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Kent Burkhart has enjoyed a
radio career in station ownership, group management, as a
satellite and network pioneer and national and international
radio advisor and consultant.
He has received many broadcast honors. The November 6th
(2006) issue of Radio Ink magazine was dedicated to
broadcastings first “!00 YEARS, 100 PIONEERS”, and he was
one of those selected. Also, in 1996 Radio Ink named him as
one of the “75 who made a difference…in the first 75
years…of the industries evolution”. In 1990 he appeared on
the “Living Legends” panel at the annual fall National
Association of Broadcasters Convention. Radio and Records
magazine printed a full page Radio Legends article about him
(4-27-01). In 2002 he was inducted into the inaugural Texas
Radio Hall of Fame. Other awards include the Fifth Estate
Award from Broadcasting Magazine, and the Gavin radio
Executive of the Year award.
He has held ownership positions in radio stations in Austin,
Charlotte, Jacksonville, Columbia, and Greenville. He was
also the operating General Partner in a limited partnership
funded by General Electric Capital Corporation. Currently
he, along with his co-partners, own KYYK and KNET in
Palestine, Texas.
His group management was with Pacific and Southern
Broadcasting where he served as President of Radio for
stations in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Denver, Los Angeles,
Portland and Bergen County, New Jersey.
His ten person consulting company, which he sold in 1995,
provided programming, administration, marketing and sales
services for virtually every large and small radio group for
twenty-three years. The company frequently consulted top
twenty markets in the United States as well as station
clients in Australia, England, France, Canada and Mexico.
His company also assisted in the development a new network
for NBC called “the Source”.
He was one of the four founders of Satellite Music Network,
the first company to offer turn key twenty four hour
satellite programming to over one thousand radio stations.
He was the first broadcaster to create and direct audio
sports programming on the Internet for Sportsline.com. (now
CBS Sportsline.com).
Before entering ownership and management of radio stations
he was an afternoon air personality at KOWH in Omaha which
is known as the original Top 40 station. Todd Storz, who
owned the Omaha and other stations, promoted him to program
director of WQAM in Miami. He also worked for the Gordon
McLendon stations in New Orleans and Houston as an air
personality. Mr. Storz and McLendon were the two group
owners who changed radio-programming history/listenership by
overcoming televisions dominance with a steady programming
blend of music and news on radio.
He has held board seats on two NASDAQ companies and many
private companies as well. He currently is on the Board of
Advisors of Emerald City Radio Partners, a radio station
group.
He has authored countless articles on radio station
management and programming for major trade
publications such as Billboard, Radio Ink, Radio and
Records, Radio Business Report and Talkers Magazine. He
currently writes a Friday column for RadioDailyNews.com.
He has lectured radio classes or groups in colleges and
universities including the University of Southern California
(UCLA) in Los Angeles, and the University of Georgia, the
Peabody Award University.
He currently resides at Key Biscayne, Florida.
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