iHeartMedia 710 WOR has announced that the radio show “Rich on Tech” radio program is now airing every Sunday from 8 to 11 p.m. Hosted by renowned technology expert Rich DeMuro, the program offers listeners the latest in tech news, reviews and insights.
DeMuro will be covering a broad range of topics, from the newest gadgets and apps to the latest trends in the tech industry. Listeners can expect in-depth discussions, expert interviews and practical advice on how to make the most of technology.
“We are excited to welcome ‘Rich on Tech’ to the new WOR Sunday lineup,” said Tom Cuddy, program director for 710 WOR. “Rich’s expertise and passion for technology make him a perfect fit for our audience, and we look forward to providing our listeners with Rich’s valuable and entertaining content, including hidden features of your iPhone, Androids, how AI can help around your home, the best new smart TVs, cybersecurity tips and much more.”
DeMuro added, “I’m so excited to be on the airwaves of my hometown area, bringing the best tech knowledge to listeners in the tri-state. I’m here to answer your biggest tech questions and help you get the most out of the tech you use every day.”
A native of New Jersey, DeMuro also serves as the television technology reporter for KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles, appearing on its top-rated morning news program. His radio show began on 710 WOR’s Los Angeles sister station, KFI, and went national in 2023.
710 WOR’s new morning show, “Mendte in the Morning” with Larry Mendte, will also feature DeMuro in a weekly segment every Thursday at 7:40 a.m.
“Rich on Tech” is nationally syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks and is heard on more than 350 stations across the country.
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Top 40 Q95-7 Sioux Falls, SD has flipped to Adult Contemporary.
The Midwest Communications station had been carrying Westwood One’s Hits Now!, which is being eliminated. Northpine reports that the station now appears to be carrying Westwood One’s AC format.
Q95-7 will now feature ‘80s, ‘90s and recent hits while retaining its “Most Music” positioning.
Cluster mate and locally programmed 101.9 KELO has adjusted to a Hot AC sound, including more Pop hits.
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As the Stanley Cup Playoffs are set to commence this weekend, ESPN is working in collaboration with Arts & Letters to launchThe ESPN Chirpline. This phone hotline will enable fans to leave messages where they can chirp about topics related to the National Hockey League, some of which include missed calls, roster moves or animus towards opponents. Specific chirps could be featured on ESPN social media channels and live radio and television programming throughout the tournament proceedings as well.
Fans can call 1-844-4CHIRPIN and follow the prompts to take part in the hotline with playoff action beginning around the league. The hotline also involves SportsCenter anchor and ESPN commentator/host Steve Levy, who will be anchoring studio coverage alongside Mark Messier and P.K. Subban throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Levy narrated a promotional video for the ESPN Chirpline that the network released on Friday morning describing how the initiative works and encouraging fans to participate.
“There’s a heightened fandom during the Stanley Cup Playoffs – any NHL fan will tell you so,” Brian Iglesias, vice president of sports marketing at ESPN, said in a statement. “With The ESPN Chirpline, we’ve taken inspiration from those gloriously over-the-top 90s hotline commercials and turned it into an authentic and engaging way for fans to let out all their emotions that come with the intensity of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.”
ESPN is in the midst of its fourth season under a seven-year media rights deal with the NHL reportedly worth $400 million per season. The network will broadcast matchups throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including 16 first-round games through the first six days on ESPN and ESPN2. Teams such as the Carolina Hurricanes, Vegas Golden Knights and Los Angeles Kings will be on the airwaves throughout the early proceedings as they look to finish victorious with the Stanley Cup championship.
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Earlier this week, NPR CEO Katherine Maher joined the network’s All Things Considered program to discuss what the impact of losing federal funding would mean for the 246-member radio stations across the country. In total, that amounts to about $100 million dollars. Currently, the network receives around $122 million dollars annually, according to several reports.
Maher said the impact would be felt most by radio stations in rural communities.
