Atlanta Radio: N/T Vet Greg Tantum Named PD At WYAY

Greg Tantum

Cumulus has announced that Greg Tantum has been named Program Director of Newsradio WYAY 106.7 FM in Atlanta.

Tantum started his career as a reporter and anchor and for the past 30 years has successfully programmed spoken word stations in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.  Most recently, he was Executive Editor for NBC News Radio based in Washington, D.C.

John Dickey, Executive Vice President of Content and Programming for Cumulus said:  “Greg Tantum is the ideal candidate to program Newsradio 106.7. His success building first-rate news operations and long experience in the spoken-word format are exactly what we need to grow the station and maximize its huge ratings and revenue potential.”

WYAY 106.7 FM (77Kw) 60dBu Coverage

Tantum said: "At one of the most critical times in our country's history, it is exciting and rewarding to be joining Cumulus and News Radio 106.7. The station's recent  coverage leading up to and during the election is just one example of the serious commitment to providing the best resources available to give Atlanta listeners access to the news and information impacting their daily lives. It is also exciting to join a team which had one of the most successful launches of a new spoken-word format in many years and is now positioned to become the undisputed news leader in Atlanta."

Previously, Tantum was News Director For KGO for more than seven years.

FCC Looking For Answers

Following last month's fiasco where an unathorized EAN alert was transmitted during the syndicated Bobby Bones Morning Show, the FCC inviting comment to find some answers.

The FCC is also seeking comment on EAS security best practices implementation.

On Oct. 24, via audio on a YouTube video, the Bobby Bones Show transmitted an EAS warning with an Emergency Action Notification (EAN) that signals a message from the President. The message aired in several states.

Now, the FCC wants comment on the impact of unauthorized alerts on public safety, government and local agencies.

Among the questions the FCC wants some answers to in comments are:

• To what extent have EAS Participants been directly affected by unauthorized EAS alerts.
• Is there a difference in whether or how an unauthorized EAN or other EAS alert is received and transmitted among different types of EAS Participants (i.e.,broadcast versus cable versus other types of EAS Participants)?
• What effect, if any, do unauthorized alerts have on members of the public, including those with disabilities and those who do not speak English as a primary language?

 The Commission is also worried that some stations that may not have aired the message have it stored in their system and may trigger at a later date. 

"The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau advises EAS Participants to immediately check with their equipment manufacturers to determine if they have this alert in queue for a future date, and if so, what steps they should take to eliminate the false alert before it is transmitted."

Premiere Radio Networks, which distribtues The Bobby Bone Show, is co-operating into the investigation.  Also, iHeartMedia is requiring a refresher course on the EAS for operators at its 850 stations.

Report: Pay TV Exodus Continuing

The pay TV exodus is continuing slowly but surely. Suddenly, according to USA Today, traditional content companies are making moves to accommodate them.

What has caught the attention of traditional media companies is the rising number of U.S. broadband Internet-served homes without pay-TV service. Some of these are "pay-TV refugees," as research firm The Diffusion Group has dubbed them, customers who have dropped their service and gone strictly to the Net for video.

The exodus was evidenced in recent earnings reports from pay-TV providers. Cable companies Comcast and Time Warner Cable in recent weeks said that they had lost 81,000 and 184,000 pay TV subscribers, respectively, during the third quarter. Satellite TV providers DirecTV and Dish last week said they lost 28,000 and 12,000.

Telecom TV providers fared better, with Verizon FiOS adding 114,000 new video customers and AT&T gaining 216,000 U-verse TV subscribers.

Lucky for pay-TV services that, in general, the average customer bills continued to rise to help offset any declines and churn. The average DirecTV customer, for instance, pays $107 monthly.

But pay-TV companies that also provide broadband connectivity have another highlight: more customers are adding -- and switching to --broadband. Comcast added 315,000 broadband customers; TWC, 108,000 during the third quarter.

About 14% of adult broadband users do not use a legacy pay-TV service, up from 9% in 2011, The Diffusion Group has found. Over the next few months, the number of broadband homes is expected to surpass the number of pay-TV homes for the first time, it expects.

