Syndicated radio host and comedian Rickey Smiley is thanking everyone for the outpouring of support after tragedy struck close to home.
During his morning show Monday, the radio host revealed that his 19-year-old daughter, Aaryn, was shot three times over the July 4th holiday weekend in Houston.
"I wasn’t even going to say anything about this. I’ve been dealing with this all morning, sitting up here with butterflies in my stomach trying to do the show. My youngest daughter was shot last night," Smiley said on the "Rickey Smiley Morning Show" Monday. "She’s in the hospital right now… I'm just so angry."
Smiley explained that his daughter was unintentionally caught in a crossfire while trying to get food from Whataburger Sunday night in Houston.
Later Monday, Smiley shared on Instagram that his daughter "made it out of her operation." He thanked everyone for their prayers, adding that she's "doing great."
In a statement to USAToday, the Houston Police Department confirmed the incident at 6898 South Freeway in Houston Sunday night, saying the victims, three men and one woman, were transported to an area hospital with what are believed to be non-life-threatening wounds.
"The three men were in a vehicle at a stop light…when an unknown vehicle passed them," the Houston police statement said. "The occupant(s) of the vehicle began shooting multiple times, wounding the three men. A female passenger in an unrelated vehicle was also struck."
Aaryn, who was celebrating her birthday on Sunday after turning 19 days ago, shared a grisly picture on her Instagram Story of the blood stained passenger seat where she was shot.
Ringo Starr is ringing in his 80th birthday — with a little help from his friends.
The NY Daily News reports the legendary former Beatle will celebrate the milestone Tuesday with a virtual concert that’s set to feature appearances from his ex-bandmate Paul McCartney and some of music’s biggest names.
Joe Walsh, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr., Ben Harper and Sheila E. are each set to perform during the livestreamed event, which kicks off at 8 p.m. on Starr’s YouTube channel.
With his trademark shades and perpetually youthful looks, the iconic Brit is helping to lead his generation of classic rockers into their 80s. Earlier this year, he revealed that he can still fit into his bright pink outfit from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” an album that celebrated its 50th birthday in 2017.
Starr memorably celebrated his 70th birthday with a concert at Manhattan’s famed Radio City Music Hall. That show famously ended with a surprise appearance by Sir Paul, who played the band’s hit “Birthday.”
The proceeds from Tuesday’s concert — titled “Ringo’s Big Birthday Show” — will go to the charities Black Lives Matter Global Network, The David Lynch Foundation, MusiCares and Water Aid.
The man born Richard Starkey debuted with the Beatles in 1962, joining McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison to complete what many consider to be the most influential band of all time.
➦In 1940...Beatle Ringo Starr born. ➦In 194?...Radio personality Joey Reynolds was born. Joey Reynolds is the pseudonym of Joey Pinto, long-time radio show host and disc jockey. Reynolds' broadcasting career started on TV in Buffalo at WGR TV 2 and he worked at various stations, including at WNBC.
Joey Reynolds
His first radio job was WWOL in Buffalo with Dick Purtan, then WKWK, in Wheeling, WV. After that, he continued at several venerable stations, including WKBW in Buffalo, New York, WNBC and WOR in New York City, KQV in Pittsburgh, KMPC and KRTH in Los Angeles, WDRC in Hartford, WIXY in Cleveland, and WIBG and WFIL in Philadelphia.
He rose to fame as a Top 40 radio personality during the 1960s and 1970s, amassing large audiences in places such as Hartford, Connecticut, Cleveland, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and his hometown of Buffalo, New York. Reynolds is often regarded as an early progenitor of "shock talk radio", whose sometimes outlandish on and off-air stunts garnered widespread publicity.
Joey Reynolds was in the category of disc jockey, playing music on music intensive radio stations from the very late 1950s until the mid-1980s during his time on Z100 and WFIL. In 1986, he arrived at the former WNBC in New York City doing the afternoon drive, Howard Stern's previous shift. That station was attempting to move into a more talk intensive full service format with music taking a backseat but still heard. Reynolds was basically playing a mix of oldies and adult contemporary cuts along with comedy and personality, and was most notably on the air when the station's traffic helicopter crashed, killing reporter Jane Dornacker.
He exited WNBC at the end of February 1987 and was replaced by the late Alan Colmes.
His next stations were morning shows and at that point Joey had evolved into more of a talk intensive program. He was less a DJ and more like a talk show host. By 1995, Joey was no longer playing music on his shows and in 1996 he arrived at WOR in New York. He has been a talk show host since.
On March 10, 2010, it was revealed that WOR would pick up Coast to Coast AM from Premiere Radio and would cancel "The Joey Reynolds Show." (Coast to Coast had been heard on crosstown rival WABC for several years, before that station dropped the show in favor of an in-house offering from Doug McIntyre, which led Premiere to seek WOR as the new New York affiliate.) Reynolds' last show, which was segregated into the "Final Gay Hour," the "Final Jewish Hour" and "The Final Hour," aired the morning of April 3, 2010.
➦In 1944...legendary radio personality, Bobby Ocean, was born. He worked primarily on the West Coast. As you might expect Bobby Ocean is not his real name. His real is...Johnny! Johnny Ocean!
However, his first radio job was WDLP, Panama City, FL in 1963 using the name Ray Farrell.
He also used the on-air handles of 'Radio Ray' and 'Captain Turntable'. He first used the name Bobby Ocean at KGB 1360 AM, in San Diego, CA in 1968.
Best known for his work at KFRC 610 AM San Fransisco and KHJ 930 AM Los Angeles.
➦In 1949...the program "Dragnet" debuted on the NBC Radio Network.
Dragnet enacted the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show takes its name from the police term "dragnet", meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
Dragnet is perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama in media history. The series gave audience members a feel for the boredom and drudgery, as well as the danger and heroism, of police work. Dragnet earned praise for improving the public opinion of police officers.[1]
Actor and producer Jack Webb's aims in Dragnet were for realism and unpretentious acting. He achieved both goals, and Dragnet remains a key influence on subsequent police dramas in many media.
