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From Radio Insight: Gateway Creative Broadcasting, which owns Christian AC “99.1 Joy-FM” KLJY and Christian Hip Hop “Boost 95.5” KXBS in the St. Louis market, has preliminarily won the bankruptcy court auction for the license of Double Helix Corporation’s 88.1 KDHX St. Louis with an $8.75 million bid. Double Helix originally agreed to sell the station to K-Love Inc. in a deal announced in March for between $4.35 million and $4.85 million depending on when it closed. Gateway Creative Broadcasting then made a $5.5 million counter-bid, which led to the court ordering an auction for the license. Gateway’s bid beat out K-Love’s $8.5 million offer in the auction. Both bids included a provision to include an HD subchannel to allow KDHX’s current programming to continue with no other parties participating in the auction. A hearing to approve the sale will be held on June 9. K-Love Inc. CEO Tom Stultz commented to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, ?We are a faith-based ministry. We negotiated in good faith a part of our belief that God wants us to have signals and stations in all the top markets in the country. We have that in all but about six, so St. Louis is very strategic for us.? more

From Radio Online: Spanish Broadcasting System reported a net loss of $5.6 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025, compared to a loss of $1.6 million in the same quarter a year ago, as declines in core advertising revenue and special events weighed heavily on results. Net revenue for More...

From Radio Online: RadioFX is mourning the unexpected death of Jesse "Hollywood" Rios, a freelance sales representative and influential figure in Tejano and Latin radio, who passed away on May 21 at the age of 56. Born Jesus Carlos Arce, Rios began his radio career at the age of 16, working overnight shifts at XZOL Radio More...

From Radio Insight: Nielsen begins its releases of the April 2025 monthly ratings. Today’s markets are Baton Rouge, Louisville, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, and Puerto Rico. The next three releases will feature: On Monday, June 2: Birmingham, Buffalo/Niagara Falls, Greenville/Spartanburg, Richmond, and Rochester. On Tuesday, June 3: Albany/Schenectady/Troy and Syracuse. On Wednesday, June 4: Dayton, Fort Myers, Grand Rapids, Metro Fairfield County, Tucson, and Tulsa. more

From Radio Online: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has revoked the licenses of KYKM-FM in Yoakum, Texas, and KTXM-FM) in Hallettsville, TX, after their licensee, Kremling Enterprises, Inc., failed to pay regulatory fees totaling $14,222.60 spanning fiscal years 2017 through 2024. The action, issued May 30, More...

From Radio Online: Country KKBQ (93Q) in Houston hit a major milestone Friday morning as The Q Morning Show with Riggs, Katelyn andamp; Erica celebrated its 500th episode with a live broadcast and fan event at Whataburger on the Katy Freeway. Listeners began lining up before sunrise to join the high-energy party, packing the parking More...

From Radio Insight: Former “92.5 Maxima” WYUU morning hosts Jose Arnaldo ‘Nandy’ D?vila and Cristy Balderrama are joining SBS Spanish Tropical “El Zol 97.1” WSUN-FM Holiday/Tampa as morning hosts starting Monday, June 2. The duo spent over six years in mornings at the Beasley Media Spanish CHR until departing at the end of March after each previously hosting other dayparts at the station. The new show will also be available as a live video stream on SBS?s LaMusica app. SBS Chariman/CEO Ra?l Alarc?n said, “This is another major win for SBS, reflecting our consistent track record of attracting the best talent to support our top-ranked radio and digital assets and growing our nationwide Hispanic listener base. Nandy & Cristy are loved and respected by Hispanic audiences not only for their unique ability to entertain their substantial fanbase, but also for supporting the causes and issues that impact the community. SBS is proud to serve Tampa Bay and build on the success of El Nuevo Zol 97.1 FM for many years to come with Nandy & Cristy.? The duo replace WODA San Juan’s “El Despelote” in mornings on WSUN-FM. That show is also heard on “El Zol 95.3” WPYO Orlando. more

From Radio Insight: The FCC has revoked the licenses of Kremling Enterprises? Country ?Texas Thunder Radio? 94.3 KYKM Yoakum and 99.9 KTXM Hallettsville TX for failing to pay regulatory fees from 2017 through 2022 and 2024. Both stations were issued an Order to Pay or Show Cause in February owing a combined $16,686.85 plus interest and was given sixty days to provide evidence of payment or to show cause as to why they did not pay. The licensee failed to respond to the commission. Owner Laura Kremling purchased the stations in 2008 after previously serving as General Manager. She also hosts middays on them. more

From Radio Online: Jeff Warshaw, CEO of Connoisseur Media, has filed a lawsuit against Soros Fund Management (SFM) and its media executive Michael Del Nin, claiming they reneged on a deal that would have made him CEO of Audacy or entitled him to a share of the profits from SFM's acquisition of the company. The complaint, More...

