the retailer’s radio ads.
• Those who recall the retailer’s in-car visuals were more likely to visit the stores. 84% of those who recalled seeing the in-car visual synced to the radio ad had visited or planned to visit the store.
• Recall for the products advertised in the AM/FM radio ads was stronger among heavy radio listeners. 64% of heavy AM/FM radio listeners who recalled the major retailer’s advertising remembered the specific service featured in the ad.

Portland OR Radio: Twitter Blocks KXL Talker Lars Larson

Lars Larson

Twitter booted KXL 750 AM talk-radio host Lars Larson from the platform on Jan. 10 after he tweeted about a man who was fatally shot by Portland Police on Jan. 6.

According to wweek.com, Larson was replying to past Portland mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone in a comment she made condemning the shooting of 36-year-old Andre Catrel Gladen.

Iannarone tweeted a report by The Oregonian, which says a Southeast Portland tenant and his landlord called police after Gladen—who suffered from schizophrenia and was legally blind—refused to leave a doorstep.

Police say Gladen entered the home when they arrived, and an officer shot and killed him. A witness alleges Gladen pulled a knife.

Larson, in reply, wrote, "Gee @sarahforpdx you think the cops make PDX dangerous? Read the story and you find the dead man was 1) paranoid schizophrenic 2) invaded a stranger's home 3) fought with the officer 4) pulled a knife. What's your millennial snowflake solution to that situation without the cops?"

The tweet—which was flagged as "hateful content"—got Larson banned for 12 hours.

Maroon 5 Headlines Super Bowl LIII Halftime Show

The NFL on Sunday ended months of uncertainty by officially announcing Maroon 5, Big Boi and Travis Scott as the performers at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.

Maroon 5 had been the widely reported halftime show act since September, but the NFL didn’t confirm the band as its headliner until Sunday. The league said Maroon 5 will be joined by Big Boi, the Atlanta-based rapper from Outkast, and Scott.

Typically one of the most fiercely sought gigs in music, the Super Bowl halftime show has this year been the subject of boycott and protest, according to The Associated Press.  Numerous acts have turned down the NFL in support of Colin Kaepernick and other players who have taken a knee during the national anthem in protest of racial injustice.

#SBLIII ATL let’s get it ! pic.twitter.com/L7LUk2MV5e

— Big Boi (@BigBoi) January 13, 2019

This year’s Super Bowl will be broadcast from Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta by CBS on Feb. 3.

Duke City Radio: T J Trout Returning To Airwaves

T.J. Trout, the former morning radio prince of pranks, is back in Albuquerque and soon to be back on the air – but not in the morning, and not at his former home of 94 Rock, KZRR-FM.

Instead, Trout, 63, will take on the conservative AM radio crowd at KKOB 770 AM.

Known for its largely conservative lineup, which includes nationally syndicated radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, KKOB-AM is not an obvious choice for Trout, who was called out of retirement by station general manager Jeff Berry.

T J Trout (Journal photo)

“The way it was put to me when Jeff brought me in for the interview was he wants me to help change the culture of the radio station,” Trout told The Albuquerque Journal. “I reminded him, ‘You know my politics. I’m solidly left of center, a social liberal, and I make no apologies. If I’m going to be on the air, that’s what I’m going to do.’ Jeff said that’s what they were looking for, so I guess I’ll be the yin to Rush Limbaugh’s yang.”

Berry praises Trout as a “tremendous talent,” but beyond that he says he sees Trout as someone who can “engage people on the right and left and do it in an entertaining way.”

He acknowledges that the conservative talk radio audience is getting older, and the last election underscored New Mexico’s blue state status, but the decision to recruit Trout was made before the election, with the intention of expanding the audience by “taking the station in a little bit different direction” and maybe even nudge the ratings for those hours, he concedes.

“Politics today is so polarizing. People think they have to pick a side, but I don’t think they do,” Berry says. “People may lean right or left, but they don’t have to buy into the entire agenda. I know that some people will call in and disagree with T.J., and that’s OK. I want people of all beliefs who are passionate about a subject to engage. I want diverse subject matter, diverse opinions, and I think T.J. is the guy to find the common ground among all those voices.”

Racine-Milwaukee Radio: WVTY Adds Mitch Morgan

Mitch Morgan

Magnum.Media has announced that beginning January 14, 2019, Milwaukee Market Country Radio legend, Mitch Morgan, will be on Country WVTY 92.1 weekday mornings 8 a.m. – 10 a.m.

