Black Leaders Discussion 1973 featuring Angela Davis, Kwame Ture & Fannie Lou Hamer...

Super Bowl 56 Full Halftime Show 2022

Mary J. Blige - Rent Money (feat. Dave East) [Official Video]

Hip Hop and R&B Radio Station P1 the Super Bowl LVI’s Halftime Acts

 

Radio Gets Behind Super Bowl LVI’s Halftime Acts.

• Feb 14, 2022 - Valentines Day -

Story by Inside RadioWritten by Kevin Mazur

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Email
• Print
• Save

Radio stations outside of Los Angeles and Cincinnati looking to tie into Super Bowl LVI took to the air with Super Block Party weekends, Super-related countdowns, and hosted Big Game viewing parties this past weekend.

With the halftime show featuring popular music acts since the 90s an obvious radio tie-in is with the artists who have been selected to perform. This year’s Super Bowl featured a halftime show featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J Blige, and Kendrick Lamar.

Ahead of Sunday’s game, Gray Communications President Tony Gray told Inside Radio that hip-hop stations he works with were excited about the lineup for this year’s halftime concert. Additionally, adult R&B-formatted stations have more interest than usual due to Mary J. Blige being selected as a featured performer.

“Some of our hip-hop stations have increased airplay on some of the artists who will perform Sunday and just about every urban AC in the country has Mary’s current single in at least a medium rotation,” Gray said.

Blige’s “Good Morning Gorgeous” is No. 2 and rising on the Mediabase urban/R&B chart for the week of Feb. 3-Feb. 10. There’s a good chance the track will take over the No. 1 position next week following her performance and an increase in airplay that will likely follow. The song is also within the Top 40 on the Mediabase urban chart.

The hip-hop acts for the most part are library material for hip-hop/R&B stations as none of the acts have currents or recurrent songs within the Top 50 of Mediabase’s urban, urban/R&B and Top 40 charts.

Hometown Artist For LA Stations

In LA, the Super Bowl is a huge deal. Not only are the Los Angeles Rams looking to win the title in their home stadium, Dre, Lamar and Snoop are all from the City of Angels.

“With how massive hip-hop has become over the decades, to have our artists perform for the halftime show is historic,” said Emmanuel “E-Man” Coquia, Director of Programming and Content at Meruelo Media rhythmic CHR “Power 106” KPWR-FM and hip-hop “93.5 K-Day” KDEY Los Angeles.

Local heroes Dre, Lamar and Snoop Dogg, along with Eminem and MJB were already in regular rotation at the stations, but leading up to, and throughout Super Bowl weekend, the airplay will be expanded.

“Both Power 106 and 93.5 K-Day have done specialty ‘mixes’ on-air showcasing their music,” Coquia said. “This will be very prevalent throughout the weekend on both Power 106 and K-Day as this will be a celebration of Los Angeles and the half-time show artists all weekend.”

With so many superstars performing at this year’s Super Bowl, it would be a coup for stations to get some face-to-face time with the artists, but that scenario is now challenged in COVID-19 times.

“I know it was suggested to some stations to set up a meet and greet with some artist a day or two before the game but due to COVID-19 concerns, most were hesitant to try to pull it off this year,” Gray noted.

First Radio Spins, Then Sales

In addition to a bump in airplay, many artists are rewarded with additional music sales and streams following their performance.

However, with multiple artists performing that increase may be somewhat muted. According to Billboard, solo acts seem to benefit more than when the halftime show features multiple performers.

Justin Timberlake and Bruce Springsteen netted the biggest wins in 2018 and 2009, respectively, Billboard says. Both artists released albums days before their performances. Timberlake saw a sales increase 890.8%, while Springsteen sales jumped 1,221%. Blige just released her 14th studio album “Good Morning Gorgeous” on Friday, Feb. 11.

The halftime show for the 2012 Super Bowl was headlined by Madonna, who was joined by Nicki Minaj, LMFAO, M.I.A. and Cee Lo Green. Madonna sales only increased by 212.7% after the performance.

