State Champ Radio Radio
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Three months after SiriusXM pivoted away from its streaming app in favor of its core in-car satellite listeners, the company further thinned its ranks on Monday (March 10) with a new round of layoffs. The cuts came primarily in the company’s product and technology group and were part of the strategic shift announced in December, according to a company spokesperson. The company did not specify the number of employees affected.
Monday’s layoffs mark the third time in as many years that SiriusXM has cut its workforce. The company also laid off 3% of its employees in February 2024 and 8% of its employees in March 2023. The company described the previous two rounds of layoffs as necessary to build its platform and invest in technology to generate growth. Satellite subscription growth has stalled in recent years, though, and the company’s effort to attract new subscribers with a lower-priced streaming app brought disappointing results.
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In December, the company returned its emphasis to satellite listening, planning to “tak[e] steps to drive profitability and cash flow as we face marketplace headwinds impacting the company’s growth trajectory,” CEO Jennifer Witz said in December. At the same time, SiriusXM named former Google and Viacom executive Wayne Thorsen as COO in charge of the company’s product and technology, corporate strategy and parts of the commercial business. Thorsen’s arrival coincided with the departure of chief product and technology officer Joseph Inzerillo.
One of the products SiriusXM is using to bring in new subscribers is a lower-cost, ad-supported satellite service that had a limited launch in 2024. “In having an ad-supported tier, it gives us a place where we can market to these individuals,” CFO Tom Barry said Tuesday (March 11) during the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference. “We can bring them up to a higher price point as they appreciate and they increase their engagement in the product.” The full roll-out is expected to happen at some point in 2025, “but it could slip,” he added.
Advertising continues to be a problem, however. As concerns build over the Trump administration’s tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, SiriusXM started “to see a drop-off” in advertising in the last “couple of weeks,” particularly in consumer-packaged goods brands, said Barry, adding, “I would say we’re cautious about where the ad industry is going right now.”
More subscriber losses are expected in 2025. SiriusXM is reducing its marketing spending on the streaming app and will “tighten” the terms of promotional plans, Barry said, which should result in the loss of approximately 200,000 subscribers this year. That drop would follow a 4% decline in subscribers in 2024, when SiriusXM revenue fell 3% to $8.7 billion.
Audacy, the second-biggest broadcast company after iHeartMedia, laid off 200 employees this week, according to a radio business source. “Audacy has made workforce reductions to ensure a strong and resilient future for the business,” added a company spokesperson, who wouldn’t confirm or elaborate on the layoffs. “We are streamlining resources to stay competitive in a rapidly […]
King Charles is taking on a new role in addition to monarch of the United Kingdom: DJ.
As announced Thursday (March 6), the British ruler is set to premiere a new radio show on Apple Music titled The King’s Music Room. Recorded in his personal office at Buckingham Palace, the show will showcase Charles’ favorite artists, from “1930s crooners to Afrobeats stars as well as disco divas and reggae icons,” according to a description.
In a trailer released Thursday, Charles personally introduces the show while seated behind his desk. “Throughout my life, music has meant a great deal to me,” he says. “It has that remarkable ability to bring happy memories, comfort us in times of sadness and take us to distant places. But perhaps, above all, it can lift our spirits to such a degree, and all the more so when it brings us together in celebration.
“In other words, it brings us joy,” the king continues. “This is what I particularly wanted to share with you: songs which have brought me joy. This seemed such an interesting and innovative way to celebrate this year’s Commonwealth Day.”
A press release adds that Charles’ show will be “shaped by his extraordinary experiences from around the world” and find the monarch sharing personal stories about the artists he features. Bob Marley, Kylie Minogue, Grace Jones, Davido and RAYE make up just a few of the musicians he’ll highlight.
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“Human curation has always been a key pillar of our unique editorial approach,” said Rachel Newman, Apple Music’s global head of content and editorial, in a statement. “Apple Music Radio is where culture is happening worldwide, and we are honored that King Charles III chose to share his personal playlist with us, and with music fans around the world.”
The King’s Music Room will premiere on Apple Music 1 and Apple Music Hits at 6 a.m. GMT on Monday (March 10), with additional broadcasts throughout the day and Tuesday (March 11).
