800.275.2840 MORE NEWS» insideradio.com THE MOST TRUSTED NEWS IN RADIO THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2015 Entravision rides Hispanic radio wave. Local Hispanic radio revenues shot up 6.5% in the first quarter, according to Kantar Media—news that may well have inspired some spirited samba at Santa Barbara-based Entravision. The company’s first-quarter local revenue numbers were even higher than the average, a positive trend poised to continue through the entire year. “The revenue we’re seeing looks positive for the second quarter and good performances for the third and fourth, too,” Entravision COO Jeff Liberman tells Inside Radio. With Entravision being a publicly traded company, there’s only so much Liberman can reveal, but he’s happy to boast. The radio chain has put “a new focus on content,” he says, adding that, “Now we have some of the best personalities on radio.” The chain’s Pulpo Audio Network and Entravision Solutions rep firm target digital advertisers. “We’re trying to be the solution brand for our clients on TV and radio. We’ll deliver on social, pre-roll, anywhere,” Liberman says. Revenues at the Solutions division went up 35% in the first quarter and boasted 35 customers. The Hispanic vote looms large in next year’s election, and with Republican candidates that range from a first-generation Cuban to a millionaire who’s gotten into hot water over disparaging statements about Mexican immigrants, Hispanic radio ought to have a field day. Liberman wouldn’t discuss how many more ad dollars he thinks the 2016 race will bring in. Most of Entravision’s stations are in the West, with traditionally blue California among them. “We are very fortunate,” he says, “to have radio stations in a few of the big ‘swing states,’” a roster that includes Colorado, Nevada and Hispanic-rich Florida. With new app, Entravision won’t miss a beat. Entravision’s radio revenues are outpacing the industry, but COO Jeff Liberman’s unbridled enthusiasm about the future has just as much to do with the broadcaster’s coming streaming app, which will put together as many as 395 Entravision-repped stations, and its own roster of 48, into one big Latin groove. App production and development are several weeks away but anticipation is understandably high. “Everybody thinks you can just do this really quickly,” Liberman says, but even he has high hopes, and looks forward to it providing both an audio and a video capability. “We want it to be a great app with a great user experience,” he says. (The app’s name won’t have Entravision in it, so those repped stations don’t feel disenfranchised.) Entravision’s current app is more basic; Liberman says it streams two million hours of programming monthly from Entravision-owned stations. The new, bigger app should be that much better, and a receptive public is waiting. “Latin audiences tended to skip the laptop altogether and go right to the smartphone,” he says, quoting one estimate that 75% of Hispanic adults over 18 own one. (Last year, Nielsen reported 72%, a figure that was 10% higher than the national average.) “What we have found is that 80% of [Hispanics] have Android phones so that is where we put a lot of our emphasis,” Liberman says. Cumulus forges its own podcast path in new deal with audioBoom. Short-form NEWS INSIDE >> audio clips from scores of Cumulus Media and Westwood One shows will soon be available for on-demand listening on the broadcaster’s websites and apps. But unlike CBS’ Big Spotlight on iHeartMedia and CBS Radio, which built their own podcast platforms, Cumulus has Small Business Owners partnered with a third-party provider to take the podcast plunge. Under a strategic [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 1 NEWS insideradio.com THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2015 partnership with audioBoom, Cumulus will use the London-based podcast network’s software to embed the on-demand audio content. Cumulus will also create clips that can be distributed via audioBoom’s embeddable players, social media channels and RSS feeds into third-party audio platforms. The alliance makes Westwood One the exclusive ad sales rep for the digital content. Westwood intends to offer pre- and post-roll video, audio and display advertising and “in-read” native advertising for the podcasts. Home to the Russell Brand Podcast, London-based audioBoom claims 3.6 million registered users worldwide and works with 2,400 global content partners and broadcasters. Rob Proctor, CEO of audioBoom, says the partnership “is not just about making Cumulus content available to our users, but rather this is about using our platform to allow Cumulus to become a truly distributed media company.” One-third of the U.S. 12+ population—some 89 million—has listened to a podcast, according to Edison Research. Of that number, 46 million are monthly listeners, up from 39 million