weekly November 3, 2025, Issue 984
Straight On The Air: Part Two
A surprise Eric Church album, an instant-play country classic and the Friends theme are among the straight-on-the-air stories radio pros told in part one (read it here). This week, another batch of songs so good, they went directly into the studio after one listen: • Black River VP/Promotion Bill Macky: This goes way back but I was programming KRTY/San Jose and my Arista rep, Steve Sharp, came by to play music from a new band he was working. They had a totally different sound than any other act in the format ... and I don’t believe anyone has captured that sound since. He played the music off a cassette (I told you this goes way Bill Macky back). I thought it was incredible, so I dubbed what was to be their debut single off the cassette and put it on the air immediately. The song was “Meet in the Middle” by Diamond Rio. I still love that band! • iHeartCountry’s Gregg Swedberg: Doesn’t take a genius to add a Garth Brooks record, but when you’re competing, you do it without listening. We would put out a guarantee that we would play the Gregg new Garth a day before the competitor, because we Swedberg knew that overnight releases were often at the FedEx or UPS station at the airport the night before. We’d drive to the airport, grab the CD that night, run it back to the station and hammer it over and over – with a voiceover “K102 exclusive” so if they recorded it off our air, they’d be stuck with our calls. It’s easy to remember when you get one of those songs right, but you tend to forget when you get one Barry Mardit wrong. We had good luck with SheDaisy back in the day here, and I do remember running “Get Over Yourself” right on the air. Peaked at No. 27. Whoops. Of course, we can’t really do that anymore. We have to make sure we have the ISRC number and, frequently, the label has given it to a DSP two weeks prior. But I will put it out here that if any of our artist friends want to send us stuff early, you know our address. • Country Radio Hall Of Famer Barry Mardit: Lee Greenwood was in the Detroit area for a concert on April 26, 1984. As was tradition (continued on page 5)
Home Again: River House/Warner/WAR’s Hudson Westbrook celebrates the gold certification of “5 To 9” and platinum certification of “House Again” during a benefit show in his hometown of Stephenville, TX, where he donated $100,000 to the Erath County Junior Livestock Association. Pictured (l-r) are songwriters Neil Medley and Lukas Scott, WMN’s Gregg Nadel, Westbrook, songwriter Dan Alley, WMN’s Cris Lacy and River House’s Zebb Luster.
The Intel On Spintel
Launched with a Mediabase licensing deal more than two years ago (CAT 3/10/23) and now available via a mobile app, Spintel is working to simplify and expand airplay data analysis. Founder/ CEO Rob Dalton’s decades in major label promotion underpin much of the company’s offerings, but the company has an eye on many other music Rob Dalton industry applications. Billed as “an advanced radio airplay analytics software platform,” Spintel converts raw Mediabase data into easily analyzed and applied (continued on page 3)
©2025 C o u n t r y A i rc he c k ™ — A l l r i g h t s re s e r v e d . S i g n u p f re e a t w w w. c o u n t r y a i rc h e c k . c o m . S e n d n e w s t o n e w s @ c o u n t r y a i rc he c k . c o m