TALKERS News Notes
— Longtime Tampa Bay Rays radio broadcaster Dave Wills died early Sunday morning (3/5) at the age of 58. Wills and Andy Freed have been the radio broadcast team since the 2005 season. Prior to joining the Rays, Wills was part of the Chicago White Sox broadcast team in which he hosted pre- and post-game programs.
— Cumulus Media’s Westwood One continues its presentation of NCAA basketball conference championships this week and into next weekend. Westwood One will also broadcast Selection Sunday, which will reveal the 68-team field for both the men’s and the women’s tournaments. Jason Horowitz will host Selection Sunday coverage with former coach PJ Carlesimo serving as the men’s analyst and Debbie Antonelli as the women’s analyst.
— LiveOne reports that paid memberships for its subsidiaries Slacker Radio and PodcastOne grew by over 587,000 in the past 12 months and over 100,000 in the first two months of calendar 2023. Total members, including paid and ad-sponsored, are now at 2.85 million. LiveOne CEO Rob Ellin comments, “We are thrilled to have exceeded 2 million premium members on our platform, and we owe much of our growth to our B2B content partnerships, such as our longstanding collaboration with Tesla. Our team’s objective is to forge partnerships with similar-minded brands who understand the significance of providing their customers with new and relevant content.”