Industry News

The state of California’s corporate HQ count has been the subject of many debates and discussions in recent years. In September 2020, The Hoover Institution noted that even in the economic boom years of 2018 and 2019, 765 commercial facilities left the Golden State.

You can now add the nonprofit owner of the fast-growing KLOVE and Air1 Christian music networks to the mix.

In all fairness to California, however, the move makes sense: It’s packing up and moving to the epicenter of the CCM world.

Educational Media Foundation (EMF), which in addition to the new broadcast radio networks owns and operates the AccessMore podcast hub and WTA Media, is embarking on a three-year initiative that will relocate the company’s leadership hub from Rocklin, Calif., to the Nashville region.

Rocklin is in Placer County, to the northwest of Sacramento on the I-80 corridor connecting California’s state capital to Reno, Nev., and points east.

In an announcement made late Wednesday (3/24), EMF said its global headquarters staff will grow in multiple phases, both from relocating employees and local hiring. A new permanent campus is to be constructed; the exact location is yet to be finalized.

“After much prayer, extensive discussion and research, the EMF Board and leadership team are in unanimous agreement that relocating our headquarters to the Nashville area will position us to fulfill our mission of creating compelling media that inspires and encourages audiences to have a meaningful relationship with Christ,” EMF CEO Bill Reeves said. “This move will enable us to better serve our audiences and deepen our relationships with faith-focused artists, content creators and the recording, film and publishing industries as we continue to broaden our media offerings through radio, film, streaming, live events, books and more.”

While its another blow to California, it’s not exactly a surprise to Sacramento lawmakers: EMF has been growing its Tennessee presence over the last several years. It recently expanded its studio, from which the K-LOVE morning show and Air1 programs now broadcast. The promotions department, AccessMore podcasting, live events and WTA Media teams already have offices in the Nashville market.

Members of EMF’s content division will begin moving into the existing offices and temporary space this summer.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee welcomed the shift of EMF’s headquarters to his state with open arms. “Our state is home to some of the top music, media and entertainment companies, and EMF will be a respected addition to this important sector,” he said. “We thank EMF for its investment in Middle Tennessee, which will strengthen our reputation as a leader in the music industry.”

Reeves added, “The State of Tennessee, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development and the Tennessee Valley Authority have been outstanding partners as we considered, and now pursue, this exciting new chapter in the life of EMF. The Nashville area is the right place for us to be.”

EMF is in the final stages of selecting land locations, architects and building developers.

Once the move is complete, a 39-year history in Northern California will conclude. EMF began life in 1982 with a single radio station in Santa Rosa, Calif. Today, that is KLVR-FM 91.9, the originating KLOVE station for many years. Air1 dates to 1995.

Much of EMF’s growth has come in the last 20 decades, concurrent with growth in Christian Contemporary and worship music’s popularity across the U.S.

One of the nation’s biggest owners of Sports Talk radio stations, with a stable that includes the first-ever broadcast radio facility to adopt the format — WFAN in New York — has agreed to a multi-year partnership surrounding several sports betting audio initiatives with a top online casino and sports betting in the U.S.

It’s the operator of the BetRivers and PlaySugarHouse mobile plaforms.

The agreement between Entercom and Rush Street Interactive makes BetRivers the official title sponsor of the Entercom-owned “You Better You Bet” podcast, hosted by Nick Kostos and Ken Barkley. The program was recently relaunched as part of Entercom’s recently acquired BetQL Audio Network.

Kostos will also serve as a brand ambassador for BetRivers and as the voice of the “BetRivers Sports Betting Minute,” heard on Entercom’s all-sports stations in legalized sports betting markets. Through this vehicle, Kostos and BetRivers will provide sports betting news and information each weekday

“RSI is an ideal partner for You Better You Bet,” said Mike Dee, Entercom’s President of Sports. “The company’s authentic approach to the sports betting marketplace aligns well with Nick, Ken and the hardcore betting audience that consume the nation’s No. 1 fully dedicated daily sports betting podcast.”

“You Better You Bet content” includes a weeknight podcast and video simulcast, available live on Radio.com and on demand where podcasts are heard, as well as the “Bet Rivers Sports Betting Minute,” which are custom content editorial segments on BetQL Audio Network stations nationwide.

I had the privilege of knowing and working with Bob, and Ron Rackley, for over two decades. Their contributions to the AM band are phenomenal!

Bob and I traveled to conduct due diligence on Radio Aahs stations that were being sold to Radio Unica in the mid 1990s. I represented Radio Aahs, as VP of that organization, and Bob was retained by Radio Unica.

[Read: Bob du Treil Sr. Dies, Age 88]

We bonded immediately!

