Industry News

Although those days of storing boxes and boxes of paper public files on site at a station are gone, the rules requiring broadcast stations to maintain public files is a longstanding one — as it has been for more than 80 years — and is still in place.

So the Federal Communications Commission recent decision to hold two broadcasters to account for failing to keep their online public file up to date is a clear one. Pampa Broadcasters Inc. and Tackett-Boazman Broadcasting are both licensees of commercial radio stations who have decided to enter into individual consent decrees with the commission to resolve political file investigations. A full-power station’s political file is part of its public inspection file.

According to FCC rules, the political public file rule states that radio stations must provide information about public office candidates and advertisers who purchase broadcast time of a political nature. Stations must upload information about such requests to their online political files and those files must be made available for public inspection.

[Read: Consent Decree (Plus Good Behavior) Results in Reduced Forfeiture]

The reason that these files must be complete and up to date is that information in them directly affects the rights of opposing political candidates to request equal on-air opportunities laid out in the Communications Act. “[T]he disclosures indicated in the political file further the First Amendment’s goal of an informed electorate that is able to evaluate the validity of messages and hold accountable the interests that disseminate political advocacy,” the commission has said in the past.

Pampa Broadcasters Inc. filed license renewal applications for its three station but it was unable to prove that it was in compliance with the public file requirements for one of the stations, which includes KDRL(AM), KGRO(AM) and KOMX(FM) in Pampa, Texas.

The situation was similar for Tackett-Boazman Broadcasting. The bureau also suspended processing of the licensee’s applications because of Tackett-Boazman’s failure to certify compliance with its public file obligations for one of the stations, which includes KQBZ(FM) and KXYL(AM) of Brownwood, Texas, as well as KWYL(FM) of Coleman, Texas.

In both cases, the Media Bureau suspended processing of the broadcast licensees’ renewal applications and commenced an investigation into their public files. And in both cases, the bureau agreed to enter into a consent decree with the broadcasters, acknowledging that the COVID-19 pandemic “caused a dramatic reduction in advertising revenues which, in turn, placed the radio broadcasting industry … under significant, ongoing financial stress.”

Under terms of the consent decree, the bureau agreed to process the broadcasters’ pending radio license renewal applications if the broadcasters agreed to adhere to a compliance plan. That plan involves appointing a compliance officer to see that all terms of the decree as enforced including distributing a compliance manual to all employees, creating a compliance training program, submitting a compliance report and promising to report any instance of noncompliance.

The post Political File Slip Leads Two Texas Broadcasters Into Consent Agreement appeared first on Radio World.

For Washington, D.C., area residents, a trip to the beach may involve a drive east on U.S. 50 and an excursion to the beaches of Delaware. Among the towns popular with those in the National Capital Region is Rehoboth Beach.

It is here that a 41-year old FM that is presently “The Talk of Delmarva” is being spun. And, the seller is a “resort” … sort of.

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IBC says its convention in Amsterdam four weeks from now is a “go” and that attendees will not be required to wear masks once they’re inside.

“Following the update on COVID protocols from the Dutch government on Nov. 2, IBC is pleased to announce that its December event can go ahead in a safe and comfortable way,” it said in an announcement.

“As of Nov. 6, the public will be required to wear face masks in public areas where no COVID entry pass is used, including supermarkets, shops, libraries, theme parks and train stations. IBC Show will be exempt from these measures because it is organized within a perimeter where everyone must show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test before entering the premises.”

So IBC2021 attendees will not be required to wear a face mask once they have entered the RAI and are inside the IBC Show bubble.

“Additionally …. bars and restaurants will operate between 6 a.m. and 12 a.m. Guests will be required to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test, the same evidence needed to access the IBC Show. There will also be no change in entry requirements for international travelers, which means the show will remain accessible for almost 100% of IBC’s usual audience.”

A resource guide on its website explains the documentation necessary for international travelers.

Chief Executive Michael Crimp said the latest announcement from the government “will not impact the IBC Show visitor experience but, rest assured, we will be delivering the gold standard in live event safety.”

Related: IBC exhibition protocols.

The post The IBC Show Is “Full Steam Ahead” appeared first on Radio World.

On October 13, RBR+TVBR first reported on the conclusion of Entravision Communications’ licensing agreement with Univision Communications, with Univision opting not to renew the pact at year’s end. As such, Univision will take over the operations of the UniMás and Univision stations serving Orlando, Tampa, and Washington, D.C.

On Friday, it became known that audience measurement services in those three markets will be delivered to Univision exclusively by a company that continues to fuel its desire to compete head-on with Nielsen in the U.S. broadcast TV marketplace.

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On Thursday, no less than eight broadcast media companies released their third quarter 2021 results. The day concluded with concurrent conference calls for analysts and investors from Entravision Communications, and from Salem Media Group.

With Friday’s trading underway, Salem shares were up. And, investors were pleased as the company known for its conservative Talk radio stations and its Christian-themed print and audio media content surpassed analysts’ estimates with its Q3 fiscal report card.

