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One major technological innovation in consumer electronics of the past decade is the smart speaker. Increasingly, there are ever fewer homes that you can walk into where devices will not activate when you utter the name Alexa.

The smart speaker performs many jobs in the modern home from turning on lights, acting as a cooking timer, and connecting with search engines. These devices are handy. In many homes, these speakers also serve as a table-top radio. Many users don’t realize that asking an Amazon Echo or Google Nest smart speaker for their favorite radio station actually connects them to the station’s live stream.

Delivering an audio stream to at-home listeners via smart speakers presents new opportunities and challenges for broadcasters. But with the right approach to tackling these challenges, a broadcaster can increase listener engagement and generate more revenue for the station … and isn’t that what station ownership wants?

[Read more articles by David Bialik.]

First, development of a good smart speaker action (for Google) or skill (for Amazon) is imperative. A station should have its own smart speaker skill or action, not relying on the device’s default response. This allows the station to have full control over the listener experience, maintaining their brand, without the reliance on potential competitors (i.e., iHeart and TuneIn) to act as gatekeepers.

Perhaps the station wants to have its on-air talent be the voice for the skill, rather than Alexa or Google’s default voice. The station should think critically about the invocation phrase the audience says to listen to the content. This must be a simple phrase for your audience to remember and, yes, it must be unique!

The difficulty is the uniqueness. Is the station’s name or call letters easy to say clearly without being misinterpreted by the smart speaker as a competitive or out-of-market station? Are the verbal commands going to be easy for the listener to remember?

Picking a unique activation phrase is not an easy task, but it is as crucial as making sure that your FM transmitter is on frequency!

For some broadcasters who use the default skill on the device, the delay between asking to listen to a station and actually receiving audio can be fairly long, sometimes as much as 30 seconds. This delayed response is detrimental to building your audience due to listener impatience.

“The importance of simplicity and having quick stream playback in the action is crucial,” said Eduardo Martinez, director of technology for StreamGuys, whose company creates custom interactions for stations.

This diagram explains the flow of a smart speaker command, in this case using StreamGuys’ services.

During development, skills are tested in a sandbox environment to continually add features or match the interactions available for your needs. Once the developer is happy with the response, the skill is sent for approval (sometimes called certification) by the platform before it is available on the smart speaker. You can always make updates, but those updates also need to be approved.

Skill development is not easy and using an experienced developer is the smart route to getting integrated with a smart speaker.

Second, the listener should be instructed how to install and use the stations’ skill. No longer will you have to turn the dial or press a preset button for your favorite station. Because the station’s skill can have custom invocation phrases and interactions, it’s important the listener be aware of how to use this specific service.

If both live and on-demand content is available, listeners should know how to verbally navigate to both types of content. Custom stills are a great opportunity to prompt listeners to contribute to station programming, such as make song requests, respond to listener polls, or ask a question of an interviewee. A non-profit station could appeal to listeners to submit a donation.

All this advanced interaction increases listener engagement, but requires some listener education to be effective.

Third, the station should sell advertising on the stream to sponsors looking to reach at-home listeners. The convenience of using the voice to interact with a station’s program has pulled in the audience. Now is the time to present advertising packages to sponsors who want to reach these listeners.

Potential sponsors include companies that provide home appliances, such as kitchen and laundry, or home services, such as food delivery, house cleaning, or yard maintenance. Packages could be assembled that only reach smart speakers; most stream ad insertion technologies can target dynamic ads just to these listeners.

Assuring your sponsors that their messaging reaches at-home listeners allows you to charge higher rates for ad placement to their targeted audience. Consumption metrics for both live and on-demand usage by smart speakers are also important data the ad sales team will want to share with sponsors.

The percentage of radio listening on smart speakers will continue to grow as more of these devices find their way into homes. An effective initiative to engage with these listeners should include a custom skill or action, suitable instruction for the audience about how the verbal interaction works, and targeted sponsorship messaging to provide value to advertisers. Together, these components can help increase audience, listener engagement, and revenue as the listening platforms evolve.

