Clear Channel Hints At IHeartRadio Country Festival, TV Awards

Clear Channel hinted at plans to produce a Country festival in Austin next spring and its own TV awards show next year. During a video Q&A with Billboard’s Andrew Hampp at the IHeartRadio Festival in Vegas Saturday night (Sept 21), John Sykes, Clear Channel president of entertainment enterprises, and Tom Poleman, Clear Channel President of national programming platforms, both hinted at the two new ventures without completely confirming details.
Recently, Clear Channel inked a multi-year deal with The CW network earlier this year making way for the IHeartRadio Festival to air on the network Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, and revealed then that they would be announcing two other new franchises with a to-be-determined broadcast partner. The company has plans to air its annual Jingle Ball concert as well.
“I’ve been doing Jingle Ball since 1996 in New York,” said Poleman, “and one of the things John and I have been able to do together now that we’re on the same team is like, ‘hey you have this great timing, why don’t you put it on TV and blow it up?’ We’re doing the IHeartRadio Jingle Ball tour now, not only in New York but in 12 other markets and we’re gonna televise that as well.”
Tim McGraw was on the Saturday night IHeartRadio lineup that also included heavy hitters like Paul McCartney, Justin Timberlake, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars, and Ke$ha.

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Lorie Hollabaugh

Hollabaugh, a staff writer at MusicRow magazine, has over 20 years of music business experience and has written for publications including American Profile, CMA Close Up, Nashville Arts And Entertainment, The Boot and Country Weekly. She has a Broadcast Journalism and Speech Communication degree from Texas Christian University, (go Horned Frogs), and welcomes your feedback or story ideas at lhollabaugh@musicrow.com.

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