The show's cultural impact is such that after seven decades, elements of Dragnet are familiar to those who have never seen or heard the program. The ominous, four-note introduction to the brass and tympani theme music (titled "Danger Ahead"), composed by Walter Schumann, is instantly recognizable.
The radio series was the first entry in a Dragnet media franchise encompassing film, television, books and comics.
➦In 1974...“The Dr. Demento Radio Show” began national syndication, starring Barry Hansen who had created the persona of Dr. Demento in 1970 while working at Pasadena station KPPC-FM.
The positive listener response to the offbeat novelties that Hansen included in his rock oldies show led to his eventually turning it into an all-novelty show. At the end of 1971, he moved to KMET in Los Angeles. From 1972 to 1983, he performed a four-hour live show on KMET. From about 1974 on, the local Los Angeles market was the full 4 hours and the nationally syndicated show was cut to 2 hours. Later, the show would be a two-hour live show on KLSX, and after they converted to a talk-only format in 1995, moved again to KSCA, where it remained until they changed to a Spanish-language broadcast, in February 1997.
➦In 1989...Compact discs started to outsell vinyl record albums for the first time. The dominance of CDs practically wiped out the 45 RPM single format since nothing came along to replace it.
Bill Cullen
➦In 1990...radio/TV game show host & panelist Bill Cullen died from lung cancer at age 70.
Cullen's broadcasting career began in 1939 in Pittsburgh at WWSW radio, where he worked as a disc jockey and play-by-play announcer or color commentator for Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Hornets games. In 1943, Cullen left WWSW to briefly work at rival station KDKA before leaving Pittsburgh a year later to try his luck in New York. A week after arriving in New York, he was hired as a staff announcer at CBS.
To supplement his then-meager income, he became a freelance joke writer for some of the top radio stars of the day, including Arthur Godfrey, Danny Kaye, and Jack Benny; he also worked as a staff writer for the Easy Aces radio show.
Between 1946 and 1953, he worked as announcer for various other local and network shows, including the radio version of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman's first game show, Winner Take All, hosted by Ward Wilson; Cullen took over as host four months later when Wilson left. After a brief stint at WNEW in 1951, he hosted a popular morning show at WRCA radio from 1955 to 1961. His last regular radio job was as one of the hosts of NBC Radio's Monitor from 1971–73.
He was a longtime panel member on 'I’ve Got a Secret' & then 'To Tell the Truth' on TV.
➦In 2015…Longtime Chicago WVON radio personality/executive Moses "Lucky" Cordell died of injuries suffered in a fire at his home. He was 86.
Cordell had a long career in Chicago radio. After starting as a DJ at WGES in Chicago in 1952, Cordell moved to WGRY in Gary before working at WVON in Chicago.
He became the station's program and music director in 1965 and went on to become WVON's general manager in 1970.
Tom Marr
➦In 2016…Veteran Baltimore radio personality Tom Marr died at age 73.
Marr, who has been one of the more recognizable figures in Baltimore radio, began his career in 1967 with WFBR-AM where he started as a reporter and then served as the station’s news director. He was also the weekend sports anchor at WMAR-TV.
He joined WCBM in 1988 where he was both a reporter and political commentator and later became a talk show host. Marr also hosted his own nationally broadcast talk show on the WOR Radio Network and spent eight seasons as the radio play-by-play announcer for the Baltimore Orioles.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY:
Maddie Marlow is 25
Bandleader Doc Severinsen is 93.
Drummer Ringo Starr is 80.
Singer-guitarist Warren Entner of the Grass Roots is 77.
Actor Joe Spano is 74.
Singer David Hodo (the construction worker) of The Village People is 73.
Country singer Linda Williams is 73.
Actress Shelley Duvall is 71.
Actress Roz Ryan (“Amen”) is 69.
Actor Billy Campbell (“Once and Again”) is 61.
Bassist Mark White of the Spin Doctors is 58.
Singer-songwriter Vonda Shepard (“Ally McBeal”) is 57.
Comedian Jim Gaffigan is 54.
Actress Amy Carlson (“Blue Bloods”) is 52.
Actress Jorja Fox (“CSI”) is 52.
Actress Cree Summer (“A Different World”) is 51.
Actress Kirsten Vangsness (“Criminal Minds”) is 48.
Actor Troy Garity (“Barbershop”) is 47.
Actress Berenice Bejo (“The Artist”) is 44.
Actor Hamish Linklater (“The New Adventures of Old Christine”) is 44.
Actor Ross Malinger (“Sleepless in Seattle”) is 36.
Comedian Luke Null (“Saturday Night Live”) is 30.
Singer Ally Hernandez of Fifth Harmony (“The X Factor”) is 27.
Drummer Ashton Irwin of 5 Seconds of Summer is 26.
Country singer Maddie Marlow of Maddie and Tae is 25.
Charlie Daniels, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame best known for "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," died Monday morning after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke.
Daniels' death was confirmed by his publicist, Don Murry Grubbs. He is survived by his wife, Hazel, and son Charlie Daniels Jr.
By the time the Charlie Daniels Band topped the charts with “Devil” in 1979, the instrumentalist, singer and songwriter had long established a remarkable, multifaceted career in Music City. As a session musician, he played on three of Bob Dylan’s albums – including the revolutionary “Nashville Skyline” – as well as recordings for Ringo Starr and Leonard Cohen.
At the other end of that 60-plus year career, Daniels used more of his voice in support of U.S. veterans, and was known to speak out on their behalf on social media until his final days.
In 1974, he launched the first “Volunteer Jam,” a regular all-star concert that has continued for nearly 50 years. Daniels joined the Grand Ole Opry in 2008, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.
Upon its release in 1979, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” didn’t just top the country chart, it became a huge pop crossover hit – climbing up to No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart behind The Knack’s “My Sharona” and Earth Wind and Fire’s “After the Love Has Gone.” It gained even greater ubiquity one year later, when Daniels and his band performed it in the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy.”
