Industry News

The author is membership program director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. NFCB commentaries are featured regularly at www.radioworld.com.

Radio World has recently hopped in at the right time by leading some important conversations related to radio. In covering the strains that stations face in diversifying their workforces as well as tensions in noncommercial media over dozens of diversity scandals, fresh discussions with readers like you are starting.

Hiring and leadership development among early-career and diverse voices we want to bring in to our stations is one of the more perplexing matters. One reader said it best: we tried, but had a hard time finding the right person with the right skills. This leg of the journey stymies many well-meaning managers. How do we overcome the obstacle?

[Read: Community Broadcaster: Inclusive Service Is the Future]

It is important to approach recruitment with an eye to what you want to see. If you are looking to expand your pool of candidates, you may need to expand your methods for finding them. While personal references, traditional networks and ads in the usual places can be helpful, keep in mind that the people you’re looking for may not have access to the contacts you have, or know yet about the networks you do. A new college graduate, a person of color fresh to the industry or someone whose skills could strengthen your station may simply not have access to the colleague networks we do.

Here’s one idea: have you thought about circulating job postings to groups like the University Station Alliance or College Broadcasters Inc., or reached out to a local university or community radio station? Many university licensees and student-run college radio stations have a steady stream of students who get radio training in many facets of the organization. Those campuses hand out diplomas to seniors each year, and those seniors go into an uncertain workforce. Having talked to many students at CBI’s conferences, I can tell you a lot of them would love to have a career in radio. They just do not realize it is a possibility, so they look elsewhere.

Finding early career and diverse talent for your station may also require you to think deeply about your organization’s needs and screening. Each applicant should get the same questions about the role and be asked to perform tasks required for the position. You might want to be open to skills that translate well to jobs you’re hiring for. In addition, for entry- and mid-level positions, you may be open to more on-the-job training.

Similarly, leadership development is as much about who the candidate is, as it is about the manager identifying an employee’s strengths and helping them cultivate leadership abilities with appropriate mentorship. Those not traditionally associated with radio may not understand the nuances we do, and it takes an astute manager to see how a candidate or new employee’s talents translate to our work. That may not be simple, but it is rewarding.

Of course, some of the big-picture issues may be out of our hands. Owners and our own bosses need to give attention to recruitment and retention organization-wide, as well as helping staff as a whole to be culturally competent in our ever-changing workplace, where five generations now meet. We as well-intentioned managers play a role in being advocates and sounding boards to the higher ups on diversity as well.

Evolving our stations to meet the needs of our communities is exciting work. Those of you thinking about diversity and the cultural shifts we are seeing deserve praise. Just as someone long before took a chance on us, we are in a position to change someone’s life by creating opportunities.

The post Community Broadcaster: Taking Chances appeared first on Radio World.

The author of this commentary is CEO and co-founder of On-Hertz.

As Radio World has reported, the pandemic has caused many radio organizations to pause cap-ex spending and to rethink their facility planning and workflows.

On-Hertz thinks that the industry, in general, is going to need to move more actively towards more agile workflows and operations to survive in the new media landscape.

Concretely, that means accelerating the transition to a fully digital, software-based, live production ecosystem.

We must stay humble: No one could have anticipated a global crisis like the one we are facing. The impact on our industry is severe and, unfortunately, there is no magic bullet.

At the same time, COVID-19 has put in full light some of the challenges that broadcasters have already been facing for some time:

• How to compete with the new on-demand and over-the-internet players?
• How to do it while maintaining the levels of quality and reliability that the audience has come to trust?
• How to stay relevant to our audience and embrace the new ways people consume content?
• How to address the changes in our organizations and production teams when budgets are going down but the demand for content explodes?
• How to shape our operations to stay (become?) profitable while we know that the speed of change is only going to increase from here?

Once again, COVID-19 has highlighted a key element: legacy dedicated hardware infrastructures are just not flexible enough. Worse: They play(ed) against us when trying to ensure business continuity!

The Adaptable Survive

It is not surprising that codec suppliers have seen a large increase in demand for their equipment: Suddenly, distributed operations are the norm rather than the exception.

It is not surprising either that we have all seen and heard many shows trying to carry on using publicly available applications like Skype, Zoom and the likes — often at the expense of quality, unfortunately.