Watch the trailer below.
iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman apparently believes his company’s stock is undervalued.
The executive sent a message to Wall Street on Tuesday (March 4) when he spent $320,000 to purchase 200,000 iHeartMedia shares, according to an SEC filing released Thursday (March 6). Investors took note, sending the company’s stock price up 23.2% to $1.86.
iHeartMedia shares had plummeted 27.7% in the four trading days following the company’s fourth quarter earnings release on Feb. 27. The stock fell 15.3% to $1.77 following the announcement and slipped an additional 14.8%, to $1.51, by Wednesday (March 5). But Thursday’s SEC filing reduced iHeartMedia’s year-to-date decline to 6.1% from 23.7%.
CEOs will occasionally buy shares of their companies when they believe the market is undervaluing the company. In March 2020, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino bought approximately $1 million worth of shares as the price faltered at the pandemic’s onset; Live Nation’s share price has since risen 262% to $131.11. In May 2022, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek bought $50 million of Spotify shares a week after the stock hit an all-time low of $95.74. “I believe our best days are ahead,” Ek wrote on Twitter at the time. Spotify’s share price has since risen nearly six-fold to $543.51.
iHeartMedia, the country’s largest radio broadcaster, is trying to navigate the decline in broadcast radio while building a digital business. Although it ranks No. 1 in podcast market share, the company’s legacy business is still twice the size of its digital business. To shore up its financials, the company has laid off employees, sold tower sites and restructured its debt.
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Last week, iHeartMedia executives told investors that first-quarter revenue would decline in the low single-digits and full-year revenue would be flat. CFO Rich Bressler said that January revenue was up 5.5% but February revenue was on track for a 7% decline as consumer sentiment suffered its biggest one-month decline since August 2021.
“Although the year began with optimism, many companies are now focusing on how potential tariffs, inflation and higher interest rates may impact their businesses, introducing an element of uncertainty,” said Bressler.
Pittman remained optimistic and believed those uncertainties will “steady up a lot” as the year progresses. “If there’s a change, people take a beat and adjust to the change,” he said. “There’s a big change between this [presidential] administration and the last one, and I think people are digesting. I don’t think the uncertainty is totally unexpected, and it’s certainly understandable.”
“It was an uncomfortable song to play my mom,” Leon Thomas admits of “Mutt,” a flirtatious track that mentions the urge to “pop a shroom to re-create the feeling.” “Mutt” marked the Grammy-winning songwriter’s first Billboard Hot 100 entry as a recording artist, following years of behind-the-scenes work that includes hits for Ariana Grande, SZA and more. And his mother loved it, too. “She told me this is going to be one of my biggest records. She spoke into existence.”
For Thomas, 31 — the Brooklyn-bred son of Black Rock Coalition parents, and the grandson of the late opera singer John Anthony — music and family have always been intertwined. His parents, who frequented CBGB, laid the musical foundation for the rock-infused soul he explores on Mutt, his sophomore album released last September.
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Since then, he supported Blxst on tour and embarked on his own headlining trek — but February in particular solidified Thomas’ turn from songwriting savant to front-facing R&B star. “Mutt” entered the Hot 100 on the Feb. 8 chart (and reaches a new No. 67 peak on the March 8-dated list); he made his live-TV debut with the song on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert the same week; and then performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk later that month, where he dedicated 2022 single “Breaking Point” to his recently deceased grandfather (Thomas attended his funeral directly after the taping). “He was the anchor to my journey,” says Thomas. “I can tell he was with me musically.”
Leon Thomas
Raymond Alva
While his past month looks like a whirlwind of success, Thomas’ breakthrough has been nearly two decades in the making. At 13, with Broadway runs in The Lion King, The Color Purple and Caroline, Or Change under his belt, Thomas signed his first deal with Columbia Records. “I was walking into the boardroom playing Stevie Wonder covers and in-depth love songs,” he reflects with a laugh. “They were like, ‘What we gon’ do with this? Did you even hit puberty?’” Around that time, he made his theatrical debut in the 2007 film August Rush, which led to a Nickelodeon development deal that landed him roles on shows from The Backyardigans to Victorious.
