UPDATED 1:05 p.m. Thursday

KHTS was named the winner in the Most Original Database/Digital Marketing Campaign Category at the inaugural Radio Ink Digital Media Awards, recognizing excellence in digital media from broadcast and online radio, for its information-packed Daily Brief produced by the news team and support staff at the station.

Station co-owner Carl Goldman accepted the award at Convergence 11, the annual conference sponsored by Radio Ink, a national trade publication, at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus, Mountain View, in northern California.

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AccuRadio CEO and Radio And Internet Newsletter Publisher Kurt Hanson won the Luminary Award for his long track record of leadership and expertise in digital media.

The Kidd Kraddick Show‘s kidd.tv took the award for Best Brand Extension Through Streaming, while WEEI/Boston’s WEEI.com took honors for Best Radio Station Website (Markets 1-10).

KHTS was the only honoree based in California.

The complete list of winners:

Luminary Award
Kurt Hanson

Best Brand Extension Through Streaming
Kidd Kraddick, kidd.tv

Best Client-Focused Digital Solution
Greater Media/Detroit
Cyber RemoteT program (Michigan Ford Dealers)

Best Radio App
ESPN Radio App 3.0

Best Radio Station Website (Markets 1-10)
WEEI Sports Radio Network (Entercom)

Best Radio Station Website (Markets 11-100)
MyNorthwest.com (Bonneville/Seattle)

Best Radio Station Website (Markets 101+)
WROK/Rockford, IL (Cumulus)

Best Use of Social Media
WXTU/Philadelphia (Beasley Broadcast Group)

Most Original Database/Digital Marketing Campaign
KHTS/Santa Clarita, CA

“We are very excited to be able to honor those who have done so much to push the envelope in our business, and we look forward to debating who are the most innovative minds in the radio industry,” said Radio Ink VP/GM Deborah Parenti. “The Radio Ink Digital Awards will recognize stations and individuals taking the lead in developing innovative digital platforms that enhance and expand their stations’ brand, and by doing so, impact all of radio’s digital future.”

Goldman said the station was honored for the nomination and credits Radio Ink for some of the inspiration.

“Radio Ink does a masterful job of emails. They were one of the first businesses to embrace the internet and created a daily email for radio broadcasters way before anyone else had this as a vision.”

He said that the KHTS alerts are modeled after those daily blasts.

“I really liked them because I don’t have time to read the newspaper or the time to read the trades (such as Billboard or Variety), I love the idea of just getting shot an email once a day with the news.

The daily briefs also gave him a chance to catch up if he didn’t read them right way.

“I could even sit there every third day with a cup of coffee and make sure I didn’t miss anything,” he added.

Ironically, it was through Radio Ink’s daily email that Goldman realized KHTS was nominated for this special award.

Other nominees in the category were WHTD/Detroit (Radio One), for its mother-daughter Tray Songz ticket giveaway; WDVE/Pittsburgh (Clear Channel) for Jim Krenn Raw web programming; KPWR/Los Angeles (Emmis Communications), for its geotargeted e-mail campaign promoting annual Powerhouse concert and WKLS/Atlanta (Clear Channel) for Project 961 Text Club database marketing.

“I saw in the email we were nominated and then I saw who we were up against,” he said. “It’s like David versus Goliath, we were up against four of the  greatest radio stations in the country owned by major groups with a lots of resources and here we are a mom and pop radio station in suburban Los Angeles and we’re nominated with the big guys.”

KHTS isn’t a newbie on the awards circuit, winning previous awards for emergency coverage, but it is their first time for daily news coverage.

“This is particularly gratifying because this goes beyond the emergencies; it’s something we do on a daily basis and made an extension of our brand.”

Goldman said that people often compliment him on the news briefs and ask how they have become such a positive thing for the station.

“We saw immediately the cross-promotion potential,” he continued. “All things radio couldn’t do, we could now suddenly do on the internet. We could become the newspapers on the internet.  We started out with our site (hometownstation.com) back in 2003, totally embracing the site and the on-air connection.

“We were cross-promoting right from the beginning and realized it was all an extension of the brand,” he said. “It didn’t matter if somebody found out about us through an email they got or through a search engine or the traditional way, hitting a button as they were driving down Soledad Canyon.”

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