On the other hand, shipping codecs to everyone at the start of the pandemic and trying to replicate the hardware-based infrastructure of the studio have proved to be logistically impossible, not to mention eye-wateringly expensive.

So, are there alternatives?

Evolution is not “survival of the fittest,” it’s “survival of the most adaptable.” At On-Hertz, we believe that involves a shift from legacy hardware-based infrastructures to modern virtualized ones.

We don’t want to “simply” swap out hardware for software, though; we believe the shift towards software-defined infrastructures will bring us three significant advantages: modularity, interoperability and better user interfaces. Combined, these characteristics open the way to better workflows.

This evolution needs to come with a few mandatory pre-requisites like maintaining or even improving the level of reliability, quality and functionality that our industry demands.

We must also capitalize on the tremendous amount of expertise and knowledge that we have collectively built over the last decades. Virtualization isn’t about turning everyone into IT geniuses but offering more opportunities to capture our audience’s imagination.

Modularity will then help us deal with the changing world: It doesn’t matter anymore if you have an X-channel mixers or Z number of codecs. With software, you can simply select the number of channels you need at any moment. If you need more or fewer channels the week after, you can scale accordingly. Likewise, find out what works and what doesn’t much faster than ever before.

Hitting two birds with one stone, modularity also comes with a cost advantage. You don’t need to scale your infrastructure for peak demand anymore. You can scale for the content you want to produce and make sure your cost structure follows your revenue.

The UX is paramount

Interoperability remains one of the major pain points of technical teams today. Who hasn’t heard a story or two full of dongles and converters?

There is no good reason for it. Outdated, insecure, proprietary algorithms and protocols should be things of the past. Instead, offering open (web) APIs allows for easier interconnection between solutions, less customer lock-down for a manufacturer and a lot less unnecessary support for your teams.

In other words, we can rely on technology that is already used at a massive scale by many other resilient industries to provide much greater convenience.

Finally, users, and therefore user interfaces, are of paramount importance. If teams are being reduced, if the speed of change increases, if the complexity of operations increases, shouldn’t we make sure that we focus on getting the best out of the tools we use to produce the best content?

Can we hide complexity in some cases? Can we automate operations that only have low added-value, that are tedious and potentially error-prone? Are we bound to physical interfaces for every input on the system or only by some of them? How do we embrace distributed operations?

Our philosophy is that engineers engineer, developers develop and producers produce, and that’s how it should be. So let’s make sure our user interfaces reflect that reality.

The pandemic has caused many radio organizations to pause cap-ex spending and to rethink their facility planning and workflows. These emergency measures might well be their safety board for the future too, thanks to the opportunities opened by software-defined infrastructures!

Comment on this or any story. Email radioworld@futurenet.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject line.

For more on this topic, see the new Radio World ebook “Virtualizing the Air Chain”.

The post The Advantages of Software-Defined Infrastructure appeared first on Radio World.

Financial news service Bloomberg Radio announced it has entered into an exclusive agreement with Key Networks to manage all of Bloomberg’s network advertising sales, affiliate sales and marketing for the radio company’s global 24-hour business radio network.

Key Networks is a syndication company focused on radio programming, syndication and marketing that will work on growing Bloomberg’s radio business and work to create new opportunities to benefit listeners, advertisers and stations, a release said.

[Read: How Bloomberg Radio Put Remote Mixing Into Action]

As a provider of radio business news in the United States, Bloomberg Radio’s “Daybreak” shows cover the morning hours of each part of the world from Bloomberg’s studios in New York, San Francisco, London and Hong Kong. Bloomberg Radio also delivers in-depth coverage of the financial markets throughout the day coupled with interviews with newsmakers, analysts and company executives. Bloomberg says its shows and short form reports are heard on more than 300 top radio stations across the United States. It can also be heard on SiriusXM satellite radio, via the Bloomberg Radio+ mobile app and through live streaming.

“Bloomberg is undeniably the gold standard in business news, and we are thrilled to deliver access to Bloomberg’s unmatched global business news resources to radio stations across the U.S,” said Rob Koblasz, CEO of Key Networks.

The post Bloomberg Radio to Work With Key Networks appeared first on Radio World.

The author is communications manager for WorldDAB.

