Industry News

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai will leave the FCC in January.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve at the Federal Communications Commission, including as chairman of the FCC over the past four years,” he said in a statement.

Pai is a Republican who departs ahead of an expected new chair being appointed by President-elect Joe Biden.

“I am grateful to President Trump for giving me the opportunity to lead the agency in 2017, to President Obama for appointing me as a commissioner in 2012, and to Senate Majority Leader McConnell and the Senate for twice confirming me. To be the first Asian-American to chair the FCC has been a particular privilege. As I often say: only in America.”

[Read Radio World’s interview with Ajit Pai shortly after he took the reins as chair in 2017.]

Pai has been a cheerleader for radio in his tenure, often speaking about the importance of the medium in American life, and he has sought to help bolster AM broadcasters in particular through a series of “revitalization” measures. He also has pushed efforts to streamline processes and reduce regulations. Among many changes during his tenure was the elimination of the main studio rule.

Pai thanked the FCC’s “talented staff” and said they “performed heroically, especially during the pandemic.”

“It’s also been an honor to work with my fellow commissioners to execute a strong and broad agenda.  Together, we’ve delivered for the American people over the past four years: closing the digital divide; promoting innovation and competition, from 5G on the ground to broadband from space; protecting consumers; and advancing public safety.  And this FCC has not shied away from making tough choices.  As a result, our nation’s communications networks are now faster, stronger, and more widely deployed than ever before.”

Among the highlights he cited are “reforms we have instituted to make the agency more accountable to the American people.  In particular, for the first time ever, we’ve made public drafts of the proposals and orders slated for a vote three weeks before the agency’s monthly meetings, making this the most transparent FCC in history.”

The post Chairman Pai Will Leave FCC in January appeared first on Radio World.

Radio World’s free ebook “Console Tech 2021” is about how the physical and virtual surfaces that radio stations and online audio creators use are evolving.

Five manufacturers discuss specific features or designs that they’re implementing in their new offerings; and several dozen radio engineers and owners talk about the consoles they’re using, including both old and new models, and what they like about them.

Read it here.

The post Console Tech 2021: A New Ebook appeared first on Radio World.

Radio industry veteran Brad Nolan has launched Podcave, an all-in-one podcasting management and publishing platform, intended to support users through every step of podcasting, from show planning and guest booking, to publishing and promotion.

Using SaaS technology to provide professional tools and structure on a single platform, Podcast offers audio hosting powered in the background by OmnyStudio with included IAB-certified analytics. Elsewhere in the software is a complete episode planning suite that includes guest management, a segment planner, a music library (powered by radio imaging company Benztown), a trending topic/source finder, and a “Record Assist” focus mode for while users are recording an episode.

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

An internal promotion engine includes scheduling social media, notifying guests of their episode release, email marketing and text/SMS marketing. Users also get a stable, customizable (including custom domain) website powered by PodcastPage.io. Podcave also offers a 30-day free trial.

Podcave’s founding team consists of radio veteran Brad Nolan, who has created radio shows now heard in hundreds of cities, and coached talent at the highest levels of radio broadcasting; John Michael has worked at some of the most influential radio stations in the U.S., including KROQ, JACK-FM, and AMP Radio in Los Angeles; and Nikki Noble has managed online communities in the thousands, ran operations for major companies, and spearheads Podcave’s women in podcasting and social responsibility initiatives.

Info: www.podcave.com

The post Podcave Podcast Production Management Platform Debuts appeared first on Radio World.

The Society of Broadcast Engineers has an incoming executive director, a new website and a pending new technical training program, among other notable changes.

Radio World caught up with Wayne Pecena, recently elected to a second term as president of SBE, to ask him about its priorities in coming months.

The non-profit society is based in Indianapolis, Ind. Pecena is associate director of educational broadcast services at Texas A&M University, which operates the KAMU(FM/TV) public broadcast stations. Appropriately for an SBE leader, he has a lengthy string of certifications including CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB and CBNE; and he is a past recipient of the Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award.

