Radio News

TUDN Radio, the rebranded and retooled service formerly known as Univision Deportes Radio, is about to get a serious boost in one of America's most important Hispanic media markets.

Cumulus Media isn't the only audio content and distribution company with a big stable of radio stations that enjoyed a strong week on Wall Street. As Wall Street neared its closing bells, Audacy shares were on the rise, giving the company formerly known as Entercom its strongest stock price since the middle of July.

With Monday's Closing Bell on Wall Street, Cumulus Media shares officially erased five months of growth, negating a climb to $14.75 seen at the end of June — its highest value since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Who knew that the rest of this week would see Cumulus crush it on the Nasdaq?

Smart speakers are the biggest boon to radio in the home since, well, the Reagan era. But, is there one key ingredient needed to lure consumers to a radio station's audio stream, instead of another Pandora-powered audio stream or Spotify playlist of choice? Yes, says Clark Smidt. Voices carry, especially good ones.

The endless commercial break. It’s so bad that Radio Ink Editor Ed Ryan’s daughter, 24, won’t even listen to the radio. Is the stopset slog a problem for Hispanic radio? Ryan probed four of the industry’s top executives as the moderator of the Hispanic Radio Executive Leadership Roundtable on Wednesday afternoon at the Hispanic Radio Conference in Miami.

The MSNBC weekend anchor and co-host of the Latina-To-Latina podcast participated via Zoom in an engaging Hispanic Radio Conference interview conducted by SBS EVP/Programming Jesus Salas. The focus: the power of podcasting targeting Hispanics, and just how personal it can be for those listening to what Alicia Menendez has to say.

Radio stations that are clients of Marketron have been impacted by a weekend incident that saw Russian hackers invade the ad scheduling software business, crippling operations. Among those impacted: Hall Communications. And, the stations' EVP went to Gray Television-owned WCAX-3 to share how the Marketron troubles directly impacted their operation.

A Scripps executive who serves as Associate Dean of the Broadcast Leadership Training program, has signed on to a letter co-signed by the program's two other associate deans and the program's dean that asks the House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader to throw their support behind a reinstatement of the Minority Tax Certificate program.

The FCC has its hands full with several proposals involving Radio. At the Hispanic Radio Conference on Thursday, Commissioner Nathan Simington could offer some clarity on these and other rulemakings of particular concern.

“ It is unfortunate that the record labels’ focus is on gimmicky press conferences and questionable Survey Monkey polling rather than serious conversation,” Gordon Smith says.

The latest Media Monitors Spot Ten Radio report has one big takeaway with respect to the most active ad category at broadcast media: auto insurance brands. At radio, there is a leader that is not present at Spot Cable. It shows that broadcast media is the preferred way to go for achieving stronger ROI.

As the first half of 2021 ended, Cumulus Media could count itself among a select group of publicly traded broadcasters that were enjoying strong interest in investors on Wall Street. Shares reached $14.75 after bottoming out at $9 on May 4. Today, Cumulus shares are moving closer to that six-month low point, punctuating a 90-day decline for the company's stock.

It has been tied to the company's Flint, Mich., radio stations yet has a signal that's based in Lapeer and covers such Michigan towns as Sandusky and Almont, to the east of Port Huron and Midwestern Ontario. Now, Townsquare Media has decided to part ways with this outlier. The buyer? A religious noncommercial broadcast operation.

Riverfront Broadcasting, led by Carolyn Becker, has attracted national attention for its operations in the Heartland of America. With operations in such markets as Yankton, S.D., Riverfront is now scaling back in a small way. It is saying goodbye to an AM, FM and FM translator serving a small city in Iowa.

One of the many early radio stations that predates KDKA in Pittsburgh, credited by many as the "first" commercially licensed radio station, didn't get commercial licensed to Boston until its relocation there in 1931. Before then, it was located in Springfield, Mass.  That explains in part why WBZ-AM 1030 on Sunday will commence its 100-day centennial celebration.