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In October 2009, a veteran radio programming executive joined AT&T Entertainment Group as its Operations Director, a role that saw him “monitor technology acquisition responsibilities and optimize talent training responsibilities.”

This most recently included activity with the DirecTV/AT&T U-Verse channel Audience Network, which ceased operations on May 23.

With Audience Network sunsetting, Ken Kohl has opted to do the same for his career, which spans 50 years.

Kohl’s role at AT&T was far bigger than running an exclusive commercial-free channel. “On behalf of The Dan Patrick Show and The Rich Eisen Show I maintained a 500-station radio network,” he says, in addition to NBC Sports Network, AT&T Regional Sports Networks, two podcasts and a branded SiriusXM channel with an emphasis on business expansion.

Kohl arrived at AT&T following a two-year run as VP/Content Development and Broadcast Operations for The Content Factory/Acquaint Media, where he built out the Dan Patrick network.

That role was Kohl’s first outside day-to-day radio station activity — a career that began on New York’s Long Island, with an overnight shift at WBLI-FM and a Program Director slot, in the early 1970s, at beloved Progressive Rocker WLIR-FM. In June 1974, he joined the air staff of KBPI-FM in Denver, a legendary AOR station.

But, like many who started in free-form rock, Kohl rolled into a successful career in the News/Talk arena. His resume includes stints at KOMO-AM in Seattle, which he joined in February 1981 when it was still Adult Contemporary; KFBK-AM in Sacramento; and, most notably, KFI/Los Angeles, where he shifted to Talk upon joining in early 1987.

“It’s been an amazing 50-year career,” he tells Streamline Publishing, which also produces Radio Ink. “I’ve been blessed with fantastic staffs, amazing talk talent and exceptional ownership but there are a handful of folks who championed my career to whom I am eternally grateful: Mike Harrison (who reported on his WLIR departure as a Radio & Records Rock Editor long before launching Talkers Magazine), Monty Grau, Jim Donahoe, Jimmy De Castro, Chris Long, and the best of the best, Gerryann Agovino.”

What’s next for Kohl? “We’ve moved back to Seattle for our FINAL move, fishing and cruising the San Juan Islands, making new friends, and reconnecting with old Seattle pals top the list. For the first time in 50 years, I don’t have a morning show to get up for.”

Kohl remains available for a limited number of consulting clients in between bites of fresh
salmon and can be reached at kenkohl@acquaintmedia.com 

For more than a month, yuletide tunes, jolly jams and perhaps even “Puppy for Hanukkah” have been easily accessible — via YouTube, Pandora, Spotify and radio stations across nearly every city in the U.S.

Yet, SiriusXM, which offered a plethora of holiday-themed channels to its subscribers in years past, has seemingly skimped on its satellite-delivered offerings.

That’s not the case, the satcaster says. However, there’s an app for that explanation.

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Christmas may less than two weeks away, but that doesn’t mean key retailers are putting their dollars at CHR … or any other radio formats.

The latest Media Monitors Spot Ten Radio report shows no retailers present for the week ending December 13 — no Macys, no Walmart, no Target or Kohls.

In fact, the big categories are financial, with Bank of America and its Merrill arm in the top 5, while pharmaceutical brand Bristol Myers Squibb-Pfizer slips to No. 2.

Softer this past week were auto insurers, while Indeed.com is No. 10.

Millions of jobs lost. Close to 300,000 perished. Over 16 million sick.

You know the facts because you’re living them. One thing most of us can agree on is that the science of this COVID-19 thing hasn’t changed and it remains highly contagious.

Being isolated for so long, it’s human nature that we are all past ready to return to normal activity. What’s constantly in play is the public’s attitude.

A friend of mine in Florida recently declared that she was “so done with COVID” and took a road trip to Key West with three friends, sharing a hotel room and reveling in the food and atmosphere of their favorite hot spots.

Understanding attitudes is the tricky part of being on-air during the virus. It’s the one discussion point your local team needs to update constantly so you can properly adjust what you’re doing on-air, online and with your social channels.

Nobody knows when this nightmare will end. Even once the vaccine deployment ramps up, it will be months before all public activity can safely resume in a normal way.

It’s super easy to be unintentionally tone-deaf about this tragedy, but doing so can damage your personalities and your brand, perhaps permanently.