Upon reelection, Pecena noted that the industry and broadcast engineers “have experienced change and challenge like never before. I want to ensure the society brings a sense of normalcy to our members,” through its professional development continuing education, certification and frequency coordination programs.

This conversation includes reference to the pending retirement of John Poray, SBE’s first and only full-time executive director since 1992. James Ragsdale, a former finance executive at Anderson University in Indiana, will succeed Poray in January.

Radio World: This has been a year like no other. Has there been an effect on the society’s activities?

Wayne Pecena: Certainly we have been impacted, while at the same time many things are normal.

The SBE office has remained open throughout the pandemic — granted, in a modified form, observing the restrictions placed by the state of Indiana and the city of Indianapolis. But the office is open and functioning, with all programs ongoing.

We’d been doing webinars for some time. Like a lot of organizations, we were already in that virtual environment, so it wasn’t necessary to hurry and ramp up. But certainly we have increased that.

We have seen phenomenal engagement from our members in the webinars. As of last month we had twice as many participants as the year before, and we haven’t gotten to the end of the year yet.

Obviously our in-person events have been canceled, whether it’s an SBE-only event or related ones — the NAB Show being the biggie that a lot of our in-person outreach is centered around.

Many of our local chapters have gone to a virtual meeting environment. That’s a blessing and a curse, in some ways; everyone probably prefers that in-person fellowship and networking at a chapter meeting. But [we’ve seen] increased attendance in some larger areas where it’s just not easy to get across town to a 7 p.m. chapter meeting; that travel can be significant.

I know I have enjoyed attending many local chapter meetings because of Zoom around the country.

RW: It seems like in the last year or two, there’s been a real mushrooming of resources made available to your members.

Pecena: Since day one of the SBE, professional development, continuing education, has been a priority. And as technology changes rapidly it creates opportunity for further programs.

Even before the COVID pandemic, we had been aggressively ramping up, particularly, our webinar programs. Those have been most popular with our members. You can attend at a prescribed date and time for that live presentation, but we see far more participation on-demand. Those are recorded and available to our members.

The feedback that we get from those programs is very positive.

RW: I understand you’ve got an updated IP networking series coming.

Pecena: That is just one of the webinars planned.

One of the things that we have seen, not just in IP networking, is a need for more in-depth content. There’s a limit to what you can do in a webinar session, which we try to keep to an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.

So for many topics — beginning with our RF 101 series and advanced RF series, a lot of the IP content — we’ve gone to multiple part webinars. There’s an AoIP series that, gosh, I’ve lost count of the number of parts, six to seven, maybe even eight parts.

That’s how we’re addressing more advanced topics, to have enough time to address those topics but at the same time break them into manageable chunks of time. You could offer a full-day, eight=hour seminar, but there’s not many broadcast engineers who have that kind of time to sit in front of the computer.

RW: You have a pretty big change with John Poray retiring as executive director, and Jim Ragsdale coming in. How do you feel about John leaving?

Pecena: Certainly his announcement was a surprise; at the same time it was not a surprise. From the board aspect, we knew that John was going to be retiring soon, but when that announcement came at the first of this year, it still was a shock now that we had a date in front of us.

John has been the face of SBE for 28 years. A lot of growth has occurred over that time, from the office staff that keeps everything running, to the number of programs that are offered. It’s never enjoyable to lose someone with John’s tenure and experience and of course his dedication to the society.

Early in his career, when he came to SBE, he thought he’d probably be at SBE for five years and then move on to the next step up. And here we are 28 years later and he’s still with us.

We offer John sincere thanks and congratulations for his dedication to SBE and everything that he has done. I think it’s safe to say there’s not a program offered through SBE that does not have his personal touch on it in one way or the other. He’s a very engaged leader.

I suppose if you’re going to retire, there’s probably a good time to do that: when things are pretty good. Yes, we have some challenges that the industry presents and the COVID situation has presented. But we have a society that is in sound financial shape. We have successful programs. We have a dedicated and supportive staff that takes care of all of that day-to-day stuff.

If you’re going to say goodbye to 28 years, this is probably a good time to leave, at the top of things.

