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The National Association of Broadcasters Leadership Foundation’s Celebration of Service to America Awards, scheduled for July 10, will be shown on over 500 TV stations according to a release. Over 200 stations will air the program immediately with others airing it through Aug. 14.

The awards honor local radio and television stations from across the country for local community public service.

[Read: NAB Foundation Will Honor Lin-Manuel Miranda]

This is a list of finalist radio and TV stations. Tamron Hall will host the ceremonies.

In addition to the public service awards there will also be the first John D. Dingell, Jr. Award for Excellence, for a Congressmen.

Broadway writer/actor Lin-Manuel Miranda will receive the 2021 Service to Leadership Award, the NAB Leadership Foundation’s highest individual honor. And Procter & Gamble will receive the 2021 Corporate Leadership Award.

The post NABLF Awards Air to on 500+ Local Stations Nationwide appeared first on Radio World.

Around Thanksgiving Day 2019, word first surfaced that veteran radio industry executive John Fullam would be retiring at year’s end. By late January 2020, his successor had been named.

Now, the man selected to take on Fullam’s duties has departed the company formerly known as Entercom. As a result, Fullam is back, serving as the interim SVP/Market Manager of Audacy‘s Denver stations.

Chuck Sullivan, who became SVP/Manager of KQMT-FM 99.5 “The Mountain,” KALC-FM “Alice 105.9, Adult Standards KEZW-AM 1430 and KQKS-FM 107.5 and KQKS-HD2 “Comedy 103.1″ on Feb. 3, 2020, is no longer with the company.

Sullivan joined Entercom in 2014 as the SVP/Market Manager for the company’s Milwaukee market. In 2015, his role expanded to include oversight of Entercom’s Madison, Wisc., stations. Prior to joining Entercom, Sullivan served in leadership roles for Cumulus Broadcasting, including as VP/Market Manager for the company’s Mobile cluster and as Market Manager for five stations in Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Before that, he served as a managing partner for Ocean Broadcasting in Wilmington, N.C., from 1996 to 2006.

Sullivan’s exit comes as KQKS Program Director Victor Starr has also exited Audacy.

He had been PD of the station since March 2016.

In a request for comment, an Audacy spokesperson tells RBR+TVBR Sullivan “has left the company to pursue other opportunities.”

In 1975, Fullam entered the radio business at a now-defunct company called the Home News Corporation. This saw him serve as VP/GM of venerable Rock station WRKI-FM “I95” in Brookfield, Conn., a popular station serving Fairfield County and Westchester County, N.Y. An October 1992 acceptance of similar duties at WKQI-FM in Detroit served as the catalyst for a 44-year career that saw him take key positions at AMFM Inc., Clear Channel, CBS Radio and Entercom, serving as SVP/GM/Market Manager of its Denver stations. Fullam gained that final role in November 2017, a two-year deal.

It is licensed to Ashland City, Tenn., but has a signal that covers all of Nashville during daylight hours. While the AM has just 35 watts at night, there’s a 100-watt FM translator that allows it to cover Nashville’s western neighborhoods.

These facilities are heading to a new licensee, pending FCC approval. And, it is a certainty that “The Mighty 790” is involved in their future.

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Its a tiny town in Lewis County, Mo., that had under 550 residents in the 2010 U.S. Census.

It’s important enough of a locale for Gray Television to make a deal for a low-powered TV station based in this tiny burgh.

There’s a perfectly good reason it is buying the facility, when one looks at a map.

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The FCC’s “Auction 111” is coming, and the Commission has just set its Comment and Reply Comment Dates so it may hear from the public on competitive bidding procedures.

The auction involves Construction Permits for Low Power TV stations and for TV translators.

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On June 29, Cumulus Media enjoyed a banner day on Wall Street, with high trading volume fueling a notable increase in share value.

Could a successful pay down of debt, using cash on hand, be the catalyst for long-awaited long-term growth at a company that has successfully emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization?

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Seventeen days ago, the nation’s No. 1 audio media company by number of radio stations announced it would prepay $250 million in term loan facilities while repricing its incremental term loan.

The announcement was icing on the cake for IHRT shareholders who have enjoyed an incredible rebound from COVID-19-influenced lows seen in March and April of 2020.

With iHeart’s June 24 closing price, a 473.5% improvement has been seen since March 30, 2020.

As of 1:27pm Eastern on July 9, IHRT sat at $26.02.

By comparison, IHRT was trading in the $17 range until mid-February, when COVID-19 fears pummeled the issue — and just about every other publicly traded company.

For iHeart, however, meaningful recovery for its battered stock began in May 2020. And, aside from a few profit-taking ebbs and flows, the growth of its stock is unprecedented.

What’s to come for a company that seeks to transition the bulk of Rush Limbaugh’s listening audience to a team of Clay Travis and Buck Sexton as questions on how to transition aging Top 40 personalities such as Ryan Seacrest loom?

As far as Wall Street is concerned, long-term forecasts are in line with what the company expects, as podcasting and digital revenue show no signs of a slowdown.

The 1-year revenue estimate put on IHRT by Wall Street analysts: $29.14.

For some, the buying and selling of broadcast media properties over the past 12 months has been nothing short of dismal. Aside from cash-rich non-profit broadcast ministries seeking FM properties they couldn’t get a decade ago, radio industry transactions have come in small trickles. The TV industry, on the other hand, has seen colossal mega-mergers involving companies such as The E.W. Scripps Co. and Gray Television.

Television industry transactions of late have also included deals involving unbuilt low-power TV stations. With a sign-on deadline of Tuesday, time is rapidly ticking for those seeking to spin these facilities and cash out. For those still in need of a facility fire-up, an automatic forfeit of the CP looms.