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According to analysts polled by Zacks Equity Research, The E.W. Scripps Co. — a much bigger operation today than a year ago thanks to its merger with Ion Media — was expected to post earnings per share of $0.12 in Q3. That would have reflected an 84.2% year-over-year decline, impacted by fewer political ad dollars.

How did Scripps do?

Much better than those prognostications, thank you. But, it is hardly because of the company’s Local Media unit.

For exclusive perspectives, projections, and visions for the broadcast industry directly from The E.W. Scripps Co. President/CEO Brian Lawlor (pictured, top left), there’s only one place to be on November 16. That’s Forecast 2022, located at the Harvard Club in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Lawlor is appearing in an Executive Super Session, sponsored by Skyview Networks. It’s your chance to see him in person, alongside the industry’s biggest leaders.

Don’t hesitate: REGISTER NOW!!

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It’s perhaps the ugliest retransmission consent impasse seen in recent months. On Friday, TEGNA took things up a notch by going to the FCC by submitting a cross-complaint against Dish for what it says is “its failure to comply” with the Commission’s “Good Faith” rules.

TEGNA also assails Dish for making “material misrepresentations” about its retransmission consent negotiations to the Commission, and to the public.

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From our People News page: At MARC Radio, Jerry Butler has been promoted to market manager for its Gainesville/Ocala operation.

He had joined the company last year to lead its local sales effort. MARC has eight stations in northern Florida. The announcement was made by Dave Cobb, executive vice president.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

Before MARC, Butler was vice president of sales at Music Master and was on the faculty at the University of Florida.

Send People News announcements to radioworld@futurenet.com. We are particularly interested in announcements about engineers and executive leadership.

The post Butler Is Promoted at MARC Radio appeared first on Radio World.

It’s hardly a surprise. The third quarter of 2020 brought broadcast media an incredible amount of political advertising, boosting revenue to unprecedented heights across the broadcast TV landscape.

One year later, with fewer political ad dollars, losses are expected. But, how big the loss is has emerged as the key investor question. At Graham Media Group, the decrease was in the mid-single-digits.

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The author is senior development engineer for Wheatstone Corp.

There’s nothing like a little audio performance testing to cap off a hectic week at the station, especially if you don’t have to haul out the heavy (read “expensive”) equipment to do it.

There are two main things I like to test: the flatness of the frequency response and the distortion added by equipment in the air chain. For this, you’ll need clean test signals and a way to measure those signals after they’ve passed through the air chain.

Measuring Distortion
Obtaining clean test signals is fairly easy. Most audio editing systems have the ability to synthesize low-distortion sine waves and then save them to a file.

I generate and analyze test tones using some software tools written by Sebastian Dunst, available from http://softsolutions.sedutec.de. Note that a license is required to use these tools in a “commercial” environment.

I use the SoftSolutions Multisine audio generator to synthesize single or multiple sine waves of any length or audio level, stereo or mono, and store them as a linear WAV file.

Fig. 1 is the waveform that has resulted from adding a pair of sine waves at 1 kHz and 2 kHz, both at equal amplitude, to create a test signal. Then, with the SoftSolutions AudioAnalyzer software, I can analyze audio saved as a WAV file and display the distortion parameters I’m interested in.

Fig. 2 is the spectral analysis of the waveform from the above example. This would be what we’d see if we had a perfect air chain.

[Read the Complete Oct. 20, 2021 Issue of Radio World Engineering Extra]

If these two pure sine waves are fed through an air chain with no distortion (which isn’t possible, yet — all circuits add distortion), the analyzer would show only the original two signals. As the spectrum analysis shows, the rest of the audio spectrum would be clean — no other signals would appear above the bottom of the display.

But if there were distortion, what would it look like? It might appear similar to Fig. 3, showing many other signals in addition to the first two we started out with. The example is of a severe distortion problem — this air chain would sound horrible on the air!

Frequency Response
The same tools we just used to measure the distortion within the air chain can also be used to measure frequency response.

This time we’ll use the same software tools to generate a test signal that has many sine waves. By then sending this complex signal through the air chain and then looking at it on the analyzer, we’ll be able to see if the sine waves (at different frequencies) are coming back at equal levels.

Fig. 4 is the waveform of a test signal made up of sine waves at 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560, 5120, 10240 and 20480 Hz. In a perfect air chain, the analyzer would show all of the signals at their original and equal levels after passing through the air chain.

Fig. 5 shows that all of the signals are present and that they all reach the same audio level. This represents “flat” (good) frequency response.

What would the analysis look like if there were a loss of low frequencies due to, for instance, dried out electrolytic capacitors in some part of an analog signal path?

It might look like the next display, shown in Fig. 6. Note how the signals at lower frequencies are quite a bit lower compared to the mid and high frequencies. This station would have a “weak” bottom end, no matter what they tried to do with the audio processing.

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There are many tools available, both hardware and software, that can be used to quantify the quality of the station’s air chain. Remember that it is not important which tools are used but rather that they are used to check occasionally to see if the station’s air chain is healthy.

If the air chain isn’t up to snuff, it doesn’t matter what audio processor, transmitter, STL or exciter the station has, because the on-air sound can never be better than that of the weakest link.

The post Audio Performance Testing on the Cheap appeared first on Radio World.