RW: How did the search go and what struck you about Jim Ragsdale?

Pecena: Our response from potential candidates was a little overwhelming; I personally had felt that if we got maybe 10 applications we’re going to be good, and we had pushing 30. So then we had a different challenge in front of us. How do we weed through this?

We had a dedicated committee led by Joe Snelson, a former SBE president and [who has experience in] the corporate environment. He did a really good job in leading that effort.

We boiled things down to three candidates and engaged in face-to-face interviews in Indianapolis. The three candidates were uniquely different but all viable for the position.

Jim was chosen unanimously by the committee. He did his homework on the SBE. He brought the best perspective of looking ahead. Granted, he was from outside the industry, but at the same time, he had ties to the broadcast industry through family members who were engaged in broadcasting for many years, and he brought solid financial management strengths, particularly in a nonprofit environment, as well as solid reference evaluations from previous roles.

Everyone felt he was that right fit for SBE.

RW: What should we look for from SBE in coming months?

Pecena: I think we step back and take a new breath and give Jim Ragsdale a time to get acclimated. We have several new programs that are launching, I don’t want to remotely suggest we’re just going to stop doing things; but give Jim an opportunity to get up to speed, making his own evaluations. He brings a solid financial background and [can make] his own assessments with that.

And this is strictly a personal feeling, but we probably need to revisit our strategic planning efforts. In our last event about three years ago, we came up with a plan, and many of the aspects of that plan have been implemented. You’ve noticed the new website, for instance; the need for that was identified in that strategic plan.

What was also identified but frankly has not happened has been some of our expanded outreach activities engaging in other related organization’s activities — whether it’s a state broadcast conference or local chapter events. Of course with the COVID situation, that kind of stuff went away.

So I think once he gets a solid footing by mid year, we need to reevaluate our strategic plan. Not necessarily do it all over again, though maybe that’s the best way to do it. In today’s fast changing environment. I’m not sure doing strategic planning every five years is the right time. Maybe it should be shortened a little bit.

Our focus, I think, will continue to be on education certification, our frequency coordination activities that are going on. You don’t necessarily hear a lot about frequency coordination, because it’s going on in the background, but there’s a lot of work that goes into that, particularly with the Department of Defense contract that SBE is involved in.

RW: The direction of membership trends is down over time.

Pecena: Yes it is down, That was a big focus of our last strategic planning effort — ways to increase that membership, and that was the basis of our outreach program.

We still need to focus on the increasing membership.

RW: We’ve seen a lot of attention in the national discussion over diversity, and as we’ve reported, radio engineering in the United States certainly has not got a lot of racial diversity, or age diversity for that matter. What role, if any, does the SBE have in this discussion?

Pecena: That is an aspect that needs to be on our radar. I’ll just say, it honestly has not been a dedicated focus. We have been focused more broadly on increasing our membership by providing desirable, needed services to our members regardless of race or demographic background. I think we have some more fundamental things to work on before we dedicate our resources to a specific area. That’s my personal feeling.

We are working too on revamping our international program, with a new committee chair who is going to take a look at that aspect; that brings more of an international perspective.

RW: SBE has always kept a voice on Capitol Hill when there are technical issues being discussed. Are there things that SBE is following closely in Washington that we should know about?

Pecena: Certainly I think that “spectrum grabs” will continue, and we continue to comment.

When the December SBE Signal newsletter comes out, there’ll be a piece that Chris Imlay wrote regarding some actions questioning the ethics of broadcast engineers in general. I think he’s done a really good job of responding to that.

We’ll continue to do our best to help the SBE make good decisions. A lot of times decisions are made without the true technology impact [being considered]. We’ll do our best to keep our opinions in front of those FCC staffers.

RW: The 2021 calendar already looks different with no spring NAB Show. How are your events and meetings affected?

Pecena: Historically the SBE has two major in-person events a year, the first centered around the NAB in the spring, and then the national meeting, which occurs in the fall, typically in conjunction with a regional broadcasting event. This year it was to be Chapter 22’s Broadcast and Technology Expo in Syracuse, N.Y.

