2021 MAY 10 CountryInsider.com | Sign Up For Daily Email Here Radio Has More Competition For Moms’ Attention In 2021. Mother’s Day may be past, but moms are still incredibly important when it comes to radio. Is radio still incredibly important to them? In 2021, American mothers are more connected to the internet than ever, consuming more audio online but listening to radio less, says a new study. According to Moms and Media 2021, an Infinite Dial report released last week by The Research Moms of Edison Research, 89 percent of U.S. mothers own a smartphone and 46 percent own smart speakers, a 39 percent increase from 2020. “More than ever, we in radio have to lean in to this group and find out how to keep and grow their loyalty,” says John Shomby, owner/CEO of Country’s Radio Coach Inc. “They’ve been introduced to more avenues of entertainment [TikTok, for example], and the industry must find a way to get and stay in the middle of that. (Continued on page 4) COUNTRY INSIDER TOP 5: After Three 2020 Dates, Dan + Shay To Resume The (Arena) Tour This September. “Bud & Broadway” To Keep Show’s Name After Bud Ford’s Sudden Departure. Fox Preparing Country Music Drama “Monarch” For 2021-2022 Broadcast Season. Loyd Ford’s Encouragers Rally The Radio Community Every Monday On Clubhouse. Jake Owen’s “Made For You” Gets A Second Week At No. 1 On Mediabase. 1 | MAY 10, 2021 CountryInsider.com Heath West Amanda Jo Parker PM drive & PD Top 5 All-Time Songs Top 5 Faves On APD WBWL, Boston Metro Wave 92.7/WAVW The Charts Now: On-air WRNX, Amherst, MA by Male Artists: West Palm Beach, FL 1. Draw Me a Map - 1. Half of My Hometown - Dierks Bentley Kelsea Ballerini & 2. Flat Natural Born Good- Kenny Chesney Timin’ Man - Gary Stewart 2. Waves - Luke Bryan 3. Your Love’s on the Line - 3. Freedom Was a Highway - Earl Thomas Conley Jimmie Allen/Brad Paisley 4. Long Hot Summer - 4. Hell of a View - Keith Urban Eric Church 5. Much Too Young - 5. Settling Down - Garth Brooks Miranda Lambert Country Music Drama Coming To Fox Next Season. Fox’s 2021-2022 broadcast lineup will include a country music drama called “Monarch.” Variety reports that the one-hour show from executive producer and creator Melissa London Hilfers is a “multigenerational musical drama about America’s first family of country music,” the Romans. It will feature original music and covers. The show’s executive producers include Sandbox Entertainment President and CEO Jason Owen and the Jackal Group’s Gail Berman and Hend Baghdady. Dan + Shay Ready To Resume The (Arena) Tour. Dan + Shay got in three dates on their first arena-headlining tour in 2020 — two in Nashville, one in Columbus, OH — before the pandemic shut them down. They’re now slated to relaunch The (Arena) Tour Sept. 9 in Greenville, SC, wrapping Dec. 7 in Boston. The routing includes new shows at Los Angeles’ STAPLES Center and San Diego’s Pechanga Arena. Ingrid Andress and The Band CAMINO are set for support on all dates. Bud Ford Exits SuiteRadio’s Syndicated “Bud And Broadway” Show. The SuiteRadio-syndicated “Bud and Broadway” show will keep its name following co- host Victor “Bud Ford” Ward’s departure. According to Ed Moloney, who handles affiliate relations for the show, affiliates were notified of Ward’s exit Friday. Moloney tells Country Insider that lead host Jerry Broadway “may or may not add another voice to the lineup.” “Bud and Broadway is a brand that has been cultivated for more than a decade,” Broadway said in a statement. “The Bud and Broadway show is bigger than the sum of its parts.” The show, carried in 20 markets, ran a best-of episode today and will do the same tomorrow before resuming new shows Wednesday. “Bud and Broadway” launched in September after the duo’s departure from Hubbard Broadcasting WIL St. Louis (92.5) last May. CMA Partners With Feeding America To Expand COVID Support. A new partnership between the Country Music Association and Feeding America will allow the CMA to expand its Music Industry COVID Support (MICS) initiative. CMA’s investment with Feeding America will help provide 4 million meals in cities with a significant music- industry presence, including Austin, New York, and Nashville. CMA also has launched an online donation challenge at CMAworld.com/feeding-america to fund an additional million meals through Feeding America. 