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It seems that some of America’s largest and most prominent radio companies didn’t do a very good job at managing their political files until recently.
Six of them — owning almost 1,900 radio stations combined — have agreed to settlements with the Federal Communications Commission. They are iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media, Entercom, Salem Media Group, Beasley Media and Alpha Media.
The outcome feels like something of a “group slap on the wrist,” one that nevertheless seems to carry an FCC warning — or call it a reminder — to the industry.
The six companies agreed to adopt best practices and put compliance systems in place; no financial penalty is involved. The FCC noted sympathetically that radio companies are in the midst of a challenging pandemic and business environment; but it pointed out that it had opted not to pursue “civil penalties” where it could have.
The settlements
At issue are the rules that require U.S. radio stations to keep track of certain information and make it available for public inspection. That includes requests for purchase of broadcast time from candidates for office and from “issue advertisers.” Stations are supposed to upload the information to their online political files “as soon as possible.”
The FCC said it’s crucial that political files are complete and up to date, in part because the information affects, among other things, the statutory rights of opposing candidates to request equal opportunities.
The texts of the six settlements are largely the same, with the FCC noting that each company had voluntarily informed the commission in February that many of their stations had not uploaded the records. Informal discussions at that time led each company to promise to do better and to conduct a compliance report over an immediate test period of several weeks.
In each case, the FCC said that the companies had gotten their act together, showing “significant” or “dramatic” improvement in complying with their political file obligations.
That led the FCC to end the investigation. The companies admit violating the political file obligations, they’ll implement compliance plans and they’ll submit periodic compliance reports.
The commission noted that the pandemic “has placed the radio broadcast industry as a whole under significant financial stress from a dramatic reduction in advertising revenues,” and that the companies’ voluntary disclosure and cooperation, combined with these “exceptional circumstances,” led it to settle.
But it made clear it was giving the companies a break. Sample language: “It is in express consideration of these unique conditions that the Bureau, in the exercise of its prosecutorial discretion, forbears from including a civil penalty on the basis of [a company’s] noncompliance during their license terms as an element of the Bureau’s agreement to enter this Consent Decree.”
The investigation also is one that probably was a lot easier to conduct than it would have been five years ago, before the new online political file process existed. Reviewing the files is presumably far easier for FCC staff now.
The post Big Radio Companies Settle With FCC on Online Political Files appeared first on Radio World.
On Demand screen of the SiriusXM 360L, system as seen in a Volkswagen model
Volkswagen is the latest major car brand to start offering the 360L infotainment platform from SiriusXM.
We’ve been reporting on the rollout of 360L by various carmakers because of its “hybrid” radio features like on-demand content and personalization, continuing a trend in car dashboards to meld broadcast and internet/streaming capabilities to create more powerful audio and content offerings.
General Motors, Audi and BMW have made similar announcements in recent months.
Volkswagen will begin introducing SiriusXM with 360L in most model year 2021 vehicles. Buyers get a three-month trial subscription to SiriusXM’s top tier.
[Read Radio World’s recent special report on hybrid radio trends.]
“For model year 2021, the majority of Volkswagen models receive the all-new third generation of Volkswagen’s modular infotainment platform — MIB3,” according to a press release.
Now Playing screen of SiriusXM 360L as it will appear in equipped VWs“Every model that is equipped with MIB3 will offer SiriusXM with 360L, including the model year 2021 Arteon, Atlas Cross Sport, Golf GTI, Jetta, Jetta GLI, and Tiguan. The Atlas, introduced as a MY21 vehicle this spring, will incorporate MIB3 and SiriusXM with 360L as a mid-year change for MY21.5.”
The announcement was made by Hein Schafer, senior vice president, product marketing and strategy for Volkswagen of America and Chris Paganini, VP, automotive partnerships, for SiriusXM.
The post SiriusXM Adds Volkswagen to the 360L Family appeared first on Radio World.
The World Broadcasting Unions is voicing support for a large broadcaster in the Philippines after the country’s House of Representatives voted to shut down the broadcaster’s TV and radio services, which include 18 FM and five AM stations.
“The House vote on Friday, July 10, puts at risk the employment of more than 11,000 workers and has drawn accusations of an attack against press freedom,” WBU said in a statement. WBU is a coordinating body of broadcasting unions that represent broadcast networks around the world.
“The closure of ABS/CBN is a matter of concern, not just in the Philippines but internationally.”
It said the vote followed a cease-and-desist order in May by the country’s media regulator shutting down ABS-CBN’s outlets, which also include 42 television stations and 10 digital broadcast channels.
