News while I was on vacation: Sara Blakely, Lew Dickey, Josh Murray, Elle Duncan

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 16: Founder of Spanx Sara Blakely speaks onstage at the FORTUNE Most Powerful Women Summit on October 16, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for FORTUNE)

By Rodney Ho

May 19, 2017

This was posted on Thursday, May 17, 2017 by Rodney Ho/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

Here's some bits of news I gleaned from the time I was off on vacation:

(Photo by Joe Faraoni / ESPN Images)

Elle Duncan, the former V-103 radio host who joined ESPN last year, is moving from afternoons to mornings as a "SportsCenter" anchor starting August 28.

ESPN recently cut 100 analysts and reporters. This led to a reshuffling of its on-air line-up as ESPN adjusts to fewer TV viewers and lower ratings.

Lew Dickey, founder and former president and chairman of Cumulus Media who recently left the company, has raised $207 million for an unspecified new business venture, according to Inside Radio. "Demand was strong," Dickey told Inside Radio. "I'm now hard at work looking for a company in media, entertainment or marketing services [with a] value approaching $1 billion. It will be a 'platform company' where we expect to make follow-on acquisitions and will be listed on NASDAQ."
Sara Blakely, the Spanx creator and Atlanta billionaire, will be a guest "shark" on "Shark Tank" next season on ABC for its ninth season for an unspecified number of episodes. Her mentor Richard Branson will show up as well.

Former Atlantan Josh Murray - rejected twice on "Bachelor"-related shows and humiliated afterwards by both women - showed up on Steve Harvey's talk show this past Tuesday to get dating advice and Harvey even set him up on a date. "I feel hopeless," he said. "People are judging about what other people are saying."

Rock 100.5's Jason Bailey and "Southside" Steve Rickman have hired a publicist Lisa Dollinger to provide info about what they're doing. Two items she recently pitched: On May 13, the duo were among the first over the southbound side of the reopened I-85 bridge that had burned six weeks earlier. And on Friday morning, the morning show talked to Candlebox lead singer Kevin Martin about the sudden death of Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell. "I expected him to be that rock star that was 70 years old and still belting it out like the star that he was," Martin told the morning show. "I'm really at a loss."