Coldplay fared better in 2016, when their sales popped 347.9%, even as they were joined on field by Beyonce, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson.

 

Tony Dungy’s open letter to NFL Owners on minority hiring

Story via NBC Sports

By Tony Dungy

Feb 4, 2021, 11:45 AM EST

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Flipboard (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

6 Comments

Dear NFL Owners,

I’m writing to you today because I have a great love for the National Football League, just as you do, and want to see it be the best it can be. And I believe our league has a problem that only you can fix. We are not putting the best product possible out on the field. We have an exciting game and great competition. We will have a fantastic Super Bowl that will cap off a season where we overcame great adversity due to this pandemic. The NFL has a lot of things to be proud of, but we are not giving our fans, or our players, the best possible game. We are cheating our fans and we are cheating ourselves. And you are the only people who can change this.

The problem is we are not utilizing all of our resources because we aren’t truly embracing minority hiring in every aspect of our game. Now I know there are many people who disagree with this statement. They would say, “Every owner is trying to win and therefore you will always hire the best people.”  But if you take a look at the hiring landscape of the last four years you will certainly come to the conclusion that is not true.  And please understand this is not about one individual (Eric Bieniemy). It’s not about whether we have two Black general managers or four. It is about the mindset of finding quality leadership and utilizing ALL the talent available to the NFL. This is not a new problem and it’s one that you have fixed before. It has just taken a little work on your parts.

In the 1930s and 1940s, in your grandfathers’ generation, we had great competition and many great players. The assumption was that the NFL was the best football fans could see, and we were putting the absolute best product on the field. But we weren’t. African American players were excluded from the game and no one thought it was detrimental to the product. In 1946 however, Dan Reeves, owner of the Los Angeles Rams, made a very bold move. He started signing African American players. The Cleveland Browns were playing in the All-America Football Conference at the time and their owner, Arthur McBride, did the same thing. When the Browns joined the NFL in 1950, they immediately dominated the league and made it to six straight championship games, aided by a number of African American stars. This pointed out to everyone that we could make our football better by utilizing all of the talent pool available.  Your grandfathers’ generation began to get it right and the NFL was better for it.

In the 1970s, while we had seen plenty of minority players enter the league, your scouts still didn’t grasp the fact that Black players could play QB well enough to thrive in the NFL. Despite the fact that many African Americans were excelling at the quarterback position in college, opportunities to play quarterback in the NFL were rare. Talented quarterbacks like Eldridge Dickey were drafted and switched to other positions. Others, like Chuck Ealey, who led the University of Toledo to great success and never lost a game in his three-year college career, weren’t drafted at all and had to go to Canada to continue to play quarterback. This persisted even into the 90s when Heisman trophy winner Charlie Ward simply chose another sport to excel in rather than fight an uphill battle against negative stereotypes.

In 1978 Doug Williams, an African American who would later quarterback Washington to a Super Bowl championship, was the first quarterback selected in the draft that year. Had the NFL finally turned the corner in utilizing all the talent and putting the best players on the field?  No! There were 13 other quarterbacks drafted that year, all of them white. Warren Moon was not one of those selected, despite having been the PAC-8 Player of the Year and MVP of the Rose Bowl. He signed in Canada and led the Edmonton Eskimos to five Grey Cup titles before finally getting to sign an NFL contract. Hindsight tells us that Doug Williams and Warren Moon were the best QBs of that class. But Moon, an eventual Hall of Famer, was somehow overlooked, even though every franchise was trying to win and trying to put the best players on the field.

The owners eventually took on this problem. While Black QBs still face unique challenges, there is a different mindset for coaches and scouts. Lamar Jackson did not switch positions. Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson didn’t have to go to Canada to prove themselves and Russell Wilson is playing quarterback for the Seahawks, not second base for the Yankees. And the NFL is much better off because of it.