“The big impact would be on rural stations, stations in geographies that are quite large or complex in order to be able to receive broadcast or infrastructure,” said Maher. “Costs are very high. You could see some of those stations really having to cut back services or potentially going away altogether.”
Later in the conversation, All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly asked about the potential survival of the network if it were to lose so much of its federal funding. In response, Maher attempted to explain that the network would run the risk of coverage being cut.
“If federal funding goes away, that network is absolutely at risk,” said Maher. “The quality of service, the ability to cover everyone, people who live in what would otherwise be news deserts.”
Additionally, Maher mentioned that if the network does not receive funding, the local newsrooms would essentially go away. She was also asked about the ongoing debate: should taxpayer money support NPR when other news sources are widely available?
“I think that it’s important for public media to be able to continue to be relevant in a time where there is a lot of coverage of different issues and areas of interest. And at the same time, I think it’s very easy to say that there’s universal coverage because there’s so much content being produced,” said Maher. “About 20 percent of Americans live in an area without any other local news coverage other than their local public radio station. This is tremendously important as a public service and just because not every single person uses it every day – you know, I don’t drive on our interstates every day, and yet when I need it, it’s there. The same is true of public media.”
Meanwhile, earlier in the week, the Trump administration moved to eliminate federal funding for NPR and PBS. Specifically, it drafted a memo outlining a plan for key members of Congress to cut “all” such spending, accusing both public broadcasters of spreading “radical, woke propaganda, disguised as ‘news.’”
In response to this broader criticism, Maher emphasized the unique mission of public media.
“Most commercial outlets are able to target certain audiences that they want to reach. We have an actual obligation in our mission and in our funding model to try to serve everyone across the country,” said Maher. “We won’t always be able to serve everyone, every belief set, every need, every interest, but we need to serve as broad an audience as possible. That’s the point of public broadcasting, is to be able to put the public in conversation with one another and to operate off a shared set of conversations about what’s going on in the world.”
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Approaching The Summit is a series of special interviews created in partnership with Point to Point Marketing featuring speakers at the upcoming 2025 BSM Summit in Chicago, IL. Follow along with this series as prominent names surrounding the event coming up on May 8-9 at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) inside the Edlis Neeson Theater and share their insights and expectations for what’s to come in the Windy City.
Matt Moscona is the program director of 104.5 ESPN Baton Rouge and has also hosted his afternoon show, After Further Review, in the marketplace since 2010. Moscona attended the BSM Summit for the first time last year and was recently recognized on the BSM Top 20 list for mid-market program directors.
Prior to the BSM Summit in May, Moscona spoke with Barrett Media about his anticipation for the event and topics that he hopes are addressed on stage.
*Editor’s Note: Answers have been edited for clarity and length.*
BSM Staff: You attended the BSM Summit for the first time last year. What are you looking forward to this year in returning to the event?
Matt Moscona: Especially after attending last year, I’m very selfishly looking forward to hearing things that I can take back to our group and implement. So there’s never a shortage of qualified people who know way more about things than I do. So my approach is take tons of notes and be a sponge and find ways that I can make our group more efficient and more profitable.
BSM Staff: What is the value for industry professionals to leave the office and attend the BSM Summit?
Matt Moscona: The networking piece is massive, not only just from a perspective of sharing contacts for content, but I mean, I’ll give you an example. I connected with some folks in Jacksonville, and we’ve opened the lines of communication and sharing ideas for different digital properties and ways we’re approaching branding and marketing. So that component of it, I think, is maybe the most valuable to be able to connect with other professionals in the industry to help each other and share ideas.
BSM Staff: What do you feel are the biggest current opportunities or challenges that you hope are discussed at the BSM Summit?
Matt Moscona: One of the most eye-opening things from a year ago was when we were looking at some of the data of how prominent terrestrial radio is from a sports talk standpoint, but it’s also impossible to ignore how much of a digital shift we’re living in. So what I hope to hear is from people who are winning in the digital space, and how I can sort of marry a traditional terrestrial FM radio brand with our digital properties to grow it because I certainly think that whether it’s in my professional lifetime or not, the majority of our audience will be consuming us digitally. So that’s that’s certainly when I go to the Summit where my eyes are wide open. ‘What are non-traditional ways to generate revenue?,’ and, ‘How can I continue to grow digitally?’