WBU said ABS-CBN is the oldest broadcasting network in the Philippines, operating since 1946, “and a vital source of information for tens of millions of Filipinos.” It noted the importance of broadcast media during the pandemic and in awareness of tropical storms.
It asked lawmakers and the Duterte Administration to reconsider renew ABS-CBN’s franchise.
The WBU noted that ABS-CBN has been fighting to retain its broadcast rights after regulators initially turned down its renewal in February. It was operating under a temporary license. Separately the country’s Supreme Court deferred a hearing in the case. “It is unclear what effect the House vote will have on this legal action,” WBU wrote.
WBU’s members are the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, the Arab States Broadcasting Union, the African Union of Broadcasting, the Caribbean Broadcasting Union, the European Broadcasting Union, the International Association of Broadcasting and the North American Broadcasters Association.
The post WBU Asks Philippine Government to Renew ABS/CBN License appeared first on Radio World.
Federico d’Avis is retiring from his position as international sales director of Dielectric; he’ll continue as a part-time consultant to the antenna manufacturer, while John Macdonald takes over his former role.
“Federico was responsible for Dielectric’s growth in the CALA region and Canada over 12 years with the company,” the firm said in an announcement. “He substantially raised Dielectric’s visibility and market share in these regions, and was responsible for the company’s largest regional projects.
[Related: Read other recent People News]
“He also built partnerships in countries that helped Dielectric get closer to its customers. This notably includes Brazil, where he established local manufacturing agreements to eliminate high import expenses, and minimize RF and antenna costs for Brazil’s broadcasters.”
John MacdonaldAmong his projects were an eight-channel FM radio antenna and dual-manifold combiner for CRP Medios y Entretenimiento in Peru; RF and antenna systems for TV Azteca’s national ATSC DTV network in Mexico; and TV channel relocation projects for Canada’s DTV Allotment Plan.
Before joining Dielectric 11 years ago, he worked in microwave antenna sales with Gabriel Electronics and Radio Waves.
John Macdonald has worked with international transmission manufacturers such as Broadcast Electronics, Thomcast and Nautel. He will report to Jay Martin, VP of sales.
Send announcements for our People News column to radioworld@futurenet.com.
The post Federico D’Avis of Dielectric Retires appeared first on Radio World.
The author is radio operations manager for Georgia Public Broadcasting.
ATLANTA — Georgia Public Broadcasting covers local politics across 18 radio stations and nine television stations in the state. Over the past several months, we’ve covered more local, political and live breaking news events than ever, even by election year standards.
This was on top of another major change: In early March, GPB reporters in Macon, Savannah and Atlanta were sent home with laptops, mics and other equipment to ride out the pandemic.
Fortunately, we had the studio infrastructure to do all the above.
In 2018, we moved our offices, rebuilt our studios and repopulated studios with new WheatNet-IP audio networking and LX-24 console surfaces. We built four edit studios and an air studio, production studio and talk studio while transitioning over from our Wheatstone Bridge TDM system to the new WheatNet-IP audio network using a Wheatstone MADI Blade, which let us move multiple audio channels between the two easily.
The talk studio was the last one we completed in the fall of 2019, which gave me a few months to finalize settings and workflows before the pandemic hit. I had spent some time setting up salvos on the studio LX-24 consoles so that operators could interrupt the ENCO automation and mix feeds from any three of the adjoining studios in the facility.
That came in handy during our many live-breaking news events; operators simply press a button on the console that fires off a salvo to interrupt the automation and go live instantly to any of the other studios. I set up a similar salvo routine to stop station IDs from firing during such events, another function that has come in handy.
Finally, to repurpose broadcast television audio for radio, I set up a Wheatstone HD-SDI Blade into the WheatNet-IP network that de-embeds audio from a video stream for direct input to the console and then on-air.
I’ve since added Glass E remote client software for the LX-24 boards so that instead of having someone come in to turn off or on the feed and insert whatever breaks are needed, it can all be done remotely from home. The remote client software mirrors the console so that settings can be changed remotely.
There were practical reasons for upgrading to WheatNet-IP audio networking at the time, but all those paled in comparison to the actual events of the last few months.
Radio World User Reports are testimonial articles intended to help readers understand why a colleague chose a particular product to solve a technical situation.
For information about Wheatstone consoles, contact Jay Tyler in North Carolina at 1-252-638-7000 or visit www.wheatstone.com.
The post User Report: New WheatNet-IP Studios Handle Recent Events appeared first on Radio World.
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