In the 1980s, when some of your dads owned the teams, the topic of fairness, equality, and putting the best product on the field turned to coaching and front office positions. Once again, it wasn’t viewed by most people as a problem because the mantra is that the NFL is a meritocracy. We are always going to find the best people. But it was rare to see a Black face in coaching or management then. I started my coaching career in 1981 and in eight of my first ten seasons as an assistant coach I was the only African American on the staff. Many former African American players never thought of going into coaching because they couldn’t see a future in it. Some may have wanted to coach in the NFL but were turned away. But as owners like Eddie DeBartolo, Al Davis and Dan Rooney began to change the culture of their organizations, that slowly began to change. We went from 10 African American assistant coaches in 1977 to the over 200 in 2020.  Men like Art Shell, Denny Green, Lovie Smith, and Mike Tomlin rose through the ranks of assistant coaches to become head coaches. They’ve led teams to the playoffs, and even to the Super Bowl.  And the NFL has been better for it.

That brings us to today, 2021, and the teams you own. The league is prospering. The game on the field is exciting. But we can’t bury our head in the sand and not acknowledge the elephant in the room—that you are not hiring the best, and most deserving people in all departments of your teams. Yes, we have made tremendous progress in diversity from 1946 to now—in some areas. Almost 70% of the players are African Americans. Over 30% of the assistant coaches are minorities. We will have two female coaches and a female official on the sidelines of this year’s Super Bowl. But there are other areas where the representation is not nearly as complete. Look at the c-suites of your teams, the medical staffs, and the ultimate decision makers—the head coaches and GMs—and you’ll see those faces don’t represent what your teams look like. And it has been discouraging to see that in the last three hiring cycles of head coaches, things have not been much different. Are we to believe that you’re really doing exhaustive searches, trying to uncover the best coaches, but only two out of the last 20 have been African Americans?

You should know how much it hurt me in 1977 to graduate from college and not be given a chance to try to play QB in the NFL. It hurt in 1993 to have coordinated the number one defense in the NFL and not get an interview for one of the five head coaching openings that year. But I have to tell you it hurts even more to see African American coaches going through the same thing almost 30 years later.  And it will hurt to see four African American coordinators in this Super Bowl who will be questioning whether they will actually get an opportunity to be a head coach in the foreseeable future. And this is hurting our league.

What is the solution to this problem?  How can we make the situation better and make our league better?  I believe it comes down to you. You are the 32 men and women that determine the direction of your franchise and the direction of the entire league. You set the policies and you make the decisions. You are the key players.  I know that’s the case because for 13 years I was in a position similar to yours. As the head coach of the Tampa Bay Bucs, then the Indianapolis Colts, I was responsible for everything that took place with our players. If we didn’t perform well on the field, it was my job to fix it. If we had players who didn’t represent the team well off the field, I was responsible for changing that. It was my responsibility to develop the plan for reaching the goal of being champions, on and off the field.

That’s why I’m writing this letter to you. Because ultimately you are the decision makers that determine the direction of the NFL. Are those decisions going to simply involve trying to win Super Bowls and be profitable, or will they be about making the NFL the best it can be?  I’m suggesting, and history has shown, you don’t have to choose. I’m asking you to keep the legacy moving forward and make the NFL the best league we can be. And I’m believing that you’re going to do that. Please show me that my faith in you is justified.

Sincerely,

Tony Dungy

 

Joe Rogan Apologizes For N-Word Use; Spotify Pulls Episodes As Other Podcasters Leave App.

• Feb 7, 2022 

Story by Inside Radio

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Email
• Print
• Save

The controversy surrounding Joe Rogan’s podcast on Spotify entered a second week as the popular podcaster issued an apology Saturday for his repeated use of the n-word on his show, The Joe Rogan Experience. His apology came as a video was circulated on social media showing Rogan’s use of the racial slur on several episodes, some dating back years.