Please remember that digital assistants are entering the automotive environment now, too, so the need for good voice commands continues to grow.

The author is a consultant who has held technical broadcast and streaming positions for companies like Entercom, CBS Radio, Bloomberg and Bonneville. He is co-chair of the AES Technical Committee for Broadcast and Online Delivery and chair of the Metadata Usage Working Group of the National Radio Systems Committee. Contact him at dkbialik@erols.com or 845-634-6595.

The post Smart Speakers and How to Talk to Them appeared first on Radio World.

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Audio Division, Media Bureau, Issues Order cancelling Notice of Apparent Liability

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At 103.9 MHz on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is a heritage rhythmic Top 40 station that in recent years has been owned by the Ron Stone-led Adams Radio Group. In June, Stone indicated that the station would be sold, as part of a wholesale exit from the Salisbury-Ocean City market.

Now, it’s official: Adams has spun the last remaining assets it had on the Delmarva Peninsula.

For $550,000, Adams is selling WOCQ-FM 103.9 in Berlin, Md., and FM Translators W282AW at 104.3 in Salisbury and W286BB at 105.1 in Ocean Pines to the Craig Jahelka-led parent of WBOC Inc., known as Draper Media.

It follows the sale of WGBG-FM 107.7 in Fruitland, Md., for $600,000 and the $1.6 million spin of WZBH-FM 93.5 in Millsboro, Del., to Draper Media/WBOC Inc. and the consummation in late June 2021 of the $300,000 sale of WUSX-FM 98.5, with a signal covering Salisbury, Md.; Georgetown, Del.; and the Bethany Beach, Del.; area; to Mark Giuliani-led DataTech Digital.

How does the acquisition of WOCQ fit within local ownership limits? Thanks to BIA Advisory Services, an adjustment of the market definition for Salisbury-Ocean City was made in response to Nielsen Audio inadvertently counting some Draper stations toward the market, although they do not serve the market. This would pair WOCQ with WZBH, WGBG and WBOC-FM.

WBOC Inc. and the Draper family have long been known as the owner of WBOC-16. But WBOC Inc. doesn’t just own this longtime station, which has been a CBS affiliate since 1956. It also owns and operates “FOX21 Delmarva,” housed on a WBOC subchannel; WBOC-LD 42, a Telemundo affiliate; and WRDE-LD 31, an NBC affiliate since June 2014 that filled a local network assignment gap, with WBAL-11 and WRC-4 from Baltimore and Washington, respectively, serving Southern Maryland and WCAU-10 serving Delaware prior to WRDE’s sign-on.

Then, there is the WBOC Inc. radio properties, which had been sold off prior to August 2015. That’s when RBR+TVBR reported on the company’s acquisition of WOLC-FM, in Princess Anne, Md. from Maranatha Inc. The station became WBOC-FM, today an Adult Contemporary station.

The Draper family’s re-entry into radio was accelerated in March 2018. That’s when WBOC Inc., under the direction of Draper Media President Craig Jahelka, closed on its $700,000 purchase of the following stations from MTS Broadcasting in a transaction brokered by Patrick Communications:

• Class C WCEM-AM 1240 in Cambridge, Md., which serves the resort community of St. Michaels and nearby Easton
• Class A WCEM-FM 106.3 in Cambridge, which also serves the communities listed above
• Class A WAAI-FM 100.9 in Hurlock, Md., also serving St. Michaels, Easton and Cambridge
• Class A WTDK-FM 107.1 in Federalsburg, Md., which covers the Delaware cities of Georgetown, Seaford and Milford in addition to Denton, Md.

The 1BCG transmitter used for the original Transatlantic Test Project in 1921

To celebrate the first transatlantic radio broadcast by members of its club 100 years ago, the Radio Club of America (RCA) will undertake a re-creation of the 1921 Transatlantic Test Project transmission on Dec. 12.