“I get a chance to play it better tonight than I did last night and better tomorrow night than I did tonight,” Daniels said in 2016 of the song’s famous fiddle solo. “I haven’t played it perfect yet. I am in love with walking on stage and entertaining people with songs I have written. It’s one of the few times in my life that I feel like I know what I’m doing.”
NuVoodoo Media Services, a data-driven media marketing, programming and content intelligence provider, announces that it is offering a free webinar this week, “Marketing in the New Abnormal”.
The webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, July 8, 2020, at 1:00pm Eastern, and will share the latest findings of its Ratings Prospects Study XVI and important insights for marketing radio brands during uncertain times. With over 3,700 radio listeners, ages 14-54, across all PPM markets interviewed in late June 2020, respondents revealed that they most rely on Facebook and YouTube to stay informed, with local radio news stations ranked in the mid-tier along with local newspapers. However, the study found that there were notable differences between radio listeners in general and the smaller group inclined to participate in radio ratings. Register for the webinar at: https://nuvoodoo.com/webinar-signup/.
In Ratings Prospects Study XVI, NuVoodoo asked study participants to name their top sources for news. Respondents were encouraged to choose from a list of more than twenty national and local information platforms and brands. Participants were prompted to name all information sources they use to stay regularly informed. Facebook and YouTube topped the list for the respondent group overall, with Gen Z naming Facebook-owned Instagram and Google-owned YouTube the most. Facebook ranked first for both Millennials and Gen Xers. Older respondents were more apt to name traditional news outlets like cable and network news more frequently than the younger end of the participant spectrum.
Carolyn Gilbert, President, NuVoodoo Media Services, said: “Despite the growing advertiser boycott in response to Facebook’s controversial decision to let organic content spread without a system of fact verification in place, our findings remind us just how powerful an influence the entire Facebook ecosystem (they own Instagram) has with a significant percentage of the country. Its ability to shape and influence public opinion is immense.”
NuVoodoo further asked study participants how different COVID-19 advertising strategies might impact their usage of a business being advertised. For example, how would a business advertising a “No-Mask” policy as a stand against interfering with personal freedoms resonate with consumers? A plurality of females would stay away from businesses advertising such a policy, but a significant percentage of adult males - and about half the men 35-44 - interviewed say they would be attracted to a “No-Mask” policy.
Gilbert noted: “The resurgence of COVID-19 was in the middle of its upward trajectory when we fielded this study in late June. That’s why we are also tracking COVID-19 related perceptions on an ongoing basis, as public opinion is constantly shifting in reaction to the constantly evolving news cycle.”
FLORIDA'S CORONAVIRUS CASES PASS 200K: Florida had more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases in a day on Sunday for the third time in the past week, pushing its total number past 200,000, making it only the third state to reach that threshold, after New York and California. That came as five states reported a record number of coronavirus hospitalizations -- Arizona, Texas, California, South Carolina and Nevada -- and at least two South Texas counties said their hospitals had reached full capacity. Over the past week, coronavirus cases have been rising in 34 states, with 12 of them having increases of more than 50 percent. There have been just under 130,000 deaths in the U.S. as of early this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University's count, and more than 2,888,000 confirmed cases.
Scientists say there is growing evidence that the coronavirus could be spread by aerosol transmission and want the World Health Organization to say so. The New York Times reports that more than 230 scientists from 32 countries will say in an open letter that aerosols -- small respiratory particles of the coronavirus that are exhaled by infected people -- can float in the air and infect people, and that the WHO's guidance about the virus should be revised to say that. The WHO has said the virus is primarily spread by infected people who sneeze and cough, expelling large respiratory droplets that fall to the ground quickly. WHO's technical lead on infection control, Dr. Benedetta Allegranzi, told the Times they have said they consider airborne transmission of the virus, quote, "as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence." ➤ATTORNEY: HUMAN REMAINS IDENTIFIED AS THOSE OF MISSING SOLDIER: An attorney for the family of 20-year-old Army Specialist Vanessa Guillen said Sunday that human remains found in a shallow grave in Texas on June 30th had been positively identified as being those of Guillen, who'd been missing since April. Guillen, who was last seen in the parking lot of her barracks at Fort Hood, was bludgeoned to death with a hammer in the armory room where she worked. The main suspect, Army Specialist Aaron David Robinson, fatally shot himself Wednesday when confronted by investigators.
Two suspects have been identified for killing and disposing Vanessa Guillén's body.
Guillén's family say she was being sexually harassed by someone in her unit, but never identified or reported the case in fear of retaliation. pic.twitter.com/SmNjUqJHex
Natalie Khawam, the attorney for Guillen's family, said they told her Guillen planned to file a harassment complaint against Robinson the day after she was killed, and they believe Robinson became enraged when she told him that. But Robinson told authorities, that Guillen wanted to report him having a relationship with a married woman, which her family disputes. Khawam said the family was also told by investigators that Robinson called a woman he was involved with to help him dispose of Guillen's body. Cecily Ann Aguilar, the estranged wife of a former Fort Hood soldier, was arrested in connection with Guillen's disappearance.
➤ATLANTA MAYOR SAYS 'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH' AFTER EIGHT-YEAR-OLD KILLED NEAR WHERE RAYSHARD BROOKS KILLED: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Sunday that she wants to people to have the same passion towards ending community violence that they have for police reform after an eight-year-old girl was shot and killed the night before near the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks was killed by police just over three weeks earlier. Bottoms said there have been a number of protests in the area and challenges with demonstrators closing roads. Secoriea Turner was riding in a vehicle with her mother and an adult friend and the driver was trying to go into a parking lot where people had illegally set up barricades, and the girl was killed when someone opened fire on the car. Bottoms said in a news conference Sunday, "Enough is enough." She referred to the protests in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of police, talking about people who are, quote, "saying they want to see change," but said, "We're fighting the enemy within when we are shooting each other up in our streets." In calling for people to bring the same passion to ending community violence, she said, "We've had over 75 shootings in the city over the past several weeks. You can't blame that on [the Atlanta Police Department]."