I will never forget the AM 1360 upgrade in Dallas, the system arrived set by Bob to theoretical parameters — it was connected, powered up and the monitor points were in! Bob Love It!

Bob did the tricky KATD AM 990  upgrade that provided an upgrade to second-adjacent KIQI AM 1010 in San Francisco — that was genius!

These are only two examples of the creative engineering that Bob (and Ron and Ben …) have provided to the AM band.

Jim Glogowski, LifeBridge Media Group

The post Letter: We Bonded Immediately appeared first on Radio World.

For the third consecutive trading session on the Nasdaq GlobalSelect market, ViacomCBS shares moved downward. By 12:45pm Eastern, volume surpassed the daily average for VIAC, as investors continued to express concerns tied to a huge equity offering while also suggesting that streaming growth trends may be a tad exaggerated.

The company led by Bob Bakish has now priced its stock offerings. And, it now has to deal with a downgrade from one of Wall Street’s most respected media analysts.

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Digital Alert Systems announced availability of Version 4.3 of its Emergency Alert System software running on its DASDEC-II or One-Net SE EAS devices.

“Version 4.3 is a major release that further expands the security measures already built into the Version 4 software, including the addition of support for single sign-on (SSO) systems such as TACACS+,” the company said in its announcement.

SSO lets a user log in with one ID and password to any of several related software systems. The company said this is the first EAS system to offer that capability, which it said will be of help particularly to enterprise customers that manage dozens or hundreds of EAS devices.

“Whereas previously EAS system administrators were required to maintain different names and passwords for each device, now with SSO they can manage users’ access uniformly and grant or deny access to select individuals with the same tools they use for the rest of the enterprise,” it said.

[Related: “FCC Will Explore EAS on the Internet”]

For users of DASEOC, the company’s system for emergency operations centers, V4.3 also improves connectivity and support for the new FEMA Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Cloud Server changes.

DASDEC-II or One-Net SE customers running Versions 4.0, 4.1 or 4.2 can download the Version 4.3 upgrade at no charge. Registered customers will receive an email with credentials; customers not yet upgraded to Version 4 should contact the company.

The post Digital Alert Systems Adds Single Sign-on appeared first on Radio World.

The Nielsen Total Audience Report’s March 2021 edition is now available for public consumption. And, it’s filled with informative new insights on advertising across today’s media.

Peter Katsingris, SVP of Audience Insights at Nielsen, chats with Adam R Jacobson about some of the key findings in this fresh podcast, presented by DOT.fm.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Peter Katsingris, Nielsen” on Spreaker.

In a first for a television network, Fox Corporation has opted to enable programmatic trading of addressable set-top box (STB) Video on Demand (VOD) by partnering with Comcast-owned FreeWheel.

BE SURE TO FOLLOW RBR+TVBR ON FACEBOOK!

The pact allows advertisers using FOX to reach consumers what the network calls “a path to execute addressable household-level campaigns on any of its content viewed On Demand within the Comcast Xfinity footprint.”

This adds to the programmatic trading capabilities for the FOX portfolio, including free advertising-supported Video on Demand platform Tubi, available on Xfinity X1, Xfinity Flex and Cox Contour devices.

Dan Callahan, SVP of Data Strategy and Sales Innovation for FOX, commented, “As audience viewing patterns increase across more platforms, FOX continues to focus on expanding our addressable capabilities and offering advertising partners multiple solutions for their media plans. Our partnership with FreeWheel enables us to deliver targeted advertising to Comcast households who are watching FOX’s popular series on their VOD
platform.”

The Trade Desk is the first demand side platform (DSP) to complete the integration, enabling advertisers to execute addressable guaranteed campaigns on FOX VOD inventory.

VOD viewing represents an increasing portion of most programmers’ total viewing hours, enhancing the importance of bringing greater data-enablement and automation to this segment of the viewing population.

“Advertisers continue to crave more inventory from TV networks and their supply side partners, which is why this combined solution from FOX and Freewheel hits the mark,” said Jon Tabak, GM of Strategic Partnerships at The Trade Desk. “Historically, TV has been somewhat of a blind spot from a digital advertising perspective. By further expanding our platform’s reach in the TV ecosystem, our clients have a clearer picture of their advertising investment and total impact across screens and devices, especially the biggest screen in the room.”

The partnership with FOX is part of FreeWheel’s overall effort to build programmatic capabilities for addressable television. These capabilities will allow demand partners to target audiences against a programmer’s VOD inventory on a guaranteed, fixed price, fixed volume basis. The goal is to allow advertisers to transact on television and premium video inventory in new ways that continue to meet their buying objectives, while opening up additional scale and increasing demand for media companies’ valuable audiences.