Using shortwave, low power and other state-of-the-art technology from the time, the signals the club broadcast in 1921 from Connecticut were heard in Scotland, the Netherlands, England, Germany, Puerto Rico, British Columbia, California and Washington state.

[See More of radio’s history in Roots of Radio.]

Back in 1921, the club said in an announcement about the event, transatlantic wireless was an arduous process done with 250 kilowatt transmitters and antenna superstructures. Ham radio operator Major E. Howard Armstrong, though, worked to secure a 10 foot × 14 foot wooden hut in a farmer’s field in Greenwich, Conn., with a transmitter with an input power of 900 watts. The signal was broadcast using a 100-foot-long and 70-foot-high T-cage antenna with a radial counterpoise at a wavelength of 230 meters.

The event was a watershed, the organization said. On Dec. 12, 2021, at 0252 UTC (9:52 p.m. EST) radio aficionados with a shortwave receiver or have access to an internet radio receiver can tune to 1825 kHz. The transmission will identify as W2RCA and repeat the 1921 Morse Code CW transmission at a speed of 12 wpm.

In addition to the Radio Club of America’s re-creation, The Vintage Radio and Communications Museum of Connecticut will use a replica of the 1BCG transmitter to transmit a similar one-way Morse Code message on 1820 kHz. The message will repeat every 15 minutes starting Dec. 11 at 2300 UTC (6 p.m. EST) through 0400 UTC (11 p.m.) on Dec. 12.

The American Radio Relay League and the Radio Society of Great Britain have assembled a list of other stations and groups organizing events and activities to celebrate 100 years of amateur radio transatlantic communication. Visit http://www.arrl.org/transatlantic and https://rsgb.org/transatlantic-tests respectively.

The post Radio Club of America to Recreate 100-Year-Old Transatlantic Test appeared first on Radio World.

On November 28, every FOX Network affiliate and owned-and-operated station in the U.S. aired what appeared to be a 45-second promotional message that, in its first three seconds, features the Emergency Alert System (EAS) tone. The penalty could be severe for FOX as the FCC investigates the incident.

How big could that fine get? A proposed financial penalty presented to Beasley Media Group for a single instance at a Talk station serving Las Vegas provides a hint at what could come for FOX.

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The fate of Roger Wahl, who could be stripped of the ownership of his Class A FM radio station in Pennsylvania, will become that much clearer come January 13, 2022.

That is the date of an initial status conference to be conducted virtually as part of a Hearing Designation Order led by the FCC’s Administrative Law Judge, Jane Hinckley Halprin.

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Bernie O’Brien in an undated photo.

The author is owner of broadcast equipment company SCMS. He writes here about the recent passing of longtime sales engineer Bernie O’Brien.

Bernie, who passed away on Nov. 22 after a six-month extended illness unrelated to Covid, was a private person but also one who never met a stranger.

He was always more than gracious to assist anyone, in business or in his personal life. He was well known to broadcasters throughout the United States and to many manufacturers with whom he worked over the years.

Bernie joined SCMS about 34 years ago as a sales engineer, having worked previously for David Green and Associates, which was acquired by Radio Resources. In addition to selling for SCMS Inc., Bernie worked with several broadcast groups on a contract consulting basis such as Flinn Broadcast in Memphis.

He was the first field salesperson that SCMS hired and he was a great engineer who loved the industry — a problem-solver. He loved giving each of us answers to our customers’ questions and problems, providing unique technical solutions from his many years of experience. As he would often say, “No problem, chief!”

Bernie was easy to recognize, with his faded blue jeans and handle mustache, and at conventions he could often be found outside having a smoke with his longtime friend Dale Tucker of Radio World or meeting with his close engineering buddy Dave Hacker.

Bernie, we will see you on the other side in Transmitter Heaven.

 

The post In Appreciation of the Late Bernie O’Brien appeared first on Radio World.

