NEW YORK — In April 1996, he rose from General Sales Manager to General Manager of Spanish Broadcasting System‘s flagship New York properties, including the Hispanic-focused radio operator’s very first radio station.
Now, Gene Bryan has returned to the company known to many as “SBS” for duties previously held by Albert Rodriguez.
On January 21, Bryan was formally hired as Chief Revenue Officer of the company that owns radio stations in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, San Juan and in Houston, where newly acquired KROI-FM will go “live” with veteran market talent Raúl Brindis in morning drive this Friday (2/14).
In a SEC filing made by SBS on Friday (2/7), the company founded and led by Raúl Alarcón Jr. said Bryan will be responsible for overseeing the revenue and profit performance of SBS’s consolidated operations.
He will also oversee national radio arm Aire Radio Networks, and further develop digital sales through the company’s pure-play digital marketing department — DigIdea, Digital Marketing Solutions — and LaMúsica brand.
Jesus Salas will remain Chief Content Officer, in charge of all programming for the SBS stations.
Bryan will remain the head of Hispanic Media Sales, Inc., publisher of the HispanicAd advertising, marketing and public relations industry online newsletter.
“Eugenio” to many across the Hispanic market, Bryan, who was raised in Puerto Rico in the 1970s and was educated at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio, first gained prominence at Caballero Spanish Media, working for industry icon Eduardo Caballero. He would also hold positions at Infinity Broadcasting, and then as National Sales Manager for Katz, taking the post in 1986. At the end of 1988, he rose to VP/Hispanic Radio for New York at Katz, handling national sales needs. A promotion to VP/General Sales Manager at Katz Hispanic Radio came in summer 1991.
Bryan then left for a role with SBS, and succeeded Alfredo Alonso for a seven-month period as the head of WSKQ “Mega 97.9, WPAT “93.1 Amor” and WXLX-AM 620 in New York. By December 1996, Byran was on his way to working with Alonso as VP/Chief Operating Officer of Mega Communications, which owned AM radio stations using the “Mega” brand first seen in the U.S. at WSKQ in Philadelphia and Hartford, respectively.
In June 2001, Bryan joined Entravision, taking over as VP of Sales for its radio division. He would spend several years there, while simultaneously growing HispanicAd until making it a full-time venture by the end of the 2008s, vigorously competing against Hispanic Market Weekly and Marketing y Medios in the Hispanic advertising trade space.
At the 2024 Hispanic Marketing Council annual conference, held in April in New York ahead of the NAB Show in Las Vegas, Bryan was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He was humble in his acceptance speech, noting, “I don’t know why you chose me. There are so many more people to highlight in this industry who have done so much more. But it is not about me. It is about our industry. At the end of the day we are still an underdeveloped industry, and I’m out of here soon. I don’t know what day that is, but it is going to be soon.”
With the SBS appointment, Bryan’s retirement will not be so soon after all.
