Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities International Women's Weekend Special. This weekend, we're celebrating the incredible achievements, resilience and contributions of women from iHeartRadio. Join us as we highlight inspiring stories, powerful voices, and the trailblazers who make a difference.
We're celebrating International Women's Day. I'm Natalie Rodriguez and Angela Yee is, among many things, the host of the nationally syndicated radio show Way Up with Angela, your own podcast, lip Service, former co host of The Breakfast Club, entrepreneur, dedicated philanthropist. Yes you are tiny, five to.
Three, Yes, I thought that was average, tiny.
Mighty and gorgeous by the way. Beautiful Caribbean Chinese, yes, yes, and a New Yorker indeed, And as the saying goes, sassy, classy and bad assy because my radio sister right here, thank you so much for joining us. By the way, taking time out from what seems to be a crazy schedule, you're killing it in the R and B and hip hop world, Rock Nation, Jay, Electronica, Juice Bars, what's going on with that?
All right?
Well, now I actually have a coffee shop. Coffee uplifts people literally about a month ago. We just opened up at night. So we did get our liquor license, which was a big deal for us to acquire.
Did Baby Angela grow up say and this is what I'm gonna do? And you did, and you knocked it out of the park.
Ever since I was in kindergarten, I thought I would be a writer, so that was always the goal.
I used to read a lot.
I work with the New York Public Library, and I think that that skill of being able to read and write has helped me in media because this is not anything I ever anticipated that I would be doing. I was always more of a behind the scenes person. I've done marketing, and I was really big on like helping come up with ideas and marketing plans, which is really helpful no matter what to do for a living to be able to write a marketing proposal.
To get to the cash.
And I used to write bios for artists too, But I really grew up working in the hip hop business in management. Than when I had the opportunity to be on the radio, that was with Eminem and that was for his station. I had already worked for him doing marketing for his clothing line. I was like, I mean, how could I turn down that type of opportunity, And then it just went from there. Once I get my foot in the door somewhere, I'm going to take it all the way. So I got my foot in the door.
That audition was like months long of no way, yeah, and coming to work every day like I worked there.
So talent, brains and luck.
Yeah, yeah, all those things have to line up because when you get that luck, you have to be prepared for it.
Do you feel like you have to pay more of your dues than men do?
Oh?
Yeah, I think as a woman in a lot of different industries, we had to pay I know you can you know that, Natalie, we have to pay more of our dues. It's a lot of being more prepared than everybody else. Also knowing what battles you want to fight, because if you fight every battle, you'll never.
Get any rest.
That's why I having other streams of income has always been important to me, and establishing myself outside of just one thing and not being boxed in has also been important because people need to see you as a multi dimensional person and so one of the main things that I think has made me feel more stable and confident
is investments. And I have my real estate license too, and so I've been investing in real estate for over ten years now, and that's something that has definitely made me feel like, Okay, if ever you have to have a decision to make where you don't want to do something anymore, you can do it and have peace of mind.
So working twice as hard as a man is a thing for us women, except that it's kind of like society demands us to do it in heals and spanks and lashes at the same time.
And if you have a kid, you got to also be a mom. You know you're right. And then if you're.
Married or you're in a relationship, you also got to take care of the home. It is a lot of things I think that get put on us and do it all gracefully with a smile, without ever getting mad.
Again. We're talking with Angelie. She is a multi media queen who's taking time out on this International Women's Day. Ever been passed up because you're a woman.
I'm sure. I'm pretty sure I have.
I think not maybe necessarily passed up, but maybe underpaid and undervalued because I'm a woman.
Contrary to that have you ever been promoted because you're a woman.
I doubt it said that, but I will say that there are times that people are like looking for, you know, a woman to do a certain thing. I even think when you think about hip hop, when I see a lot of these you know, sit down roundtable conversations, quite frequently, there's no women involved. You know, sometimes on a podcast they'd be like, oh, we need to find a woman to fill that seat. But they don't look at us
as a person who's going to lead. They always look at us as somebody that's going to be like a support.