LATHAM, N.Y. — Since March 2015, he’d been the VP/GM of TEGNA‘s FOX and The CW Network affiliates serving the Constitution State.

Now, he is joining Hubbard Broadcasting to take the top role at the NBC affiliate serving New York’s Capital District.

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There’s very little in common between CBS and iHeartMedia these days. They’re no longer competitors in the radio industry, and that’s perhaps one reason why a pair of up-and-coming air personalities in the nation’s biggest market have been given the all-clear to be one group of contestants on the upcoming season of one of the CBS Television Network’s top reality competition series.

WKTU-FM 103.5 in New York nighttime pair Lulu y Lala  — a.k.a. twin sisters Marissa & Marianela Gonzalez — are taking their talents on the road, if you will, by seeking to win “The Amazing Race.”

The Latina air personalities are 10-year veterans of radio and TV, and first found fame at Univision as correspondents on the network entertainment show “El Gordo y La Flaca,” following a stint alongside Luis Jimenez in mornings at WXNY-FM “X96.3” in New York. They then worked as co-hosts on the “Ty Loves NY” morning show on what is today WNYL-FM in New York; at the time, CBS Radio owned it and competed against iHeartRadio’s WKTU and Z100 with a Top 40 format.

In November 2014, the Cuban-Salvadoran pair moved to Miami, where they took afternoon hosting duties at Cox Media Group’s WFLC “Hits 97.3” in Miami. Lulu y Lala returned to New York for the WKTU job exactly five years ago.

Viewers to “The Amazing Race” can catch episodes featuring the women starting January 5, 2022. The competition show features pairs of contestants engaging in a series of challenges, both mental and physical, across the globe. The first group to arrive at the final destination will win “The Amazing Race” and the $1 million prize.

The 33rd season will kick off with a special two-hour premiere on January 5, from 8pm-10pm ET/PT. From January 12, it will take the 9pm ET/PT Wednesday time slot. “The Amazing Race” is available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+.

“I am beyond excited to be part of Season 33 of ‘The Amazing Race’,” said Lala. “I promise you will see a whole new side of Lulu & Lala! It’s a special season for sure!” “She’s right! With Lala’s lack of sense of direction and my OCD on wanting to control everything, this season is one you don’t want to miss,” said Lulu. “We hope we make our family and listeners proud!”

The 33rd iteration of The Amazing Race began production on February 22, 2020. Leg 1 was in London, with social media photos showing contestants at John F. Kennedy International Airport and at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Destinations include Scotland, France, Switzerland and Portugal. After three legs, production was shut down. It resumed in fall 2021, and recently wrapped up production, TVLine reports.

“We implemented many new safety features that made this historic season possible, including having the cast and crew fly by private chartered plane,” co-creator and executive producer Elise Doganieri told TVLine in a statement.

Joining Lulu y Lala are married teachers from New Jersey, a married couple from Charlotte, male childhood friends from Sacramento, best friends from mid-Missouri, a father and daughter from Michigan, a Twentysomething long-distance-dating pair, a pair of female flight attendants, “internet personalities” Kim and Penn Holderness, “YouTube” stars Taylor and Isaiah Green-Jones, and singing police officers from Buffalo.

In three weeks, New Year’s Eve will be here, ushering in the end of 2021.

If your TV station is planning their on-air, online and social coverage of New Year’s Eve, perhaps this year’s official Times Square New Year’s Eve content, courtesy of Countdown Entertainment and the Times Square Alliance, is of interest.

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A talk show stunt that aired EAS tones on a Las Vegas radio station may cost Beasley Media Group $20,000.

The rules of the Federal Communications are strict: No transmission of false or deceptive emergency alert system tones or EAS simulations are allowed.

But in September 2020, the commission said, Beasley station KDWN(AM) apparently aired them during “The Doug Basham Radio Show,” a paid programming block, in the absence of an emergency, authorized test or qualified PSA.