This year’s WorldDAB General Assembly will be fully virtual, making it easier than ever before for industry stakeholders to attend the event on Nov. 3. The live-streamed event, which will be held in a condensed format over one day — as opposed to the usual two — will address all the latest and upcoming developments related to DAB+, both from Europe and beyond.

Last week saw the launch of Germany’s second national DAB+ multiplex, marking the beginning of a new era. Joe Pawlas, CEO of Antenne Deutschland — the company that is operating the multiplex —will highlight how this launch will positively impact Germany’s radio landscape and give new impetus to the advertising market.

[Read: WorldDAB Highlights Its Advances]

In 2021, France will be holding a double celebration — 100 years of radio on the one hand, and the launch of national DAB+ on the other. Nicolas Curien and François-Xavier Bergot from the French regulator CSA will explain why DAB+ is at the heart of France’s radio strategy and provide more detail on France’s long-term plans for DAB+, with a particular focus on listeners in cars.

The Swiss radio industry has agreed to switchover from FM to DAB+ during 2022–2023. Iso Rechsteiner from Switzerland’s Digital Migration Working Group will present an overview of the DSO process; Bernard Maissen, Director of OFCOM, will outline the ways in which the Swiss confederation is supporting the radio industry in the FM switch-off; and Jessica Allemann from the Swiss Broadcasting Corp. will highlight the latest usage figures from the Swiss market.

Norway was the first country to switch off national FM in 2017 — but how does the radio listening landscape look today? Ole Jørgen Torvmark, who oversaw the DSO process, will catch up with NRK’s Radio Manager Cathinka Rondan and Director of P4 Group Kenneth Andresen to find out how healthy the radio industry is looking three years down the line.

The U.K. was one of the pioneering DAB markets. Today, almost 60% of all listening is digital, which has prompted the government to launch a review of digital radio and audio. Digital Radio UK’s Yvette Dore will provide an overview of the U.K. radio market and Ian O’Neill from the U.K. government will share an update on the progress of the review.

The WorldDAB General Assembly will also highlight the latest updates from other parts of Europe including Spain and the Czech Republic, as well as status updates from Australia, the Arab states and parts of Africa.

A session dedicated to digital radio in the car will feature an update on the EECC directive from WorldDAB Pres. Patrick Hannon, as well as discussions around metadata, service following and the future of audio in the car.

The last session of the day will be dedicated to the distribution of DAB+, looking at DAB’s place within a multichannel distribution strategy, the energy consumption of DAB compared to other transmissions forms, as well as small-scale, regional and national DAB.

Don’t miss the only industry event dedicated to DAB digital radio — register now and confirm your place at this year’s virtual general assembly.

The post WorldDAB’s First Virtual General Assembly Approaches appeared first on Radio World.

This is the first time I’ve reviewed a piece of equipment that I knew I loved — and had heard countless times before it showed up on my doorstep to review.

It’s likely you have heard it as well. When New York City went into lockdown and voice actors couldn’t go to studios to do their job, the scramble was on for them to get set up at home. A decent number of them already had home studios, but the vast majority had only ever needed a cheap USB mic to record auditions in a pinch.

The game changed overnight though, as post facilities and their clients suddenly needed actors to provide “broadcast quality from home.”

For many facing an uncertain financial future, the idea of dropping thousands on gear was scary. My message via webinars and consults with voice actors has been that you can pull off a truly impressive sound without breaking the bank.

There was such a run on affordable large diaphragm condenser mics across the industry that each time I prepared a presentation, I needed to vet sources to make sure actors could actually buy the mics I was suggesting.

“Delicious”

It was in one of these moments that I stumbled upon a YouTube video comparing the TZ Audio Stellar X2 to a Neumann U87AI.

I found that hard to believe until I listened. It seemed a hidden gem that cost a mere $199.99. I reached out to TZ Audio via their website to make sure they had inventory and were still open for business.

In the weeks that followed, I would spend time working with dozens of actors to get them connected so that we could all continue to work together. Once their mic was connected, we’d either go live over the Source-Connect platform or they’d send me files to make sure they were sounding solid.

[Related: Read other recent microphone product coverage from Radio World.]

Time after time I was floored by how good the Stellar X2 sounded.

