TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—The Florida Association of Broadcasters has named Heather Lomagistro president and Chief Executive Officer, effective today.

Lomagistro most recently served as executive vice president and chief operating officer. She succeeds Pat Roberts, the association’s longtime leader, who will transition to the role of president emeritus.

“FAB is strong because of its people—the best executive committee, board and staff anywhere,” said Lomagistro. “My focus is on protecting what makes us special, sharpening how we operate, and making sure we are ready for whatever the future of broadcasting brings — with Florida’s broadcasters at the center of everything we do.”

She also paid tribute to her predecessor. “Pat leaves a legacy few in any industry will ever match. He has been the steady, fierce voice for Florida’s broadcasters, and he built something that will outlast us all,” she said.

FAB Chairman John Soapes and Immediate Past Chairman Lara Kunkler welcomed the transition on behalf of the Board and the Executive Committee.

Soapes reflected on both Roberts’ tenure and the Board’s confidence in his successor.

Roberts first joined FAB in 1987 as a consultant and became President in 1988. He has guided the Association ever since, helping grow it into one of the nation’s most respected state broadcasting associations and a leading voice for Florida’s radio and television broadcasters before state and federal lawmakers, the FCC, and emergency management partners. His nearly four decades of service make him the longest-serving president of any state broadcasters association in the country.

“Leading FAB has been the honor of my career, and it is a place I will always champion. What I’ll carry with me isn’t any one fight we won — it’s the people, the stations, and the communities they serve. Entrusting it to Heather makes this transition an easy one. FAB is in better hands than ever,” said Roberts.

As president emeritus, Roberts will serve in an advisory and advocacy-focused role, lending his decades of experience to support FAB during the transition.

More information is available on the association’s website.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—The Florida Association of Broadcasters has announced that it will recognize some of the state’s most impactful, inspirational, and influential broadcasting legends during the 2025 Florida Broadcasters Hall of Fame Gala and award ceremony. The event will take place at 6:30-9:00 pm on Thursday, June 26th at the Breakers Palm Beach.

The awards presentation celebrates the 2025 class of the Florida Broadcasters Hall of Fame, who have earned a place in Florida’s broadcasting history. They are the pioneers, the innovators, and the stars of broadcasting whose contributions advanced and revolutionized the industry in Florida, the group reported.

This class of honorees includes 4 broadcasters from both radio and television, throughout Florida. Hall of Fame inductees were chosen based on their distinguished professional career directly tied to Florida, devoting a minimum of 25 years to the industry. The 2025 inductees are the leading examples of integrity, innovation, achievement, leadership, and contributions to the industry.

The 2025 Florida Broadcasters Hall of Fame Inductees are:

• Claudia Puig, Chief Communications Officer, Spanish Broadcasting System
• E.R. Bert Medina, President and Chief Executive Officer, WPLG
• Linda Byrd, Retired Division President and Current Advisor, iHeart Media
• Steven H. Pontius, Retired Executive Vice President and General Manager, Waterman Broadcasting Corporation

Hall of Fame inductees were chosen from nominations by current and former employees of FAB member station(s). The final award recipients were vetted and selected by the Florida Broadcasters Selection Committee representing the broadcast industry in Florida.

More information is available here.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—The Florida Association of Broadcasters has announced that it will recognize some of the most impactful, inspirational, and influential broadcasting legends during the 2024 Florida Broadcasters Hall of Fame Gala and award ceremony. 

The awards presentation celebrates the first-ever class of the Florida Broadcasters Hall of Fame, who have earned a place in Florida’s broadcasting history. The event will take place at 6:30-9:00 pm on Thursday, June 27th at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida.

The introductory class of honorees includes 9 broadcasters from both radio and television, throughout Florida. Hall of Fame inductees were chosen based on their distinguished professional career directly tied to Florida, devoting a minimum of 25 years to the industry. The 2024 inductees are the leading examples of integrity, innovation, achievement, leadership, and contributions to the industry.  

The inductees are: 

• Ann Bishop. First Female News Anchor, WPLG Miami.
• Bernard “Bernie” E. and Edith B. Waterman. Presidents of Waterman Broadcasting.
• C. Patrick “Pat” Roberts. President and CEO of the Florida Association of Broadcasters.
• Emerson Eugene “Gene” Deckerhoff, Jr. Radio Play-by-play Announcer of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Longtime Voice of the Florida State Seminoles.
• George G. Beasley. Founder and CEO of Beasley Media Group.
• Johnny Magic. Host of Johnny's House Morning Show, WXXL Orlando.
• Richard “Dick” M. Lobo. President and CEO of WTVJ and Former Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau.
• Rush Hudson Limbaugh III. Host of The Rush Limbaugh Show.
• William “Bill” J. Brooks. General Manager of WPTV and Former Chairman of the Florida Association of Broadcasters.

Hall of Fame inductees were chosen from nominations by current and former employees of FAB member station(s). The final award recipients were vetted and selected by the Florida Broadcasters Selection Committee representing the broadcast industry in Florida.  More information is available here. 

TALLAHASSEE, FLA.—About three weeks after Hurricane Irma struck Florida things are largely back to normal for broadcasters in the state, but the memory of the storm remains fresh.

“It was the most massive storm we have ever seen across the entire state. Now things like Hurricane Andrew [August 1992] in one specific market –South Dade County—was a lot worse.