BSM Staff: How do you feel the subsets of the sports media industry as a whole can continue fostering additional synergy and work together to ensure growth?
Matt Moscona: Honestly, I think just the fact that there is such a heavy presence of sort of quote-unquote ‘sort of new media’ there and that both sides are embracing each other is an illustration of that synergy whereby we all realize it doesn’t matter – I don’t think anybody is necessarily romantic about a certain platform – if it’s if it’s am FM radio, if it’s YouTube or Twitter, whatever.
It’s more a matter of we’re all trying to exist and win, and media has become far more homogenous where we aren’t siloed anymore, and so I think having so many people that are winning on the digital platform, they’re helping more traditional media grow in that space, I think it’s very telling of a lot of the people in leadership in media because there could be a school of thought as to say, ‘Why would you want to help someone else garner some of your market share?,’ but I think the general feeling is the world is abundant and we can all win, and we should all help each other have success.
I’ve always believed for as long as I’ve been in media that there’s two types of people. There are people who view everyone as competition and will step on your face to get wherever they want to go; and then there’s people who realize that whatever degree of success they’ve achieved, they had help getting there, and they’re willing to pay it forward. So I always find myself to be the latter, not the former, or I try to be, and I really feel like that’s the group at the Summit as well.
BSM Staff: As you view the return on investment with the BSM Summit, what do you hope to take away from the event and bring back to your station?
Matt Moscona: One of the biggest things from last year that I took back was the the non-traditional revenue events that some of the program directors in Washington, D.C. and Nashville explained their listener events and how they turned that into a money maker. Well we replicated that model several times this year and were able to generate a new source of revenue for our company and engage people in our audience.
So I’m hopeful that this year, I’ll be able to find something else similar. It doesn’t even have to be an NTR event, but something like that, and it’s hard to know exactly what it may be, but effectively uncovering a new revenue stream for our business that other people are doing successfully that I’m not even aware of yet because I know it’s out there, and there’s a lot of people with great ideas, and they’re all very generous to share them at the Summit.
Purchase your tickets to the 2025 BSM Summit here, and for more information, visit BSMSummit.com.
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ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith has found himself in another public spat, but this time with Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia. Earlier this week, Smith made comments in which he said that the Suns owner is on the verge of being recognized as the worst owner in the history of basketball. This came as the Suns fell this season to a 36-46 record, missing the playoffs for the first time since the 2018-2019 season. Furthermore, he went on to reference former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in regards to his critique of Ishbia. Sterling, notably, was banned from the NBA following a series of racist statements.
Later, when asked at a press conference following the Suns’ regular season ending, Ishbia discussed the remarks by Smith and insisted he is owed an apology.
“Stephen A. Smith, I don’t take much he says seriously. I don’t think many people do, to be honest with you,” said Ishbia. “I think he’ll apologize to me. I think it’s disrespectful to put my name aligned with anybody that was kicked out of the league. To even say that kind of stuff, I think he’ll apologize.”
Subsequently, during Friday’s episode of First Take, Smith did take time to apologize for his comments comparing Ishbia to Sterling.
“I do owe him an apology because I mentioned Donald Sterling,” Smith said on ESPN. “I thought I was making it clear I was talking about basketball. I certainly did not mean to compare him to a person that was thrown out of this league and has been widely recognized as a racist.”
Moreover, Smith continued to explain how he could have been clearer with his comparison to Sterling when it came to the on-the-court product that he put out and the lack of success it had.
“I should be his name in the same breath as Donald Sterling in that regard. I did not mean to do that,” said Smith. “I was talking about the Donald Sterling that would be sitting courtside, heckling his own damn players and never winning anything and didn’t give a damn. That’s the Donald Sterling that I was talking about in terms of how ineffectual he was, ineffective he was as an owner on a basketball court.”