Affordable cardioid condenser mics are not a new thing. I recall an actor boasting about a $300 mic in the mid-1990s, calling it an “overseas knock-off.” I was pretty dismissive at the time, but there have been some remarkable improvements over the years.

What I hadn’t seen or heard, however, is a mic that holds its own against the big boys while breaking the $200 price barrier.

The mic comes neatly boxed with all of the testing documentation. Inside the box is a solid carrying case that holds the mic, its shockmount, wind screen (not a pop filter) and pouch.

When I got my hands on the Stellar X2, it was smaller than I imagined it would be, given its big sound. It was like someone had used a shrink ray on a classic large mic and case.

But when you lift the mic, you know you’re holding quality. It is solid. TZ Audio’s documentation describes the care taken to build the mic, and you can feel it.

The shock mount squeezes open, and in the mic goes, safe and secure.

I connected it to my home rig as I was preparing for a session with a well-known actor coming to my home studio for a national TV spot. I’d been using a shotgun mic on him and decided to compare it to the Stellar X2 while I was getting things set up. It sounded really close to a ubiquitous studio mic that costs five times as much.

Later that night, I ran a webinar to a group of about 90 voice actors, and they all wanted to know what mic I was using. One actor said it “sounds delicious.”

A criticism from voice actors and engineers about mics in the $200–$300 price range is that they often have a notorious “harsh” bump in the upper mid range. Personally, I think that depends largely on the actor’s voice. Truth be told, when I mix voice actors into spots, I’m always bumping up the upper mids and highs to cut through anyway, so I don’t see it as an issue.

However, the Stellar X2 doesn’t add any exaggerated brightness.

Sure, you can see what they’re claiming in the graph they send, but I’ve never been one to trust that stuff. I rely on my ears, and my ears are happy with this mic.

It also doesn’t have an over-the-top proximity effect, which can be a blessing or a curse, depending on the actor. Some actors working at home with some of the similarly priced competitors are struggling with extra mouth noise, no doubt related to that upper-mid boost. During my webinars, I had been using a different mic that had me cringing at my own mouth noise. Once I switched over to the X2, I noticed quickly that it was gone.

Cardioid Only

Next, I wanted to do some musical testing with what I had on hand at my home studio.

First up was putting it in front of my Hirade Model 5 classical guitar. I recorded it flat into my Pro Tools rig — and it was, in fact, delicious. It didn’t improve my playing, but it made the guitar come alive. It picked up everything from my fingers to the strings, as well as all of the resonance of the instrument. I couldn’t resist putting some concert hall reverb on it, and with no processing at all, I was getting a clean, crisp sound.

The next test was to see how it handled a guitar amp. I fired up my Gibson SG with an old distortion pedal and turned it up to a responsible level because my rock and roll days are long behind me, and I live with my family who doesn’t need to hear that kind of noise.

It’s worth noting that the Stellar X2 doesn’t have a pad or a roll-off built in, but it took a solid blast effortlessly, capturing what I was hearing in the room perfectly. I should also note that it is a cardioid pattern so there is no polar pattern switching on this mic. Keep that in mind if it is something you need.

For a mic priced under $200 (by a penny!), the Stellar X2 is a must-have. It competes effortlessly with mics costing five or even 10 times the price. It continues to be my strong recommendation for voice actors, and is a worthwhile addition to any mic locker. Whether you’re a voice actor, podcaster or a musician, this mic is well worth a listen.

Frank Verderosa is a 30-year veteran of the New York audio industry, fighting the good fight for film studios, ad agencies and production companies, but secretly loves mixing music most of all. These days, he plies his trade at Digital Arts and also is a podcast engineer.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

TZ Audio Products Stellar X2 Microphone

Plusses

+ Large condenser capsule

+ Price

+ Performance

+ Deceptively small

+ Ships with case, shockmount, windscreen

Minus

– Only cardioid pattern

For information, contact TZ Audio Products in California at 1-424-337-0534 or visit https://techzoneaudioproducts.com.

The post TZ Audio Stellar X2 Microphone Shines appeared first on Radio World.

The author is chairman of Digital Radio Mondiale. Her commentaries appear regularly in Radio World.

After 11 months the FCC is to decide if, at the behest of the National Association of Broadcasters, it should allow AM radio stations to go all-digital with the in-band on-channel (IBOC) HD Radio. The hybrid (analog-digital HD) option never delivered, and interference was often seen as the main issue. To address this and other concerns a new all-digital HD Radio mode in medium-wave was developed and is not the subject of the impending FCC decision.