Speaking of hip hop trailblazers like MC light, Little Kim, Queen Latifa, who have been some key female figures that have inspired you.
Well, definitely, I would I say Angie Martinez, And it's great because I have an opportunity to work with her now. When she came over to iHeart, it was very exciting for all of us. That's somebody that I've always admired and watched from when I was young and listened to
on the radio. More recently, THEA Mitcham and she's our program director and she's like she got a way bigger title than that but just to have a black woman in that position I had never That was the first time I've ever even had a woman as a boss. And I remember when she was coming, people were like, Oh, what's it going to be like, are you guys going to bump heads? Because I think traditionally people think that women bump heads with each other, and it doesn't have
to be like that. It actually was very beneficial to me to have somebody that was championing me.
We're old enough to where we've seen a transition from before social media to now have social media been a curse? Is it a blessing? And what do you foresee in the future, like in the next five to ten years for the up and coming batch of.
Female social media depending on I'll say this because we grew up without it, and so I feel like now it is more of a blessing for me because I know how to control it, because I can do with that it we have. And I remember I was one of the early people on Twitter, and so when I was on Twitter, people didn't know what it was.
There's videos of like I got TI on there.
Nicki Minaj. I helped her set up her Twitter account because when I was there. No one was really on it, and so I didn't have people to communicate with. Jalen Rose he always says that I'm the person that got him on Twitter.
Angela. If you're a woman, a young woman, what is your message?
My message would be to always be thinking ahead. It's a game of chess, and so just think about if I make this move, here's what can happen. I don't believe that there's such a thing as necessarily bad moves. It's just a series of things that happen. And how do you recover from things? How do you know when it's time to move on? You don't ever want to feel stuck in a position.
Celebrating International Women's Day with Way Up with Angela Yee's own Angela Ye here with me, Natalie Rodriguez. I feel honored to be your radio and multimedia sister. I'm just so impressed by by who you are and what you bring to the table. And I can't wait to see what's next for you because it could be anything.
Well, thank you. I'm looking forward to us doing something.
Let's do it.
Hello.
I'm Deborah Mark. I'm a news anchor on KFI AM six point forty Los Angeles, and we are going to be speaking with Eileen Woodberry. She is the vice president of Marketing for iHeartMedia LA and she oversees the marketing, promotions and events for our music brands in the market and has been with the company for close to thirty years. Welcome and thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
So, why did you choose media and radio for your career?
You know, that's a funny question because I didn't think I was choosing media and radio. I thought I was choosing the music industry. I got into radio because to me that made sense. As in college, I was such a music fan, which most people are, and I'm like, well, I get my music on the radio. I think I want to work in radio. So I was driving around one day and my local radio station ran an ad we're looking for promotion people. So I just went, I'm
going to be in the music business. So that's kind of how it started.
That is so cool. Are you enjoying it?
Well? I did, so, you figure. I went into the music business in my mind, and then I learned about radio, so, you know, I learned where it fit in the music business. But then I learned that it was broadcasting. So yeah, it was really interesting to me. I actually thought, and I think a lot of people my age did at the time, that DJs and personalities picked the music that they were in charge of kind of the content on
the air. So when I got to the station realized there's a machine behind them, yeah, actually pulling the content together. I was like, that's what I want to do. I'm kind of behind the scenes. That's what I want to do, right. Yeah, it was great and here I am, you know, here you are thirty years later.
Yeah, that's amazing. So tell us about your recent experience with the LA five and the importance of community, because obviously that was such a big part. I mean, we had this complete disaster last month.
That's the beauty of local radio is our ability to touch the community where their friend were, who they know, we give them local information. It's really hard to get local information, you know, with the way the news is now national media and social media. So we approach it that way. We know anytime there's a disaster or anything like that, we know that we're the boots on the ground in the community. So it was that way through COVID too, you know what I mean, we did a
lot during COVID, but specifically for the fires. The thing that was different is everybody was affected, but affected differently, right Like, we all know a handful of people that maybe lost everything, some people weren't affected at all, some of us were affected a little. It was scary, it
was frightening, it was all those things. So as a cluster, we got together and the thing that we really wanted to make sure we were doing is partnering with an organization that had real boots on the ground that could really get whatever we were doing, volunteering, donations, cash, whatever we could get in the hands of people right away. And we found an organization to partner with our talent, our promotions teams, our programmers just went nuts on the air.