Ultimately, Smith owned up to how Ishbia felt he was owed an apology and followed through with the request. However, he refused to apologize for his on-the-court critique of the Suns’ success on the basketball court.
“Unfortunately for you, sir, that’s the only thing I’m wrong about, and that’s the only apology that you’re getting from me,” Smith said.
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Longtime play-by-play announcer Al Michaels recently completed his third season calling Thursday Night Football games for Amazon’s Prime Video, and the award-winning broadcaster is reportedly expected to return on a year-by-year basis in the future. Michaels has had a legendary career in the business, calling six Super Bowl championship games and eight World Series throughout his time across ABC Sports and NBC Sports. As the only sportscaster to call the championship series of all four major professional sports leagues, he is widely reputed as one of the best to ever occupy the broadcast booth, but there have been questions surrounding his potential retirement.
During a recent appearance with Dan Le Batard on South Beach Sessions, Michaels recalled that many people have implored him not to retire, a sentiment to which he replies that at some point you either retire or die. Michaels later explained that he was at a retirement dinner for New York Rangers television play-by-play announcer Sam Rosen, and they spoke about looking forward to the games and genuinely aspiring to be present at the matchups.
“If you’re excited, if you want to be there, if you look forward to the game, you can’t wait for the game to start,” Michaels said. “As long as that is there in my fiber, I’ll keep on going.”
Michaels safeguards against complacency by showing up to every broadcast prepared, and he is also able to utilize his decades of experience and institutional knowledge to thrive in unexpected situations. Even though he knows he will not ruin his reputation in one night unless he does something “horrifically unbelievable,” he thinks of every game as an audition and surmises that he needs to be better than ever. Michaels expounded that this was still the case because he owes it to the audience to bring his best and is trying to pitch a proverbial perfect game, but he has been unsuccessful in his attempts.
“I think I’ve come close a few times, but there’s always something,” Michaels said. “No matter what it is, I’ll think about something. ‘Aah, how did I miss that,’ and I should have, could have, might have. So no, there’s no game – to pitch a perfect game over three hours on national television is almost impossible, but at least you try to come as close as you can.”
Reflecting on the potential of a farewell tour, Michaels drew a distinction between national and local broadcasters, articulating how the latter is more connected to a specific team than the former. Since Michaels has been on the air calling games across the country amid consumers with varied rooting interests, he contended that there is not really a “home base” and instead believes that he will thank everyone and bid them goodbye upon signing off. Le Batard averred that he had not considered the distinction, but he also added how broadcasters were taught not to be the story itself, but rather accent such for the consumers.
“That’s exactly right, Dan,” Michaels replied. “Yeah, I think when you make yourself the story, you’re doing a disservice to the business, so I don’t want to be the story. I want to be the narrator or the connection or the conduit or whatever, but the story, no.”
Le Batard proceeded to ask Michaels his thoughts on the sports media business and how some media members become part of stories with the notion that attention is the new currency. Michaels clarified by explaining that most of these occurrences emanate from shoulder programming on talk shows and that it would be more difficult for a play-by-play announcer to enter that realm. When Michaels is broadcasting, he considers the game to be the most important thing and largely utilizes other forums for people to get to know him and expound on different matters.
“Now it’s a completely different animal to go on a show, First Take or whatever you have, and argue with each other and have contentiousness and all of that,” Michaels said. “That’s a different animal. When you’re doing play-by-play, you don’t have time to get involved in these discussions and dialogue. You don’t.”
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The Curtis Media Group has moved to expand its La Ley Regional Mexican format.
Currently heard in Burlington, NC, on 101.1, the La Ley brand will expand to the Goldsboro market on 105.7 and Kinston on 92.9.
“As local North Carolina broadcasters, we are now able to serve the Hispanic community with greater coverage in eastern North Carolina,” said Curtis Media Group Pres./COO Trip Savery. “We look forward to serving these communities with the same commitment to local news, entertainment, and information we are famous for.