With everything shuffling around and the NAB moving to an October show next year, it was not felt we could do both of those within three weeks; so the 2021 NAB will feature our traditional “NAB events” with that national meeting and awards presentation, which of course this year were done virtually.

It looks good on paper today. We’ll see how things work out.

Everyone is hopeful that we can get back to some in-person events at some point. One of the things we’re always excited to do is our regional Ennes workshops. Outside of one early this year, they were all canceled, so I’m hopeful that at some point in 2021, we can get back to those in-person regional Ennes workshops around the country. We have several chapters or state broadcast associations that are interested in that.

The post Online Resources Blossom at SBE appeared first on Radio World.

One in a series of commentaries about how radio’s technical infrastructure will look in the future.

Michael LeClair is chief engineer of WBUR Boston and former tech editor of RW Engineering Extra. 

I recently moderated a roundtable interview with five leading technologists for the Radio World ebook “Virtualizing the Air Chain.”

We discussed whether the industry is ready for a fully virtual air chain, what kind of obstacles exist, and the implications for radio managers and their suppliers including a discussion of cap-ex vs. op-ex philosophies. You can read that very interesting discussion at radioworld.com/ebooks.

Radio World’s Editor in Chief Paul McLane then posed a related question to me: “All this is happening in an industry that, at least in the United States, suddenly is not required to maintain a physical studio in every city of license,” he asked. 

“This combined with the possibilities in virtualization seems to open some pretty remarkable implications for what a studio air chain looks like in a few years. Am I right in thinking that this is an important angle to this story?”

I replied, and Paul asked me to share my thoughts with readers.

Stretching the meaning

Yes, there’s an angle there; and the engineers in our ebook roundtable were clearly coming from groups that all would find that angle to their advantage.

But I note that satellite distribution already has consolidated the studio into one location if desired. 

The removal of the main studio rule simply codifies the lack of having any presence in a particular market that is associated with their license, except the physical transmitter and their EAS monitoring. 

Stations had already been stretching the meaning of the main studio rule for years of course, both in the commercial and NCE worlds. With music automation, we’re already at the point where the studio portion of the radio station has been virtualized into computers and it happened a long time ago. 

To take EMF and Cox as examples, they appear to be well along in building out the centralized “cloud” infrastructure, but not in the commonly understood sense of moving all their infrastructure into the hands of someone like Amazon, which handles web services for all kinds of web-based businesses

Neither appears to be enthused about the idea of moving their air chain content into a rented site with IT support, no matter how good it is. They are going to model their centralized IT operations like a content distribution site. They may even purchase the support for it if the price is right (as in the concept of “hybrid cloud” that we discuss in the ebook). 

But they don’t seem on a track to ditch all their assets and rent them from suppliers whose primary expertise is web site hosting. For the multiple streams and formats they generate, it could all be done in one location and then spread out across the country to fill in at a selection of stations that works for them. Assembly of localized advertising could be done over the web from anywhere. 

Much of what is streaming on the web has been shown to be aimed at listeners to legacy programming from radio stations. The volumes there are so large that most (if not all) large streamers have already moved to the model of renting out capacity from a CDN, a content distribution network. The station creates a stream they hand off to the CDN, and the CDN arranges the necessary parts and pieces like different versions of the stream (higher or lower bitrate), ad insertion and variable bandwidth upon demand to support a changing number of listeners. Individual stations don’t really have to do much except hand off the content and that could be coming from or going to anywhere in the continental United States. 

Creating live content would still require a studio somewhere — I’m imagining a large and uninteresting warehouse somewhere in the Midwest with 40 voice booths, cranking out the announcer bits and producing local ads when needed. Add in music assembly by automation at the CDN and you are ready to build as many feeds as you need for the broadcast side, using a few successful templates as a start. 

Cloud thinking

I would argue that we’ve already reached this model with existing distribution networks and there’s really nothing new there. 

