Industry News

In a stunning and sudden development, Locast — the controversial local TV via IP-delivery service that built its operation around a donation-based model, thus avoiding retransmission consent fees — has suspended operations.

The decision comes less than 48 hours after a New York Federal District Court declined to honor Locast’s request for summary judgment in a case focused on copyright infringement brought against the operation by the nation’s “Big Four” broadcast TV networks.

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Tieline has released new firmware that allows its Gateway and Gateway 4 codecs to support Ravenna.

“Ravenna is used widely by broadcasters around the world for discovery and advertisement when streaming real-time IP audio,” the company said. “Integrating Ravenna support facilitates interfacing easily between Gateway and Gateway 4 codecs and Ravenna devices over AoIP networks.”

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

The announcement was made by Tieline VP Sales APAC/EMEA Charlie Gawley, who said the addition is consistent with Tieline’s support of interoperability among manufacturers. The Gateway platform, he said, now complies with AES67, ST 2110-30, NMOS and Ravenna.

The firmware is free for current users. Info and download are available on the support page.

Tieline highlights its codecs for applications requiring the streaming of low-latency, high-quality audio over wired and wireless IP transport channels and for integrating compressed and uncompressed IP audio streams around the broadcast plant. “The codecs are often gateway devices in IP networks bridging between wide area network (WAN) nodes that may include the broadcast plant, other studios (interstudio links), production facilities and live events,” it says.

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

 

The post Tieline Gateway Line Now Supports Ravenna appeared first on Radio World.

SPRINGFIELD, VA. — Regular listeners to Hubbard Broadcasting’s experimental AM offering what literally is engineering maestro Dave Kolesar‘s iTunes playlist in “crystal clear” HD Radio may be wondering why they only received the analog signal for the station today.

Kolesar tells RBR+TVBR there’s a perfectly good explanation, and it involves a request from HD Radio’s parent.

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ATLANTA — With its outer bands prompting tornado warnings as a suspicious package led to the temporary lockdown of Concourse F at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport on Tuesday afternoon, Hurricane Ida’s travel complications were somewhat minimal. To the north in Arlington and Alexandria, Va., a ferocious series of lightning strikes pounded the Washington, D.C., suburbs across the 3am hour.

Down in New Orleans, the cleanup from the storm is underway. The damage to the market’s radio and TV stations is now being assessed. It’s not pretty.

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Telos Alliance and Grass Valley announced a partnership that they say brings integrated intercom to cloud production.

This news is primarily of interest in video production, but it may touch some radio broadcasters whose infrastructure overlaps with video work.

Grass Valley is releasing Telos Infinity VIP (Virtual Intercom Platform — shown) on its GV AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform), an intercom offering for cloud-based media work.

“Infinity VIP on AMPP supports essential intercom functionality that is already well known to production professionals, including party lines, IFBs, groups and peer-to-peer communication,” the companies wrote in a joint announcement.

“This new cloud-based production functionality is being beta-tested by All Mobile Video (AMV) and will be live with an AMV customer later in the year.”

The announcement was made by Grass Valley CEO/President Tim Shoulders and Telos Alliance COO Scott Stiefel.

Telos said its Infinity VIP on AMPP cloud server and virtual panel apps are available from the AMPP app store and deploy in the same way as other AMPP applications.

Usage monitoring is consolidated with other AMPP applications to provide single billing.

The post Telos, Grass Valley Partner on Cloud Intercom appeared first on Radio World.

Audio equipment manufacturer Shure has brought a new executive on board to deal with spectrum and regulatory matters.

Prakash Moorut joins as senior director of spectrum and regulatory affairs for the mic manufacturer, whose products include many wireless devices. It is a new position.

“Moorut will be responsible for leading Shure’s efforts to advocate for audio professionals as it pertains to industry regulations,” the company said.

“He will serve as Shure’s point person with regulators, lawmakers and industry associations as well as partner with engineering and product management to create a regulatory roadmap that adheres to current and future policies.”

[Related: “Wireless Mic Industry Debates WMAS Technology”]

Moorut was with Nokia for 10 years, most recently as head of spectrum standardization. Before that he had a long tenure with Motorola. The announcement was made by VP of Quality Ahren Hartman.

Shure noted that wireless mics now play a role not only in broadcasting and film production, but also news reporting, theater, music, sports, worship, civic events, transportation infrastructure and education.

Moorut received a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Ecole Superieure D’Electricite (SUPELEC) in France.

The post Shure Hires Moorut for Spectrum Role appeared first on Radio World.

It was only a matter of time.