As the deal was nearing its end and Victorious approached its 2013 series finale, Thomas explored his options, and received advice from Republic Records’ Wendy Goldstein, who was the label’s senior vp of A&R at the time. “Journeying through your twenties is you becoming everything that you need from everybody else,” she told him. “Those words stuck with me on some Spider-Man s–t,” he says today.
He spent the better part of the next decade learning the independent scene, studying under Babyface and Boi-1da (and by extension, Drake’s camp), and was briefly signed to Alex da Kid’s KIDinaKORNER. He met manager Jonathan Azu in 2019 and became the first act on his Culture Collective roster. Two years later, he landed a record deal with Ty Dolla $ign and Motown Records’ joint venture, EZMNY, after running into A&R Shawn Barron on a grocery run.
“I was kind of scared because signing under an artist can be either heaven or hell,” says Thomas. “Luckily, I’m stomping around in heaven right now.”
During his time at Motown, Thomas has experienced several different leadership regimes following restructurings by parent company Universal Music Group. Now under Capitol Music Group chairman/CEO Tom March — who Thomas says “gets my vision and is down to support real music” — he was able to execute his ideal album rollout for Mutt.
The campaign kicked off last August — a year after his debut full-length, Electric Dusk — with the release of the album’s title track. A funky R&B midtempo tune that nods to Enchantment’s “Silly Love Song” by way of a Bootsy Collins-esque bassline, “Mutt” was the product of Thomas’ desire to “have a record that shows what I’m about: live music, funk and vulnerability.” Written in 2022, Thomas crafted “Mutt” on his living room floor while microdosing psychedelics and watching his dog and cat fight. “I saw the similarities between us and how we have good intentions but don’t always do the right thing,” he told Billboard last year.
The single’s steady chart climb is largely due to Thomas and Azu’s “all ships rise” business approach. Instead of exhausting resources on one song, they banked on word-of-mouth from his live performances to help people discover “Mutt” along with the rest of the album.
“We [noticed] the crowd’s reaction when ‘Mutt’ would play: the phones were always up, but they would really come out for ‘Mutt,’” says Azu. The song continued naturally gaining traction in R&B circles with those familiar with Thomas’ songwriting and production work. “Everybody knows how dangerous he is in the studio with other people’s work,” Azu adds.
Jonathan Azu (left) and Leon Thomas at the 2024 Grammy Awards.
Courtesy of Culture Collective
Thomas launched a 13-date headlining tour in October at intimate venues across the U.S., and the trek doubled as a way to promote himself at radio. “A lot of program directors are just outside the Victorious demographic, but the people in the studios and offices are within that demographic, and so are [their] children,” says Azu. “Doing [that] work is so important for the foundation to go for adds.”
As “Mutt” climbs at three different Billboard airplay rankings (R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Adult R&B Airplay, where it hits a No. 7 best on the March 8 chart), Thomas is playing the long game. “I loved seeing how Lizzo kept promoting her hits and didn’t stop believing in them,” he says. A deluxe edition of Mutt is also in the works, and Thomas mentions potential collaborations with Kehlani, Big Sean and Halle Bailey in the hopper, in addition to a previously teased team-up with Stormzy. Plus, there’s a song on which Thomas plays every instrument.
“There [are] sides to me that I haven’t shown the world yet, so I’m spoon-feeding them,” Thomas says. “You need to hide the medicine in the candy. This deluxe is me stepping deeper into my purpose.”
A version of this story appears in the March 8, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Starting Tuesday (March 4), SiriusXM will deliver the sounds of Tomorrowland and the global dance scene with a new channel curated by the team at the Belgian mega-festival festival.
One World Radio will be featured within the SiriusXM app and feature music programmed by the team that curates Tomorrowland’s One World Radio internet radio station, with the SiriusXM channel to offer new music and live DJ sets from Tomorrowland festivals including the flagship event in Boom, Belgium, along with Tomorrowland Winter, Tomorrowland Brasil and more.
SiriusXM’s One World Radio channel will be an extension of Tomorrowland’s pre-existing One World Radio feed, but will be curated a bit differently and customized to the SiriusXM audience.
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“We are really excited about hearing the nearly unlimited Tomorrowland archives, giving SiriusXM listeners a peak into past vibes of the legendary two-weekend festival in Belgium,” Geronimo, SiriusXM’s Vice President of Music Programing, tells Billboard.