Morgan, a Milwaukee native, whose radio career took him to Miami and all the way to New York City, got his start in 1968, when his father had him voice commercials for the family’s three laundromat and dry cleaning businesses in Milwaukee, Hartford and Waukesha.

Morgan also handles the afternoon shift on Magnum’s 92.5 Buzz Country WMBZ, licensed to West Bend-Milwaukee.

Morgan stated, “I’m proud that one of the first moves Dave Magnum made four years ago, after acquiring and re-branding 92.5 as Buzz Country, was to bring me in as the Afternoon Host 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. Our big 92.5 signal covers from Milwaukee, westward to Portage, and northward beyond Fond du Lac, but we’ve had folks from the southern portion of the market, in places like Racine and Kenosha, tell us they’d like to be able to hear me too. So, I’m highly stoked they’ll be able to now on 92.1 VTY Country.”

WVTY 92.1 FM (2.7 Kw) Red=60dBu Coverage Area

Dave Magnum added, “If a pop quiz was given in the Milwaukee market to name all-time great Country radio personalities, Mitch Morgan would be right up there. Not only is he a pro, he’s served as a great example to our younger guys and gals including my two sons, Reid and Ty.

"We’re blessed and so are our listeners to now have Mitch Morgan on the air at both 92.5 Buzz Country and 92.1 VTY Country.”

Danbury CT Radio: Mike Rich Named MP For Townsquare

Mike Rich

Townsquare Media has announced the appointment of  Mike Rich as Market President and Chief Revenue Officer of its Danbury, CT operations. He'll oversee the company's local media properties reporting to Senior VP/Local Media Rob Williams.

The Danbury clusters consists of Rock WTKI i95, Sports WINE 940 AM and Country WDBY 105.5 FM.

Prior to joining Townsquare, Rich was the CEO of Irish Studio, a digital media company that owned and operated a portfolio of leading brands. His past experience includes executive leadership positions at Time Inc., Radio One and AOL.

"Mike Rich has long been someone we have wanted on our team; and, fortunately for us, the Danbury opportunity was the perfect match. Mike's extensive experience and success as a media executive in the music, radio, and digital industries will serve him well as he takes on this important local market for Townsquare," said Williams.

"I am honored and excited to be joining the Townsquare team," commented Rich. "I look forward to working with the team to continue to deliver world class consumer experiences and marketing solutions for our local audiences and partners, not only with our strong radio brands across multiple platforms, but also with Townsquare Interactive and Ignite."

Townsquare COO/Local Media Erik Hellum added, "Our mission at Townsquare is 'local first,' and to achieve that mission we need best of class leadership in our markets, which is why we are so excited to have Mike join our team".

Tulsa Radio: The #MuteRKelly Movement Arrives

Perry Broadcasting banned the artist from playing on two of its Tulsa stations -- KJMM 105.3 and KGTO 1050 AM / 99.1 FM.

It comes after a new documentary makes allegations of sexual misconduct involving several women and underage girls.

"I don't want to play this anymore, knowing what I know," Ali Shaw on-air personality for 105.3 told KTUL-TV.  She personally knows the pain R. Kelly's victims are feeling.

"I was a victim of sexual child abuse when I was five," said Shaw.

When she found out about what the victims said they suffered, she knew she wouldn't play his music anymore.

"To see what these... young women and ladies were going through, and thinking, 'What if they had been my daughter?'... It took me a while to get through it," said Shaw.

"We took them out of rotation and deleted them out of our computer," explained Assistant Program Director Aaron Bernard for 105.3 and 99.1. "It's a sense of morality to say enough is enough. Eventually, things catch up to people, and eventually, you're going to have to make some kind of stand for what's been going on."

An attorney for R. Kelly said the R&B star denies all the allegations against him.

Norfolk Radio: Veteran Personality Dick Lamb Retires..Sort Of..

Dick Lamb

Dick Lamb's career in early morning radio began in 1979 when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. It ended almost 40 years later on Friday with his last appearance on "Dick Lamb and the Morning Wave" on Max Media's WVBW 92.9 FM.

Lamb told his listeners this week, "I believe it's time for a change," and announced that he will leave the job of hosting "The Morning Wave" to Paul Richardson and Jennifer Roberts.

"You guys are on your own," he told the two broadcasters who have been his partners on The Wave since July 2005.

"I'll miss it," Lamb told pilotonline.com. "I've been lucky as heck to have had such a good run."

What he won't miss is the sound of his alarm going off at 4 a.m. "It will feel good to know that I don't have to get up at the hour any longer."