Nick Cordero
➤NICK CORDERO DIES AT 41 AFTER BATTLE WITH COVID-19: Broadway actor Nick Cordero has died after a battle with Covid-19, according to his wife, Amanda Kloots. “God has another angel in heaven now,” Kloots posted on her official Instagram account Sunday night.
“My darling husband passed away this morning. He was surrounded in love by his family, singing and praying as he gently left this earth.” Kloots has been regularly updating her social media accounts with news of her husband’s ups and downs as he battled the virus and complications, including an amputated leg. She said Cordero battled the disease for 95 days. She shared on social media that Cordero spent some time on a ventilator, suffered multiple Covid-19 complications and in April had to have his leg amputated. He also suffered multiple mini-strokes while battling several other ailments.
➤NHL, PLAYERS AGREE ON PROTOCOLS TO RESUME SEASON: The NHL and the players' union agreed on protocols for health and safety measures on Sunday to resume the coronavirus-suspended season. The two sides are still negotiating an extension of the collective bargaining agreement. If everything is agreed to and ratified, games would return in late July or early August, with 24 teams taking part in an expanded playoffs and the Stanley Cup awarded in October.
➤DECHAMBEAU WINS ROCKET MORTGAGE CLASSIC: Bryson DeChambeau won the Rocket Mortgage Classic by three strokes Sunday over fellow American Matthew Wolff at Detroit Golf Club. The 26-year-old finished with a career-best 23-under 265. The tournament was the fourth since the PGA Tour's restart from its coronavirus shutdowns, and, like the previous three, was played without fans.
➤HARVICK WINS BRICKYARD 400; JOHNSON OUT AFTER POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS: Kevin Harvick won NASCAR'S Brickyard 400 on Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, getting the victory in the race for a second straight year. Harvick tied Denny Hamlin with a season-high fourth victory. Seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson wasn't in what was supposed to be his final Brickyard 400, as he was quarantining at home after testing positive for the coronavirus on Friday. Johnson was asymptomatic, but was tested for the virus after his wife tested positive.
➤WHITE SOX, NATIONALS, PIRATES, DIAMONDBACKS ANNOUNCE PLAYERS POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS: MLB'S Chicago White Sox, Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates and Arizona Diamondbacks all announced yesterday that two of their players had tested positive for the coronavirus and were quarantining. Pirates manager Derek Shelton said reliever Blake Cederlind and outfielder Socrates Brito had tested positive, and Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said relief pitchers Silvino Bracho and Junior Guerra were positive. The White Sox and Nationals didn't identify their two players each who tested positive. Additionally, the St. Louis Cardinals said third baseman Elehuris Montero tested positive for the virus.
iHeartMedia San Diego has announced that the acquisition of KFMB 760 AM from Local Media San Diego has been completed.
As a result of the acquisition agreement, the stations call letters will change to KGB-AM, effective July 4, 2020.
As part of terms of sale, TEGNA Inc. retained ownership of the KFMB-AM call letters, which required iHeartMedia to make the change. The Federal Communications Commission has approved the use of new call letters KGB for AM 760.
“The KGB call letters are legendary in San Diego and we’re excited to make them a part of AM 760’s next chapter as San Diego’s Talk station,” said Melissa Forrest, Market President iHeartMedia San Diego.
iHeartMedia began operating AM 760 KFMB under a local marketing agreement on March 17, 2020. The station will continue to broadcast its Talk format and full program lineup now that the change of ownership is complete.
Full Programming Lineup:
3 a.m. – 4 a.m. First Light
4 a.m. – 6a.m. America in the Morning
6 a.m. – 10 a.m. Armstrong & Getty
10 a.m. – 12 p.m. The Mark Larson Show
12 p.m. – 3 p.m. The Mike Slater Show
3 p.m. – 6 p.m. The Buck Sexton Show
6 p.m. – 10 p.m. The Mark Levin Show
10 p.m. – 3 a.m. Red Eye Radio
In December 2019, Tegna agreed to sell KFMB-AM-FM to Local Media San Diego for $5 million, putting them back under common control with its three Mexican-licensed stations and separating them from KFMB-TV. The deal did not include the rights to the KFMB call letters; thus, the call signs of the KFMB radio stations were changed after the closure of the acquisition.
Local Media had reportedly explored reselling the AM station after the closure, and promptly announced a $1.2 million resale of KFMB to iHeartMedia when the deal closed on March 17, 2020; KFMB immediately flipped to a temporary full-time simulcast of KOGO at noon local time, with its regular programming resuming on March 19.
KGB 760 AM (5 Kw-D, 50 Kw-N DA-1)
The KGB call sign was previously used on AM in San Diego by sister station KLSD 1360 AM from 1928 to 1982; the reassignment of the three-letter call sign was allowed, as KGB 101.5 FM which retained the call sign after 1360 AM dropped it, is also owned by iHeart.
CUMULUS MEDIA announces that it has appointed Dave Hill as Program Director for Kansas City’s Classic Rock KCFX 101 The Fox.
Hill brings 20 years of radio programming experience to Cumulus Kansas City, and joins the company from iHeartMedia, where he was Senior Vice President, Programming, for iHeart’s four stations in Indianapolis, IN. Prior to that, Hill was Program Director for Classic Rock station WBGG in Miami, FL, and was Senior Vice President, Programming, for iHeartMedia’s nine stations in Portland, OR.
Brian Philips, EVP, Content & Audience, CUMULUS MEDIA, said: “Dave Hill impressed us with his pure programming creativity and vivid imagination. The Fox rules classic rock in KC, but we don’t take our legacy for granted. Dave’s fresh perspective and rich experience will help keep us on top.”
Donna Baker, Regional Vice President/Market Manager, Cumulus Kansas City, added: “Dave’s history of leading great talent and teams to the highest level of winning is inspiring. This is the next exciting step in our growth of the iconic rock brand that is 101 The Fox.”
Dave Hill commented: "What a score! Most of my favorite things in one place - a legendary classic rock station with a pro staff, competition BBQ, and a football town all wrapped into one gig! Thanks to Donna Baker, Doug Hamand, Troy Hanson, and Brian Philips for giving me the opportunity to take the helm of KCFX."