We had over ten thousand volunteers come, We raised over fifteen million dollars and all of that money is being exercised now, vetted through a company. That's what they do. The organization that we worked with, they're called the Dream Center. They're awesome. They're vetting the inquiries right for the grants, but we're the marketing and the voice boxing activators. So that's what we did, and it was really great experience for all of us.
I actually went and volunteered at the Dream Center, and I couldn't believe how many people were there and all of the things that were donated. I mean, that was just such an amazing experience. I mean, you guys killed it.
Well, we organized it, but look at you and out there and activated the audience. Listens to you. What we did in the background is provide that and then we turn it over to the talent, and you guys are the ones that activated the people. The listeners all participate. It was just crazy clients. Everybody was calling us, who do we talk to? Who do we talk to? What
do we do with our money? And there are big organizations and there's certainly we love working with the Red Cross, but in this specific moment, we were like, these people need something so immediate. Is there's somebody here locally that can get the relief in the hands of the people immediately. And I think that's why it was magic.
I think it was. I think it was magic, And I mean, thank you for your part in that.
It is an honor.
Can you highlight a campaign or an event that you are particularly proud of and why, Okay, this is.
Actually funny to talk about this because of what I just went through today. I think it's the event I'm working on right now. One of the greatest parts of my thirty year plus career in radio is it's always new. Everything's new every year. It's bigger every year, it's different. I hate using jargon, but you pivot every couple of months depending on what's going on. And we've done a big pivot this year, and I'm working on any event that's just massive for us, and it's the first time
we've done it, and there's a lot of firsts. And that's what's excitedating to me about this job as thirty years later, I'm doing a lot of first You're not bored. I'm not bored. I'm learning so much I'm uncomfortable, but I'm getting it done. We're getting it done. It takes a village, and I'm just as I sit here today after the day I just had, I can't wait to announce this event. I wish I could tell more.
We're not.
I was going to say, can you tell us what it is?
But I get it. I respect that we're announcing it in a couple of weeks, but I'm so excited and we just got over some major hurdles and I am pretty proud of that right now.
So my next question was going to be what's the biggest challenge you face? But it sounds like this is it?
Yeah?
It is. You know, challenges are just changing environments, whether it's economic environments or pandemics or just everything. When you look at us, I'll go back to the pandemic again. We're a marketing, promotions, and events department and all of those things were shut down across the board, right, so we really had to regroup and figure out how to do virtual events and I had to become a COVID
compliance officer. So it's just a constant what are the current conditions right now and what do we need to do and how do we pivot and how do we make this happen? And then encouraging my team through it. I sometimes turn off that team's call and just like go walk in the other room and just take deep breaths. But when you're with your team, right, it's great, you guys, how can we do it? What are we going to do different today? Come on, what are your ideas? You know that kind of thing.
Well, how do you balance your personal life and your professional life. Gosh, No, you just do it.
You do what you want to do, and I want to balance it. And that's something that I think I do really well. And I look at everything through the lens of faith, and I believe I'm in the position that I'm in for a purpose. I feel like my talents are really used here, and I feel like I'll be here as long as God wants me here. And I'm going to do a good job. And I want to do a great job at work and I want to have a great life at home. So you just do it. I want to do it, So I do it.
You know what, I'm going to go have dinner with my husband tonight. Yes, cut down, I'm going to go. I have this thing where I want to walk fifteen thousand steps a day. I just got to do it. I schedule it on my calendar for twenty minute one. I'll take a call, answer emails. You can do it. So that's it. You decide to do it, and you do it.
Who are some women in the industry have inspired you?