Then, there’s a group of LPTVs for sale that are a bit unique. How so? They don’t need to be built until 2023.

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We all know that there’s power in a melody. But how closely do listeners actually associate a melody with a brand?

A recent study conducted by one audio company set to find out. The 2021 Audio Logo Index survey gathered responses of 3,700 consumers in the U.S. and U.K. to evaluate more than 100 consumer brands’ audio logos. The survey found that consumers were more consistently able to identify a brand when the name of that brand was tied to an audio melody.

According to the audio intelligence company Veritonic, which conducted the survey, two strong features work best to define a strong sonic brand: one, the audio logo has to say the name of the brand and two, the logo must have a melody to it.

[Read: Survey Says U.S. Radio Listeners Engaged and Receptive to Ads]

The study specifically analyzed how memorable an audio logo was and what emotional resonance it held for a listener. The survey measured and scored all types of audio content including voices, music, ads and audio logos.

For example, the survey found that those with a combined audio feature that mentions the brand name and have a melody led to higher scores. Those with both a melody and a brand name mention scored an average 78 Veritonic Audio Score. Those without scored a 54 average.

The survey also asked respondents to name the company that came to mind when they heard an audio logo. Topping the list of brands that have the strongest degree of association: State Farm, followed by Arby’s, Ace Hardware and AutoZone. Insurance firms in particular seem to understand the power of putting a brand name into the sonic brand: three of the top 10 strongest audio logos with brand association are State Farm, Farmers and Liberty Mutual.

The study also found a weak brand association for those audio logos that do not say the brand name or have a melody. Less than 2% of respondents were able to correctly associate the audio logo belonging to mainstream brands like Southwest, T-Mobile or Amazon.

Another weak brand association: those audio logos that have a melody but don’t mention the name itself. Despite investment in its long-standing sonic brand, only 13% of respondents could correctly associate the specific audio “ding” belonging to the technology company Intel. The same issues arose with the audio logo for Mastercard; upon hearing the Mastercard logo, none of the respondents could associate it with the brand.

Mastercard isn’t the only major company with a sonic brand no one can associate with the company. Honda, Audi, Nissan and Sprint share that same fate, the survey found.

So how can companies grow association of their audio logo with their brands? In a blog post, Pierre Bouvard, chief Insights Officer at Cumulus Media/Westwood One, “they should take a page from State Farm’s resurgence of brand association and introduce the brand name into the audio logo.”

Other findings revealed by the study found that:

• Audio logos that mention the brand scored a Veritonic Audio Score of 69 on average. Audio logos that did not mention the brand scored significantly lower with an average 55 Veritonic Audio Score.
• Audio logos that included a melody saw a 77 average Veritonic Audio Score compared to those without a melody at an average of 60.

More information is available at the 2021 Audio Logo Index.

The post Uncovering What Makes an Effective Sonic Brand appeared first on Radio World.

A group of minority shareholders in DTV America Corp. has taken another legal action against what it calls “a conglomerate of overlapping entities and their interlocking directors and officers” that presently possess majority control of the entity known for its low-power TV stations.

What is that “conglomerate”? It’s HC2 Holdings.

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Its mission was simple: To re-purpose 600 MHz and other spectrum and rapidly deploy a world-class 5G network in the United States.

This could explain why the individual behind Landover Wireless, a 30-year veteran of the global wireless telecommunications industry, had an interest in low-power TV stations.

That venture, however, was never fully realized. Earlier this year, it drafted two transactions selling unbuilt LPTVs to Jeff Winemiller. Now, it is spinning an unbuilt LPTV property in Idaho.

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One has been the EVP of Operations at Cumulus Media since April 2017 and has been with the company since the end of 2014. The other individual is also a EVP of Operations at the audio media company and has been there since January 2013.

Both executives are now getting presidential appointments from Mary Berner.

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Dave Milner and Bob Walker have each ascended to respective roles as President of Cumulus Operations, effective immediately.

They report to Berner, Cumulus’ President/CEO, who calls their elevation “a well-deserved recognition of their respective contributions to the company’s success. Over the past several years, not only has the scope of both Bob’s and Dave’s direct responsibilities grown beyond their market portfolios, they also play a significant and vital role in the operations of the Company overall. Moreover, in addition to being terrific executives, they are terrific colleagues as well.”

Milner, who joined Cumulus in December 2014, has a rich resume steeped in Northern California radio. He was President/Market Manager of iHeartMedia’s San Francisco stations from May 2012 through his arrival at Cumulus. Before that, he was VP of Sales for Entercom (now Audacy) in Sacramento. From 2004-February 2007, he worked for Cumulus — then led by the Dickey brothers. His role: GSM for the San Francisco stations.

Walker is responsible for the P&L of 65 markets across the Cumulus portfolio, and started his tenure at the company as SVP of Brand Solutions. He’s one of the rare individuals who shifted from television to radio, as he served as WXIA-11 in Atlanta President/GM under Gannett ownership from 1996-2010. He’d been associated with “11Alive” since May 1988, first handling marketing and sales roles.

From April 2010 until arriving at Cumulus, Walker was EVP/GM of Network and Content at The Weather Channel.

It’s repeatedly put the blame on nearly every retransmission consent impasse, leading to a “blackout” of local TV stations, on the station owner.

It’s unabashedly in support of anything that favors a MVPD.

Now, the American Television Alliance (ATVA) has commented on a half-million-dollar-plus Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture handed to Gray Television by the FCC for allegedly violating the Commission’s Top Four station rule.

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