It was 1955 when Lamb broke into radio with a station in Baltimore while he was still in school and working part-time as bag boy in a grocery store.

Lamb, a father of five who is in good health at the age of 80, has been both a local TV personality with WTKR and WAVY and later a radio icon – first with WWDE-FM, where he presided over "The Breakfast Bunch" for 26 years, and later with The Wave.

Old-old timers might remember when Lamb was a Top 40 jock in the 1960s on WGH 1310 AM, a station dominant in this market for several decades, and still part of Lamb's universe.

He will remain as director of operations with Max Media and will be heard on a voice track weekdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the recently re-launched WGH. That's where Lamb in the 1960s was in a group of disc jockeys that included Gene Loving, George Crawford, Dale Parsons and Bob Calvert.

CES 2019 Recap: What Radio Needs to Know

Artificial intelligence. The connected car. 5G. There have been a seemingly endless number of announcements about technology that will change the way we consume media coming out of this year’s CES conference, but what do they mean for radio? Futuri Media is here to help our radio partners separate signal from noise.

Join Futuri Media’s Michael “Shark” Sharkey and Brynne Deppas for a tight recap of key CES announcements, what they mean for radio, and actionable insights on how your station can take advantage of them to drive audience and revenue growth.

The webinar will be held at two different convenient times on Tuesday, January 15 at 10:30am EST and 1:30pm EST. Each session will be 30 minutes in length. Links for the webinars can be found below. Don’t miss this chance to gain valuable insights into the future of radio.

• For the 10:30am webinar – here
• For the 1:30pm webinar – here

Boston Radio: NHL Bruins, Sports Hub Team For Puck & Paddles Event

The Boston Bruins and the Boston Bruins Foundation have announced that the second annual Patrice Bergeron & WBZ 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Pucks & Paddles event will be held on Thursday, February 7 at Royale Boston from 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

The tournament will feature players from the active Boston Bruins roster, on-air personalities from 98.5 The Sports Hub, and patients from Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center. All proceeds from the event will benefit Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center and the Boston Bruins Foundation.

The event will feature a single elimination tournament featuring Bruins players, on-air talent, and the winning bidders. Fans can bid on the opportunity to play doubles ping pong with the celebrity of their choice. Starting on January 14, fans can place their bids by visiting BruinsAuctions.org. Bidding will end on February 1. The rounds will advance to a championship game featuring the final two teams, with the winning duo being crowned the Patrice Bergeron & 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Pucks & Paddles champions. In addition, the four best Bruins ping pong players will participate in a separate informal singles competition to demonstrate their talents to the crowd.

All attendees upon arrival will have the opportunity to purchase an entry into a raffle to participate in additional ping pong games against select players.

Tickets are on sale now and fans will have the option to select VIP tickets ($200) or general admission tickets ($50). Tickets can be purchased at BostonBruins.com/PingPong. VIP attendees will enjoy a pre-event meet & greet with members of the team.

When purchasing VIP tickets, guests will either choose to be a part of the Gold VIP session featuring David Backes, Patrice Bergeron, Charlie McAvoy, and Tuukka Rask, or the Black VIP session featuring Zdeno Chara, David Krejci, Brad Marchand, and David Pasternak.

Broadcasting: By The Numbers

The Federal Communications Commission has released its broadcast station totals for Q4 2018, as of December 31, 2018.

The numbers indicated there are 10 more commercial FM stations than a year ago.  However, there were 20 fewer AM stations than at the end of 2017,  according to the numbers.

Spotify Hits 200M Active Users

Spotify has added nine million monthly active users in the last couple months, a company spokesperson announced on Thursday. During an interview at this year's CES, global head of communications Dustee Jenkins said the company recently hit 200 million MAUs, up from 191 million outlined in its Nov. 1 financial disclosure.

What isn't clear is how many of those 9 million are actually paying for the service, reports Billboard. In November the tally included 87 million paid subscribers and 109 million users of Spotify's ad-supported tier. When it announced Q3 results, the company projected its total premium subscribers to increase to between 93-96 million and its MAUs to between 199-206 million in Q4.

Profits have so far eluded the world's largest music streaming service, a topic that was brought up in Jenkins' interview at CES.

"We've said all along, we want to focus on growth," said Jenkins. 

"We believe in being a profitable company, but first and foremost we have to grow and get to regions of the world that still don't have Spotify. There are still parts of the United States where Spotify is not widely used. So I think the company has done a great job of prioritizing growth and making the service better, because there's a lot of competition and we're only as good as the user thinks we are so we have to continue to enhance our service."