FOX and FreeWheel expect additional integrations with demand partners in the coming months.

At a time when the FCC has taken a renewed interest in beefing up emergency alerting and limiting false alarms in the United States, a new report says cybersecurity professionals believe digital systems used to deliver localized emergency alerts are a top threat to so-called smart city technologies.

The term “smart city” is often used to describe deployment of, among other things, information and communication technologies to improve infrastructure and city services. Critics of smart city technologies point to potential threats posed when local jurisdictions adopt various digital systems.

[Read: 10 Cybersecurity Questions to Ask Yourself]

Emergency and security alert systems, street video surveillance, and smart traffic lights, were ranked as significantly more vulnerable to cyberattacks, according to a survey of cybersecurity experts conducted by a think tank at the University of California, Berkeley.

The school’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC) asked 76 cybersecurity experts in late 2020 to compare the respective risks of cyberattacks against various connected digital systems and the potential impact of successful attacks if they do occur.

The survey ranked emergency and security alert systems that give critical guidance to the public during times of distress as most vulnerable. “Ten of the 76 respondents described how spoofed emergency alerts could cause widespread panic and civil unrest,” according to the report.

Other survey respondents noted the risk of hackers tampering with traffic lights that could cause accidents and gridlock and possibly prevent police, firefighters and ambulances from reaching emergency scenes.

IT security is seen as critical to those smart city technologies, according to the think tank’s white paper. It acknowledges critics who argue “introducing new technologies that increase the connectedness of service delivery systems and government operations with the internet can expose local communities to cyberattacks by a variety of malicious actors.”

The research project was authored by Karen Trapenberg Frick, associate professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, and Alison E. Post, associate professor of Political Science and Global Metropolitan Studies at UC Berkeley, along with several doctoral candidates.

“Our survey results indicate that smart city technologies are not created equally when it comes to cyber-risk. Cybersecurity experts judged emergency and security alerts, smart traffic signals, and video surveillance to be much riskier than many others,” the white paper concluded.

The cybersecurity experts participating in the survey were recruited from academia, government and private industry. The group was also asked to rank the risk of nine smart city technologies, including water consumption tracking, smart tolling, gunshot detection, smart waste and water leak detection.

The authors suggest resources are available for local officials concerned about IT security of their digital systems, including training programs available through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The FCC recently issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) to explore the potential of internet-based EAS alerts, including audio and video streaming services, and whether such a system would have merit or even be feasible.

The post Public Warning Cited as Greatest Cyber-risk appeared first on Radio World.

Detailed rules involving licensing, fees, penalties and the nature of what defines a nonprofit station all came together when the Federal Communications Commission responded to an objection filed against a licensee operating two translators in Georgia.

Renewal applications were filed in December 2019 by Immanuel Broadcasting Network for two FM translator stations — W241AF in Rossville, Ga., and W271CV in Atlanta. The first is licensed to rebroadcast WKXJ(FM), owned by Entercom License LLC in Walden, Tenn., while the second is licensed to rebroadcast station WTZA (AM), owned by Radio Spice LLC.

[Read: FCC Nixes Idea to Rebrand NCE Translator as Commercial]

In March 2020, an informal objection was filed by Triangle Access Broadcasting, of Raleigh, N.C., alleging three things: that Immanuel submitted its application for the translators without the necessary application fees; that Immanuel previously did not pay required application fees for W241AF when it initially licensed the station; and that Immanuel has not paid required regulatory fees outright for either of the translators.

According to Triangle, Immanuel does not qualify for regulatory or application fee exemptions available to licenses of noncommercial educational stations because the translators, according to Triangle, have been operating as commercial stations. Specifically, W241AF retransmits WUSY, licensed by Entercom, as well as W271CV, licensed to Radio Spice. Although Immanuel is a nonprofit entity, Triangle said, it may not claim the nonprofit regulatory fee exemption because it uses the translators for a commercial purpose — contrary to the religious, charitable or educational mandates the Internal Revenue Code.

Triangle also argued that the commission’s rules are “clearly intended to exempt bona fide noncommercial stations from paying fees while subjecting commercial users to fees” and that nonprofits are not exempted from regulatory fees when they operate commercially.

Finally, Triangle argued that even under a nonprofit claim, Immanuel has “operated outside the framework of the Commission Policy on Noncommercial Nature of Educational Broadcasting,” by airing political advertisements.

Accordingly, Triangle urged the commission to allow the licenses for the translators to expire.

The Media Bureau agreed with one of Triangle’s allegations. While the bureau recognized that Immanuel is a nonprofit entity, it found that the licensee does not qualify for the nonprofit application fee exemption because this exemption is limited only to those nonprofits that operate in special emergency radio and public safety radio services.