Aside from regularly scheduled and rotated music, the channel will also feature exclusive song cuts from previous festivals. “You’ll be able to hear the crowd reaction which really put you in the moment,” Geronimo continues. “It’s truly a place where the global dance community comes together and enjoys each other. Dance music is really about fun, love, positivity and enjoying life and each other and One World Radio captures this essence perfectly.”
The channel will feature music spanning the two decades of Tomorrowland history and span the spectrum of electronic music sounds. The “main thing is to give people a good time and spread positive vibes, without necessarily being bound to a genre,” says Bram Franssen, station lead at the pre-existing One World Radio and curator for the new SiriusXM channel.
With the launch, One World Radio joins SiriusXM’s suite of dance channels that include BPM, Diplo’s Revolution, SiriusXM Chill, Studio 54 Radio, Utopia and more.
“We’re excited to not only hear classic archived Tomorrowland sets but also what One World Radio has for the future,” says Geronimo. “The world outside of North America has historically been a step ahead when it comes to dance music and emerging genres, and One World Radio on SiriusXM will help bridge that gap.”
Drake has reached a settlement with Texas-based iHeartMedia in his ongoing legal dispute over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” according to court records.
In November, Drake filed a legal petition in Bexar County, Texas, where San Antonio is located, alleging that iHeartMedia had received illegal payments from Universal Music Group to boost radio airplay for “Not Like Us.” UMG is the parent record label for both Drake and Lamar.
The petition, a precursor to a potential lawsuit, had sought depositions from corporate representatives of both companies.
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In a court document filed Thursday, attorneys for Drake said the rapper and iHeartMedia had “reached an amicable resolution of the dispute” but did not offer any other information.
“We are pleased that the parties were able to reach a settlement satisfactory to both sides, and have no further comment on this matter,” Drake’s legal team said in a statement.
In an email Friday, iHeartMedia declined to comment on the settlement.
The claims against UMG remain active, and a hearing on a motion by UMG’s lawyers to dismiss the petition was scheduled to be held Wednesday in a San Antonio courtroom.
Drake has alleged UMG engaged in “irregular and inappropriate business practices” to get radio airplay for “Not Like Us.” The petition also alleges that UMG knew “the song itself, as well as its accompanying album art and music video, attacked the character of another one of UMG’s most prominent artists, Drake, by falsely accusing him of being a sex offender, engaging in pedophilic acts, harboring sex offenders, and committing other criminal sexual acts.”
An email to a UMG representative seeking comment was not immediately answered.
In January, Drake filed a defamation lawsuit in federal court in New York City against UMG over what he alleges are false allegations of pedophilia made in “Not Like Us.” Lamar is not named in the lawsuit.
The feud between Drake, a 38-year-old Canadian rapper and singer and five-time Grammy winner, and Lamar, a 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner who headlined the Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 9, is among the biggest in hip-hop in recent years.
The Federal Communications Commission sent a letter Monday to iHeartMedia’s CEO and chairman, Robert Pittman, saying the commission is looking into whether the audio company is forcing musicians to perform at its May country music festival in Austin for reduced pay in exchange for favorable airplay of their songs on iHeart radio stations.
“We look forward to demonstrating to the Commission how performing at the iHeartCountry Festival – or declining to do so – has no bearing on our stations’ airplay,” iHeart Media said in a statement. “We do not make any overt or covert agreements about airplay with artists performing at our events.”
This article was originally published by The Associated Press.
iHeartMedia expects first-quarter revenue to decline in the low single digits and full-year revenue to be flat, suggesting the radio giant hasn’t yet turned the proverbial corner financially, according to the company’s latest earnings release. After revenue was up 5.5% in January, February is on track for a 7% decline as consumer sentiment dropped to a level not seen since 2021, CFO Rich Bressler said during Thursday’s earnings call.
The company ended 2024 with fourth-quarter revenue up 4.8% to $1.11 billion, while adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) spiked 18.2% to $246.2 million. Revenue growth was below the company’s previous guidance due to lower-than-expected political advertising and a slowdown in non-political advertising before the election, said Bressler.