The U.S. is probably the largest AM market in the world, with about 4,570 licensed stations. More than half, 2,800, rebroadcast their content on FM translators licensed by FCC, but the content is the same in AM and FM. As to the AM stations with a hybrid analog-HD transmission, their number was probably to start with around 250 but many gave up the experiment.

[Read: NAB, DRM Spar Over AM Digital for U.S.]

Positive signals have come from the FCC ahead of the vote on Oct. 27. Al Shuldiner, now with the FCC but associated with IBOC in the past, noted “strong support” for the transition to voluntary all-digital AM. This might be so but the reality is that switching off the analog signal would make millions of analog radios redundant while only half of the cars on the road (about 60 million) have a digital receiver, even after 10 years of promotion.

Going all-digital in AM is not for the faint of heart, though there are countries which have done it successfully like India, China and Russia. And others, like Pakistan, are planning to do it.

It is notable that they all chose the all-band, open Digital Radio Mondiale standard. This has been tested under all conditions and on all continents. The same cannot be said about pure-digital HD Radio in medium-wave, only tested on one and a half American stations (one claimed success and another one gave up and reverted to analog). HD Radio, as a proprietary system, raises the issue of license fees and many large radio groups might be reluctant to take upon themselves such a financial burden in the middle of a pandemic crisis. (Xperi has offered AM stations a license for all-digital HD Radio in perpetuity without fees, though some see this more of a sweetener than a long-term and comprehensive commitment). And then there is the question of the receivers. It is the “chicken and egg” question we know so well. What comes first: the decision of the FCC, the regulator, and then the digital receiver, or the other way round?

Digital Radio Mondiale has faced this struggle and is noting success just now with 2.5 million car radio receivers on the Indian roads and receiver solutions for DRM and multistandard receivers powered by multistandard chipsets used both in the U.S., India and elsewhere. Recent developments have proven that DRM delivers excellent audio without interference, thanks to the adoption of the latest MPEG audio technology, xHE-AAC, superior to the old proprietary HDC codec used by HD Radio, lots of multimedia features and  emergency warning (as demonstrated in India and currently on air in Indonesia).

DRM is an excellent platform for making internet content available right at the radio set and even in remote or underserved areas. DRM can be an important tool for distance learning, an increasing advantage in these times. So, having waited so long to recommend a way for digitizing and saving AM in the U.S., why not perform some comparisons and choose the best?

One answer comes from NAB Associate General Counsel Larry Walke, “Before pulling the trigger on such a fundamental change to one’s operation, AM broadcasters need every confidence that HD Radio technology will remain the exclusive technical solution for all-digital transmission.”

According to Walke, moves to test or otherwise consider DRM as an alternative technology would undercut such confidence, discourage greater adoption of HD Radio and jeopardize the viability of all-digital AM. Regulatory certainty is a strong argument but it seems to work only one way, as Xperi is not averse at tentatively prospecting other markets, no matter what.

Therefore, we urge the FCC and Congress to take a robust and unbiased look at what is available globally rather than twist and turn to support a system because it is there but remains largely unknown and tested by the average American listener. A voluntary switch to a restricted digital AM would be the worst solution; neither eliminating AM and writing it off for good, nor revitalising it properly. The situation in 2020 is that multistandard receiver chipsets are available from big (and American) companies. FCC would prove its wisdom by allowing broadcasters to choose between a closed-source service with potential financial obligations and an international open standard adopted around the world for full digital and simulcast AM (supporting analog AM where required).

The post Digital AM — Revitalization or Annihilation? appeared first on Radio World.

How true is the adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same. That certainly seems to be the case in comparing the tumult and upheaval of the late 1960s to the tumult and upheaval of 2020 — when groups of impassioned young people decide to stand up for the rights of the unheard, to fight for justice for the underrepresented, to make a difference in their community.

But 60 years ago, without the buzz of social media to distract and divert, one medium regularly played a starring role in clarifying the noise and commotion of the late 1960s.