one year earlier. “As listeners continue to increase their consumption of audio, this partnership allows for new ways for consumers to explore and engage with the radio stations and on-air talent they know and love today,” Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey said in a statement. CBS’ big spotlight on small business owners. CBS Radio will contribute content for a new digital property aimed at small business owners to be launched by parent CBS Corp. CBS Small Business Pulse will cull content from across the company’s media empire, opening up prime real estate to sell advertising to B2B marketers. The plan is for CBS Radio to repurpose video highlights from the Small Business Breakfasts its all-news stations host around the country. CBS News will use existing content and create new material. When business leaders appear on “CBS This Morning,” for instance, producers will use the access to record additional segments. CBS Local, the online network of city-focused sites, will also provide original and curated content while business tech news providers ZDNet and TechRepublic add stories about small-business strategies from a technology angle. Simon & Schuster plans to deliver book excerpts and business books. Small Business Pulse is the latest example of how CBS is deploying new digital properties, such as podcast network Play.It, to cross-promote content the company owns. The site is part of a larger radio trend of launching sites aimed at special interests. Federated Media, for example, programs websites devoted to local high school sports. The new CBS site will house articles, interviews, video, podcasts and infographics organized into six content categories. The cross-divisional effort, spearheaded by CBS Local Digital Media, sells native advertising and has announced three initial advertisers: First Data Corporation, Bank of America Merchant Services and Office Depot. With so many divisions already creating content of interest to small business owners, “it only made sense to harness” it all “to super-serve this vital segment in one single, robust destination,” says Rich Lobel, EVP and CMO of CBS Altitude Group. CBS Radio books a new ‘Rockstar’ in six markets. As its parent company launches a new website targeting small business owners, CBS Radio is turning up the volume on entrepreneurial content community Business Rockstars. Six of its news/talk stations will pick up the syndicated “Business Rockstar Minutes” aimed at entrepreneurs while the “Everything Entrepreneur” podcast has been added to the broadcaster’s Play.it podcasting network. The programming, which features CEOs, start- ups, and entrepreneurs, will run weekdays on WPHT, Philadelphia (1210); “NewsRadio 830” WCCO-AM Minneapolis (830); KMOX, St. Louis (1120); KDKA, Pittsburgh (1020); KXNT, Vegas (840/100.5); and WTIC, Hartford (1080). “Business Rockstars Minutes,” which airs on 140 stations, targets the nation’s 30 million “entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs,” according to its producers. Issue of Confederate flag makes few waves on country radio. The recent fiery national controversy about the Confederate flag has been anything but heated on country radio. Though country’s roots are certainly in the South, the genre is now about as big as the country itself, say music consultants. Its biggest crossover star of recent years, Taylor Swift, is from the Philadelphia suburbs, and the Country Music Awards’ Station of the Year was CBS Radio’s “US 99.5” WUSN in relatively gritless Chicago. “Looking at the top 15 country songs, there are eight positive love songs, four songs that have something to do with partying/having fun, one heartbreak song, one song about the power of words and one positive-slanted song [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 2 NEWS insideradio.com THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2015 about facing life’s hardships,” says Mike O’Malley, a consultant for 70 country stations. “As for a hat count, of the 12 males in the top 15, we have three cowboy hats, three baseball caps and one stocking hat. Five don’t generally wear hats.” Mike Kennedy, program director at “Q104” KBEQ-FM, Kansas City and 2015 inductee in the Country Radio Hall of Fame, was much more direct: “It’s not come up at all when it’s referencing music,” he says. “At no point have I personally had to deal with questions or concerns.” In fact, country radio consultant Joel Raab had much more Independent thoughts when he picked up Inside Radio’s call. “Funny, when you called, I was putting together a list of good country songs about the American flag,” he says, “There’s a lot of them and you know, a lot of them are pretty rah-rah for America.” Beats 1: Dead air and request lines. If a new station’s success is measured by the press it generates, Apple’s version of broadcast radio could be considered a smashing success.