Radio News

The Nashville-based non-profit organization that represents commercially licensed radio stations when it comes to music licensing matters has selected the former General Counsel at Audacy Inc. as its next Executive Director, as Bill Velez will be retiring on January 1, 2026 — ending a 17-year tenure.

Under Amancio Suárez, and a few years later Heftel Broadcasting, WAQI-AM "Radio Mambí" would become a Spanish-language spoken word force for the Cuban exile community in South Florida. Now, forty years since its birth, Radio Mambí is coming to an end.

In September 2012, a lawyer-turned-licensee of broadcast radio stations in the Sunshine State agreed to acquire a Class A AM radio station in Palm Beach County.  Thirteen years later, the facility and a sibling FM translator serving northern parts of the county with Haitian Creole programming are being sold.

Thanks to "meme stock" Discord chat among gamers and followers to dubious trading option-makers with followers on X, "BBGI" exploded in growth on Wednesday. Within the first 90 minutes of Thursday's trading on Nasdaq, the wild increase in value had all but evaporated.

Two entities within noncommercial giant Minnesota Public Radio have agreed to settle a matter in which Emergency Alert System tones inadvertently aired across nearly 550 broadcast radio stations during a program provided by the BBC. The consent decree involves a big U.S. Treasury "voluntary contribution."

It serves an area just northwest of Reading, Pa., as a rebroadcast service of "Word FM," a regional Worship Music noncommercial radio network. Pending FCC approval, this FM translator will be held by a new licensee — a local broadcaster that gains an all-important MHz signal for an AM nearly left for dead in 2019.

Standing up for AM and FM stations in the face of the ever-flailing American Music Fairness Act (AMFA) at a Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing on Tuesday afternoon was the President of a small licensee in Greenville, N.C.

Over-the-air radio captures 34% of total audio time and 64% of all ad-supported listening among adults 18 and older, Edison research shows. Nearly two-thirds of the ad-supported audio heard in the U.S., including podcasts and streaming platforms, comes from radio.

For nearly a decade, radio stations using the default Barix logins have been subject to hijack. In the most recent situation, a fake EAS tone played on a loop across the afternoon of November 23. The FCC chimed in. Now, Barix is addressing the long-standing issue.

On October 31, RBR+TVBR first reported on the sale of a Rock station serving Bangor formerly owned by acclaimed author Stephen King, by Rock Lobster Radio LLC. On Monday, details of the deal that will see Mix Maine Media owner and President Jay Hanson add the FM to his stable of stations were revealed.

The Media Bureau of the FCC on Friday shared its new compliance date for revised sponsorship identification requirements for foreign government-provided programming from a Second Report & Order linked to MB Docket No. 20-299.

The radio industry is rolling out new in-car measurement of audio content consumption, and the Radio Advertising Bureau is giddy about it. Why? This "will dramatically change how broadcasters prove value to advertisers," the organization insists.

When core advertising remains a challenge and there aren't a lot of digital or political dollars to count on, what does one do? For SBS, the answer was cutting expenses and a key non-essential asset sale. The result? Third quarter income more than doubled, despite a dip in year-over-year net revenue.

Ten Crystal Radio Award winners will be chosen from the finalists by a panel of judges representing the broadcast industry, community service organizations and public relations firms. The awards will be presented during a special ceremony at the 2026 NAB State Leadership Conference.

As September ended, an AM/FM combo serving a small community on the western slopes of New York's Catskill Mountains were poised for a resurrection, after Townsquare Media shuttered them. Bold Gold Media Group had acquired the properties. Now, the company has formally taken over the radio stations.