I would say early on, there was a woman. She was the first woman general manager that I knew in our company. I thought she was magical, She just had a way about her and she took me under her wing. And I was, you know, in my early twenties, and she was like, I'm going to teach you everything. And I'm like, who am I that this woman is going to teach me everything? Her name is Nancy. Liked her. I ended up going on and working with her for
twenty someone years and she since retired. But I learned a heck of a lot from her poise, humor, smart, all of those kinds of things, and just how to survive. I don't want anybody to take this wrong, but not focusing on the fact that you're a woman. It's just I'm good at my job. I'm right doing it.
But I love I love hearing that other women help women because so often we hear the competitiveness and you know, just sometimes the nastiness, and I know that happens with men, but you know how it's always highlighted with women. And it's so great that your mentor with somebody who is a woman. And I get you don't want to focus on that, but you know, in this day and age, sometimes that's that just doesn't happen off.
Yeah, some people, You're right, they have a different experience. So I feel blessed for the experience that I've had in my life. I've never felt and I know people disagree with me, I've never felt held back because I was a woman, or that I didn't make the same as anybody else. I've never felt that. But I also realized that's because there are pioneers that went before me and paved the way, you know what I mean. And
it's so much more normal now, I guess. But she really just taught me to be And it's like, it's not you're not at any kind of disadvantage. You know you're not. You're just be smart, do what you're doing, raise your hand, go out there, be yourself, and you're going to make it. And so she was amazing.
One last question for you, what advice would you give young women that are looking into getting into marketing and the events field.
I would say, and this is again true of my experience. I know other people have different experience, but you have to be willing to not start at the top. You're probably not going to go in as a manager. You're probably gonna maybe need to start at the bottom and work your way up. Start at the bottom doesn't matter. Let people see you, be the first one there, the last one to leave, raise your hand, no matter what they ask you to do. Let people notice you, and
then sooner or later you're rolling right along. But I just I feel like all the generations are a little bit different, and sometimes I think people come in and they expect to just move up very quickly and to take the world by storm in an instant. It's just yes, if that's your personality, don't want to squash that, but take a minute, try to be a little bit patient, learn don't need everything all at once.
I think it's great advice. Eileen Woodberry, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it.
Sarah span is a journalist, podcast for a TV personality, activist, speaker, and author who has earned an Emmy and Peabody for her sports j After more than a decade at ESPN, she's now turned her focus to espnW, a sports network dedicated to women's sports, and her iHeart daily podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain. And that brings us here today celebrating International Women's Day. So first, Sarah, what inspired you to pursue a career in sports media and of course radio?
I grew up being an athlete, so that was the biggest part of it. I actually wanted to be on Saturday and Live and to you know, comedy and improv and acting stuff. So I moved out to LA after college.
But there had always been this part of me that was an athlete and playing sports, watching sports, particularly the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan as a big fan of So when I moved out to LA to do the comedy stuff, I ended up taking a hosting boot camp in TV hosting and hosted a fake Chicago Bears TV show, and all of a sudden, while practicing for that in class, I realized, Hey, this is all the stuff I love. Why haven't I ever considered this before? So decided to
give the sports media world a world. And I was actually terrified of radio. I thought people would constantly call in and just quiz me on you know, who had the most home runs in nineteen seventy five or something when I wasn't born yet, And instead it became a huge part of my career. So I always think of that as a lesson for me on not shutting any doors or presuming that something isn't a fit before trying it because it ended up being so great to be a part of the radio world.
You talked about being a little bit scared at first.
So what is the biggest challenge you've faced and how were you able to overcome it?
Probably the fact that, unfortunately, even to this day, though things have gotten a lot better over the several decades that I'd been in the business, it still feels like there are a lot of folks who think this is not a space for women, particularly the sports world, and so walking into spaces, and despite being a Division one athlete and an IVY League graduate and a hard worker and all the other qualifications that you would think would at least give you the benefit of the doubt, a
lot of times people assumed that I shouldn't be there. I didn't belong, I didn't know my stuff. I was there for the wrong reasons. I wanted to hook up
with all the athletes. It wasn't about a job, you know, all the stereotypes about women in sports space, and so I would say the most challenging has been not only having to prove myself at every turn in a way that men in the business have not had to, but sexual harassment, disrespect, judgment, just a whole lot of barriers put in place artificially that are not there for men in the sports world.
