Radio News

For those with a magnifying glass on Urban One's Class A shares, take note: While the heat is certainly coming off of a steamy stock surge, the media company superserving African American customers still has plenty of upside when it comes to its Wall Street performance in the last four weeks.

In May, the FCC gave its blessing to the birth of a brand-new radio station, an AM with 50kw daytime signal licensed to a town in New Mexico. Now, the head of Vanguard Media is acquiring it, but as a solo project. 

Crack open a bottle of Lindemann wine, a bag of Smith's Original Chips and cue up "You're The Voice" by John Farnham. Cumulus Media is now a little bit Australian, thanks to the completion of a conversion of unique stock warrants to common stock in the U.S. audio media company by a Melbourne, Victoria-based financial firm.

It's one of the final analog operations that takes advantage of the channel's transpondence to audio appearing at 87.75 MHz -- making it audible on an FM radio. Thanks to that, "Alaska's Real Country" with 920 watts of power competes with the radio stations in the market. And, this "TV on the radio" operation has just been sold.

On May 21, it appeared that Entercom shares were starting their big comeback from COVID-19 fueled lows that put ETM as low as $0.77 in early April. By June 8, a $2.45 finish was seen for the issue, traded on the NYSE. With Thursday's close, one may begin to wonder if renewed COVID-19 concerns, and their impact on pro sports, are weighing heavily on Entercom.

GeoBroadcast Systems -- the party seeking limited program origination for FM boosters -- is speaking out. The company behind "Zonecasting" wants the FCC and other interested parties to be very clear on the distinctions between the Broadcasters for Limited Program Origination's quest for FM translators, and what it is asking.

We've heard the woes about local digital's wrath on the broadcast radio industry in the U.S. Now, more calls for consolidation in the absence of federal digital media regulatory policy that mirrors that for broadcast media may only get louder, given the revised 2020 local radio ad forecast BIA Advisory Services just released.

ESPN Radio has lost its big Class B home in Central Florida as part of a major retooling of Cox Media Group/Orlando that sees a heritage News/Talker return to its AM home until late 2012, and Spanish-language programming get a major facility upgrade. Why is this shuffle happening? Jason Meder, the Orlando Radio head for CMG, gave RBR+TVBR the answer.

In the Lehigh Valley, Victor Martinez has made a name for himself as the individual behind "Mega," the Latin Contemporary operation heard on a trio of FM translators feeding a pair of AM simulcast partners. Now, Martinez is snapping up a longtime Latin voice in the City of Brotherly Love.

In January, the Commission upheld a Media Bureau decision to cancel the license of an AM radio station in Meridian, Miss., on the grounds that the disclosure to the Commission of the death of the station's sole owner was botched. A month later, two individuals now overseeing the operation filed a Petition for Reconsideration. On Monday, the FCC responded: Nope.

Did Punjabi Radio USA get the Media Bureau's OK to move an FM translator to a frequency "intended" for the use of a LPFM station, in violation of the LCRA of 2010? That's the issue placed in front of the Commissioners regarding an FM translator that moved from a winery to a southern suburb of California's state capital.

We've heard the stories that audio streaming of AM and FM radio stations substantially increased during the height of the COVID-19 fueled shelter-at-home restrictions. But, to what extent did streaming impact, in a positive way, consumption of broadcast radio? The latest Edison Research "Share of Ear" report for May 2020 has an interesting answer.

Some industry observers speculated that Friday's big jump in value for Beasley Broadcast Group shares was thanks to day traders, and was not a sign of a fast-track to long-term recovery for a deeply undervalued broadcast media issue. It turns out that day traders just may have left their mark on BBGI.

It's official. From its May 1999 Initial Public Offering as Radio One until Wednesday, the multimedia company known today as Urban One had never seen its stock price so high. Then came Friday's Opening Bell, which saw yet another buying frenzy for a company that targets African Americans on what has become the biggest Juneteenth holiday ever observed.

For just shy of 27 years, Brett Harris was a fixture in morning drive on a Wichita Hot Adult Contemporary radio station as one-half of the "Brett & Tracy Mornings" program on a radio station that until early April 2017 was wholly owned by Envision Broadcast Network. Now, he is getting for opening a business focused on three letters that need no further identification: CBD.