Nearly 100 years after being founded in Buffalo, the call letters WEBR have a new home on the radio airwaves at 1440 AM starting today under local owner William Yuhnke of Kenmore Broadcasting, who purchased WJJL from M. J. Phillips. Don Angelo is general manager.
Yuhnke president of Liberty Yellow Cab and Transportation in Buffalo and Angelo, veteran radio and television executive elected to the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame, are Buffalo natives. They have been friends since they worked together in the 1970s at area radio stations.
“Our WEBR music format, ‘Standards of Excellence,’ is inspired by the Great American Song Book,” including classics from Hollywood, Broadway and Tin Pan Alley,” Angelo said. “This music is timeless,” he said, noting the trend of contemporary recording artists such as Michael Buble, Diana Krall, Harry Conic and Norah Jones to dip into the rich treasure of “cool, classy and sophisticated songs.”
Reprising WEBR’s tagline, “The Sound of The City,” WEBR also will feature music recorded by local artists. Veteran area broadcaster Tom Darro will continue hosting his daily “Viewpoints” talk show currently heard on 1440 AM at WJJL. WEBR will be an affiliate of the 180-station USA Radio Network. The station will stream at WEBR1440.com.
Yuhnke said: “We are broadcasters, patriots and Christians who love the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region and are dedicated to God, family, freedom and country. Our pledge is to serve our hometown community with reliable, non-biased, fair and balanced news, information and entertainment. We will provide listeners an open mic to express their personal opinions without interruption by a talk show host.”
Local ownership, he pointed out, brings flexibility in responding to listeners. “We are here and want to be close to and serve our friends and neighborhoods across Niagara and Erie Counties and Southern Ontario.” Yuhnke said that programming would include “local legends” such as former TV personality Barry Lillis and “Jazz in the Nighttime” host Al Wallack.
WEBR 1440 AM (1 Kw)
WEBR was born on October 14,1924 when engineer Herbert H. Howell built WEBR and signed on from 54 Niagara St. In 1936, The Buffalo Evening News bought the station and then sold it to The Buffalo Courier-Express in 1942. WEBR was located in a historic red brick mansion at 23 North St. Struck by lightning in 2014, 23 North St. has since been demolished.
WEBR served Western New York for 70 years at 970 AM. Its last media owner, Western New York Public Broadcasting (WNED), purchased WEBR in 1975. The call letters were dropped in 1993 when the station became WNED (now WBFO).
Several of the Yankees’ young stars are irritated that video of Masahiro Tanaka taking a line drive to the head went viral over the weekend.
The injury was recorded live by the YES Network, the YES Network, the Yankee-owned TV network. The video that circulated widely on social media Saturday evening was a YES clip recorded by a local journalist and shared by an SNY account, although neither YES nor the Yankees promoted any footage of the injury. The Mets and Wilpons own SNY.
Two of the Yankees’ best players were unhappy about the video and tweeted about it, which will be one of the primary ways we hear from MLB players this summer while in-person interviews are off-limits.
I get that everyone has a job to do but continuing to film and zoom in on someone hurt and down in the stadium doesn’t sit well with me! Doesn’t matter who it is, teammate, coach, or fan! Praying for Tanaka!
At least four other Yankees players — reliever Jonathan Holder, outfielder Aaron Hicks, and infielders Tyler Wade and Luke Voit — shared the posts.
Judge sent his tweet before Tanaka was released from the hospital and said that he wanted “to try to get back on the mound ASAP!”) But Tanaka’s video was newsworthy, aired on live television, and was witnessed by the Yankees beat, who for all their skill could never describe the Giancarlo Stanton liner to the head as well as the video did. The video aired on MLB Network later Saturday and was also shared by the channel’s Twitter account.
Jordan Montgomery said he requested to pitch with the “L screen” after watching the incident with Masahiro Tanaka. He admitted he was a little shaken up and timid on the mound thereafter. Sent his teammate well wishes continually saying “I hope he’s okay” #yankees
— Meredith Marakovits (@M_Marakovits) July 4, 2020
Tanaka was pitching without a protective screen; many pitchers prefer to do so in live batting practice so they can come close to real game conditions. After Tanaka went down, he was replaced by Jordan Montgomery, who requested a screen.
Audrey Cooper is leaving her post as editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Chronicle to fill the same role at WNYC in New York City. Her first day will be July 20, according to current.org.
At WNYC, Cooper will oversee local talk shows, including The Brian Lehrer Show and All of It. She will also oversee Gothamist, the online news publication acquired by the station in 2018.
WNYC created the editor-in-chief position after Jim Schachter, former VP of news, left last year to lead New Hampshire Public Radio.
In a memo to staff, Chief Content Officer Andrew Golis and CEO Goli Sheikholeslami said WNYC was looking for a leader “with a rare combination of skills and strengths—someone who understands the unique role public media plays on the media landscape, and who has the tenacity and commitment to address some of our most urgent internal needs head-on.”
Audrey Cooper
Cooper received several promotions at the Chronicle, culminating in her being the first woman appointed to the editor-in-chief position.
Cooper, a younger editor in the industry, “transformed” the newspaper’s newsroom, Golis and Sheikholeslami wrote, “from one dominated by white men to one led by and predominantly made up of women, people of color, and/or people who identify as LGBTQ+.”
According to The NY Times, newsroom stafferes are not happy. Reporters and producers sought a person of color, someone who deeply understood New York and who had experience in public radio. So it was with great consternation that the staff greeted the news, delivered on June 11, when the rest of the world would hear it as well — and 45 minutes or so before they met their new boss on Zoom — that the editor in chief of WNYC was going to be a white woman who lived in California, grew up in Kansas and was not from the world of audio.
“We were blindsided,” Richard Yeh, a supervising senior producer, told me, “really befuddled by the fact that our leaders chose someone who didn’t meet any of our qualifications.”
Cooper, who is white, promised to make WNYC more diverse.