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D/FW Radio: Sports Talk Ratings Tighten

The big news for Sports Radio in the latest Nielsen ratings, according to Sports Media columnist Barry Horn at The Dallas Morning News, is that KTCK 96.7 FM / 1310 AM The Ticket did not win every primetime weekday hour in the demographic that pays the bills – men 25-54.

Primetime is defined here as 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. when the high-priced local talent is on the air at all three sports talk stations.

At 4 p.m., “The Afternoon Show” on KESN 103.3 FM ESPN Radio scored a 4.4 share to top the 4.2 earned by “The Hardline” on The Ticket.

Also at 6 a.m., KRLD 105.3 FM The Fan’s “Shan and R.J.” topped The Ticket’s “Musers”, 4.1 to 2.8.

Overall in the ratings period for men 25-54 it was The Ticket (4.5), Fan (3.7), boosted by Cowboys programming, and KESN (2.5).

FL Radio: The Whale To Get Beached

Florida-based Broadcaster Jim Martin, who has made a career of running radio stations, is in the process of taking ownership of WALE 105.5 FM The Whale in St. Augustine, FL.

It’s the station that started his ventures back in 1982, according to st.augustine.com.

WALE 105.5 FM (16Kw) 60dBu Coverage

“This is very special to me because it was the first of 26 stations that I have owned or been managing partner of,” Martin said.

The station is already being run by Martin’s management team under an LMA, but the actual transfer won’t be complete for another few weeks until the Federal Communications Commission issues its final approval.

It’s a lot of transition for the station that was recently acquired by Air St. Augustine before Martin got it back.

Martin said he wasn’t planning to buy the station, but when it was suddenly available, he decided to go for it. The timing was good because he just sold a Palm Beach station a month ago. He also owns four station in nearby Flagler County.

As for the format, 105.5 FM will play “classic hits,” which will be similar to the current format of classic rock but with a bit wider range of songs.

The station, which will be called “The Beach,” will also feature local weather and some news.

NYC Radio: Joe Piscopo Embraces Morning Show At WNYM

Joe Piscopo (NY Daily News photo)

“Finally, an answer to the question: Whatever happened to Joe Piscopo? He’s proving there is life after Saturday Night Live. He knows everybody, and he has an opinion on everything.”

Across 40 years of show business, Joe Piscopo has never had an introduction like this. But, he’s never had a gig like this, either, writes David Hinckly at the NY Daily News.

It’s how his three-hour daily talk show begins on WNYM 970 AM The Answer.

Piscopo weighs in on everything from the Ebola outbreak to Mayor de Blasio’s plans to give undocumented immigrants city ID cards, mixing in interviews with pols and opinion-meisters along the way.

“I am embracing it, I am inspired by it, I love what I am doing.”

WNYM 970 AM (50Kw-Day, 5Kw-Night)

Piscopo, who studied broadcasting in college, got his shot when tis Sliwa abruptly left (for WABC) The Answer last winter.

After a meeting and essentially a one-day tryout, The Answer had its answer for filling a crucial hole in its lineup.

Occasionally, Piscopo, 63, flashes his comedic chops, as when Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan) called in, and they talked about President Obama’s game plan against the Islamic State.

“I don’t know how many Americans sleep at night and worry about whether we are going to get attacked by ISIS,” Rangel said.

“Congressman, if you send two Italian guys from Jersey, this will all be over tomorrow!” Piscopo said.

“Joe has great stories to tell, he has a great sense of what is funny. But that is the salt and pepper on the steak - it’s not the steak,” said radio guru Phil Boyce, a vice president at Salem Communications.

Garth Brooks Launches GhostTunes Tuesday

Country-music icon Garth Brooks —who has long refused to allow any download store to sell his music—hopes to show the digital-music world how it’s done.

As the centerpiece of his new strategy, according to The Wall Street Journal, the 52-year-old singer is launching his own iTunes competitor: GhostTunes.