The Media Rating Council on Wednesday saw its Board of Directors vote in favor of a suspension of the MRC’s accreditation of Nielsen‘s national television service.

It is also removing the current accreditation hiatus status designation from Nielsen’s Local People Meter and Set Meter Markets and will suspend accreditation for these markets.

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In a statement released midday Wednesday, the MRC said the changes will become effective in mid-September.

The changes come following the August 12 notification by MRC to Nielsen that the possibility of a suspension action for its National Television service had come to fruition. The MRC followed up with a similar warning to Nielsen for its Local Market service on August 20.

Regarding the Board’s decisions concerning the Local Market services, the Board chose to end the hiatus status that had existed for those markets since January 2021 after Nielsen’s confirmation to MRC on August 17 of its intention to add Broadband-Only (BBO) homes to its local panels in October 2021.

“Based on continuing issues with the Local Market services, some of which parallel those of the National Television service, as well as the Board’s assessment of Nielsen’s ability to appropriately integrate BBO viewing at a local market level at this time, the Board additionally suspended the accreditation for the Local Markets as well,” the MRC says.

Commenting on the decision, MRC Executive Director and CEO George W. Ivie said,  “While we are disappointed that the situation has come to this, we believe these are the proper actions for the MRC to take at this time.” He added that the MRC’s Board of Directors, which includes advertisers, agencies, and media companies of all types, “is strongly unified” in its position on the matter.

Meanwhile, Ivie reiterated that the MRC “stands committed in our willingness to work with Nielsen toward the goal of being able to restore accreditation to these important services at the earliest possible time, and it is our hope that Nielsen likewise will continue to engage with MRC and its clients in pursuit of that goal.”

RBR+TVBR has contacted Nielsen for comment.

Images from the Facebook page of Cumulus station WZRH.

A 2,000-foot tower in Vacherie, La., co-owned by iHeartMedia and Cumulus, was destroyed during Hurricane Ida.

According to Jeff Littlejohn, executive VP, engineering and systems for iHeartMedia, the tower held the antennas of FM stations KVDU “104.1 The Spot,” owned by iHeart and licensed to Houma, La., and WZRH “Alt 92.3,” licensed to Laplace and owned by Cumulus.

Both are 100 kW stations.

“We’ve moved KVDU to operate from an existing aux tower and it is still serving the core New Orleans population,” Littlejohn said. “We are reviewing all long-term options.” He said no one was hurt.

WZRH posted on Facebook late Tuesday, “Unfortunately Hurricane Ida did a number to our broadcast tower. If things go according to plan, we’ll be back up at some capacity on ALT923.com and our ALT923fm app. Our hope is to get out as much information as possible to help our communities in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. We live here too.”

The tower is on Dicks Road in Vacherie in St. James Parish. It was built in 1988, according to FCCInfo.com.

Cumulus Media SVP, Technology & Operations Conrad Trautmann said on Wednesday: “Ida created widespread power outages across all of the New Orleans area, impacting all of our stations. Our engineering teams have worked tirelessly and have three of the stations back on the air serving the community.”

The fourth station, he said, was WZRH(FM). He said the Vacherie tower came down with only about 150 feet still standing.

“Thankfully, nobody was injured and we continue to assess the full extent of the damage. Our backup facility for that station remains without power so we are working for another solution to get that station back on air as soon as possible. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the entire community as the recovery process continues and we are doing our part in that recovery.”

 

The post Big Louisiana Radio Tower Comes Down in Ida appeared first on Radio World.

As advertisers wrestled to recalibrate their media spending in the pandemic, they didn’t overlook a “seismic shift” to Connected TV platforms. In fact, eMarketer estimates that “CTV” U.S. ad spending grew by 40.6% in 2020. Today, networks are continuing to place a greater emphasis on CTV within their upfronts.

What does this mean for broadcast TV and its clients? AudienceX COO Jason Wulfsohn shares his thoughts in an exclusive thought piece for RBR+TVBR.

By Jason Wulfsohn

The dynamics of the connected TV market fundamentally changed in 2020.

The sudden and significant audience growth in this channel has altered the trajectory of CTV advertising for the indefinite future.

For challenger and midmarket advertisers, it’s important to pay attention. As CTV grows and evolves, so too does the opportunity for brands with less formidable budgets to
strategically drive performance while tapping into the most powerful branding mechanism in the world.

With the lockdown of audiences in 2020, behaviors altered in many areas of their lives, which included spending a greater portion of their media time with streaming TV services. As advertisers wrestled to recalibrate their media spending in the pandemic, they didn’t overlook this seismic shift. eMarketer estimates that CTV U.S. ad spending grew by 40.6% in 2020 to more than $9 billion. That growth is accelerating this year, with CTV ad spend expected to hit $13.41 billion, and that figure is expected to go on to more than double by 2025.

