Airdate 03/11/10 7:54am

They say "they come in 3's".

Jim Tellus died suddenly while on a business trip in Columbus, Ohio at age 47. Tellus, Channel 13's President and General Manager, was found dead in his hotel room Tuesday. It's believed he died of a heart attack. He was found after failing to appear at a corporate board meeting. Tellus joined WTHR as news director in 2006. In 2007 he was promoted to Vice President and General Manager and in 2009 named president. Tellus lived with his family in Carmel. He is survived by his wife, Kathy, and four children.

Airdate 03/9/10 11:04am Donald Cripe has passed away at 80. Cripe served as Vice President and General Manager of WFBM-TV and WFBM-FM and served as Manager of Sales Operations at Delco Radio Division of General Motors. Don was a life-long radio announcer. He began his career in radio in West Lafayette after graduating from Purdue University in 1946 at the age of 16. He worked as a staff announcer, program director, and sport's director and as a free lance sports announcer, throughout the 50's and 60's he was known as the voice of Kokomo Wildcats Basketball. He continued as a free lance announcer for several stations throughout his career.

Airdate 03/8/10 11:38am The translator at 102.7 in Corydon gets picked up by Keith Reising. The seller was Good Shepard Radio Inc.

Let the fight for the channels begin... a mass of CPs have been filed for a few channels in Indiana. Let's hope we caught all of them.

107.5 -Terre Haute - Indiana State University Board of Trustees, Community Broadcasting, Inc, Terre Haute 7th Day Adventist Church, The Light House Mission Ministries, Inc, Terre Haute Bible Baptist Church, Inc, Prairie Air, Inc, Illinois Bible Institute, Inc, Hispanic Family Christian Network, Inc, Grace Public Radio, Indiana Educational Broadcast Corp, Word Power, Inc,

96.3 - Farmersburg - Hope Broadcasting, Inc, Hispanic Family Christian Network, Inc, Serendipity Educational Broadcasting, Inc

106.1 - Fowler - Harvest Chapel Attica, Inc, Educational Broadband Corp

100.9 - Madison - Good Samaritan Educational Radio, Inc, Cornerstone Community Fellowship At Madison, Inc, Triangle Foundation, Inc

95.3 - Columbus - The Moody Bible Institute Of Chicago, Christian Radio Family, Inc, Triangle Foundadtion, Inc, Good Shepard Radio, Inc, The Trustees of Indiana University, Hispanic Family Christian Network, Inc, The Gabriel Project, Inc

Former WOWO jock James Ellenwood has died at 67. He passed away Saturday. Ellenwood was known as "Diamond Jim Brady" and an announcer for 21 Alive. Service is 10:00 a.m. March 10, 2010 at D.O. McComb and Sons Pine Valley Park Funeral Home.

MY 107.9 gets some ink in the Star. Read more by clicking here

Airdate 03/4/10 2:25pm Rick Cummings gets a one-year contract extension with Emmis. He'll remain President of Radio Programming. His base salary is $446,500, as well as including incentive-based bonuses. He has held this position since n December, 2008. before that he served as President of the company's radio division since 2002.

You may remember RSE Broadcasting sold what is now adult hits WSVX, Indianapolis (1520) nearly three years ago. The FCC says they still owe the FCC money. The FCC slapped the station for filing its license renewal application 6 months late and a fine of $7000. RSE says it tried to pay the fee, but it was rejected by the electronic filing system and when it discovered it didn’t work, the company hired a legal rep to sort things out. The FCC forgives the fine but says the $187.50 late-fee stands. RSE sold WSVX to Three Towers Broadcasting about three years ago.

An Allen Superior Court judge denied a request for a special prosecutor to handle charges against former Indiana University basketball player Todd Leary in connection with an ex-business partner’s multimillion-dollar fraud scheme. The judge ruled that there is no need to disqualify Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards’ entire office because her chief deputy was found to be a victim of Todd’s business partner. They say Leary once worked for a title insurance broker who pleaded guilty to several charges in a $2.7 million real estate fraud scheme. The Prosecutor testified that her deputy had not been involved in the investigation of Leary or his business partner. Leary played for Indiana in the late 80's and early 90's and had been an analyst for IU’s radio broadcasts for several years.

Airdate 03/3/10 5:30pm A couple of TV CPs have been granted. Channel 33 Evansville to D TV America 1, LLC and Channel 24 Terre Haute to Indiana Broadcasting, LLC.

The CP application for 101.1 Bloomfield has been dismissed. Robert Mc Daniel had withdrawn his application about 75 days ago. The channel will go to auction with most of the usual groups in the auction. Will another channel go to waste with canned programming?

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross approved a budget that allows Regent temporary permission to continue paying its staff and vendors until a March 22 hearing. It appears at one point in the pre-bankruptcy, Regent had looked at a possible sale.

Dr. Michael Clark of Franklin passed away last week at 63. Dr. Clark's expertise in forensic pathology was highlighted when he appeared on the television show "Forensic Files." He was also an avid antique radio collector and very involved in the Indiana Historical Radio Society. A memorial for Dr. Clark will be held Thursday, March 4 at G. H. Herrmann Madison Avenue Funeral Home, 5141 Madison Avenue in Indianapolis.

Indiana has a new online country channel. ALL HIT COUNTRY.com hit the net on 3/2/10 at Noon and is currently playing 14,000 songs in a row. Advertisers have already booked 6 month spot contracts in advance on the channel that has been in the planning stage since the first of the year.

Airdate 02/23/10 9:49am Christopher Larko has passed away at 51. Chris was founder and President of Larko Communications, Inc., which owns WMYQ-FM 101.1 and WBZQ-AM 1300. He began his radio career at age 15. Calling hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday with a brief prayer at 2 p.m. at D.O. McComb and Sons Lakeside Park Funeral Home. Get more details by clicking here.