So who are some of the women who inspired you?
Jamal Hill is a big one.
My former ESPN colleague who saw me hosting a live event for espnW and said, why are you not on TV? And I said, oh, you know, I haven't done enough TV yet for them to really be comfortable putting me up there, just at a little bit of local TV in Chicago, and she said, well, next time I'm out, I'm going to have you fill in hosting my show. And it was a live hour show on ESPN, and I didn't really believe her. In about two months later, I got the call to fill in, and it really
opened up a lot of doors for me. But the way she carried herself in the industry, wanting to lift as she rose, wanting to take other women with her, was a really great lesson.
She's definitely up there.
And then women like Megan Rapino fleets like that, who again are just audacious and outspoken and don't have to try to blend in or be small.
You're talking about being a part of the ESPN W family.
What's it like being able to put women on a pedestal in the sports world by hosting the first ever daily women's sports podcast, iHeart Zone, Good Game with Sarah Spain.
It's incredible.
I am so grateful to iHeart and Deep Blue for the platform because it's something that I you know, in my fourteen plus years on cameraon on national shows, I've been trying to push for more inclusion of the women's sports. They don't have to be siloed in their own space. They can be a part of our larger conversations. But in order to do that, people have to have the
information to care. You know, in the big sports world, we often will talk about a women's season starting, or maybe who won a championship, checking in once or twice. But what we need to do is give it the same respect and care that we do and have for men's sports for decades and decades, which is what are the stakes, story, stats and stars? So why should I care? What does this game mean? Who are the people I should be looking for, who's about to break a record?
And on Good Game with Sarah Spain, we have the opportunity to.
Be the daily voice. There is no other daily women's sports show on radio, TV podcast.
There's not even a website that regularly updates every single day giving you everything you want to know about the WNBA and WSLP, WHL, tennis, volleyball, all the different things, and so getting to be that voice. We take so much care in making sure we have our facts right.
We want to be fun, We want everyone to want to start their day listening to us, and so being given the opportunity to really be that show that everybody's been asking for for a long long time, myself included, been asking to be given the reins to it's pretty awesome.
What's your proudest achievement?
I think I grew up always really saying it was really important to me to do something I was passionate about, and to not be dragging into work every day saying I wish it wasn't here. So I think my proudest achievement isn't just all the accomplishments and opening doors for women and uplifting other women and bringing them along with me and all that great stuff that makes me feel good.
It's a little bit more simple.
It's just the idea of like, wow, I made this thing that I love into my job.
What a cool thing that is.
What advice do you give to the young women who say, you know what, I think, I want to pursue a career in sports and journalism.
I have a lot of advice for them. A couple things.
Number One, it is a nights and weekends kind of job, so you got to love it, and you've got to be willing to put in the work because there are so many people who want to be a part of this space, and they're willing to wake up early and leave late. So really be willing to give it the time it calls for. I would say, have a thick skin. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who will try to make you feel like you're not welcome or you don't belong.
Be ready to just work harder and to prove yourself and to make it clear that they can't say no because you're just that good.
And then I would say, be authentically yourself.
It's very easy to watch other people in the space and say that's what I want to be like and try to sort of copycat, but then you're just going to be a copycat, be rated version of somebody else. Be as authentically and truly yourself as you can, and a lot of people will respond to that authenticity and try to figure out what your strengths are because there are so many people that want to be in the space. Are you super funny? Are you great at the research side?
Are you really good with numbers? Are you a great producer instead of on camera? Do you like long form writing? Like there's so many different outlets in the media space to contribute and finding out what makes you different and separates you is really important to kind of rise to the top.