Photo by Kenneth Wilsey

“But this one, the power outage was incredible,” says Pat Roberts, president and CEO of the Florida Association of Broadcasters.

Broadcasters in the state were on generator power longer than Roberts has ever seen, he says.

“Working with FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Administration], [Department of] Homeland Security and the FCC, we were able to get fuel to everybody before they ran out. It was not easy, but we got it there,” says Roberts.

Eight of Florida’s 10 TV markets during the storm were under a hurricane warning or watch and one other was under a tropical storm warning. Only the Pensacola market was unaffected, says Roberts.

In the Florida Keys, which was the state’s hardest hit area, a single radio station, WWUS 104.1 FM Radio US1, managed to stay on the air during Hurricane Irma while cell phone towers and emergency communications were taken out, says Roberts.

“The sheriff lost communications with his deputies when their law enforcement radio system went down” he says. “He went to the radio station to tell his deputies over the air where they needed to go. It was a very strange occurrence to say the least.”

For more than a decade, radio and TV broadcasters in Florida have created informal partnerships to keep the public informed during hurricanes, says Roberts.

The idea is that when viewers lose power, they will tune in their battery-powered radios for storm bulletins and information. TV stations, which typically have larger newsrooms, can provide their coverage to their radio partners for rebroadcast. “These partnerships in almost every county really worked well,” says Roberts.

“Representing them, I could not be prouder of our industry and what we did for the people,” he says.

TALLAHASSEE, FLA.—Hurricane Matthew is expected to make landfall in Florida on Thursday, Oct. 6. Reports of devastating winds and storms, which have already hit countries like Haiti, predict this as being one of the worst storms to hit Florida in years. We talked with Florida Association of Broadcasters President and CEO Pat Roberts on what his organization what measures both broadcasters and their audiences have taken to deal with the incoming storm.

TV TECHNOLOGY: What has Florida Association of Broadcasters done in preparation for Hurricane Matthews?

PAT ROBERTS: First of all, what we try to do is communicate with our members. We did yesterday, we’re getting ready to do another blast email right now. We also work with the state and the FCC to make sure stations know what they’re rights are during a disaster as far as emergency procedures for power, getting fuel.

In Florida, after health care providers and law enforcements, broadcasters are in third place, especially radio. Because when you have a hurricane you’re going to lose power, and then you’re cable doesn’t work, you’re TV doesn’t work, so radio becomes a lifeline to the community when you have a disaster.

But I’ve been here and the broadcasters have been heavily involved before in preparing people for a storm. They’ve been involved in the response during the storm and hopefully have saved lives by telling people what to do. And most importantly, play a major role in recovery on telling people when they can go back, what they can do and where they can go.

Stations in all these markets, and of course this time it literally covers over 60 percent of our population and over half the state is potentially impacted by this. Even Miami will not take a direct hit but it will have tropical storm winds, which means they are going to have power outages even in south Florida as it comes up middle of the coast. Looks like landfall is gonna come in at Melbourne or somewhere near there, or Daytona, and then stay on the coast all the way up to Jacksonville and then into Georgia and the Carolinas.

Good or bad, a lot of the engineers have been here for many years. We have a lot of new general managers, but the engineers know what we have to do after what we went through in 2004, 2005.

TVT: What are the engineers’ main tasks during disasters like this?

PR: Well they need to make sure their stations stay on the air, because they are probably going to lose power, so they are going to be going to generators. I hope and trust they all went out and not only have had their generators checked every month, but they went yesterday and checked if they had fuel.

Back in ’04, we had one station who after getting hit by four hurricanes, their tower site… we literally had to get the Army national guard to take a truck load of fuel to them or they would have gone off the air. We have much better fuel situation in Florida now for everybody, with generators, gas stations and all of that, but they have to make sure they’re ready to go.

The other big thing that Florida did starting after Andrew was partner up television stations with radio stations. So if the radio station doesn’t have any news staff, or a small news staff, television has a mammoth one, so they provide that on their airwaves. So even if you can’t get TV, you can hear the newsroom, and most importantly the meteorologists at the TV stations to tell you what’s happening, when it’s going to happen, and what you need to do.

Pat Roberts

And then we start putting out information on shelters and then we go to recovery, on where you can… what grocery stores, gas stations, what’s open, what’s not open. One thing we started back 10, 12 years ago, we have pet friendly shelters because we were finding elderly and some young people would not leave their pets and they got hurt. So now we have shelters without pets but we shelters that take parts.

Our job is to truly inform the public during emergencies, and I got to be honest, this is when I’m proudest of broadcasters. With all due respect, cable doesn’t really care what happens locally because there are cable networks nationwide. And a newspaper is a day late and a dollar short; you can read it the day after it hits, but you’re not there telling what it is going down. This is when radio especially, and TV feeding their news and information through to radio, not only saves lives but informs the public in real-time what they need to do.

TVT: What procedures have you enacted to keep broadcasting staffs are safe?

PR: All years we put out guidelines and they all know they got to first worry about their staff and make sure their staff’s families who are in an evacuation zone go get a hotel, they need to plan that early. They make sure they have enough fuel and food at their stations to stay on the air. Most of the stations in Florida have been through this enough that they have to be prepared to continue working. They’re not like a restaurant or a hotel, or an auto dealer, or a school system, they can’t leave. Their job during disasters is to be there and speak to their community. Florida broadcasters take that very seriously.