The fires in Los Angeles created a disruption to iHeartMedia’s business in the first quarter, although CEO Bob Pittman called it “a little bit of a blip” and said a larger impact comes from people returning to work. “Traffic is getting long again, and I hate to sound cynical here, but traffic jams are our friend,” he said. “We’re a company that benefits from people with longer commutes and more time in the car.”
Mired in a weak advertising market for broadcast radio, iHeartMedia is busy finding ways to create value from its broadcast assets. To that end, in March the company will make its broadcast advertising inventory available to programmatic buyers through Yahoo DSP and Google’s DV360 ad-buying platforms. “This is a critical early step in aligning our broadcast assets with digital buying behavior,” said Pittman, “which will allow iHeart’s broadcast radio assets to participate in the growing digital and programmatic [total addressable markets].”
Last year, iHeartMedia took steps to cut costs and improve its balance sheet. The company expects to have net savings of $150 million in 2025 and beyond — $200 million from cost reductions undertaken in 2024 and an additional $50 million of expenses. In December, iHeart reduced its debt load and extended maturity dates through a debt exchange that attracted a 92.2% participation rate.
For the full year, iHeartMedia’s revenue totaled $3.86 billion, up 3% year-over-year (and flat if political advertising is excluded). Adjusted EBITDA increased 1% to $705.6 million while EBITDA margin improved to 22.0% in 2024 from 19.5% in 2023. The multiplatform group, which includes the company’s core broadcast stations, saw its revenue decline 2.6% to $2.37 billion, while the digital audio group’s revenue increased 8.9% to $1.16 billion due to increased advertising demand for podcasting. The audio and media services group had revenue of $327 million, up 27.4%.
Cumulus Media, the country’s third-largest radio company by revenue, fared a bit worse in 2024. For the full year, Cumulus’ revenue fell 2.1% to $827.1 million and adjusted EBITDA dropped 8.8% to $82.7 million. While digital revenue grew 5.3% to $154.2 million, broadcast revenue slipped 5.1% to $564.1 million. In the fourth quarter, revenue dipped 1.2% to $218.6 million and adjusted EBITDA grew 9.8% to $25 million.
Cutting costs and restructuring debt are common tactics in the radio business. Just as iHeartMedia shaved its expenses, Cumulus will realize $43 million in annualized cost savings, with $15 million of savings coming in 2024. In addition, in May, Cumulus completed a debt exchange, which lowered its outstanding debt by $33 million and extended maturity dates while securing “attractive” interest rates.
iHeartMedia shares fell 7.9% to $2.09 before earnings were released, and dropped another 9.9%, to $1.90, in after-hours trading. Through Thursday, iHeartMedia shares are down 1.9% year-to-date but have more than doubled since May 2024.
Cumulus, which reported earnings earlier in the day, saw its share price decline only 0.3% to $0.90. Year-to-date, Cumulus shares have gained 16.9%.
For years, record labels have lamented country radio’s pokey approach to single cycles. But at this year’s Country Radio Seminar (CRS), which started Feb. 19 and concluded Feb. 21, even radio programmers are frustrated with the approach.
“It shouldn’t take a year for a good song to get to No. 1,” Cumulus vp of country Travis Daily said during the “Why Can’t We Be Friends” panel on Feb. 19. “We, on my side, are like, ‘People get bored easy, so let’s slow it down.’ It’s dumb.”
Panelists used Cole Swindell’s “Forever to Me” as an example: The track reached the top 10 on the Country Airplay chart dated March 1 after 45 weeks (see On the Charts, page 4). It had all the hallmarks of a hit — an emotionally appealing release from one of country’s most consistent hit-makers — and yet stations had a difficult time committing to it. Meanwhile, digital streaming providers, based on the data from customer reaction, responded commensurately and ran it through their hit cycle. Thus, country radio — once the genre’s primary source of music discovery — seems slow, uncertain and sheepish next to more nimble competition.
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“[DSPs] had to come off of it because the audience wants fresh,” Warner Music Nashville senior vp of radio and streaming Kristen Williams said. “They want something new and they want it faster.”
As a result, Williams’ team is using a bifurcated marketing campaign for Swindell, pushing country radio toward the label’s goal of a No. 1 single with “Forever to Me” while talking with DSPs about the singer’s latest track, “Kill a Prayer.”
