Radio News

One of the nation's fastest growing artificial intelligence (AI) providers has signed an expanded, two-year agreement with the nation's top radio broadcasting company. The wider agreement allows iHeart to use the Veritone AI platform at more than 200 radio stations in the nation's top 50 markets.

A Class A FM straddling the North Dakota-Minnesota border and its Class C AM sibling have been sold to a "13G" local buyer. But, the buyer and the seller aren't exactly unfamiliar with one another: They are both members of the Ingstad family. It's the lead deal in RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY.

As the world learned of the most horrific mass shooting in U.S. history on Monday, radio stations across North America excelled in providing a venue for comfort, healing, and discussion. Among these stations is Beasley Broadcast Group's Country KCYE-FM "102.7 The Coyote" in Las Vegas, which saw one of its own talent describing his experience fleeing the scene late Sunday while also taking calls from emotional listeners on-air.

If you didn't think broadcast TV thinks AM and FM radio stations were important, look at the amount of spots airing at broadcast radio promoting two networks. The Media Monitors Radio Spot Ten report shows one of the Big Four networks cleared nearly 38,000 spots on the radio stations it tracks.

The fourth quarter is here, and as we prepare to review the next batch of earnings reports from broadcast media companies, those inside the C-Suite may wish to take note of what Wilkinson Barker Knauer partner David Oxenford calls the "numerous regulatory obligations" that the next 30 days will bring. Here, we review what many TV companies will need to put on their calendars and mark, in red, today.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's likely confirmation by the U.S. Senate, giving him a retroactive five-year term, will come late Monday after another 2 1/2 hours of debate in the upper body of Congress. What's still uncertain is the renomination of Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr for a five-year term starting next summer.

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.