Gen Media Partners (GMP), the largest independently owned national radio representation company in the U.S., has acquired Regional Reps and The Tacher Company, further expanding its reach and influence in the national advertising arena. The announcement was made today by…
Effective December 17, Apple Music will be available on Amazon Echo smart speakers—meaning that Apple Music subscribers will now be able to enjoy over 50 million songs by merely asking Alexa to play them (safety tip: not all at once).…
The network is shuttering most of its regular Sports Talk programming beginning the first of the year, supplanting it with two weekday shows and two weekend shows, along with frequent updates 24/7. What stays? The weekday morning show, “PFT [Pro…
Podcast platform Acast is partnering with a company called A Million Ads to deliver to each individual podcast listener advertising based on that listener’s profile—kind of like Pandora, but with ads instead of songs. Editor’s $0.02: While podcasting is a…
Amazon Music has been keeping tabs on you, and the other millions of Echo users, to find out the top musicians and songs requested via the smart speaker. The most-requested artist is Imagine Dragons; the most-requested song is “God’s Plan”…
Usually at this time of year, we have the unfortunate duty to report rounds of layoffs at major companies, iHeartRadio figuring prominently. This year, so far, Twin Cities-based Hubbard Radio is getting all the attention for two rounds of cuts:…
As what some observers will see to be a perfect example of irony, the Media Ratings Council is reportedly very close to giving social-media miscreants Facebook and Instagram full accreditation, despite what Ad Age calls “a series of embarrassing missions…
IHeartRadio is now embedded into the popular traffic/navigation app Waze, so users of that app will be able to access iHeartRadio streams and pause, skip, add songs, etc. from within the Waze app. Users can also flip back and forth…
The 2018 quadrennial review of broadcast ownership rules has begun (Media Bureau Docket Number 18-349). In a blog post at fcc.gov, Chairman Ajit Pai’s wrote that the review would start with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which would include the…
David Kenny, most recently the senior vice president/cognitive solutions at IBM, will be taking the CEO position at Nielsen to replace Mitch Barnes, who is retiring. Nielsen executive Chairman James Atwood praised Kenny’s “decades of experience in Big Data, artificial…
The FCC’s Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on AM revitalization includes a proposal for the protection of Class A AM stations during the day, and two options for nighttime protections. The Notice was published in the Federal Register last…
The media giant is acquiring the Jelli platform for programmatic buying and selling broadcast radio, making the radio chain competitive with Facebook and Google, offering, according to a company statement, “a new way for advertisers to interface with media partners…