“You will always know where we are going and how you can help us get there. So it seems fair to tell you that I am aware that I am joining at a time when WNYC does not have enough black and brown people in the newsroom. Changing this is my first priority,” she said. “I will put people of color in positions to decide what we cover, and I will make sure more people of color are telling those stories. This work needs to happen as quickly as possible — a diverse newsroom is a journalistic and moral necessity.”
Cooper told staff in the memo that she owes her interest in journalism to the night she walked into the newsroom at WBUR in Boston. She was a student at Boston University and wanted to volunteer for the station.
Facebook has spent the past few days in round-the-clock conversations with advertisers, trying to persuade them to come back to the platform with the promise of modest changes to address concerns that the social network profits from hate and outrage, the Washington Post reports.
But advertisers and the agencies they work with say they are still negotiating. And they say they are so far unimpressed with promises to better police hate speech, including labeling some politicians’ posts when they break the company’s policies. On Tuesday, when the civil rights groups that organized the efforts expect to sit down with chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, they plan to push for changes, including adding a C-suite-level executive dedicated to ensuring that the company’s policies don’t contribute to racism and radicalization.
More than 750 companies, including Coca-Cola, Hershey, and Unilever, have already temporarily paused their advertising on Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram. More companies have joined the movement every day, with recent additions including Walgreens, Best Buy, Ford, and Adidas. More than 200 advertisers joined between Thursday and Friday.
Facebook’s business model depends on engagement: The more time people spend viewing content on the platform, and the more they click and interact with others, the more they are exposed to advertising in Facebook’s scrolling news feed. Critics have argued that divisive and emotional content spreads more rapidly, particularly in like-minded private Facebook groups. That outrage is built into Facebook’s ability to profit.
The boycott is the largest flare-up in a long-simmering battle between advertisers and social platforms over who gets to control what content the ads pop up next to. The campaign, which was triggered by Facebook’s allowing content that organizers said could incite violence against protesters, represents the most substantive effort to date to sanction the social network, which commands the second-largest share of the US digital ad market behind Google.
The company has 8 million advertisers, which generated almost all of its approximately $70 billion in ad revenue last year. Most are small businesses.
On an average day, President Donald Trump sends about 14 posts to the 28 million Facebook followers of his campaign account. His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, delivers about half that many posts to an audience of just 2 million.
The numbers are similarly skewed in other spheres of the social media landscape, FOX Business reports.
On Twitter, Trump’s 82.4 million followers dwarf Biden’s 6.4 million. The president has spent years cultivating a ragtag digital “army” of meme makers and political influencers who retweet campaign messages hundreds of times daily. Trump is outspending Biden on Google and YouTube advertising by nearly 3 to 1.
As his reelection bid faces growing obstacles, his primacy in the dizzying digital world is one of his top advantages, giving him a massive platform to connect with supporters and push a message that ignores his vulnerabilities related to the pandemic, unemployment and race relations. Biden and his allies are now working feverishly to establish a social media force of their own.
For the first time, Biden outspent Trump on Facebook advertising in June, pouring twice as much money into the platform as the president. His campaign is recruiting Instagram supporters to hold virtual fundraisers. And it’s plotting ways to mobilize the power of hundreds of teens on TikTok who reserved tickets for Trump’s recent Oklahoma campaign rally and took credit for sinking the event by artificially inflating the crowd count before it began.
Trump and Biden have strikingly divergent tactics on social media.
A centerpiece of Trump’s digital efforts is the Team Trump Online! nightly live broadcasts streamed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Twitch, an online streaming platform. The broadcasts feature top Trump surrogates including daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump also tweets with far greater velocity, sending more than 160 Twitter messages during a seven-day period starting June 14, an Associated Press analysis of Trump and Biden’s accounts reveals. More than 50 of Trump’s posts were retweets from an assortment of users that included the U.S. Army, far-right meme-makers, conservative news outlets, little-known congressional candidates and anonymous accounts that in some cases promoted conspiracy theories.
Biden has stuck to a more conventional approach, tweeting nearly 60 messages during that same time, only a handful of which were retweets from verified accounts, like former President Barack Obama, or established news outlets. Every video Biden tweeted out over that week in June was produced by his own campaign.
As coronavirus infections are spiking in U.S. states that previously had not been hard-hit, a new high of 65% of U.S. adults say the coronavirus situation is getting worse.
A new Gallup poll reveals the percentage of Americans who believe the situation is getting worse has increased from 48% the preceding week, and from 37% two weeks prior.
The latest results, from June 22-28, are based on Gallup's online COVID-19 tracking survey, which interviews weekly random samples from Gallup's probability-based panel. Last week, governors in many states paused or rolled back plans to ease restrictions on economic activity as states in the South and West dealt with a surge in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations.
Gallup first asked Americans in early April to say whether they thought the coronavirus situation was getting better or worse. At that time, 56% said it was getting worse and 28% better, the most negative assessment prior to the latest reading. From late April through early June, there were several weeks in which more Americans said the situation was getting better than getting worse.
Today, there is widespread agreement among Americans in all parts of the country that the situation is getting worse. Between 62% and 68% of those living in the four major regions of the U.S. say it is worsening. These rates represent heightened concern over the prior week in all four regions, including increases of 13 percentage points for those living in the South and Midwest, 19 points for those in the West and 22 points for those in the Northeast.
Americans' greater pessimism is also apparent in the 74% who expect the level of disruption to travel, school, work and public events in the U.S. to persist through the end of this year (37%) or beyond that (37%). This represents a 10-point increase from the prior week in the percentage of U.S. adults who think the coronavirus situation will last at least until the end of the year. In early May, less than half of Americans expected the situation to last that long.
The percentage of Americans who say they are very or somewhat worried about getting the coronavirus has increased from 48% to 56%, a level not seen since late April. It is also one point off the trend's record high of 57%, registered in the initial measurement the week of April 6-12.
➦In 1921...in an experiment, Western Union transmitted by radio its first halftone photograph. AT&T followed in 1924, and RCA sent a Radiophoto in 1926. The Associated Press began its Wirephoto service in 1935 and held a trademark on the term AP Wirephoto between 1963 and 2004. The first AP photo sent by wire depicted the crash of a small plane in New York's Adirondack Mountains.