Report: Media Group Eyes Acquisition Of Gannett

A hedge-fund-backed media group known for buying up struggling local papers and cutting costs is planning to make an offer for USA Today publisher Gannett Co. GCI 0.52% , according to The Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter.

MNG Enterprises Inc., one of the largest newspaper chains in the country, has quietly built a 7.5% position in Gannett’s stock and plans to publicly urge the McLean, Va., publisher to put itself up for sale, the people said.

MNG, better known as Digital First Media, will also offer to buy Gannett for $12 a share, they said, which would represent a 23% premium over Friday’s closing price of $9.75. The shares, which fell steeply last year, have been rising lately.

Closely held Digital First is known for its contentious history with the newspaper industry in part because of its penchant for slashing costs. It has over the past few years made multiple approaches to Gannett about a deal but has been rebuffed, the people said. At least one approach was made in the past month or so. It isn’t clear whether Gannett will be receptive now.

USAToday reports Gannett CEO Bob Dickey said in an email Sunday night to employees that the company had not had communication regarding a proposal. "The company and board are well advised, and if we have more information we will keep you informed. During this time, it’s business as usual for us and we need to stay focused," Dickey said in the email.

In addition to publishing USA Today, one of the top-selling papers in the country, Gannett owns and operates dozens of other publications such as the Arizona Republic, the Record in North Jersey and the Naples Daily News in Florida. Its shares have tumbled in recent years and dropped roughly 15% in the past 12 months, leaving the company with a market value of about $1.1 billion.

Locations of Gannett newspapers

The print media industry has suffered sharp revenue declines as digital advertising sales fail to keep up with drops in print advertising. This in turn has prompted a wave of consolidation among publishers looking to benefit from economies of scale and cut costs, often through layoffs. Both Gannett and Digital First Media have been active acquirers.

Digital First Media owns about 200 newspapers and publications including the Denver Post and the Orange County Register. Last year it beat out other bidders to buy the Boston Herald after the tabloid had filed for bankruptcy.

This wouldn’t be the first time Digital First Media has faced a fight. Since it bought the Denver Post, the paper’s staff has shrunk, prompting outrage from news-industry unions but helping make Digital First one of the most profitable newspaper operators.

January 14 Radio History

➦In 1907...Dr. Lee DeForest patented the Audion tube. De Forest is generally thought of as the "Father of Radio". The Audion tube allowed amplification which made Radio transmission more practical for voice and music.

The Audion was the fastest electronic switching element of the time, and was later used in early digital electronics (such as computers). The triode was vital in the development of transcontinental telephone communications, radio, and radar until the 1948 invention of the transistor.

➦In 1927…Jack Benny married Sadye Marks. Five years later, Marks started playing Mary Livingstone, a character on Benny's radio show, and became so identified with the part that she legally changed her name to Mary Livingstone.

➦In 1939..."Honolulu Bound" first aired on the CBS Radio Network.

➦In 1949...The detective series "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar," starring Charles Russell, then Edmond O'Brien and later John Lund, began its 12-year run on CBS Radio. The show was revived as a nightly radio serial in 1955 with Bob Bailey as the lead actor and continued in various forms until 1962.

➦In 1955...disc jockey Alan Freed held his first Rock `n’ Roll Party stage show in New York. Acts included the Clovers, Fats Domino and the Drifters.

➦In 1957...actor Humphrey Bogart, the major Hollywood star who co-starred with his wife Lauren Bacall in the wildly successful syndicated radio show “Bold Venture,” succumbed to cancer of the esophagus at age 57.

➦In 1966...Singer David Jones changed his last name to Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees.



➦In 1973...Elvis Presley drew the largest single television audience ever for his "Aloha From Hawaii" concert, broadcast live via satellite from Honolulu's International Center Arena to more than one billion people in 40 countries. Viewers in North America didn't get to see the show live, or at all, until April 4 when it was aired by NBC-TV. The audio from the concert was released as a double-album later that year.

➦In 1981...The Federal Communications Commission freed U.S. broadcasting stations to air as many commercials per hour as they wish.



➦In 1985...Dan Ingram started at WKTU 92.3 FM in NYC. Station is now WBMP and is owned by CBS Radio.

➦In 2013...WFME 94.7 FM In the NYC market changed call letters to WRXP.

➦In 2016…Radio news veteran Al Hart, the morning news anchor at KCBS-San Francisco for 24 years until his retirement in 2000, died of corticobasal degeneration, a rare, progressive brain disease, at age 88.