From Radio Online: iHeartMedia has announced the launch of a new live radio show and companion podcast, "True Crime Tonight," created in collaboration with KT Studios. Debuting June 1, the two-hour program will air live Sunday through Thursday at 10pm local time on more than 20 iHeartMedia broadcast More...

From Radio Insight: Toyota of Wallingford’s Classic Hits “Wow Radio CT” programming will air on WATR Radio LLC’s 1320 WATR/97.7 W249DY Waterbury CT starting Monday, June 2. The webcaster operates from studios at the car dealership featuring longtime WPLR New Haven personalities Brian Smith and Pam Landry and music from the 1960s through 90s. Smith co-hosted mornings at WPLR from 1985 to 2003. Landry was MD/midday host from 1990 to 2009. Both later worked at Standards 1220 WQUN where Landry was Operations Manager. more

From Radio Insight: The knives have been out for Ed Sheeran for a long time. He barely got to enjoy a few years of hits before the critics pounced. In 2018, the Grammys made their statement by overlooking ?Shape of You? for Record of the Year to nominate ?The Story of O.J.? by Jay-Z. Like Taylor Swift, there were already murmurs about Sheeran?s place at CHR by the time of his duets album in 2019. Those were silenced for a while in 2021 when pop radio most needed hits and he unleashed ?Bad Habits? and ?Shivers? in close succession. After that, Sheeran released the deliberately-less-confectionary ?Eyes Closed,? which still became a power for many of the successful medium-to-small-market CHRs I follow closely. Then there was a more personal album from which no singles were promoted. This week, his ?Azizam,? released less than two months ago, is up 11-9 at CHR at this writing, but has slowed in recent weeks. A second track, ?Old Phone,? is up 43-38 at Hot AC but got only a handful of initial spins at CHR.* Things are challenging even for core artists with other current hits. In mid-March, Chappell Roan finally released ?The Giver,? a song that had been circulating since she performed it on Saturday Night Live. In early April, Miley Cyrus?s ?End of the World? came out a day before Sheeran. Normally, all these major-artist releases would be making their way into our ?Song of the Summer? discussions this week. Instead, Cyrus has peaked and “The Giver” is off the CHR chart. In another era, programmers would only be seeing their first callout research on those songs now and starting to make the decision on whether they were real hits. Instead, all three songs were under scrutiny almost immediately: Sheeran and Cyrus for their early streaming figures; Roan for declining sharply, even by week No. 2. Under those circumstances, it?s hard for a song to be redeemed by callout ? particularly when callout moves glacially, even on a megahit like ?Die with a Smile.? So what consideration does a name artist deserve from Top 40, particularly a long-running one? I want artists to earn their hit streaks, but I’m happy when they do. I want CHR to have core acts. I don?t want streaming to be the only determinant of a hit. But I?m buckling a little, the more I talk to streaming advocates like Longboard Insights? Mike Castellucci, who would tell radio to just play ?Shape of You? or ?Shivers? again, rather than continue to invest in a new song that isn?t of the same magnitude. The Hit Momentum Report?s Matt Bailey feels that major-artist titles are the ones most easily assessed quickly because of their artists? huge fan bases.*Liveline?s John Garabedian and Mason Kelter have been vocal in their criticism of any chart hits without streaming or request stories, especially when more-active records are struggling. Garabedian likens the CHR format today to its early ?90s doldrums. In that moment, there were certainly hits that Top 40 avoided, whether ?Rump Shaker? or ?Smells Like Teen Spirit.? The format was heavily populated by veteran hitmakers who had become mostly AC acts (Rod Stewart, Phil Collins), but also by Hip-Hop novelties comparable to some of today?s TikTok oddities. If you remember that era, how you feel about Top 40 now depends on whether you think the early ?90s culprit was Michael Bolton or MC Brains. It could also work both ways, Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” is one of our more enduring hits now; in 1989, he had a hard time proving his relevance at Top 40. Some artists took years to expend their final goodwill with radio. Bolton, like Barry Manilow a decade before him, and Celine Dion a few years after, faced more opposition earlier on. Each eventually tried to modernize but couldn?t get past artist image with PDs. We?re better on that now, just as we?re better about letting teen artists grow into adult careers. CHR is still giving Sheeran the benefit of the doubt, and he has made a visible effort to evolve from song to song and not settle in as a ballad artist. If the question is how long an artist can expect to keep making songs that work for contemporary audiences, consider that Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars go back to 2008 and 2010 respectively. Miley Cyrus had her first pop hit roughly six months before Gaga. Sheeran?s US streak goes back to only 2013. Some of us are still trying to process Rihanna?s ?Friend of Mine,? but lots of industry people want her to come back with a hit, and few care that her first was in 2005. Maroon 5 goes back to 2003 at Top 40 with “Harder to Breathe.” It?s conceivable that younger audiences are doing the math on how long artists have been around, but perhaps less so in a week when Connie Francis ? whose hitmaking streak was already over well before the Beatles ? has the No. 1 song on TikTok. (Here?s Francis from 1965 updating her own sound with the help of Petula Clark?s writer/producer.)* In general, I?m happy to have veteran artists around as long as they can make ?records for today.? Often, the issue is that attempting to do so often ends up giving us ?records for a year ago.? That said, ?Die with a Smile,? the record that gave both Gaga and Mars currency again, is neither of those things. It is tethered in 1968 or maybe in no particular time at all. At this moment, I may be more hung up on that than the audience. In recent years, my contention has been that we don?t have to have a lot of our ?either/or? discussions about Top 40 ? Artists vs. Songs; Hip-Hop vs. Country; Streaming vs. Callout; ?Keep CHR Fresher? vs. ?Pound ?Lose Control? forever? ? until we reach the point where there are more good records than CHR can play. Maybe a veteran artist is taking Lil Tecca?s slot in the hour. Or maybe it?s a second-tier throwback that doesn?t have the same durability ? in terms of artist or song relevance ? as a ?Yeah!? or ?Just Dance.? My inclination remains giving songs the time to grow on listeners, and to be ratified (or not) by callout. That decision is complicated by the slowness of callout now, and I wonder what radio could do to make it more responsive ? more spins right away; more creative ways of getting attention for a record on and off the air; changing screeners or recruitment? The issue of callout proving songs to be hits after their chart peak existed long before streaming, COVID, or CHR?s decline. Now, however, it’s hard for callout to ratify songs that don’t stream because radio won’t put much effort into breaking them in the first place. Under any scenario, I agree with KMVQ (99.7 Now) San Francisco PD Jim Archer?s strategy ? as shared at Radiodays North America ? of not over-relying on any single metric. My corollary, presented at RDNA?s closing ?30 Ideas in 45 Minutes? panel, is that with so many possible stories, research works best when it?s also used not just to eliminate weaker songs, but find music and ratify your decisions. Top 40?s song-of-summer excitement last year was, as it should be, driven by a mix of established artists (Morgan Wallen, Billie Eilish), those just breaking through (Sabrina Carpenter, Chappel Roan), re-emerging (Hozier, Charli XCX), and brand new (Shaboozey, Tommy Richman). Neither the alchemy nor the field feels quite as perfect this year, although I’ve become more optimistic over the last month. There are records I love now. It would be even better to have a few more sure things. At another RDNA panel, on the state of the radio/music industry relationship, label veteran Abbey Konowitch told attendees not to be too nostalgic about the old days of a system that invested tons of short-lived hype in, say, Semisonic and got them one hit in ?Closing Time? (albeit an enduring one). But Raye, an artist cited there as an example of music?s current streaming-driven democracy, is a one-hit wonder too, in America, even if fewer label resources likely went into getting her that single hit. Are things better or just cheaper for labels who are less interested in bringing as many songs to radio anyway? Things still seem to be better for radio when there are more stars ? both emerging and veteran. In CHR, the Song of Summer created only momentary excitement, and not a roadmap to anything. In Country, the answer to the established artists vs. post-Morgan Wallen discussion seems to have been ?both.? The same for ?passive vs. active records?? No artist should get a pass. Every artist should get a fair chance. It just comes down to what you think that fair chance is. And if we want to encourage a new generation of hitmakers, not just veterans, we’re going to have to cultivate those as well, because streaming won’t do it all for us. more