Brooks said in September that he would begin selling digital versions of all his albums, including his latest, “Man Against the Machine,” which comes out Tuesday, though only on his own website. With GhostTunes, which is set to go live the same day, he will be marketing roughly 10 million digital songs by thousands of artists signed to the three major record companies, plus a handful of independents.

GhostTunes, which will include all kinds of music, is designed to let artists sell and bundle concert tickets and merchandise with their music, and it encourages discounts to drive sales. Mr. Brooks will be selling nine studio albums, plus some live material and a 2015 release, for a total of $29.99.

GhostTunes may have timing on its side as well, debuting just a week after one of Nashville’s youngest stars, Taylor Swift, pulled her entire catalog from Spotify. Ms. Swift, 24 years old, hasn’t made her new album, “1989,” available for streaming on any subscription service. Withholding it may have helped her sell nearly 1.3 million copies in the U.S. in its first week on the market, according to SoundScan. Ms. Swift’s catalog withdrawal reignited a long-simmering debate over whether streaming services pay artists enough, even though the amount artists ultimately receive is largely a function of their contract with their record label.

Still, the download business overall is looking increasingly bleak compared with subscription streaming, which is growing at a rapid pace. Music sales at the iTunes Store have fallen more than 13% this year, while revenue from streaming services jumped nearly 30% in the first half of 2014, according to the RIAA.

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Borchetta: Taylor Swift Music Pulled Over 'Respect of The Fans'

Scott Borchetta

Last Friday on "Sixx Sense With Nikki Sixx", national radio host and Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx and co-host Jenn Marino welcomed Scott Borchetta, president and CEO of Big Machine Label Group.

Borchetta spoke candidly about the headline-making decision to pull Taylor Swift's music catalogue from streaming service Spotify, the reasoning behind it, and why it's important for the future of the music industry.

Borchetta stated, "We have never put them on any free streaming services for the first 90 to 120 days. And the reason being is we never wanted to embarrass a fan. What I mean by that is, if this fan went and purchased the record, CD, iTunes, wherever, and then their friends go, 'Why did you pay for it? It's free on Spotify.' We're being completely disrespectful to that superfan who wants to invest, who believes in their favorite artist.

Rdio Reiterates Commitment to Artist Choice in Music Distribution

Rdio has announced the full library of Taylor Swift’s popular music (other than the album “1989”) remains available through the platform’s ad-supported Internet radio service.

Rdio listeners have access to music in two important ways:

• on-demand, allowing paid subscribers to listen to any of her songs anywhere, anytime they want
• Internet radio, allowing anyone to hear her songs as part of the ad-supported Internet radio experience

 “Rdio listeners benefit from our longtime commitment to respecting the choices artists and their labels make about how their songs should be distributed. Let’s always remember that artists deserve a say in how their music is shared with their fans,” said Anthony Bay, CEO of Rdio.

The ad-supported music streaming service was introduced in September with more than 30 million songs. Rdio’s ad-supported stations available to anyone include genre-specific stations, curated stations created to fit any mood activity and personalized stations tuned to each individual listeners — reflecting Rdio’s commitment to providing the most robust streaming Internet radio experience through personalized music.

In addition to providing the largest possible catalog of songs, Rdio offers listeners a wide variety of ways to enjoy their favorite music -- on their mobile devices, on home devices such as Sonos and Roku and in a variety of automobiles and aftermarket car entertainment devices.

The Storm Report Adds 20 New Affiliates

Benztown Radio Networks today announced that custom weather service The Storm Report has welcomed 20 new radio station affiliates in the last seven months. The Storm Report is an award-winning radio weather service produced by Dan Holiday Productions, dedicated to providing 24/7 customized weather, with daily live and recorded weather forecasts and severe weather updates for radio stations across the U.S.

The Storm Report now serves 163 affiliates coast-to-coast and is syndicated by Benztown Radio Networks.

Dan Holiday, Meteorologist, President and Co-Founder of The Storm Report, said: “Radio can deliver weather information in a way that other mediums cannot. Station managers realize how key this element is for their listeners and communities. It’s clear that the demand is increasing for stations to have their own staff meteorologist who provides daily forecasts and critical information in times of severe weather. We’re thrilled that these stations are partnering with The Storm Report to keep their listeners informed 24/7/365.”