For the city of Boston, station WBCN(FM) was that place. Going on-air on analog 104.1 MHz in 1968, this community broadcaster became ground zero for passionate, talented, community-minded young people looking for like-minded voices willing to fight for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights and against the use of police force at their city. Every caller, every staffer, every volunteer was met with the same mantra: At WBCN, you have a voice.

“The mission of the station was that every listener was important,” said Bill Lichtenstein, a former newscaster at WBCN and now a documentary filmmaker.

A long way away from the corporate-run morass of indistinguishable stations (which listeners here in 2020 often rail against) WBCN was a progressive rock station where the station’s DJs had latitude on the music they played and the causes they championed.

“There was just an intuitive sense during that period this [station] was an important place to be,” Lichtenstein said. “[It seemed that] almost anybody of note politically, socially, culturally, musically was there. If you crossed paths with Boston, you crossed path with WBCN.”

Last year, the station and its impact on the community was memorialized in the award-winning documentary “WBCN and The American Revolution.” After a successful run on the film festival circuit, the film is being made available as a digital rental in partnership with the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) and radio and film organizations across the country, giving voice once again to a radio station that was willing to stand up and call for change.

“WBCN came to our attention [in regard to a] panel about community radios past, present and future,” said Ernesto Aguilar, the program director at the NFCB. “It was a beautiful and compelling story about a unique time in history.” Soon after Aguilar and Lichtenstein struck up a conversation about helping modern stations link into that history and draw parallels for what we’re seeing today. “And to remind people that radio connects into a point in our imagination,” Aguilar said. “Radio has this very special place in people’s hearts.”

Soon after it opened its doors, the new WBCN began to find its voice.

It supported alternative news coverage and underground investigative reporting, airing live concerts and covering novel topics like the hazards of street drugs. The station engendered legendary music industry stories too, like airing the first interview of a young Bruce Springsteen or snagging bootleg recordings from major artists such as The Beatles.

“Radio was really the access point to rock and roll and youth culture,” said Lichtenstein, who found a part-time job at the station when he was 14.

Even after the station evolved from the underground/progressive format of the 1960s to more mainstream album rock later on, DJs on WBCN still had relative control over the music they played and the conversations they started. The result was a varied mix of rock music peppered in with local music and the introduction of new acts like The Cars, The Ramones, The Clash and The Police. One day you might hear an interview with Jerry Garcia. The next you might hear a live performance by Patti Smith.

Through it all, WBCN became a beloved institution in Boston because it affirmed the idea that if you speak out, you can change things.

“I can’t think of any other cultural institution that [makes] people just melt [other than radio,]” Lichtenstein said. “There was such an affection for that station. There was this idea that you can speak out and change things. That media can change the world.”

For Lichtenstein, the idea to create a retrospective on the station was 50 years in the making. In an interview with the Boston Herald in 2006, Lichtenstein asked for readers to contact him if they had tapes of broadcasts, photos and other documents from WBCN. Material started pouring in, an influx of fossilized remains of tape and photos that chronicled the life of the station. Many of those moments that might have been lost to the ages were actually be out there, Lichtenstein said, held on to by fans, former DJs and hidden in the station’s back rooms. All in all, more than 100,000 audio and visual items were donated to the project including never-before-exhibited film clips by Andy Warhol and memorable air check segments from on-air moments.

The documentary is now serving to start a conversation with community radio stations, to help them link into that 1960s history and draw parallels for what we’re seeing today.

It also makes clear how difficult things were in certain areas, Lichtenstein said. “Women were verboten to be on the radio or have a broadcast job. And it took courageous steps to shatter that wall. So how you go about creating change?”

“Radio continues to serve an important role in that process,” he said. “It has a way of bringing people together that’s different from TV or print.”

What stood out to Aguilar about the documentary was that it showcased a station that was offering listeners in 1968 something they wouldn’t ordinarily hear or experience. There are also are obvious parallels to what’s happening today, he said. “[Radio is still] able to tap into people’s disaffection. To remind everyone that as a whole, we can come together about things we want to have a conversation about. Radio is never is going to go away as long as people want to have conversations,” Aguilar said.

According to Lichtenstein and the NFCB, the film has been successfully used as a fundraising platform by stations in up and down the East and West Coasts. Ultimately, Lichtenstein and the NFCB hope to support many more stations with this campaign.