From Radio Insight: After 70 years playing Country music in Salt Lake City, KSOP Inc. will sign-off Classic Country 1370 KSOP South Salt Lake UT on Monday, June 2. KSOP’s programming will continue to be heard online at KSOPCountry.com, but will come off 104.3 KSOP-HD2. In a statement signed by The Management of KSOP Inc, the station says, “This decision, though bittersweet, represents a thoughtful shift toward the future of our company and the evolving ways our audience listens to music.” “Classic Country 1370 has been a trusted voice on the Utah airwaves since 1955. Family-owned and operated from the beginning, the station has been a cornerstone of country music in Utah?proudly sharing not just the songs, but the artists who shaped the genre and left a lasting mark on our community.” “The choice to discontinue AM broadcasting is not one we take lightly. We are deeply saddened to close this historic chapter. However, in recognizing how our audience continues to change, we are proud to announce that our Classic Country format will live on KSOPCountry.com. This digital platform will allow fans to continue enjoying the traditional country music they love?anytime, anywhere.” “To our loyal Classic Country 1370 listeners?thank you. Your support over the past seven decades has meant the world to us. Though the tower will go quiet, the music will continue, and our commitment to Utah remains as strong as ever.” Morning host ‘Country Joe’ Flint, who first joined KSOP in 1971, will continue on the station. Flint worked at the station until 2005 before returning in 2012. KSOP flipped from a simulcast of Country 104.3 KSOP-FM to Classic Country in 2002. The AM and FM previously simulcasted from the time of the FM’s launch in 1964. The AM operates with 5kW non-directional day and 500 watts directional at night. more