3 | MAY 10, 2021 CountryInsider.com Edison’s Moms & Media Report. (Continued from page 1) “The answer will come from us breaking away RWPC Inc. President Scott Huskey echoes that from what was and moving into ‘what is’ and not sentiment, adding that smart-speaker growth offers assuming ‘back to normal’ is really what we think radio a way to get back into the home. “It’s easy to it is. ’Back to normal’ to this group has changed listen to; Just say, ‘Alexa play … ,’” he says. “You don’t forever and we have to change with it or be left have to have an app or web address. The speaker is behind.” literally sitting right there in front of you. The study found that 93 percent of moms have “The women in this survey indicate they are already internet access at home and 81 percent are on the device, so our job is to create awareness that connected through their cell phones. we are too and that it’s okay to listen at home. We are trying to change a habit. It’s habitual to listen in Noting that 72% of the women surveyed fall the car and maybe even at work and then when we between the ages of 25 and get home to listen to a DSP or playlist. Since more 54, Buck Owens Broadcasting folks are now at home during those times, we need KUZZ-AM/FM Bakersfield, CA to ‘remind’ them they can still get us in the home. (550 AM/107.9 FM) PD Brent Michaels says, “These aren’t For a couple of years now, programmers have individuals that are having viewed smart speakers as a new avenue for their children running the traditional radio. With nearly half of adult women family technology anymore. owning smart speakers — and women who use Our listeners are using them owning an average of 2.7 per household — the latest smartphones, stations have more incentive than ever to make discovering apps, using smart speakers, all to make sure they have a presence there. their lives easier.” “Combined with the other features that a smart The study reported only 59 percent of women speaker offers, they are becoming more of a surveyed said they had listened to AM/FM radio via household item, and we need to continue to train an over-the-air receiver or online during the past listeners to find us there,” says Michaels. “It’s no week. That’s down from percentages in the high 70s surprise more stations are investing in skills to during each of the last three years. make their content work best with these devices.” “There is so much competition out there to keep Standard imaging that says something along the listeners’ attention,” says Kris Daniels, afternoon lines of “Now on Alexa” is no longer sufficient, host at SummitMedia “Q103.1” WQNU Louisville, KY, Huskey says. “Radio needs to focus on explaining and former senior manager of music programming that you can listen at home to the same great for Radio Disney Country. “I feel that listeners turn programming they have in the car, he says. “We to us for information, comfort and, if we do our jobs need to be specific about what we need the right, they come to us because they trust us and feel listeners to do. We need to do a concentrated usage connected to our on-air talent.” campaign that illustrates how we would like them to use their smart speaker.” The mothers reported spending an hour and 12 minutes per day listening to the radio, compared Empire Broadcasting KRTY San to two hours and 11 minutes watching television. Jose, CA (95.3), for instance, Their daily internet usage jumped 23 minutes over runs sweepers reminding the last year to 4 hours and 16 listeners to set their smart- minutes. speaker alarm to wake up to the station’s “Gary & Edison Research VP Melissa Julie” morning show. “Smart De Cesare said the decline speakers are integral to our likely resulted from pandemic- promotion and marketing,” related behavioral changes, as says KRTY GM Nate Deaton. “It many moms spent less time in gets the radio station back in homes, but that only the car. works (Continued on page 7) 4 | MAY 10, 2021 CountryInsider.com Loyd Ford’s Encouragers Rally The Radio Community Every Monday On Clubhouse. Loyd Ford doesn’t want to say “The Radio Rally,” his a lot of it. I wanted a place where those stories could weekly show on the Clubhouse, is like going to church, be shared by people who are doing the job, who are but it’s sort of like that. “It’s the church of radio,” encouraging the people trying to do the job.” says Ford, who co-hosts “The Radio Rally” with Robin “Heather Froglear” Ward of Audacy “K-FROG 95.1” Ford enlisted Ward and Tack for “The Radio Rally” KFRG Riverside, CA, and Hubbard Broadcasting’s “B- because he admired their positive nature. He also 105” WUBE Cincinnati’s Jesse Tack.