In the beginning of the outbreak, from his yacht in the Caribbean, recording industry billionaire David Geffen posted a picture of a beautiful sunset for his 80,000+ Instagram followers. Seemed innocent enough, even with the caption that said , Sunset last night… Isolated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus. I hope everyone is safe.”

He got roasted first by his followers and then by the media. This is a guy who’s been involved in raising millions of dollars for clinics, charities for the homeless, and even has a school of medicine named after him in California. None of that matters to the people who perceive him as a privileged jerk.

They’re thinking, Yeah, you’re isolated all right … from the risk and uncertainty the rest of us face every day!

The lesson is that we can’t let our guard down as the seasons change and we need to be ultra-aware of what we are saying to our listeners.

You’ve had to be living in a cave not to know that the act of staying home when possible, wearing a mas, and social distancing — and the extent to which any should be mandated or voluntary — has become a political sore spot. Therefore, unless your product is a specifically conservative or liberal talk format, it’s risky to take a position.

A transparent way to talk about masks is to have the voices of your listeners express their opinion. Stay calm and have your best tension-easing methods of diplomacy ready to roll.

As the recent election shows, the country is split on so many issues that your personalities or station will inevitably alienate many listeners if you go all-in on one point of view.

However, because the relentless contagion of this devastating virus hasn’t changed, all stations should encourage sick people to stay home, to be careful around the elderly or others of compromised health, and to remember that we are all in this together.

There is one scientifically proven fact that your station staff could highlight:  wearing a cloth mask (even a bandanna over nose and mouth) may not do much to protect yourself, but it is enormously helpful in protecting others.

It is a community-minded action, and local radio culture is, or should be, all about community. Imparting this information via PSA or to a genuinely interested caller is an important public service.

That said, if your community is overwhelmingly in favor of full-time masks while in public, you could also give out or sell masks or hand sanitizer with your logo to benefit a charity, as some stations have been doing for months now.

Most importantly, every station in America should continue doing their best to generate funds, food and supplies for those in need.

With unprecedented unemployment, we must create more avenues to offer support. This may be more-frequent PSAs urging both monetary and non-perishable donations to food banks; airing announcements about volunteer opportunities; and supporting loans for those in need.

If you haven’t done it already, I urge you also to create a resource page on your website with links to such things as local employment search ideas and help in navigating loss of income; food security advice and dollar-smart recipes; articles on coping with disruption of family life and other relationships; and, of course, how to stay safe and healthy in the face of COVID-19. Enlist a member of your staff who is good at research to compile these resources and review it with your talent so they’re in the loop of what’s available to their listeners on the website and what’s being constantly updated.

During times of crisis, people have long turned to radio personalities as virtual friends. And just as a friend is genuinely warm and approachable, it’s more important than ever that talent express a desire to share in their listeners’ lives.

Most of this comes in the form of morning shows; many who expanded hours in April continue to stay on for longer, while others have already scaled back. The situation is so fluid that if your area goes into lockdown again, you should take a hard look at your schedule.

There was a piece of optimistic news in a Radio Advertising Bureau article in October from Pierre Bouvard, chief insights officer at Cumulus: “The growth of workplace commuting combined with the return of children to school has caused time spent in the car to surge. This is good news for both the outdoor advertising and U.S. AM/FM radio industries. From May to October, Nielsen finds daily time spent in the car has grown +81% from 36 minutes in May to 65 minutes in October. Among heavy AM/FM radio listeners, daily time spent in the car has doubled from an hour and six minutes a day to two hours and 11 minutes.”

Even if this goes sideways due to renewed school closings and new restrictions, the beautiful part is that we can rest assured that in-car will come roaring back.

Many of us have more questions. At the top of my list: Do you continue to respond to the times in your local community?

Reach the author at marklapidus1@gmail.com. Read more great promotion, content and management articles from Mark Lapidus at www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/promo-power.

Comment on this or any article to radioworld@futurenet.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject line.

The post What’s the Right Tone on COVID-19? appeared first on Radio World.

He’s been the acting Chief Revenue Officer since January 2020.

Now, he has officially gained the title at the Comcast Advertising arm known as FreeWheel.

Mark McKee is responsible for FreeWheel’s sales revenue and execution across all
U.S. lines of business with a strategic focus on customer experience and account strategy.

“Mark is an industry leader with a finger on the pulse of today’s dynamic advertising industry,” said FreeWheel GM Dave Clark. “He has been able to combine his visibility into areas of challenge with prioritization of areas with greater opportunity to deliver results and value for our customers.”

