Zach Dillon has added duties as afternoon host at iHeartMedia’s “K102” (KEEY/102.1 St. Paul) while continuing to co-host mornings at iHeart’s “Cities 97.1” (KTCZ Minneapolis). Dillon previously hosted afternoons at sister station KDWB/101.3 (Richfield-Minneapolis).
RadioInsight reports that Molly Penny has joined Connoisseur Media’s “Star 106” (KLSS/106.1 Mason City) as program director and midday host. KLSS has also dropped WestwoodOne’s syndicated Hot Adult Contemporary format in favor of different syndicated programming outside of Penny’s timeslot.
WLUK-TV reports that Daniel Lieburn, known on-air as Dan Brown, is no longer employed by Woodward’s “95.9 Kiss FM” (WKSZ De Pere-Green Bay) as he faces criminal charges.
In a Facebook post about outages due to tower work, Armada Media’s “Star 97.7” (WAQE-FM Barron-Rice Lake) mentioned that they have a “big surprise” coming in mid-May. The post did not state exactly what work is being done. As previously noted here in FCC Monitor reports, both WAQE-FM and WAQE/1090 have construction permits to move to the WJMC/1240 tower behind the five-station group’s studio facility, with WAQE-FM getting an upgrade in the process.
Townsquare Media’s Bismarck-Mandan group has moved to a new location about a mile away from its former longtime home. The move was also covered by KFYR-TV.
Scripps NBC affiliate WTMJ-TV/4 (Milwaukee) announced that reporter Megan Lee is leaving TMJ4 to work for co-owned WXYZ-TV/7 (Detroit).
Meteorologist Sabrina Ullman announced plans to depart Hubbard ABC affiliate WDIO/10 (Duluth).
A chart created by the NFL and shared by TV Technology provides one reason why the TV industry is changing so quickly: the NFL says viewership of non-sports programming in broadcast prime time has plummeted roughly 75 percent over 20 years, while NFL broadcasts have seen viewer growth. Both networks and station groups have responded to the trend with an increase in live sports in recent years.
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Disclosure: Jon Ellis is an employee of Gray Media Group. The statements and views expressed in this posting are his own and do not reflect those of Gray Media Group.