The Storm Report’s 20 new affiliates are:

• KOMJ-AM – Omaha, Nebraska
• WVGV-FM – West Union, West Virginia
• WFRB-AM – Frostburg, Maryland
• KRBY-FM – Ruby, Alaska
• WFRB-FM – Frostburg, Maryland
• WZGV-AM – Charlotte, North Carolina
• WKGO-FM – Cumberland, Maryland
• KNUL-FM – Nulato, Alaska
• WRMZ-FM – Headland, Alaska
• WTBO-AM – Cumberland, Maryland
• KACY-FM – Arkansas City, Kansas
• KOYU-FM – Koyukuk, Alaska
• KASL-AM – Newcastle, Wyoming
• KALG-FM – Kaltag, Alaska
• WZGM-AM – Asheville, North Carolina
• WUCG-FM – Blairsville, Georgia
• KIYU – AM – Galena, Alaska
• WVVW-FM – Vienna, West Virginia
• WGNB-FM – Zeeland, Michigan
• KHUS-FM – Huslia, Alaska

 The Storm Report provides complete real-time weather information for radio stations across the U.S. and their listeners. For more information about The Storm Report, visit www.thestormreport.com.

To get The Storm Report for your stations, contact Masa Patterson at Benztown at mp@benztown.com or at (818) 842-4600. The show is available for cash or barter.

Cable Ratings: Al Roker Beats CNN, MSNBC

In the cutthroat world of cable news television ratings, even the Weather Channel's "Wake Up With Al" Roker  whipped two liberal-leaning early news shows — CNN's "New Day" and MSNBC's "Morning Joe" — this month and bragged about it, although it looks like all three are slugging it out at the bottom of the barrel.

The Weather Channel tweeted, "Thank you, @weatherchannel viewers. The week of 10/6, WUWA outperformed CNN, and during the week of 10/20, outpaced MSNBC, CNBC and CNN."

Breitbart commented, "'Morning Joe' has been shedding viewers for about a year. 'New Day' is shaping up to be one of television's all-time titanic disasters. In other words, it's not that Al Roker's numbers are so high, it's that CNN's and MSNBC's numbers are so low."

"Overall, this is another sign of the slow-motion fall of left-wing cable news network," Breitbart added.

"While — thanks to great producing, on-air talent and a willingness to cover news stories the left-wing MSM ignore — Fox News soars, there is just no reason anymore to tune into CNN or MSNBC.

"With some notable exceptions, CNN's anchors are mostly tired, left-wing, smug, or a mixture of all three; and unless it's a poop cruise or an airliner that CNN suggests might have been abducted by aliens, the Zucker Network offers the same old left-wing narratives presented in the same old left-wing way.

"For its part, MSNBC is nothing more than left-wing talk radio with pictures."

But the battle continues among the three, as MSNBC ran an ad claiming, "2014 marks the fifth straight year Morning Joe continues to beat CNN. Since 2010 Morning Joe has out-delivered CNN as the place to get the top news headlines, comprehensive analysis, and election coverage."


"What MSNBC forgot to mention in their 'we beat CNN' ad is that CNN is at the bottom of the barrel in terms of cable news ratings, especially its morning show 'New Day,'" Breitbart commented.

FCC Call Sign Activity for October 2014

Mary Lambert On Nights Live With Adam Bomb

Singer-songwriter Mary Lambert recently joined Nights Live with Adam Bomb in support of her hit single “Secrets” off her Heart on my Sleeve album.  Mary is also known for her vocals in Macklemore's “Same Love.”  She talked to Adam about her favorite artists, the songwriting process, interacting with fans, and much more.

AZ Radio: KJIK Employee Allegedly Torches Station

Scott Louis Welbaumn, an employee of KJIK 100.7 FM Magic in Duncan, AZ has been arrested for allegedly set the station on-fire last Wednesday morning.

According to eacourier.com, he then stayed to watch.

