It has operated an AM and two FMs in the Augusta-Waterville, Maine, market since 2007.
Now, it is converting this long-standing LMA into outright ownership.
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“His career was filled with accomplishments,” begins a three-minute report that encapsulates as best as possible the life and professional career of Ted Koplar.
Koplar, whose family helped make KPLR-11 in St. Louis one of the nation’s most-viewed independent television stations, died April 4.
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Byron Allen has enjoyed considerable growth with his Entertainment Studios film studio and his recently formed Allen Media Group, which presently owns 14 broadcast TV stations. He also purchased well-regarded African American lifestyle and entertainment brand The Grio, in 2016.
With more growth very much part of Allen’s plans, his Allen Media Group arm is partnering with one of the nation’s biggest wireless services companies in hosting a Black-owned Media Summit for a yet-to-be determined day in May — right in the heart of Upfront time.
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A trio of products produced and distributed by Orban Labs have received Portable People Meter (PPM) encoding certification by Nielsen.
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How to U.S. consumers currently feel about the COVID-19 recovery where they live?
Nielsen posed that question to a group of respondents, and it has the answer — along with a host of other data tied to one’s activity tied to health, schooling, employment, and transportation across the now 13-month old pandemic.
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The Hispanic television industry’s Upfront parade was once a “thing,” with lavash presentations and plenty of pomp in between five-star entertainment from the top Latin music acts of the day and open bars galore.
Then came the “total market” mantra, eliminating some unique Upfront events in Midtown Manhattan. This followed the demise of some networks, including Nuvo TV and MTV Tr3s, and COVID-19’s shift of in-person events to virtual affairs.
With early to mid-May still the Upfront window for the TV industry, an upstart Hispanic media company will offer two marketer and advertiser presentations. One is entirely focused on digital opportunities — setting this company apart from its peers.
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In February 1998, Chuck Cotton took on the role of President/GM of what was then AMFM Inc.’ Oahu-based Hawaiian radio stations.
He stayed through the company’s evolution to iHeartMedia, and was the leader of the company’s Honolulu station group in November 2020, when its top-rated Hawaiian Pop station found two of its morning show members in hot water for insensitive remarks made live on the air during a Thanksgiving fundraiser for the needy.
Cotton is now gone from KDDN-FM “Island 98.5” and iHeart’s other Hawaii radio brands. Succeeding him is a new Market President, who takes the role April 9.
Succeeding Cotton is Scott Hogle, who rises from SVP/Sales for the cluster, comprised of the aforementioned “Island 98.5,” heritage Adult Contemporary KSSK-AM & FM, Alternative KUCD-FM, News/Talk KHVH-AM, FOX Sports Radio affiliate KIKI-AM, Rhythmic Top 40 KUCD-FM “93.9 The Beat” and FM Translator “Pop! 99.1,” which is heavy on K-Pop and Asian pop music. He’ll work closely with the programming, business, and sales teams and oversee all of the station’s on‐air and digital programming as well as create new revenue opportunities. Hogle reports to iHeartMedia Markets Group Division President Tony Coles.
“Scott has been an integral part of our success in Honolulu for over 23 years,” Coles said. “His natural gift to connect and lead, his deep roots in the community, and relationships with our clients will enable Scott to build upon the incredible track record of our stations.”
Hogle, like Cotton, has been associated with the stations since 1998, just prior to AMFM Inc.’s sale to Clear Channel for $15.9 billion, consummated in October 1999. The stations entered the iHeart family via an April 1997 purchase of Patterson Broadcasting’s entire group of AM and FMs by Capstar Broadcasting Partners under Steve Hicks.
Hogle began his career in sales at WXRI-FM in Norfolk, which is today WNOH-FM.
Hogle is also the author of “PERSUADE, The 7 Empowering Laws of the SalesMaker,” and is a motivational teacher on the subjects of sales and leadership, both domestically and internationally.
“It’s a great honor to lead the A‐Team for iHeartMedia in Honolulu,” Hogle said. “Nothing is more rewarding than living in paradise and leading for a company like iHeart that embraces our local culture, community, and customers. It’s empowering for us as a team to work for the leader in the media marketplace and love what you do at the same time.”
Hogle is also heavily involved in his community, and is an Executive Board Member for Youth with a Mission. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors for the Salvation Army of Honolulu.