“This is actually more commonplace than not,” Williams said.
The conversation took place as the country industry again reevaluates its tactics and relationships at the annual seminar, founded as an event for broadcasters and labels that has expanded in recent years to include streaming-related panels. CRS hosts a series of educational panels daily with plenty of showcase opportunities available during label-sponsored lunches and nighttime performances. This year’s event has already featured performances by Brothers Osborne, Jelly Roll, Jordan Davis, Avery Anna, Old Dominion, Dylan Schneider and Brad Paisley, who apologized to programmers who had to wait in single-digit wind chill for entry into the Ryman Auditorium at the Universal Music Group Nashville lunch on Feb. 20.
“The temperature outside,” Paisley said sarcastically, “is what it’s like to play for you.”
The joke received an appreciative groan from the programmers in the audience, who have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with Paisley since his introduction to radio in 1999. Country artists have typically gone on expensive radio tours for decades, performing for radio staff in conference rooms and forging a rapport that would hopefully lead to personal investment in the artists’ careers. But the relationship has changed with the maturation of the streaming business.
In an earlier time, country artists released three or four singles per year, and those that succeeded would peak on the chart in 12 to 18 weeks. Around the time that Paisley debuted, CRS attendees were encouraged to hang on to their hits longer, which slowed the number of singles and made it more difficult to establish careers.
With the growth of DSPs, artists are once again able to release more music and cycle through the hits quicker, creating stronger relationships with their consumers. Those expensive radio tours have mostly dried up — Cox Media/Houston director of operations Travis Moon estimated that KKBQ has had only four or five artists visit the station on a radio tour in the last year. Programmers seem to be recognizing that playing the same hits for longer periods may be a competitive disadvantage.
“Music is moving faster than ever, [while] the charts are going slower than ever,” said Sticks Media owner Todd Nixon during the Feb. 20 panel “Cycle of a Song” that focused on Tucker Wetmore’s “Wind Up Missin’ You.” “We just got to go faster on this record.”
Programmers have long believed that listeners prefer familiar music over new songs, though a Nuvoodoo study, “The Country Fan — Reviewing, Retaining, and Recruiting Your Listeners,” presented Feb. 20, suggested that overfamiliarity may be hurting radio more than new music. Commercial breaks are the top reason for tune-out, with 47% of the study’s respondents citing them as a factor. Three different kinds of repetition — playing songs too frequently, burnout and tracks appearing at the same time on successive days — were each cited as a problem by more than 40% of respondents. But only 34% of listeners said they turned off the station because they “don’t know” a song.
Therefore, feeding a healthy amount of new music, slotted in the right position on the playlist, may be one of the ways to counter the repetition issues.
“If you just take conventional wisdom constantly, you create narratives and biases in your own head and you’ll bore the audience to death,” Bonneville/Denver director of operations Brian Michel said during “Sound Off: What Is ‘Mainstream’ Country?” on Feb. 20.
Stations with minimal research of their own might consider watching Spotify’s Hot Country playlist, which features material that’s previously proved itself in other forums.
“You can trust that if something is in Hot Country, it is performing well with the mainstream country audience,” Spotify Nashville head of editorial Rachel Whitney said during the “Sound Off” panel. “Then use your own judgment about whether or not it matters to your audience.”
Even if country radio is considering a course correction, the medium remains a venerable institution, and the artists — all of whom grew up with it playing a significant role in their exposure to the music — continue to show their appreciation.
“You guys have changed my life in the last year,” Wetmore said during the “Cycle of a Song” panel. “Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
That’s one aspect of CRS that remains the same.
The honorees for the Country Radio Hall of Fame Class of 2025 were revealed Wednesday (Feb. 19) during CRS Honors as part of the Country Radio Seminar, which is happening in downtown Nashville Feb. 19-21.
This year’s radio category honorees are Ginny “Rogers” Brophey, Clay Hunnicutt and Gregg Swedberg. Honorees in the on-air personality category are Big D & Bubba, Mary McCoy and Rowdy Yates.
The honorees will be feted during the Country Radio Hall of Fame Induction and Dinner set for July 21 at the Virgin Hotel Nashville.