In an Instagram video, Rogan said the video showed his statements “taken out of context” and he called his use of the slur “the most regretful and shameful thing” that he has had to publicly talk about.

In the six-minute video, Rogan explained one use was from a 2011 podcast when he discussed seeing the movie “Planted of the Apes” in a Black neighborhood. “I was trying to make the story entertaining, and I said we got out and it was like we were in Africa. It’s like we were in ‘Planet of the Apes.'," said Rogan. “I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now. I haven’t said it in years. Instead of saying ‘the N-word,’ I would just say the word. I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing.”

In his apology Rogan said it was an “idiotic” thing to say that “looks terrible even in context.” He also said that he had already taken the podcast episode down, but said someone apparently saved a video clip of the episode.

"It’s not my word to use. I am well aware of that now, but for years I used it in that manner,” Rogan said. “I never used it to be racist because I’m not racist.”

Singer India.Aire brought Rogan’s use of racially-charged language to light last week when she posted a statement on her Instagram account saying that she was taking her music off of Spotify in protest. She then posted a montage of Rogan clips, saying it was his “language around race” that was the problem.

As the clips of his previous statements rocked across the internet during the weekend, Spotify pulled down more than 100 episodes of Rogan’s podcast according to a website that tracks the podcast. JREMissing says 113 episodes were yanked, including episodes featuring far-right guests and conspiracy theorists, such as podcast appearances by Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, conservative journalist and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, and media personality Alex Jones. It is unclear whether any of the episodes taken down used the n-word.

Podcasters Pull Shows From Spotify

Even before the racial element emerged, the fallout from Rogan’s controversial statements on COVID vaccines were already costing Spotify not only music, but also other podcasts. Vox Media’s The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway and the Luminary-iHeartRadio produced The Roxanne Gay Agenda have both pulled their shows off Spotify in protest over what they believe is the company’s lackluster response to anti-vaccine misinformation on The Joe Rogan Experience and other podcasts.

“This is going to hurt us more than it is going to hurt them,” said Galloway, who said 10% to 12% of The Prof G Pod downloads come on Spotify. “If you’re constantly railing as I do against anti-vaccine misinformation, you shouldn’t cash the check of someone who is creating false balance round vaccine misinformation,” he said on the Vox podcast Pivot, which he co-hosts with Kara Swisher. Unlike The Prof G Pod, which Galloway controls, Pivot will remain on Spotify since Swisher is not on board with pulling the show, she explained on its latest episode.

Gay’s decision comes just weeks after she launched The Roxanne Gay Agenda with Luminary and iHeartRadio. “It won't move any sort of needle, but I removed my podcast from Spotify. That's all there really is to say about that. Onward,” she wrote in a Twitter post.

Earlier, the creators of the Science Vs. podcast said their show would go on semi-hiatus on Spotify other than to produce new shows geared toward addressing vaccine misinformation on the platform. “We think Spotify has a responsibility to do more,” they wrote in a Twitter post.

But Brené Brown, the host of the Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead podcasts, is going in the other direction. After delaying release of her shows last week, Brown said now that Spotify has published its misinformation policy, it appears to address the majority of her concerns. In a blog post she said she expected to return to Spotify this week.

Spotify CEO Stands With Rogan

Spotify has stood by Rogan, despite his controversies. It has a reported $100 million distribution deal that gives the streamer exclusive rights to his podcast. During a townhall meeting with Spotify employees last week, CEO Daniel Ek defended the company’s actions according to a recording obtained by The Verge.

“I understand the premise that because we have an exclusive deal with him, it’s really easy to conclude we endorse every word he says and believe the opinions expressed by his guests. That’s absolutely not the case,” said Ek. He also told staff that the sort of exclusive arrangements that it has with Rogan are necessary to secure “leverage” in a crowded podcast marketplace.

When Spotify reported its quarterly earnings to Wall Street last week, Ek said it is “too early to know” what impact the Rogan controversy will have in terms of subscriber cancellations or decreased listening.