Anything else you want to add As we celebrate International Women's.
Day, be louder, be bigger, be bolder. Don't let anyone tell you to be small. There's absolutely no space for that.
International Women's Weekend is a great time to talk with powerful women in our broadcast industry. I'm Kathy Walker, Rocky Mountain, Regional news director for iHeartMedia based in Denver. My guest is iHeartMedia's executive vice president for Government Affairs, Jessica Marvin Tano, based in DC. Jessica as a lawyer with a lot of experience on Capitol Hill.
I am the face of our company on Capitol Hill in front of independent agencies as well as the executive branch. And what I do is try to explain what our company is, what we do, what our mission is, what our products are, how we serve our local communities and our customers, and try to help educate those policymakers who are making decisions and writing laws and regulations that impact our ability to serve our customers and to create and innovate new products.
And in the course of your career, what are some of the significant challenges that you faced.
Initially when we started in two thousand and four. When I started at the company, we were largely focused on core communications issues like what's before the FC see what's before certain congressional committees. Now we are starting to focus more on workforce.
Issues and business issues.
Like tax policy, what does it deal with employee employer issues? Things like that where I might not have the training in terms of my legal background. But the great thing is I have access to a whole swath of attorneys that work with us and work for us, and they help me navigate those new and evolving issue areas.
Yeah, so much has changed just in the landscape of doing business.
So what do you see the future.
Of broadcast, radio and digital media in the next five to ten years.
Well, I have to say, I think that the future for audio itself is really bright. Podcasting has been a fun new product that iHeart is right in the front of for front of, and so working with policymakers to see what are the rules of the road for podcasting in a way that allows that medium to develop and allow us to do as much as we can in that space. I think that that's a lot of fun. But free over the air radio is still one of
the bedrocks and communications. It is so important to be able to have a medium there that is free, available to everybody.
And what would you say are the regulatory challenges as it stands now?
Well, you know, one of our biggest things that we're working on at iHeartMedia, we're working in lockstep with the rest of the industry, is to try to keep.
AM radio in cars.
As some ev manufacturers are rolling out new automobiles, some of them are trying to take AM radio out of the car, and that is really a public safety threat because AM radio is the backbone of FEMA's National Public Warning system for the nation.
As you know, AM.
Radio is so resilient it stays up when the Internet goes down during wildfires, during hurricanes, tornadoes, natural disasters of which there have been unfortunately far too many. Radio is always on or it's one of the easiest to get back up if it does go down. But if AM radio is taken out of cars, that's going to be really harmful to the public because they are not going to be able to know how and where to get
important life saving information. We just had the hurricanes whipped through North Carolina last fall, and people literally their lives were saved because of AM radio in terms of we had some of our fantastic an air talent staying in the studio being a lifeline to people in terms of letting them know what the police were saying, what public safety was saying, trying to connect public safety to people who were on roofs of houses of flooding or because of what what else was going on in terms of
how to get to safety. If that platform goes away because it's taken out of cars, it's not sustainable for the industry to survive.
And so that is our.
Biggest challenge facing our industry right now is making sure that AM radio stays in cars.
Who are some of the women who've inspired you.
I know this sounds a little cliche, but my mother is probably the person who's inspired me the most because she juggled family and career in a way that I think was a success on both fronts. And she always inspired me in terms of how to act and how to present myself so that I could go to bed at night without regret. And I think that that's really important. I think for in the other professional capacity, women inspiring me.
I know Governor Nikki Haley, her work has always been very inspiring for me and the women I work inside that I work with inside iHeartMedia, whether it be Wendy Goldberg or Julie Talbot or Julie Donahoe. I've just been blessed with working with very impressive women who are joyful at their work, are willing to collaborate and help, and really don't care who much gets the credit.
That's inspiring in and of itself. That's Jessica Marvin Tanno, Executive vice President for Government Affairs for iHeartMedia, Thanks so much for joining us, Thank you so much for having me.
This International Women's Day.
Nashell has been a presentation of iHeartRadio