Until the start of 2020, McKee was a VP of Marketing at FreeWheel.

Prior to joining FreeWheel in 2018, McKee was a Sr. VP at Videology, where he oversaw
North American commercial functions. He also held sales strategy and development leadership roles at Joost and Massive Incorporated.

Local Now, a subsidiary of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, is a streaming service delivering real-time, local news, weather, sports, traffic, television shows, movies, and lifestyle information through technology that provides localized information to more than 225 markets across the United States.

It is available across a portfolio of OTT, CTV mobile, and TV platforms. As of today, it is also available on one of the nation’s biggest MVPDs.

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NEW YORK — Independent audio ad sales network AdLarge has signed a renewal agreement with Nielsen Audio.

With this agreement, AdLarge continues its participation in RADAR, the Nielsen audio service that provides commercial ratings.

Speaking of the new accord, AdLarge Media Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer Cathy Csukas says, “RADAR is the gold standard in network radio measurement. What sets it apart are the strict guidelines it requires from its subscribers, so they can provide agencies with highly accountable audience measurement. These are exactly the characteristics that make RADAR extremely valuable to advertisers and marketers as they make their purchasing decisions.”

Bruce Supovitz, SVP/National Audio Services at Nielsen Audio, adds, “AdLarge is an industry leader and a top independent audio sales network, and we are extremely pleased they have chosen to continue our relationship. We applaud AdLarge for continuing to be champions of audio advertising and investing in accountability and transparency for their advertisers and marketers.”

RADAR radio networks provide Nielsen with commercial clearance records from affiliated radio stations, which are merged with listening information from a database of nearly 400,000 respondents. “This added accountability allows RADAR to provide the best available forecast of a network’s future audience delivery and a high standard of reliable metrics for buying network radio,” Nielsen says.

The founder and chief executive officer of America’s United Financial Partnerships and the Auto Masters Automobile Dealership Group, located in Middle Tennessee, considers himself to be an accomplished entrepreneur.

Among the businesses he’s controlled is a company owning Spanish-language radio stations that were once a part of the now-defunct Davidson Media Group, led by Chris McMurray. 

However, radio hasn’t been so kind to Mark Janbakhsh. Earlier this month, he divested properties in one North Carolina market. Now, he’s done so in the Triangle region.

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On Monday morning, the legacy of President Trump in Washington, D.C., was imprinted on the Federal Communications Commission.

Thanks to a spat over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and the unwillingness of a Republican Commissioner who openly spoke out about his views as a strict Constitutionalist, the White House schemed to get a man who’d go along with the president’s quest to change the rule.

That individual on Monday was formally sworn in as the newest FCC Commissioner.

Nathan Simington has now been officially welcomed as one of five legislative leaders for the agency. The Commission notified all via a mid-morning Twitter post.

Simington takes the seat, previously held by Mike O’Rielly, after narrowly winning U.S. Senate approval — thanks to unanimous GOP support. Despite the controversy surrounding his nomination by the White House, the alternative would have been potentially worse for those seeking to further Republican “light touch” legislation — having the expectedly incoming Biden Administration get to select not one, but two, Commissioners.

Thus, for Roger Wicker & Co., it was a no-choice vote.

No matter how high Simington’s profile becomes in Washington, he can never be elected President.

Simington is from Saskatchewan, Canada, and became a U.S. citizen. That said, he is steeped in knowledge of many aspects of the telecommunications regulatory world. The University of Michigan law school graduate may have been a Senior Advisor at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for just months, but in the role he worked on many aspects of telecommunications policy, including spectrum allocation and planning, broadband access, and the U.S. Government’s role in the Internet.

He’s also said to have authored the White House’s Section 230 plea, seeking it be discarded — thus holding social media platform owners accountable for what users post.

Prior to joining the Commission, Simington was a senior counsel to Brightstar Corp., the international mobile device services company. In this capacity, he led and negotiated telecommunications equipment and services transactions with leading providers in over twenty countries.

Prior to joining Brightstar, he worked as an attorney in private practice.

With Simington seated, he will be present at Ajit Pai’s swan song — the Jan. 13, 2021 Open Meeting for the Commission.

At this time, an agenda has not yet been released.

A wholly owned subsidiary of The E.W. Scripps Company has launched an offering of $700 million of new senior secured notes and $500 million of new senior unsecured notes.

The secured notes from Scripps Escrow II are expected to mature in 2029, and the unsecured notes are expected to mature in 2031.

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