Technologically and commercially, the wirephoto was the successor to Ernest A. Hummel's Telediagraph of 1895, which had transmitted electrically scanned shellac-on-foil originals over a dedicated circuit connecting the New York Herald and the Chicago Times Herald, the St. Louis Republic, the Boston Herald, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
➦In 1925...rock `n’ roll pioneer Bill Haley (William John Clifton Haley Jr.) was born in Highland Park, near Detroit (Died of a brain tumor at age 55 – February 9, 1981).
Bill Haley
He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and million-selling hits such as "Rock Around the Clock", "See You Later, Alligator", "Shake, Rattle and Roll", "Rocket 88", "Skinny Minnie", and "Razzle Dazzle". He has sold over 60 million records worldwide and has been described as the greatest musical pioneer of the 20th century.
In 1929, the four-year-old Haley underwent an inner-ear mastoid operation which accidentally severed an optic nerve, leaving him blind in his left eye for the rest of his life. It is said that he adopted his trademark kiss curl over his right eye to draw attention from his left, but it also became his "gimmick", and added to his popularity. As a result of the effects of the Great Depression on the Detroit area, his father moved the family to Bethel, Pennsylvania.
One of his first appearances was in 1938 for a Bethel Junior baseball team entertainment event, performing guitar and songs when he was 13 years old.
The anonymous sleeve notes accompanying the 1956 Decca album Rock Around The Clock describe Haley's early life and career: "For six years Bill Haley was a musical director of Radio Station WPWA in Chester, PA, and led his own band all through this period. It was then known as Bill Haley's Saddlemen, indicating their definite leaning toward the tough Western style. They continued playing in clubs as well as over the radio around Philadelphia, and in 1951 made their first recordings on Ed Wilson's Keystone Records in Philadelphia." The group subsequently signed with Dave Miller's Holiday Records and, on June 14, 1951 the Saddlemen recorded a cover of "Rocket 88".
During the Labor Day weekend in 1952, the Saddlemen were renamed Bill Haley with Haley's Comets (inspired by the supposedly official pronunciation of Halley's Comet, a name suggested by WPWA radio station program director, Bob Johnson, where Bill Haley had a live radio program from noon to 1 p.m.), and in 1953, Haley's recording of "Crazy Man, Crazy" (co-written by him and his bass player, Marshall Lytle, although Lytle would not receive credit until 2001) became the first rock and roll song to hit the American charts, peaking at number 15 on Billboard and number 11 on Cash Box. Soon after, the band's name was revised to "Bill Haley & His Comets".
In 1954, Haley recorded "Rock Around the Clock". Initially, it was relatively successful, peaking at number 23 on the Billboard pop singles chart and staying on the charts for a few weeks. On re-release, the record reached #1 on July 9, 1955.
➦In 1925...Merv Griffin born (Died at age 82 of prostate cancer – August 12, 2007). He was a TV host and media mogul.
He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in film and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986, Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show. He also created the internationally popular game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune through his television production companies, Merv Griffin Enterprises and Merv Griffin Entertainment.
Griffin started as a singer on radio at age 19, appearing on San Francisco Sketchbook, a nationally syndicated program based at KFRC.
Griffin had an un-credited role as a radio announcer in the 1953 horror/science fiction classic The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
By 1945, Griffin had earned enough money to form his own record label, Panda Records, which produced Songs by Merv Griffin, the first U.S. album ever recorded on magnetic tape. In 1947, he had a 15-minute Monday–Friday singing program on KFRC in San Francisco.
He became increasingly popular with nightclub audiences, and his fame soared among the general public with his 1950 hit "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts". The song reached the number one spot on the Hit Parade and sold three million copies.
At one of his nightclub performances, Griffin was discovered by Doris Day. Day arranged for a screen test at the Warner Bros. Studios for a role in By the Light of the Silvery Moon. Griffin did not get the part, but the screen test led to supporting roles in other musical films such as So This Is Love in 1953. The film caused a minor controversy when Griffin shared an open mouthed kiss with Kathryn Grayson. The kiss was a first in Hollywood film history since the introduction of the Production Code in 1934.
Griffin would go on to film more pictures (The Boy from Oklahoma and Phantom of the Rue Morgue), but soon became disillusioned with movie-making. Griffin bought his contract back from Warner Bros. and decided to devote his attention to a new medium: television.
From 1958 to 1962, Griffin hosted a game show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman called Play Your Hunch. The show appeared on all three networks, but primarily on NBC. He also hosted a prime time game show for ABC called Keep Talking. Additionally, he substituted for a week for the vacationing Bill Cullen on The Price Is Right, and also for Bud Collyer on To Tell the Truth. In 1963, NBC offered him the opportunity to host a new game show, Word for Word, which Griffin produced. He also produced Let's Play Post Office for NBC in 1965; Reach for the Stars for NBC in 1967; and One in a Million for ABC in 1967.
Griffin scored a coup when Tonight Show host Jack Paar accidentally emerged onto the set of Play Your Hunch during a live broadcast, and Griffin got him to stay for a spontaneous interview. After Paar left The Tonight Show, but before Johnny Carson took over (Carson was still hosting Who Do You Trust? for ABC), Griffin was one of the many guest hosts who presided over Tonight in the interim. Griffin was considered the most successful of the guest hosts, and was rewarded with his own daytime talk show on NBC in 1962. This live, 55-minute program was not successful however, and was cancelled in 1963.
In 1965, Griffin launched a syndicated talk show for Group W (Westinghouse Broadcasting) titled The Merv Griffin Show. Many stations ran it in the daytime, others aired it in prime-time and a few broadcast it opposite Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show. Griffin's announcer/sidekick was the veteran British character actor Arthur Treacher, who had been his mentor. After Treacher left the show in 1970, Griffin would do the announcing himself, and walk on stage with the phrase: "And now..., here I come!" According to an obituary article on August 24, 2007 in Entertainment Weekly, The Merv Griffin Show was on the air for 21 years and won eleven Emmy Awards during its run.