Airdate 02/18/10 11:27am DTV America II, LLC has filed for D-TV CPs. In Lafayette, channels 16, 22,23, 31 and 35. In Marion 15 and 22 and in Terre Haute 16, 23, 28 and 49.

Airdate 02/10/10 7:22am Getting his OM stripes at Cumulus in Indy is Joe Kelly. Kelly is also the PD and afternoon driver on WRWM (I94).

Airdate 01/29/10 7:46am Here are the latest numbers for the Ft. Wayne market. Read them by clicking here

Airdate 01/27/10 11:18am Starting February 8th, 21Alive TV will expand it's live newscast to one hour starting at 5pm. Melissa Long will anchor and Curtis Smith will handle weather duties. E.T. moves to 7pm. “Expanding our strong 5:00 p.m. news programming to deliver live news for a full hour is natural for our viewers and advertisers,” explains President and General Manager Jerry Giesler. “We’ve led the market for years in live programming and this provides yet another opportunity for viewers to receive the live local news they value.”

Airdate 01/21/10 7:55am See how the Indy market did in the ARB by clicking here

Airdate 01/20/10 11:33am The Alma Corporation has filed CPs for TV channels 30, 33, 39 and 49 in Wolcott.

Calvery Radio Network Inc. has picked up WCJL-FM Morgantown, WLHP-FM, Hanna, WJCO-FM, Montpelier,WJCY-FM, Cicero, WOJC-FM, Crothersville, WQKO-FM, Howe and WTMK-FM, Lowell.

Yesterday a Hungarian court ruled in favor of Emmis-owned Slager Radio and that the National Radio and Television Board illegally awarded a national radio broadcast contract to FM 1. The ruling means that Slager was one of only two qualifying bids in the recent tender for Hungary's two national radio licenses. Emmis won the broadcasting license in 1997 and has operated the facilities for 12 years and investing almost 30 billion forints.

Speaking of Emmis, a couple of programming vets join their ranks. Alan Furst will be the Director of Talk Programming for the Emmis Indianapolis cluster and the Program Director for WIBC. Alan programmed WIRE in Indianapolis back in the 80’s where he worked with one Tom Severino. David Wood will be the Program Director for B-105.7 and The Fan. Wood was with Susquehanna in Indianapolis where he served as Program Director of WFMS and ultimately the Director of Programming for Susquehanna Indianapolis. He launched GOLD 104.5 and 93.9 The SONG in Indy. Furts and Wood will report directly to Bob Richards who will continues as Director of Programming for Emmis Indianapolis while also serving as PD for WLHK.

Airdate 01/18/10 11:24am Another sales person has left WBIW/WPHZ/WQRK, the second in 30 days. Amanda Wecht has moved on after a short stint there. Lack of listener response has made selling time on the stations very hard. Make sure to turn off those office lights so you don't get written up.

Airdate 01/14/10 7:54am Sycom Media Group Inc has filed CPs for TV channels 14, 19, 21 and 51 in Ft. Wayne

Airdate 01/13/10 11:40am Jimmy Matis a.k.a. Mad Dog is the latest shake up in Indiana radio. Mad Dog, a fixture at WFBQ-Q95 was bounced last week when his contract wasn't renewed. "They just said, 'We're going to go in a different direction'... my direction was out the door", Matis said. Hitting the 3-7 airchair for Q95 is Dave Gunner. The face of Indy radio is starting to change a bit.

Why are people losing faith in radio? Here are two examples I caught Friday that may show why. One FM was making a big deal, as usual, with their top of the hour ID and played a tone to mark the top of the hour. Stating it was 4pm, I looked at my watch, car radio clock and cell phone... they all said 4:08pm. Scanning to another FM, they were giving basketball game cancelations due to the weather. Making a BIG deal that the game they were broadcasting "tonight" would be moved to Saturday night, they hit the spot set. First spot, a full promo with sponsors telling people to tune in "tonight" for the big game.

He was the voice of US-30 Dragstrip ads and others, (Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!), Jan Gabriel has passed at age 69. He worked a stint at the Indianapolis 500 Speedway. He passed away, ironically, on a Sunday.

Airdate 01/12/10 11:32am WFLI-TV18 has surprised many with some staff cuts. News Anchor Sue Scott, and 3 other station employees were given their walking papers last week. Two of the staffers were department heads. The reason for the cuts was "industrywide downturn". Joining Scott in the bad "news" was News Director Chris Morisse, Sales Manager Jenny Olszewski and Video Journalist Gary Higgins. WLFI is owned by LIN TV Corp., which owns 27 network affiliate broadcast stations in 17 markets nationwide.

An 18.5% drop in consolidated revenue for its fiscal third quarter was reported by Emmis Communications. Emmis did post earnings of $1.7 million compared to a $125.7 million loss in the year-ago period. CEO Jeff Smulyan said "we're seeing improvements.We are projecting that our first positive numbers since April 2008 are just a month or two away -- and could possibly hit our books this month."

WITT gets some nice ink via The Indy Star. Read it here

Airdate 01/7/10 11:33am Kent Sterling is out as PD at WIBC/1070 The Fan. You can keep up with him at his blog by clicking here

Other changes to ring in the new year include changes at WBTU. Dave Steele is out as PD/Middays. Phil Becker grabs the title of OM/PD. Becker is already OM/PD at sister properties WJOE and WJFX. The midday airchair at BTU is filled by Ashley Figueroa. Ashley was working swing at WJFX. She'll also take care of the WBTU website.

Ameriplan

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