Today, networks are continuing to place a greater emphasis on CTV within their upfronts. The majority of activity is occurring in programmatic channels, making CTV far more accessible to challenger and midmarket brands than broadcast and linear buys. This year, U.S. programmatic CTV ad spending will grow 54% to hit $6.73 billion, rising another 29 percent next year to $8.67 billion.

Big Brand Interest, Small Brand Advantage

The world’s biggest advertisers have started to get the message on the importance of CTV
within their overall media mix. However, many are still focused and heavily invested in linear broadcast advertising and are only shifting dollars toward CTV audiences at the margins of their spend activity.

For many big brands, CTV represents a way of incrementally extending their audiences beyond what they’re finding with the hundreds of millions they’re spending on linear. For challenger and midmarket brands, the CTV opportunity is quite different. These brands have largely been locked out of traditional TV advertising due to budget constraints. Limited linear TV inventory has typically been the playground of the world’s biggest brands and their correspondingly large budgets.

In this regard, CTV serves as the great equalizer for brands that can’t afford (and frankly don’t need) to buy into linear TV. By enabling smaller-scale buys that are targeted and addressable, CTV represents an asymmetrical solution that levels the playing field for challenger brands looking to drive performance in competitive markets. Even without broadcast-level budgets, these brands can drive share of voice where it matters most and do so in ways that integrate seamlessly with their online programmatic spend.

The CTV ad space will continue to evolve as bigger brands pivot their budgets in this direction, but the digital and programmatic nature of the opportunity—not to mention the growing audience and inventory opportunities—will continue to represent a significant competitive advantage for challenger and midmarket brands that embrace the opportunity. As a result, in the coming years, the competitive brandscape will evolve and diversify as well.

Those who want a preview of emerging category leaders need only tune into the CTV advertising space.

 

DO YOU DESIRE A DEDICATED PUBLICATION DEVOTED TO THE BUSINESS OF CONNECTED TV, INCORPORATING ‘FAST’ CHANNELS, SVOD and OTT? RBR+TVBR wants to know as we plan for the future today? Please share your thoughts with Editor-in-Chief Adam R Jacobson via email at adam@rbr.com.

The National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) and ACA Connects (ACAC), which sponsor the Independent Show, have decided to moved forward with a virtual 2021 event.

This, the organizations say, offers members and vendors with an opportunity to convene as an industry in the safest possible manner amid lingering uncertainty over the appropriateness of large in-person events.

In a statement released Wednesday, ACA Connects Chairman Patricia Jo Boyers explained, “After thoughtful discussion, ACA Connects and NCTC decided to take the Independent Show online next month because of difficult planning issues despite strong enthusiasm for such an important industry event to take place in Minneapolis. It’s the correct decision, with broad support from both ACAC and NCTC members. I’m positive the online event will be a smashing success.”

Outside of her ACA Connects role, Boyers is President of BOYCOM Vision in Poplar Bluff, Mo., a small MVPD and key ACA Connects member.

The 2021 Independent Show had been planned for Oct. 5-6 in Minneapolis; while the event had included a streaming registration option as a convenience for ACAC and NCTC Members who were unable to attend in person, this will now be the exclusive congregation point for attendees.

The decision to host the 2021 Independent Show online will not alter the meeting dates. The event agenda will remain as is, too.

“COVID-19 and the Delta variant have been a moving target. While our plan was to finally meet in-person, it has become more and more clear that it was not the responsible thing to do,” said NCTC CEO Lou Borrelli. “Nevertheless, the online show to me is a can’t-miss program, and I greatly look forward to seeing friends and members on the big screen.”

ACAC President/CEO Matt Polka (pictured, top left) joined NCTC’s Borrelli in endorsing the move to an online show given the current health environment. “We felt that transitioning the entire event to virtual was the best option and in the best interest of our members and vendor partners,” Polka said. “But let’s look at the bright side: We are going to keep all the great content we had planned as well as offer a few fun surprises for those who are registered for the virtual conference.”

Meanwhile, the NAB Show is moving full steam ahead with a full agenda of in-person events at the Las Vegas Convention Center — just days after the Independent Show concludes. The NAB is as of today only offering a smattering of NAB Show digital options; it is believed that the Radio Show is an in-person only event with no events streamed.

The Independent Show is an annual forum created to focus attention on the key public policy issues facing independent video and broadband providers and on other industrywide topics of concern and interest.