The fire caused the station to go off the air until around noon Wednesday, according to a statement from its general manager, Dan Curtis, on the station’s Web site.

Early Wednesday morning, police dispatch received an anonymous call about a structure fire at the station. When officers arrived, they noticed smoke pouring out of the building and a man, later identified as Welbaum, standing in the parking lot watching.

Welbaum was told to retreat from the area, and he informed officers he was an employee of the station and there was a significant amount of expensive electrical equipment inside. The fire department responded to the scene and extinguished the fire. According to reports, Safford Fire Chief Clark Bingham advised the fire was possibly arson and that it appeared to have been set intentionally in multiple places from the inside of the building.

Officers then learned the anonymous phone call about the fire had been placed at a pay phone at Walmart across the highway. A Thatcher officer responded to review surveillance footage from the store and saw a man he believed to be Welbaum approach and use a pay phone at the time of the tip.

Report: Casey's Remains Rotting In Norway

Casey Kasem

Casey Kasem's body is decomposing in a Scandinavian mortuary ... and his kids have gone to court before there's no body left to bury.

Kerri Kasem filed legal docs -- obtained by TMZ -- asking a judge to force Jean Kasem to bring Casey's remains back to the U.S.

Casey died in June, and his body has been rotting away in Norway since August.

Jean has not even had the body embalmed, according to legal docs.

The children are also worried an autopsy will be fruitless if the decomposition continues.They believe Jean's motive is to make an autopsy impossible so she will not be prosecuted for elder abuse ... something the LAPD is investigating.

R.I.P.: Longtime Broadcaster C. Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor

Former Delmarva Radio exec C. Robert Taylor died on November 5, 2014 near Kennett Square, PA after a brief illness.

He was 87-years-of-age.

Taylor was a native of Gary, Indiana and worked in the radio industry during a time when AM radio was the norm and small local stations had individual character. He was involved in the founding of three such stations, according to his obti as providfed by family members.

In 1960 he moved into management with the founding of WDLR in Delaware, Ohio. Taylor moved his family to Wilmington, Delaware in 1966 to work for WDEL. Eventually he became manager of WDEL and its sister station WSTW, President and CEO of Delmarva Broadcasting, and chaired the NBC Radio Affiliates Board.

He was also a former chair of the Maryland- DC Delaware Broadcasters Association, and was recently inducted into their Hall of Fame.

November 10 In Radio History

In 1938...Radio star Kate Smith introduced Irving Berlin's 'God Bless America' to her CBS radio network audience. Smith was only 32 and already the undisputed Queen of Network Radio. Her variety hour on CBS had Thursday’s Top Ten for two years and in 1939 she would move to Friday and dominate the night’s ratings for the next four consecutive seasons.



"God Bless America" is an American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin in 1918 and revised by him in 1938. The later version has notably been recorded by Kate Smith, becoming her signature song.

Irving Berlin wrote the song in 1918 while serving the U.S. Army at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, but decided that it did not fit in a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank, so he set it aside.

In 1938, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Berlin, who was Jewish and a first-generation Russian immigrant, felt it was time to revive it as a "peace song," and it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938, sung by Kate Smith on her radio show. Berlin had made some minor changes; by this time, "to the right" might have been considered a call to the political right, so he substituted "through the night" instead. He also provided an introduction that is now rarely heard but which Smith always used: "While the storm clouds gather far across the sea / Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free / Let us all be grateful for a land so fair, / As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer." (In her first broadcast of the song, Kate Smith sang "that we're far from there" rather than "for a land so fair".)

In 1956...Billboard magazine's DJ survey reveals that Elvis Presley is the country's number one male artist on both the pop and country charts.

In 1965...At dusk on November 9, the biggest power failure in U.S. history occurred as all of New York state, portions of seven neighboring states, and parts of eastern Canada are plunged into darkness. The Great Northeast Blackout began at the height of rush hour, delaying millions of commuters, trapping 800,000 people in New York's subways, and stranding thousands more in office buildings, elevators, and trains. Ten thousand National Guardsmen and 5,000 off-duty policemen were called into service to prevent looting.