The tones were also carried on the HD2 signal of KKLZ(FM) and on an FM translator.

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According to the FCC, Beasley acknowledged the incident, said the station hadn’t previewed the clip and that “immediately after” transmission, KDWN’s board operator “confronted Basham and informed him that the broadcast was impermissible.” The board op also notified KDWN’s program director.

The commission now has issued a notice of apparent liability. “The prohibition on such transmissions has been in place for many years, and the commission has repeatedly made its requirements clear,” it wrote.

The base forfeiture in such cases is $8,000, but the FCC more than doubled the proposed amount, citing “the number of transmissions at issue, the amount of time over which the transmissions took place, the stations’ sizeable audience reach, and the serious public safety implications of the apparent violations” as well as other factors.

Beasley has 30 days to pay or to respond explaining why it thinks the penalty shouldn’t stand.

The post EAS Tone Misuse Draws Penalty for Beasley appeared first on Radio World.

The fate of Gigi Sohn, the White House’s nominee for the fifth seat on the Commission, appears to be a bit cloudier. An Executive Session of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will not consider nomination during a December 15 executive session.

What does this mean for the liberal Democrat assailed by key Senate Republicans for President Trump-era Tweets lambasting Fox News as “state-sponsored propaganda”?

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AEQ said it has incorporated talkback in its line of NetBox routers.

NetBox 32AD MX is an audio matrix with 64 analog, digital and IP inputs and outputs. NetBox DSP has between 64 and 160 inputs and outputs, all of them IP.

“These units respond to the concept of ‘mixed routing,’ in which audio over IP is used, over the AES67 or Dante protocol to simplify wiring and facilitate transport to a router that has, among other things, IP inputs and outputs, and is equipped with features for high-level audio routing and processing,” AEQ wrote.

[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]

Those features include logical line grouping, salvos, macros, agenda, silence detection, time scheduling, level meters, signal generator, audio mixing and processing, IP transport of GPIOs and multiplex group management.

These are managed through a multi-post and multi-user application, based on customized views to control one or more local or remote audio matrices for various uses in radio, television and sound systems.

“For its use in radio, giving way to several correspondents, and in television, operating remote intercom, the Talkback or MPX function has been developed,” AEQ said.

“A ‘Talkback’ group is a combination of input and output lines that allows to automatically execute an N-1 routing between these lines,” it said.

“But to facilitate the work, an additional keypad has been created to the XY screen of the matrix. The coordinator listens to correspondents at will using the PFL buttons. He integrates each correspondent to the program, and at the same time joins him to the talkback group, by means of the Mute OFF buttons (Active in yellow).”

The coordinator speaks to each or all correspondents, using the Talk buttons, during which time the reception of the N-1 from the other correspondents is eliminated or attenuated by 20 dB each.

When a Talkback is created, the inputs, outputs and crossover points involved are cleared or cleared. The gains of all Talkback related crossover points are set to 0 dB.

Send your new equipment news to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post AEQ Incorporates Talkback in NetBox Routers appeared first on Radio World.

He’s been VP/GM of TV stations in Palm Springs, Calif.; and GM of News-Press & Gazette Co. stations serving Columbia, Mo.

He’s also been associated with such stations as WTTG-5 in Washington, D.C.; WBFS-33 and WCIX-6 in Miami; and KPHO-5 in Phoenix over a career that spans 41 years. Now, he’s working for Brian and Pat Lane.

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The “Great Resignation” has defined 2021. Many employees are rethinking what work means to them, how they are valued, and how they spend their time. As workers hit the reset button, sales organizations have a great responsibility to reevaluate the way they attract and retain talent.

Those are the opening words to the 15-page Media Sales Report 2021 from the Center for Sales Strategy, which notes that, according to expert prognosticators, “we are facing a significant war on talent.” In fact, 53% of sales managers already admit recruitment is the
hardest part of their jobs today.

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