“The Hispanic community has a rich heritage in Goldsboro and Kinston, and I’m honored to serve them by offering La Ley’s outstanding mix of music, news, and entertainment,” said Jamie Evans, Market Manager of Curtis Media Goldsboro & Kinston. “By combining La Ley’s entertainment value with its commitment to local community involvement, I’m truly excited by the opportunities that lie ahead.”
Shirley Davenport, GM of La Ley NC, added, “Our listeners are our lifeblood. They are the reason that the La Ley brand exists. That’s why my team and I are thrilled by La Ley’s expansion into the Goldsboro and Kinston markets. We look forward to connecting with our Goldsboro and Kinston friends and neighbors, as well as establishing La Ley NC as an active part of both communities.”
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The Ramsey Show, the nationally syndicated program hosted by Dave Ramsey, is now available to watch as a video simulcast on Spotify.
The popular, long-running program has added millions of subscribers on YouTube, but is now available as a video stream inside the Spotify app.
Full episodes of The Ramsey Show are now available for subscribers of the show. The program hosted by Ramsey and a rotating cast of co-hosts, including Rachel Cruze, Jade Warshaw, George Kamel, Ken Coleman, and Dr. John Delony, has more than 780,000 subscribers to its channel on Spotify.
The news of the show’s video simulcast being available on the popular podcast app comes as Dave Ramsey has released his latest book.
“Build a Business You Love” dropped earlier this week, with Ramsey sharing his approach to the five stages of business and how entrepreneurs can conquer each level of challenge.
“Running a business is the hardest thing you’ll ever do, but it can also be the greatest thing you’ve ever done,” Ramsey said. “If you’re not careful, you can wind up hating what you’re trying to build. I’m a guy who’s lived it and made it work — someone who’s messed up a lot and gotten back up after being knocked down. This book isn’t theory. It’s the blueprint for building something you can be proud of.”
This is the latest in a long series of books penned by the longtime radio host and CEO of Ramsey Solutions. Ramsey has written bestsellers like “The Total Money Makeover” which is one of several books penned for adults. Additionally, he has also written numerous children’s books in more than 30 years.
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The NFL is reportedly receiving interest in a media rights package for one of two games, which could include the Week 1 game taking place in São Paulo, Brazil featuring the Los Angeles Chargers against a team to be determined. With the possibility of the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs taking part in the contest, it could increase the value of the contest after the team played eight games on national television last season. YouTube TV, Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon have all had interest in this package, according to a report from Ben Fischer and Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal.
Citing sources within the report, Fischer and Karp divulged that some are calling YouTube a “favorite” in this situation. YouTube has the broadcast rights for the NFL Sunday Ticket out-of-market games package for the last two seasons under a seven-year deal reportedly worth a collective $14 billion. Since YouTube is retransmitting game feeds being broadcast by CBS and FOX, it would need to hire its own talent and production staff from another rightsholder or construct it individually. A similar premise would exist for Warner Bros. Discovery, which has not held rights to the NFL since 1997.
The NFL held a Week 1 game in São Paulo, Brazil last season between the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers that averaged 14.7 million viewers airing exclusively on Peacock and also through over-the-air simulcasts in home marketplaces. This marked the second-best streaming audience for Peacock behind its exclusive NFL Wild Card Game that accrued an average minute audience of 23 million viewers in January 2024. A subsequent study from Antenna divulged that Peacock retained 71% of users to its platform seven weeks later who subscribed in a three-day window surrounding the broadcast.
Television advertising Upfront events for YouTube, Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon will be taking place in May from New York City. This is around the time that the league could release its schedule, with Mike North, the vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling for the NFL, conveying that the reveal could be “somewhere” between May 13 and May 15. If YouTube or Warner Bros. Discovery was to acquire the rights for this game, it would bring the total number of NFL broadcast entities next season to nine, according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch.
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