Super Bowl Update

The Indiana Broadcasters Association handed out its annual Spectrum Awards on Saturday night in Indianapolis, and radio and TV stations covering Southwestern Indiana accounted for a sizable number of awards.

Terre Haute's WTWO-NBC 2 and WTHI Hi-99 FM won their respective TV and radio Station of the Year awards, as did Vincennes University's WVUB-91.1 FM.

NBC 2 also won first place in the Breaking News Story and Weathercast categories, second place in the Feature/Use of Medium, Sportscast and Newscast categories, and third place in the Commercial category.

WTHI-TV 10 brought home firsts in the Breaking Local News Story, Feature/Use of Medium and Cross Platform Use of Television categories.  The station also took second place in the Station of the Year, General News Story and Weathercast categories, with thirds in the Newscast and Community Involvement categories and the Service to Indiana category for "Raise Your Sleeve."

On the radio, several area stations did quite well:

The Indiana Broadcasters Association will dole out its 2012 Spectrum Awards on Nov. 10 in Indianapolis, and several Southwestern Indiana radio stations are among this year's finalists.  However, in what's becoming something of a sorry trend, Evansville's TV stations were once again not represented.

Among the radio stations on the list are stations from Evansville, Huntingburg, Jasper and Vincennes.  WVUB-91.1 FM and WIKY-104.1 FM received the most nominations, with Blazer 91.1 getting six nominations and WIKY five.

On the TV side, Terre Haute TV station WTWO-NBC 2 received seven nominations, and WTHI-TV has eight.

Brad Booker, a former WSTO-96.1 FM morning co-host, has a new job. He's leaving CBS Radio's KWNR in Las Vegas to take over mornings at the company's KMLE in Phoenix beginning next week.

"We are excited to have Brad Booker on the KMLE team," said KMLE program director Jeff Garrison. "Having worked with Booker at Hot 95-7 in Houston, I witnessed first-hand his upbeat, and entertaining style. Listeners embraced his program and I expect nothing different here in Phoenix."

Booker was co-host of WSTO's morning show, first with Diane Douglas (now at WSTO sister station WIKY) and later with Sarah Pepper (now at CBS Radio in Houston), from 2003 to 2008.  He may be best remembered for coming up with an April Fool's joke in 2004 involving now-Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly that made national headlines - because it wasn't at all funny.

For the fifth straight year, WIKY-104.1 FM is the favorite of readers of the Evansville Courier & Press.  The station won the paper's Platinum Readers' Choice award for Best Local Radio Station.

Also honored this year when the awards were published earlier this week were Hot 96 WSTO-96.1 FM and WKDQ-99.5 FM, which won Gold awards.

Among local radio and TV personalities chosen by the readers, WIKY news anchor Randy Wheeler and Eyewitness News Daybreak anchor Randy Moore won Platinum awards.

Receiving Gold awards were Hot 96 morning man Atom Smasher, WIKY Friday Night Request Show host Amy Adams, Eyewitness News lead anchor Brad Byrd and Eyewitness News chief meteorologist Wayne Hart.

Congratulations to this year's winners!

UPDATE #2, 6:30 p.m.:  The previous update takes into account that WEJK-107.1 FM is owned by Boonville Broadcasting Co.  WEJK, as most know, is operated by South Central, so if you add in 107.1's share, South Central gets a razor-thin victory.  However, other publications (such as AllAccess.com) do NOT count WEJK toward South Central's total. I will leave it for you, the reader, to decide.

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PREVIOUSLY: Arbitron released the Spring 2012 ratings for the Evansville market late Thursday afternoon, and it should come as little surprise that the top three stations are the same as they've been for the past few years.

South Central Media's AC WIKY-104.1 FM, Townsquare Media's country WKDQ-99.5 FM and South Central's CHR WSTO-96.1 FM continue to be ranked 1-2-3, and while both WIKY and WKDQ saw their numbers drop ever so slightly compared to the same period in 2011, WSTO saw a bit of an uptick.

Tied for fourth are South Central's classic rock WABX-107.5 FM and Townsquare's classic hits WJLT-105.3 FM.  The move to fourth is a two-place jump for 107.5 compared to last year.  WJLT saw a slight bump overall but remains in the same place, although no longer on its own.

Townsquare's news/talk WGBF-1280 AM also saw a sizable increase in listenership this past spring, moving up from ninth place a year ago to sixth this time around.

WDKS-106.1 FM, Townsquare's CHR station, slipped from fifth to seventh this year, and its classic rock station, WGBF-103.1 FM fell from a tie for sixth in the spring of 2011 to eighth this year.  On the upside, however, country WBKR-92.5 climbed from thirteenth to tenth place.

South Central's other stations also lost ground or held steady.  The company's country WLFW-93.5 FM dropped from eighth to ninth, while Jack FM-formatted WEJK-107.1 FM (which is owned by Boonville Broadcasting and operated by South Central) held its place at #11.

It should be noted that Arbitron now only releases ratings for stations which subscribe to its services.  A good many stations once listed in the Evansville market are no longer listed, such as WEOA, WSON and WRAY-FM, just to name a few.  South Central and Townsquare, as you'd expect of larger operators, subscribe to Arbitron, but a number of smaller station groups and single stations do not.