20 Facts About Ed Salamon

Edward R Salamon is an American entertainment industry executive and radio broadcaster.

Ed Salamon is credited as one of the people who led to country music becoming a major force in the mid-1990s.

Ed Salamon was dubbed “country radio's most influential programmer” while programming WHN, New York, which became the most listened to country radio station of all time in the mid-1970s, an accomplishment that led to his induction into the Country Radio Seminar Hall of Fame in 2006.

Ed Salamon has been credited with reinventing country radio because his programming techniques, viewed as radical at the time, were emulated by other broadcasters, many of which went on to greater successes in the radio industry.

Ed Salamon began his radio career in 1970 as assistant promotions manager and director of market research for KDKA in Pittsburgh.

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Ed Salamon's techniques led to his being hired, in 1973, for his first job as program director, at country-formatted WEEP, a Pittsburgh daytime-only AM station, which was virtually at the bottom of the local radio ratings.

When Ed Salamon was hired in 1975, the station had gone through three program directors and was mired in 14th position.

Year after Ed Salamon joined WHN, the Business and Finance section of The New York Times Bicentennial edition reported that the station had “skyrocketed to listenership in the number two position among competitors, and its 1.

Ed Salamon was named National Program Director of the Radio Division of WHN's parent company, Storer Broadcasting in 1978, supervising programming for its stations in Miami, Chicago, and in Los Angeles, where he served as acting general manager for KTNQ, hiring high profile air personalities including Charlie Tuna and Jack Armstrong.

In 1980, when WHN was acquired by the Mutual Broadcasting System, Ed Salamon remained with the station and added responsibilities at Mutual, being charged with the changing the format of the company's legendary WCFL in Chicago from Talk back to a music format.

Ed Salamon was named Program Director of the Year by Billboard Magazine for three consecutive years from 1979 through 1981.

In 1985, United Stations acquired the RKO Radio Network and in 1989, it merged with Transtar Radio Networks to form Unistar, where Ed Salamon served as President of Programming and hosted his own weekly series, “The Stories Behind The Song” in addition to live network interview specials with Garth Brooks and Alabama.

In 1994, when Unistar merged with Westwood One, Ed Salamon remained President of Programming for the combined company, a position he held until 2002.

Westwood One had previously acquired the Mutual Radio Network in 1985, where Ed Salamon began his network radio career, and two years after that acquired the NBC Radio Network, prior to the Unistar merger.

At Westwood One, Ed Salamon was directly responsible for guiding the network's big-name entertainers including David Letterman, Jay Leno, Martha Stewart and Charles Osgood, and was instrumental in bringing new talent and brands to radio including Jon Stewart and Fox News.

Ed Salamon relocated to Nashville in 2002 where he became executive director the Country Radio Broadcasters, a Nashville-based non profit organization which conducts the Country Radio Seminar, an annual meeting of country radio program directors and country music executives dating back to 1970.

Ed Salamon first attended the CRS in 1974 where he received a hostile reaction to his then novel stance of researching music, which is commonplace today.

In 2006, Ed Salamon was inducted into the Country Radio Seminar Hall of Fame, which cited his influence as a mentor to radio programmers and his achievement in programming the most listened to country radio station of all time .

In 2007, Ed Salamon joined more than two dozen other radio and music industry luminaries as members of the Nominating Committee of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

Ed Salamon began teaching Mass Communications as an adjunct professor at Middle Tennessee State University in 2003.