The iHeart statement noting Hogle’s promotion did not address Cotton’s departure after 23 years. Under Hogle’s leadership, KDDN came under fire for comments made during a charity radiothon by morning hosts “Slick Vic” Harris and “KreyZ” Oshiro, in response to a local musician’s tale of homelessness and hunger.
The situation was addressed internally, Cotton said in a statement released at the time; the hosts were fired from the “Island 98.5 Wake Up Crew.” Cotton apologized to the local Hawaiian music artist, Paula Fuga, in person.
— Additional reporting by Amber Hunt, on Maui
Following a report citing three individuals close to the matter that appeared in POLITICO, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) confirmed early Wednesday that its President/CEO — former Oregon Senator Gordon Smith — will transition to a 36-month advisory and advocacy role at the end of 2021.
His successor is the NAB’s Chief Operating Officer.
Smith will be succeeded by Curtis LeGeyt, who will take on the media industry’s largest and most influential lobbying and advocacy association on Jan. 1, 2022.
In a video message to NAB members, Smith said, “It has been my great honor to give the lion’s roar for broadcasters – those who run into the storm, those who stand firm in chaos to hear the voice of the people, those who hold to account the powerful – and to stand with those of the fourth estate who have the hearts of public servants.”
Smith joined the NAB as its President/CEO in November 2009. Under his leadership, NAB saw its New York show grow as the Radio Show evolved to a co-production with the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB). The 9-0 Supreme Court decision in FCC v. Prometheus, which saw the NAB join the Commission in its fight to win approval of cross-ownership rule “modernization” the FCC approved in November 2017, is perhaps the crown achievement of the NAB during Smith’s run as its head.
Before joining the NAB, Smith was a well-admired two-term Republican Senator from Oregon. After leaving the Senate, he served as a senior advisor in the Washington offices of Covington & Burling LLP.
Among those saluting Smith is Hearst Television President Jordan Wertlieb, who serves as the NAB Joint Board of Directors. “Gordon is the ultimate statesman, bringing people together from both sides of the aisle to discuss ideas, find common ground and lead NAB to success on countless fronts,” Wertlieb said. “On behalf of the leadership of NAB, we extend our sincere gratitude for more than a decade of service to the broadcast industry. We look forward to continuing to work with Gordon and benefiting from his guidance for years to come.”
Wertlieb noted that Smith worked closely with the board leadership on a succession plan that will enable him to continue to serve NAB in a special advisory role through December 31, 2024, which includes lobbying on behalf of the broadcasters.
“I am also delighted to share that NAB is in the enviable position of having cultivated top talent within the organization to provide for a smooth and stable transition in leadership,” Wertlieb said. “Curtis has the utmost confidence of the NAB leadership and staff to lead our association into the future.”
LeGeyt has been with NAB for nearly a decade, during which time he led several highly successful legislative advocacy efforts on behalf of broadcasters, including the permanent reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR), inclusion of $1 billion in RAY BAUM’s Act to reimburse stations impacted by the spectrum auction repack, and successful passage of the Music Modernization Act.
Prior to assuming his current role as COO, LeGeyt served for five years as NAB’s EVP of Government Relations. Before joining the NAB, LeGeyt was senior counsel to then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, of Vermont.
“I am honored and humbled to be named the next leader of this great organization,” LeGeyt said. “To represent the broadcast industry and the local stations that bind our communities together in a moment of such tremendous change across the media landscape is a privilege. Our stations’ role in communities across this country has never been more important, and I look forward to working every day to ensure their ability to grow and thrive.”
MORE ON CURTIS LeGEYT FROM THE RBR+TVBR ARCHIVES:
NAB COO Talks Up Radio Value At Senate DMCA Briefing Adam Jacobson What did the NAB’s COO say Wednesday to a group of U.S. Senators regarding the scope of music rights within the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)? Curtis LeGeyt had a lot to discuss, and much of his conversation centered on the role broadcast radio plays in the U.S.Standard General and its leader, Soohyung Kim, may be intent on grabbing greater influence in the broadcast TV company it has invested in.
But, its latest attempt to woo over shareholders may fall on deaf ears. Why? TEGNA stock finished upward again on Tuesday, bringing it to its highest point in five years.