Similarly, the NCE stations in the FM band are exempt from paying application fees. But to determine if a translator is an NCE station or not, the bureau looks at its primary stations’ status — is it NCE or commercial? According to the applications, W241AF and W271CV rebroadcast stations WKXJ and WTZA, each of which is a commercial station owned by commercial entities.

“We find that translators operate as commercial translators and are not entitled to claim the NCE exemption,” the Media Bureau said in its ruling. Therefore Immanuel should have paid application fees for the translators when it filed its initial application.

FCC rules say that if a fee nonpayment is discovered within 30 days of filing, the application is dismissed and can be refiled again. If the payment isn’t discovered after 30 calendar days, the commission will bill the filer the amount that is due plus a 25% penalty.

In this case, the applications were submitted without the fee and 30 days elapsed since that date. That means the commission will bill Immanuel retroactively and impose a 25% penalty.

But the commission disagreed with the allegation that Immanuel is required to pay regulatory fees for the station too. The bureau said that Immanuel established its status as a nonprofit station under section 501 of the IRS code. “Because nonprofit entities are exempt from regulatory fees,” the bureau said, “we conclude that Immanuel is not required to pay regulatory fees for the stations.”

Finally, the bureau said that Triangle’s argument that Immanuel may not air advertising is a faulty one. The translators are commercial stations and thus the section against advertising — which applies only to noncommercial stations — is inapplicable here. “Moreover, the determination of whether Immanuel is prohibited from airing political advertising under section 501(c)(3) is a determination to be made by the IRS, not the commission,” the bureau said.

As a result, the bureau granted part of Triangle’s informal objection and denied parts of it as well. The bureau also ordered Immanuel to pay a penalty charge equal to 25% of the still-unpaid application fee, which equals $175.

The post FCC Rejects Call to Let Two Licenses Expire Over Nonprofit Kerfuffle appeared first on Radio World.

By Joshua Dudley
Podcast Business Journal

Podcast attribution helps marketers understand how well their advertising dollars are working in their podcast campaigns. Podcast advertising attribution platform Podsights just announced the close of a $4M oversubscribed Seed+ round, led by Newark Venture Partners with participation from Graham Holdings, Aglaé Ventures, and existing investors Greycroft, Supernode Global, BDMI, and Betaworks.

Streamline Publishing’s Podcast Business Journal spoke to Podsights founder Sean Creeley about podcast attribution. It was an exclusive interview.

PBJ: Who do you usually work with?
Sean Creeley: We usually work with some of the larger heads of the market like an NPR, New York Times, or Hubspot to help them understand what is working in podcast advertising. There was a recent survey that measurability and attribution are still the leading reasons why people don’t buy podcast ads, and we’re trying to change their minds and sort of open up the floodgates a little bit to say that podcasting is measurable. We partner with leading ad servers like Megaphone News and Nielson to bring those insights into campaigns.

PBJ: How long have you been in the podcast advertising segment?
Sean Creeley: We started in 2018, and we did really well in 2020 and raised about a million and a half a year ago. We had really good growth through the pandemic, and podcasting, like all industries, was hidden at the beginning of it and then had a nice resurgence come q3 q4 when everybody started to figure out their routines and started looking for additional content in the world.

PBJ: So you think podcast advertising is going to continue to grow?
Sean Creeley: Absolutely. It’s a very powerful medium. I’m sure you can name a couple of brands that you’ve heard because of really high ad recall with specifically some host read first-run ads or host endorsed reads. For the advertisers that need scale, the dynamically inserted ads are even programmatic to an extent. So there’s a little bit of everything for marketers out there, and it’s getting to be a more diverse set of content, which is great to see. We’re just starting to see scale, and with more and more people listening to podcasts, a rising tide lifts all boats.

PBJ: What would you recommend for anyone looking to invest in podcast advertising?
Sean Creeley: Here’s the thing, marketers tend to be biased towards the shows that they listen to, assuming that people that buy their product are like them and listen to the same shows. But what happens is they find out their audience doesn’t like the same shows and those advertisers are never to be seen again.

What we’re advocating for here is more of a thoughtful approach of finding out about the audience a little bit before we push through an ad buy rather than find out after the fact.

The publishers do an incredible job of advocating for podcast advertising and talk about the benefits of the medium, and our job is to put data behind that because at the end of the day, discount codes are not the standard of attribution anymore and we’re seeing a lot more of the big advertisers enter the space.

I think what we’re going to start seeing more of again are the traditional companies that do well and then the larger brand advertisers that want high ad recall in the favorability of these ads.