CBS gave Griffin a late-night show opposite Carson in 1969, a move which proved disastrous. The network was uncomfortable with the guests Griffin wanted, who often spoke out against the Vietnam War and on other taboo topics.
Sensing that his time at CBS was ending, and tired of the restrictions imposed by the network, Griffin secretly signed a contract with rival company Metromedia. The contract with Metromedia would give him a syndicated daytime talk show deal as soon as CBS canceled Griffin's show. Within a few months, Griffin was fired by CBS. His new show began the following Monday and ran until the mid-1980s. By 1986, Griffin was ready to retire and ended his talk show run. Thanks to profits from his highly successful game shows, Griffin had become one of the world's wealthiest entertainers.
He became enormously wealthy after selling his two successful TV quiz creations, Jeopardy & Wheel of Fortune.
➦In 1947...a hidden microphone eavesdropped on unsuspecting people aired for the first time, as Candid Microphone. Allen Funt hosted of the ABC radio show, which was the forerunner of the long-running TV version, Candid Camera. Candid Microphone aired one year on ABC, taking a two year hiatus and returning in 1950 on CBS Radio for a three-month summer run.
➦In 1950...the CBS Radio answer to NBC’s Dragnet aired for the first time. The Lineup had a distinguished three-year run in the waning days of big time radio.
➦In 1957...Liverpool teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time after a performance by Lennon's band, The Quarrymen.
Originally consisting of Lennon and several schoolfriends, the Quarrymen took their name from a line in the school song of Quarry Bank High School, which they attended. Lennon's mother, Julia Lennon, taught her son to play the banjo and then showed Lennon and Eric Griffiths how to tune their guitars in a similar way to the banjo, and taught them simple chords and songs.
Lennon started a skiffle group that was very briefly called the Blackjacks, but changed the name before any public performances. Some accounts credit Lennon with choosing the new name; other accounts credit his close friend Pete Shotton with suggesting the name. The Quarrymen played at parties, school dances, cinemas and amateur skiffle contests before Paul McCartney joined the band in October 1957. George Harrison joined the band in early 1958 at McCartney's recommendation, though Lennon initially resisted because he felt Harrison (still 14 when he was first introduced to Lennon) to be too young. Both McCartney and Harrison attended the Liverpool Institute.
The group made an amateur recording of themselves in 1958, performing Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day" and "In Spite of All the Danger", a song written by McCartney and Harrison. The group moved away from skiffle and towards rock and roll, causing several of the original members to leave. This left only a trio of Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison, who performed under several other names, including Johnny and the Moondogs and Japage 3 before returning to the Quarrymen name in 1959. In 1960, the group changed its name to the Silver Beetles, but soon changed its name to The Beatles and went on to have a historically successful musical career. ➦In 1963...Dick Biondi - the once-popular evening DJ on WLS 890 AM in Chicago, began on KRLA 1110 AM in Pasadena, Calif. He walked out on WLS about 2 months previously in a disagreement.
KRLA was in a top-40 battle with KFWB. Even though KFWB was #1 - the new KRLA lineup looks like this - Reb Foster, Casey Kasem, Bob Eubanks, Dick Biondi, Ted Quilin.
KRLA overtook KFWB by the mid-1960s. In 1965, 93KHJ started its “Boss Radio” Top 40 format, which launched it to the No. 1 position. KRLA was the second-place Top 40 station. KFWB abandoned music and flipped to all-news in 1968.
As music listeners moved to FM, KRLA evolved to adult contemporary by 1982. It became an oldies station in 1983. That lasted until 1994, when KRLA moved to urban oldies. In 1998, KRLA went to an all-talk format before flipping to all-sports KSPN in 2000. Today, it’s KRDC, a family-targeted country-formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Pasadena, California, serving the Greater Los Angeles Area. The station is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company.
When KRLA became KSPN in 2000, the KRLA call letters went to 870 AM, which carries a Salem Media's conservative talk format as 870 AM, The Answer.
➦In 1974..."A Prairie Home Companion," a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor made its debut on Minnesota Public Radio.
➦In 1998...Actor and singer Roy Rogers died (born Leonard Franklin Slye, November 5, 1911).
He was one of the most popular Western stars of his era. Known as the "King of the Cowboys", he appeared in over 100 films and numerous radio and television episodes of The Roy Rogers Show. In many of his films and television episodes, he appeared with his wife, Dale Evans; his golden palomino, Trigger; and his German shepherd dog, Bullet. His show was broadcast on radio for nine years and then on television from 1951 through 1957. His productions usually featured a sidekick, often Pat Brady, Andy Devine, George "Gabby" Hayes, or Smiley Burnette. In his later years, Rogers sold his name to the franchise chain of Roy Rogers Restaurants.
Tia & Tamera Mowry
HAPPY BIRTHDAY:
Actor Ned Beatty is 83.
Singer Gene Chandler is 80.
Country singer Jeannie Seely is 80.
Actor Burt Ward (“Batman”) is 75.
Actor Fred Dryer is 74.
Actor Sylvester Stallone is 74.
Actress Shelley Hack (TV’s “Charlie’s Angels”) is 73.
Actress Allyce Beasley (“Moonlighting”) is 69.
Actor Geoffrey Rush is 69.
Actor Grant Goodeve (“Eight is Enough”) is 68.
Singer Nanci Griffith is 67.
Jazz trumpeter Rick Braun is 65.
Actor Casey Sander (“Grace Under Fire”) is 65.
Actress Jennifer Saunders (“Absolutely Fabulous”) is 62.
Drummer John Keeble of Spandau Ballet is 61.
Actor Brian Posehn (“Just Shoot Me”) is 54.
Actor Robb Derringer (“Days of Our Lives”) is 53.
“CBS This Morning” co-host John Dickerson is 52.
NBC Sports correspondent and former “Good Morning America” host Josh Elliott is 49.
Rapper 50 Cent is 45.
Actresses Tia and Tamera Mowry (“Sister, Sister”) are 42.