Here's how it sounded on 77 WABC with Dan Ingram.  The audio also includes Ingram on November 10...



The blackout was caused by the tripping of a 230-kilovolt transmission line near Ontario, Canada, at 5:16 p.m., which caused several other heavily loaded lines also to fail. This precipitated a surge of power that overwhelmed the transmission lines in western New York, causing a "cascading" tripping of additional lines, resulting in the eventual breakup of the entire Northeastern transmission network. All together, 30 million people in eight U.S. states and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec were affected by the blackout. During the night, power was gradually restored to the blacked-out areas, and by morning power had been restored throughout the Northeast.


In 1966...British newspapers break the news that the Beatles will indeed refuse all future offers to tour.



Struggling to compete with the volume of sound generated by screaming fans, the band had grown increasingly bored with the routine of performing live. Recognizing that their shows were no longer about the music, they decided to make the August 1966 tour their last. The last US concert was at Candlestick Park, San Francisco on August 29, 1966.  A crowd of 25,000 saw the Beatles final concert which began at 8:00 pm.The support acts,in order of appearance,were the Remain, Bobby Hebb, the Cyrkle and the Ronettes.The Beatles played from 9:27 pm until precisely 10:00 pm on a stage five feet high and fully encaged by a six foot high wire fence surrounded by security and police



The famous and very final Beatles concert would be the famous Rooftop concert January 30, 1969.

In 1973...The Hot 100..Eddie Kendricks, former lead singer of the Temptations, earned the #1 song with "Keep On Truckin'".  That meant Gladys Knight & the Pips had an abbreviated stay of two weeks at #1 with "Midnight Train To Georgia".  The Rolling Stones' former #1 "Angie" was third followed by "Heartbeat - It's A Lovebeat" from the DeFranco Family.  The rest of the Top 10:  Marie Osmond's "Paper Roses", Ringo Starr had his fourth solo hit and third straight Top 10 with "Photograph", moving from 11 to 6, Billy Preston's instrumental "Space Race" came in at position #7, Cher's former #1 "Half-Breed" was #8, Art Garfunkel slipped up to #9 with "All I Know" and the Carpenters were an amazing 10 of 14 in earning Top 10 hits, registering their eight consecutive Top 10 with "Top Of The World"





In 1975...The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks suddenly in Lake Superior during a storm, killing all 29 men aboard and inspiring Canadian folkie Gordon Lightfoot to write a song about the tragedy, "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald."

Freeman Gosde and Charles Correll

In 1982...Freeman Gosden, the radio actor who portrayed "Amos" on the Radio show "Amos 'n' Andy", died at age 83.

In 1984...The Hot 100..Billy Ocean remained at #1 with "Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run)".  Stevie Wonder's former #1 "I Just Called To Say I Love You" wasn't going away, Prince remained at #3 with "Purple Rain" and Wham! had #4--"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go".

The rest of the Top 10:  A solo hit from Chaka Khan ("I Feel For You") moved from 10-5, Hall & Oates had their 25th hit and sixth straight Top 10 song with "Out Of Touch", Tina Turner's comeback was complete with "Better Be Good To Me", David Bowie's "Blue Jean" was #8, Chicago dropped with their great song "Hard Habit To Break" and Styx lead singer Dennis DeYoung picked himself up a solo Top 10 with "Desert Moon".


In 1992...First AM HD Radio broadcast with audio codec.

An audio codec is a device or computer program capable of coding or decoding a digital data stream of audio.

In software, an audio codec is a computer program implementing an algorithm that compresses and decompresses digital audio data according to a given audio file format or streaming media audio format. The objective of the algorithm is to represent the high-fidelity audio signal with minimum number of bits while retaining the quality. This can effectively reduce the storage space and the bandwidth required for transmission of the stored audio file. Most codecs are implemented as libraries which interface to one or more multimedia players.

In hardware, audio codec refers to a single device that encodes analog audio as digital signals and decodes digital back into analog. In other words, it contains both an Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and Digital-to-analog converter (DAC) running off the same clock. This is used in sound cards that support both audio in and out, for instance.