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In November 2019, paperwork was filed at the FCC indicating American General Media (AGM) would be growing its Bakerfield properties with a Class A FM licensed to Arvin, Calif., to the south on a high peak allowing the signal to reach the southern San Joaquin Valley.
It is now known that the deal never closed. Now, this FM is going to a woman in Glendale, Calif., who is agreeing to pay more than what AGM had planned to spend.
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In June 2013, David Walker agreed to purchase a Class C3 FM serving the Lubbock, Tex., market. Today, it is the “Red Dirt Rebel,” focused on Texas-flavored country music.
Walker hopes it will continue to serve as a home for this local music. But, that will only come with more financial stability.
His Walker Radio Group has voluntary filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
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As first reported Wednesday morning (4/6) by Streamline Publishing’s Radio Ink, Bustos Media Holdings has agreed to purchase an FM radio station with a broadcast tower due east of Portland, Ore.
Until recently, covering the Rose City wasn’t possible. Now that it is, Bustos isn’t waiting for the deal to close to attract new listeners. A format change has already transpired at this FM.
How much is Bustos spending to obtain it? We have the details.
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As Q1 2021 came to a close, so did Star Communications Inc.‘s intent to own an AM/FM combo and an FM translator serving a small West Virginia city situated between Charleston and Parkersburg.
The facilities have been sold, and await FCC approval before being handed to a new owner.
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It’s been nine months since Philip Falcone exited HC2 Holdings Inc. under a black cloud, with accusations that Falcone defaulted on loans leading to today’s efforts under new chief executive Wayne Barr Jr. to raise capital by divesting non-core assets.
For Falcone, he’s swiftly moved on, and in Q1 2021 became an active buyer of low-power TV stations through a newly created entity.
He’s at it again, and has just entered the Pacific Northwest’s biggest market.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — When it comes to texting and hand-held communications, there’s perhaps no group of National Capital Region residents more experience and savvy with such devices as the Gallaudet University student body and faculty.
This Northeast Washington institution has provided higher education opportunities to the deaf and hard-of-hearing for generations. While TV has been, along with print media, major services consumed by the hearing impaired, radio has been left out.
American University‘s NPR Member station, across town in Northwest Washington, has changed that — thanks to ENCO.
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To bring WAMU-FM‘s programming to all Washingtonians, the station deployed an enCaption4 captioning system from ENCO.
This generates live, automated transcripts of its on-air audio via the WAMU.org website — not so dissimilar to the audio transcripts of FCC open meetings found on the agency’s website.
As of today, live on-air captions remain in beta test. “We’re working to add live real-time captions to our radio broadcast,” WAMU says. “While we continue to refine this early release effort, please pardon our errors and inaccuracies.”
Interestingly, the caption feed is several seconds ahead of the audio streaming feed; this suggests the captions are synched with the over-the-air broadcast.
The inspiration for WAMU’s captioning project came when a deaf political candidate seeking office in Washington requested to appear on WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show and wanted the broadcast to be accessible to all.
“At that moment, it stood out to us that we hadn’t been serving that important part of the population before and that there was demand for bringing our content to this audience,” said Rob Bertrand, WAMU’s Senior Director of Technology.
For that particular broadcast, the station used a service provider with live human transcription and live sign language interpretation for that particular broadcast. From there, Bertrand knew that a different approach would be needed to serve the hearing impaired community on an ongoing basis. “The timing of the content can be unpredictable, which means we can’t schedule a transcriptionist or sign language interpreter,” Bertrand said. “We realized there was now technology that would allow us to automate the process. Automated closed captioning has existed for television for some time. What if we could take the equipment used to generate captions for TV, and instead use it for radio to bring captions to our website?”
The enCaption4 was selected by Bertrand after learning of lots of positive feedback from broadcasters using it for television. “We did a demo of enCaption4, and our web development team came up with a way to present the captions it creates on our website,” he said.
How does it work?
Audio from WAMU’s Telos Alliance Axia audio-over-IP backbone is converted by an Axia xNode to an AES/EBU signal that serves as the input to enCaption4. Then, enCaption4 ingests the same on-air signal path being routed to WAMU’s transmitter and online streaming encoders, enabling live, 24/7 captioning of all of WAMU’s on-air content. The captions created by enCaption4 are then fed to the station’s website, where they are displayed in a dedicated transcription page.