The new part of the discussion is the idea of moving all the other aspects of the air chain that might normally reside at a transmitter site into this common studio for assembly so that a single stream could be deployed to meet the unique characteristics of a particular station: HD, multicast variations, processing, PPM, RDS metadata, HD PAD and EAS insertion. 

On the other hand, as Alan Jurison of iHeart said during our roundtable, this might be an attractive option to smaller broadcast groups or ones that serve low population areas that have limited local advertising revenue available. 

In order to get 24/7 support they might want to build the automation and the rest of the chain in an actual cloud center, then ship it off to the transmitter. As Philipp Schmid of Nautel said: All you need is an Ethernet jack and you’re all set. 

But it’s true that the pandemic has moved our entire industry into learning the techniques required to assemble a broadcast program largely, if not entirely, from home. These newly learned skills would be at the core of transitioning the industry further to a centralized data center model. 

What do you think the radio air chain of the future looks like? Email radioworld@futurenet.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject field.

The post Groups Will Model I.T. Like a CDN appeared first on Radio World.

John Schneider’s annual salute to radio’s golden past is back with a new edition for 2021.

The highlight of The Radio Historian’s 2021 Radio History Calendar is, as always, the pictures, usually originally black & white and now colorized by John himself.

These pictures include Gene Autrey singing at KMO in Tacoma, Wash., in 1949; bathing beauties on radio and, always eagerly anticipated views of old equipment and radio practices. Some of these are even more interesting in the age of COVID.

Especially fun is the cover shot of NBC Radio’s master control console at Rockefeller Center. It looks like something from the cover of a pre-World War II science fiction book.

Besides the eye candy, the calendar has a seemingly neverending list of important historical radio dates; at least one for almost every day.

Makes a great Christmas gift for that special radio engineer in your life. The price is $24.95, including shipping, in the United States. Foreign purchases are more.

The post 2021 Historical Radio Calendar Now Available appeared first on Radio World.

iCON Pro Audio has released its new Duo44 Live portable/desktop recording interface, intended for podcasting, home recording, live streaming applications and more.

The Duo44 Live is a four-input/four-output USB recording interface allowing full duplex simultaneous recording and playback. There are dual mic/instrument preamps accessed via front-panel combi connectors alongside potentiometers to control the input level of each of the associated analog microphone/instrument inputs, while the rear panel also includes MIDI I/O on standard five-pin DIN connectors.

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

A master level potentiometer is available on the front panel, while the topside-sited monitor knob allows for direct monitoring when turned clockwise and “computer” monitoring (complete with effects while recording by using low-latency ASIO monitoring) when turned anticlockwise. The unit sports D/A-A/D convertors delivering 114 dB dynamic range and provides 24-bit/192 kHz conversions.

The Duo44 Live is equipped with a +5 VDC power supply connector, enabling external power to be supplied when working with a USB-connected iPad, for example, so no need, necessarily, to work with a computer-hosted digital audio workstation. Beyond that, iCON Pro Audio’s (Windows-only) proprietary ProDriver 4 software lets users redirect audio from any source on their computer and also hosts VST or DirectX plug-ins without a DAW.

iCON Pro Audio’s Duo44 Live is available at $169.99.

Info: https://iconproaudio.com

The post iCON Pro Audio Debuts Duo44 Live USB Audio Interface appeared first on Radio World.

The author is chief engineer, Broadcast Operations Division, at Learfield IMG College.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — As the chief engineer of the Learfield IMG College broadcast operations division, my team and I spend our days assuring that all of our broadcast facilities, equipment, remote connections, satellite uplink and internet streaming systems are all operating correctly.

In addition to these tasks, also make sure that our remote crews have all of the equipment and cabling they need to do a complete broadcast. As time has gone on, my expertise has grown to include doing this work for our podcast-creating networks as well.

Learfield started dabbling in the podcasting world a few years ago, and in the last two years we’ve gotten deeper into podcasting and Facebook Live streaming with many of the networks we work with. At this point, we’re using the Comrex Opal for several podcasts.

