Radio News

An iHeartMedia sales veteran who joined predecessor company Clear Channel in May 1998 and has been associated with iHeart's Pittsburgh properties for the last 19 years is relocating to the "Virginia-Carolina Region."

A Class C FM that's reducing power in order to move closer to the Phoenix area is being sold along with its Class C AM sister and an FM translator serving a picturesque region of Arizona some 90 minutes north of the Valley of the Sun. The buyer is a new FCC licensee, but is no stranger to radio station ownership: It controls the regional Mexican noncomm network tied to the Cesar Chavez Foundation. The seller was represented by Kalil & Co. of Tucson.

A top radio industry executive, a top broadcast TV business leader, and the head of a multimedia company that owns radio stations and a pay-TV network will join together in mid-October to share their thoughts on the future of broadcast media. The trio will appear on a panel at the annual NABOB Convention in Washington, D.C.

Media industry credit association BCCA has scheduled a full-day seminar focusing on high level credit-related issues for the media industry’s credit professionals, including those serving its magazine, newspaper, television, radio, cable, out-of-home, interactive and digital media segments.

On March 15, iHeartCommunications commenced private offers to eligible lenders under its Term Loan D and Term Loan E facilities to amend the existing term loans and exchange them for new securities of iHeartMedia and CC Outdoor Holdings and/or iHeart Communications. The nation's No. 1 radio broadcasting company has had no luck with the exchange offers, offering extension since April 5. Another extension was announced late Thursday.

The FCC's Media Bureau and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau have singled out all of the proposals in the Commission's recent seven-day FM translator application window that are mutually exclusive with other proposals, and moved forward with "a limited period" for those applicants to enter into settlement agreements — or otherwise resolve their mutual exclusivities by means of engineering solutions.

Cumulus Media in late March received a de-listing notice from Nasdaq for failing to have its stock close at a minimum $1 per share for more than month. It initially had until May 5 to comply, and then received a 180-day extension. With a big dip on Wall Street for CMLS shares on Wednesday, the company could do another reverse stock split or jump to a lesser stock exchange.

On Friday, as the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period expired, the additional closing of a big investment in Pandora by Sirius XM took place. This involved the $1 per share sale to Sirius XM of hundreds of thousands of Pandora shares. Pandora revealed the stock sale in an SEC filing made late Tuesday, which also confirmed the addition to Pandora's board three key Sirius XM executives.

On Tuesday, RBR+TVBR published a pro-Entercom assessment from an analyst with Wall Street observer SeekingAlpha that included this "somewhat surprising notable fact"—radio is actually still the top media platform domestically in terms of addressable market. For Nielsen Audio and Research Director partner Marc Greenspan, the surprise may actually be the notable fact that Wall Street is simply ignoring radio industry literature that has consistently painted a strong ROI story for what some may consider to be a "boring" business. 

The Broadcasters Foundation of America, the national charity which serves past and present members of the broadcasting profession, has established the Gary Fries Memorial Fund to honor the former Radio Advertising Bureau President and CEO.

Investors looking for a good investment in the media sector better shed any preconceived notions that the radio broadcasting industry is simply "boring." That's because Wall Street observer SeekingAlpha has piggybacked on recent comments from CNBC stock-swayer Jim Cramer by gushing over the opportunities that await from buying Entercom Communications shares today.

Nearly five years ago, a resident of North Miami, Fla., was handed a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture of $25,000 for his efforts designed "to evade detection" of an unlicensed radio operation. Today, the FCC still hasn't silenced the pirate radio operation serving the area's sizable Haitian population. A proposed maximum fine nearly six times that 2012 financial penalty seeks to squelch the broadcasting buccaneer once and for all.

Five Members of the House of Representatives and one Senator have joined as co-sponsors of a bipartisan resolution that opposes "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. With a bill that would impose royalty payments on airplay of copyrighted recorded works flailing in the House, it's looking ever-less likely that the recording industry will be victorious in its latest efforts to stem a tremendous profit slide.

NPR and Edison Research in June released The Smart Audio Report. The research showed one clear finding: Voice-activated smart speakers are becoming a must-have device in U.S. homes. In fact, 42% of smart speaker owners consider their device "essential" to everyday life. NPR and Edison have just released more original research from the report.

There's no more potential interference for country music fans seeking to take a musical ride on "U.S. 98.3" in the Raleigh-Durham area. That's because a lengthy battle waged by radio industry veteran Tom Birch against the owner of a co-channel translator that caused signal degradation to Birch's WLUS-FM is over. By order of the FCC, the translator no longer exists.