As a pilot project until now, WAMU developed a small but loyal following, with roughly 150 people routinely watching the station’s captions for around 30 minutes per day. WAMU expects this to grow once the service starts getting promoted.
Furthermore, WAMU plans to upgrade its content management system to allow integration of its internal data sources with enCaption4, thus providing a dictionary that will further increase the accuracy of WAMU’s captions with the spellings of challenging local names and events.
The station also ultimately intends to integrate the captions directly into its core streaming player.
— Reporting by Brian Galante. Editing by Adam Jacobson.
Adam Jacobson is a 1994 graduate of the American University School of Communication.
It started off as a Generation Z and Millennial-focused news and information offering distributed strictly in the “over the top” (OTT) space. Then, it morphed into a MVPD-distributed cable channel.
Now, Newsy is headed to free-to-air television as a “DigiNet,” come this autumn.
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TORONTO — Exactly one year ago, he was named VP/Sales at Specialty Data Systems (SDS), following a 13-year stint as a senior sales manager at Wide Orbit.
Now, this familiar figure to radio station engineering pros is being mourned, as Jon Crossland has died. He was 68 years old. The cause of death was not released. However, SDS President Dave Cole said Crossland’s passing was sudden.
Crossland spent his formative years in Hood River, Oregon. Professionally, his Radio career includes a 12-year stint as a Regional Sales Manager with CBSI/Wicks Broadcast Solutions/Marketron. He also spent some 17 years in radio station management, and is a former Sales Manager at Entercom’s Seattle station group.
Circa December 1979, Crossland was in charge of KBFM-FM “B104” in McAllen-Brownsville, Tex.
— Editing by Adam Jacobson in Boca Raton, Fla.
The growth of iHeartRadio and the reboot of Radio.com as Audacy have certainly gathered the broadcasting world’s attention. What does this mean for TuneIn, which grabbed a significant share of the audio streaming consumer pot in the mid-2010s, only to see key U.S. radio broadcasting companies develop their own “walled gardens,” if you will?
A recent RBR+TVBR column on audio streaming prompted recently arrived TuneIn CEO Rich Stern to reach out, and he’s our guest on the latest InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM.
Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: TuneIn CEO Rich Stern” on Spreaker.
PILOT, the innovation initiative of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), has revealed this year’s recipients of its annual media technology and innovation scholarships.
The awards, valued at $2,500 each, will be presented to four college students — two undergraduate and two graduate — for pursuit of studies related to broadcast or media technology and innovation.
The scholarship program was launched in 2019 and is administered in partnership with the Broadcast Education Association (BEA).
This year’s winners (and the schools to which they plan to apply their scholarships) are as follows:
Eligible academic areas for scholarship applicants include broadcast television or radio engineering and technology, broadcast content creation including sports and news production, web and online media, mobile media, media-related information technology (IT), multi-platform audience measurement and media technology research.
“The NAB is excited to work once again with BEA in presenting these PILOT scholarships to worthy students as they pursue careers in broadcast and media technology,” said Sam Matheny, the NAB’s executive vice president of Technology and chief technology officer. “Helping young people better understand our industry and its challenges will inspire fresh thinking to engage future opportunities.”
BEA Executive Director Heather Birks added that the partnership it has with PILOT “is dedicated to supporting the next generation of media innovators, and these scholarships will further our mission of fostering future leaders shaping broadcast radio and television.”
For further information, please visit nabpilot.org/scholarships.
A key provider of digital media tools and workflow products has purchased an application used around the world by broadcasters, production companies and post houses to streamline content creation workflows.
Genstar Capital’s Telestream is buying ContentAgent from Vecima Networks.
ContentAgent is an application used around the world by top tier broadcasters, production companies and post houses to streamline content creation workflows, built to automate common tasks such as camera card ingest for editorial teams and creating file-based deliverables such as broadcast masters and viewing copies.
“ContentAgent has done very well in the production and post production markets and we intend to bolster continued development and utilize its strengths as we continue to expand into additional markets including creative agencies and corporate enterprises,” said Dan Castles, Telestream’s CEO.
ContentAgent contains a graphic user interface and benefits for those in field production and in the post production process.
The ContentAgent team, based primarily in the United Kingdom, will be fully integrated into the Telestream family.
Existing customers can expect to see additional resources being deployed to support ContentAgent around the world, Telestream says.
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