From Radio Insight: iHeartMedia is launching a nightly show dedicated to True Crime stories. Launched in collaboration with KT Studios, ?True Crime Tonight? will air live Sunday through Thursday nights from 10pm-12am on twenty stations starting Sunday, June 1. The show will feature KT Studios founder/CEO Stephanie Lydecker, producer Courtney McKenna Armstrong, and crime analyst Baudi Moovan. The show will feature “a mix of expert analysis, bold opinions, and listener call-ins”. iHeart Chief Programming Officer Tom Poleman commented, “We’re always exploring new formats for broadcast radio, and we’re thrilled to introduce True Crime Tonight. Stephanie Lydecker and KT Studios are leaders in true crime podcasting, and when Stephanie and I discussed creating a radio format, she was immediately on board. The show will feature live caller interactions and real-time updates, ensuring it remains incredibly engaging and up to date.” Lydecker said, “The idea of connecting live with audiences who are as passionate about the genre as we are is beyond exciting. Tom Poleman is a true visionary. I am proud to bring this show to life and continue to expand our partnership with the exceptional iHeart team.? iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group CEO Conal Byrne added, “Even as podcasting has exploded as the newest mass-ready medium in the United States, true crime has persisted as one of its most popular genres ? and we wanted to bring that kind of storytelling to the world in a new way, with more interactivity and bigger audiences. There are a few mediums that drive more conversation than podcasts, but one big challenge with the medium is that podcasts are not themselves interactive. Broadcast Radio – what we sometimes think of as the original social media – can add exactly this element, engaging people in the live conversation with a real-time, interactive component, taking the story to a new level.? Among the stations that will carry the show are Hot ACs “Mix 96.9” KMXP Phoenix, “Star 94.1” KMYI San Diego, 103.1 KCDA Spokane WA, and AC’s including “Mix 100.7” WMTX Tampa, “Magic 107.7” WMGF Orlando, and “Q101.9” KQXT San Antonio. more

From Radio Insight: Craig Hanson’s Media Advisors is purchasing Oldies “Key 100” 100.7 KCAY Dammeron Valley UT from Matthew Wesolowski’s SSR Communications for $172,000. The FCC shot down KCAY’s attempts to move into the St. George UT market last September for circumventing reallotment procedures. It now holds a CP to move to 107.7 in Enterprise UT with 200w/370m. Hanson’s Red Rock Media owns four stations in the St. George market: Classic Hits “98.9 Kool-FM” KRQX Hurricane, Country “102.3 Real Country” KUTQ La Verkin, CHR “Mix 103.1” KURR Hildale, and Classic Rock “104.1 Zion-FM” KZYN Toquerville. Jimmy Birkemeyer’s R&J Broadcasting is converting its LMA of Border Broadcasting’s Country “KQ 92.5” KKWQ Warroad and Full Service Classic Hits “The Northern Star” 1410 KRWB/102.9 K275BB Roseau MN into a purchase. R&J began operating the stations last August via Time Brokerage Agreement and will now acquire the stations for $1 plus the assumption of some liabilities. John McGee, the General Manager of M&H Broadcasting’s three stations in Perry IA, will acquire Country “K98” 98.9 KGRA Jefferson, “K107” 107.9 KKRF Stuart, and Classic Hits 1310 KDLS Perry/94.3 K232FX Dallas Center/99.7 K259AT Boone through his and his wife Jennifer’s McGee Management Services for $1.97 million. The deal is structured with McGee paying $772,500 for the station’s real estate, $484,000 for equipment, $350,000 for 28.8 acres of farmland, $295,500 in intangibles, and $68,000 for vehicles. Siga Broadcasting Corporation sells 1480 KLVL Pasadena/94.9 K235CS Houston TX to Iglesia Cristiana Restauracion y Vida for $2 million. The deal was structured with the buyer making monthly LMA payments from 2019 through now with a final down payment of $1,584,807.90 made with the filing. Walker Newberry’s sells his 50% stake in Red Sky LLC and its 1220 WFKN Franklin KY to Dale Thornhill for $10 giving Thornhill full control of the station. Mother Lode Community Radio sells the CP of 89.5 KFUT Twain Harte CA to the Greater Good Cultural Exchange for $10. Translator SalesUniversity of Utah transfers 103.9 K280BT Milford UT to Iron County for no consideration. The translator rebroadcasts the University’s Public News/Talk 90.1 KUER-FM Salt Lake City. more