For example, we use it for a weekly coach’s interview podcast with Kansas State Network, North Carolina State Wolfpack Network and the Wisconsin Badgers Network. Some Learfield IMG College sports networks use podcasting platforms to provide a weekly 10-minute insight into the coming week’s football/basketball game, where the play-by-play hosts often interview an opposing team’s coach.

We primarily use Opal to acquire audio from our play-by-play host talents, who are usually connecting from a home office or from the broadcast studio at their university. We also often use Opal’s second connection to patch in either our coach, or an opposing coach that could be located states away.

We utilize Opal by sending a connection link to guests, who can then connect to it on a laptop or mobile phone with just a click. Because some of our recurring weekly podcasts are streamed live, we use Opal in a live context as well.

When we think about doing an interview, whether with a governor or with talent or maybe even a sports icon, there is nothing better than using Opal to obtain a rich, full fidelity-high-quality audio feed.

We recently used Opal to do an interview on a COVID response with Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa. We sent the link, the governor’s team clicked it and connected to the Opal, and we connected our talent. With no extra fuss, we did a three-way call and recorded it.

The audio sounded incredible — much better coming through the Opal — than we would have had on a standard telephone coupler line.

In our experience, connecting talent and individuals with Opal is very simple. We’ve been able to use this platform across many talent levels — from folks that are not technically inclined all the way to people who are extremely tech-savvy. We’re able to walk most people through it, and once they do it the first time, they’re like “Wow, that was really easy.” And to me, that’s the beauty of this system. We send you a link, you get it on your laptop or on your smartphone, you press the button and talk into it, and you’re basically done.

Comrex Opal is a fantastic solution. We’ve found multiple uses for it: everything from doing a podcast to a phone interview or a three-way call. It’s affordable, and the audio quality sounds like everybody is sitting in the same studio. For anyone in the broadcasting world who wants to put up a high-quality audio stream or audio feed, there’s no comparison to anything else in the market. Opal sounds 150% better than just a standard phone call.

Radio World User Reports are testimonial articles intended to help readers understand why a colleague chose a particular product to solve a technical situation.

For information, contact Chris Crump at Comrex in Massachusetts at 1-978-784-1776 or visit http://www.comrex.com.

The post User Report: Comrex Opal Polishes Podcast Interviews appeared first on Radio World.

Extending its investment in podcasting, iHeartMedia announced a partneship with European podcast platform Podimo to translate and adapt podcasts “across the globe in different languages.”

The announcement was made by Podimo Chief of Strategic Relations Eva Lægdsgaard and iHeartPodcast Network President Conal Byrne.

They’ll start with the true crime podcast “Forgotten: Women of Juárez,” or in Spanish, “Olvidadas: Muertes de Juárez” in Spanish, German and Danish.

The podcast investigates theories about the disappearance of hundreds of young women in the city of Juárez, some found with symbols carved into their bodies or their wrists bound.

The adapted series will be released early next year in 20 countries in Latin America, Spain and the United States, with Germany and Denmark to follow.

The post iHeartMedia, Podimo to Translate Podcasts appeared first on Radio World.

Interconnects hardware manufacturer SoundTools has introduced its new WallCAT 8, a two-gang wall plate with four female and four male XLR connectors.

The plate utilizes eight connectors, allowing the choice of either input or output across four XLR channels. A pair of RJ45 connections in the back of the plate transmit analog audio, AES3, DMX and interCOM signals to multiple locations with a Cat-5e, Cat-6, or Cat-7 cable. All connectors on the WallCAT 8 come preinstalled — ready to go without a need for soldering.

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

Noting that “The WallCAT 4, male and female, have been wonderfully popular products for us,” Dave Rat, designer of SoundTools products wondered if the company could fit eight connectors on to a standard 4-inch x 4-inch wall box plate, and then set out to design it. “The WallCAT 8 is exciting because it allows the same panel to be used as either inputs outputs or any combination,” he says.

As with all SoundTools products, the plate is guaranteed for life by the company’s Happy Human Warranty, he said. “If you need a replacement during the unit’s lifetime, give our team a shout.”

Info: www.soundtools.com

The post SoundTools Launches WallCat 8 Wall Plate appeared first on Radio World.