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The Country Radio Hall of Fame honors individuals who have made a significant and enduring impact on the industry, with inductees being recognized in the categories of on-air personality (honoring the achievements of on-air talent), and radio (honoring professionals behind the scenes in programming, management and sales). To qualify, potential honorees must have worked in the radio industry for at least 20 years, with 15 years in the country format.
Big D & Bubba first joined forces in 1996 at WTGE in Baton Rouge, La., and launched their self-syndicated morning show three years later. They have been honored by the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. In 2014, they formed their own company, Silverfish, which continues to be the duo’s radio home, extending to 97 radio stations and partnering with 71 broadcast companies. Since 2011, the duo have been heard on the Armed Forces Radio Network each morning.
McCoy has been drawing in radio listeners in Conroe, Tex., for more than seven decades, a feat that has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records. Her radio career launched in 1951 when she joined KMCO-AM in Conroe. In the early 1990s, McCoy was one of the first voices heard on KVST-FM, a new radio station in Conroe. She has since played country music on K-STAR Country 99.7 for more than 30 years. McCoy is currently heard six days a week with on-air co-host Larry Galla. She was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2010 and was part of the 2024 National Radio Hall of Fame class.
This year, Yates celebrates four decades working in radio. His career launched in Denton, Tex., in the mid-1980s, after which he ascended to dual programming/on-air roles in College Station, Tex., and Oklahoma City, Okla., before rising to roles at KIKK and KILT in Houston as well as KVOO in Tulsa, Okla. In 2004, Yates surged into nationally syndicated radio with an eight-year run hosting Country Gold. Since 2013, he’s owned, operated and worked as a host on Syndicated Media LLC Houston, and since 2019, he’s served as operations manager/PM for RFC Media/Suite Radio Houston, for country radio formats The Brand and The Legend. He also hosts The Rowdy Ride Home. Yates has been honored by the Academy of Country Music and the CRS-Country Aircheck Awards and is a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.
Brophey has worked in the radio industry for more than 40 years, with roles at WBOS, WKLB and WBWL. Since 2022, she has worked as brand manager/air talent/content creator at Townsquare Media’s WOKQ/Dover/Portsmouth. During her time at WBWL, Brophey joined the Country Cares radiothon program benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research, which earned her the “St. Jude Radio Partner of the Year” honor in 2019. Her St. Jude commitment included nine years of service on the St. Jude Radio Advisory Board. Brophey has been honored by the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, as well as by the CRS/Country Aircheck Awards and the New Hampshire Broadcasters Association.
Hunnicutt has earned significant success in the radio and label sides of the business. He started at WUSY/Chattanooga, where he served in roles including production director, imaging director, assistant program director and ultimately program director. He then worked as program director of WGAR/Cleveland, director of programming for Clear Channel’s five-station cluster in Nashville, and held day-to-day program director responsibilities for WSIX. Hunnicutt later took on a similar role for iHeart/Atlanta with country station WUBL, before taking on a series of corporate roles for iHeart, including executive vp of programming for the company’s major markets. At iHeart, he went on to serve as vp/brand manager of country programming for the company’s 143 country stations, as well as vp/GM of iHeartMedia’s national programming platforms. He’s been honored on Billboard‘s Power 31 list and named one of Radio Ink‘s top 50 programmers, and has served on the boards for the CMA, ACM and Country Radio Broadcasters. He also is a member of Leadership Music’s class of 2005. Later in his career, Hunnicutt started Big Loud Records as president, helping to launch the careers of Morgan Wallen, Hardy and more. He subsequently served as GM at Big Machine Records and most recently served as executive vp of label operations for all of Big Machine Label Group’s imprints.
Swedberg has spent 34 years programming at KEEY (K102) in Minneapolis, Minn. He was named K102 program director in 1992, then rose to operations manager, senior vp/programming, regional senior vp/programming and national country format coordinator for the station’s parent company iHeartRadio. Swedberg was previously a board member for the Country Radio Broadcasters and has been a member of Radio Ink’s most influential country program directors every year since 2000. KEEY has won multiple station of the year honors from the ACM and CMA. Several personalities on K102 have also been honored by both organizations during Swedberg’s time as program director.