Documentaries like this one are key to the work the NFCB is doing, Aguilar said. “What we’re seeing right now — with so many fluctuations in media, lots of layoffs and the FCC changing the main studio rule — is that these smaller organization depend on a variety of people in their communities to provide radio programming.”

When theaters around the country began closing one after another due to the pandemic, one of Lichtenstein’s first thoughts was to reach out to radio stations with this documentary.

“I do think public radio in a way is largely driven by national programs, agenda, discussions,” he said. “To me the tradition of WBCN lives on most in these communities.”

Screenings of the WBNC documentary “WBCN and the American Revolution” are ongoing. Public stations interested in participating in a screening of the film can contact Eliza Licht and Alice Quinlan of the film’s community outreach team at screenthefilm.com or Screenthefilm@LCMedia.com.

The post Honoring the Rollicking Radio Revolution Led by WBCN appeared first on Radio World.

The author is a contributor to Radio World who writes frequently about radio history. Opinions are his own.

Dear Editor:

In announcing a “#Radio100” celebration, the National Association of Broadcasters has chosen to declare Nov. 2 as the centennial of the day that radio was suddenly and magically born into this world. In doing so it is recognizing KDKA as the country’s pioneer station. But many early experimenters and broadcasters also contributed to the creation of radio broadcasting, and NAB does them a disservice by recognizing only KDKA as the “first” broadcaster.

[Visit Radio World’s Radio@100 Page for Related Articles]

In fact, WWJ in Detroit, KNX in Los Angeles and KJR in Seattle all trace their beginnings to dates that were earlier than KDKA, as I have written in the pages of Radio World; and many other stations that no longer exist also predated KDKA.

The first commercial broadcasting license did not go to KDKA; that honor went to WBZ in Boston in 1921. KDKA was licensed as a “Commercial Land Station,” a category that had existed for many years before, and on the night of its Nov. 2 election returns it was using the call sign 8ZZ. Licensing of broadcasting was not created until the art was well under way, and so it should not be used as a basis to single out one broadcaster.

In fact, in 1942, the NAB proclaimed that it was officially recognizing WWJ as being the true “first” broadcaster in the country. This announcement created a firestorm that resulted in Westinghouse Broadcasting withdrawing its NAB membership for eight years. Finally, in 1947, Kenneth Baker of the NAB stated that the organization was unable to take a position on which broadcaster was first.

It is accurate and appropriate to claim 1920 as the year that broadcasting was begun in the United States, and the NAB campaign is a wonderful celebration of that fact. But it is not appropriate for the NAB, which represents all broadcasters, to claim that just one date or one station deserves that honor. Many pioneers worked in parallel to develop what became radio broadcasting, and none of them deserves preferential treatment; they should all be considered “first.”

The post Letter to the Editor: KDKA Does Not Stand Alone appeared first on Radio World.

From our Who’s Buying What page, Thum+Mahr has helped BBC Cymru Wales integrate a total IP workflow.

T+M installed a DHD Audio IP audio system. A release said, “DHD Audio will be the future platform

of the entire radio division of BBC Cymru Wales new Broadcasting Centre in Cardiff.”

[See Our Who’s Buying What Page]

Every workstation and work group has access to all audio and control signals in the network. In addition, all groups can operate autonomously.

Send news and photos of projects to Radio World at radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Thum+Mahr Aids BBC in Wales appeared first on Radio World.

While many organizations cheered the way in which the Federal Communications Commission revamped the rules for dealing with FM translator interference complaints, others are asking the commission to stop and reconsider some of its decisions.

Among those asking for reconsideration were a group of four — including the LPFM Coalition; Fellowship of the Earth/KGIG(LP) in Salida, Calif.; Skywaves Communications; and Charles M. Anderson — all of whom filed petitions in July 2019 asking the commission to reconsider parts of the order it released within “Amendment Part 74 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding FM Translator Interference.”

[Read: Latest U.S. Station Totals Reveal Boom in Translators]

Among the new rules were adopted were these three: FM translators causing or receiving interference with another station now have the flexibility to change channels using a minor modification application; interference claims must now follow a standardized process that sets a bar for a minimum number of listener complaints and sets a new undesired-to-desired (U/D) data ratio around signal strength; and a rule that says the only interference complaints that will be considered are those with an outer contour limit of 45 dBu signal strength.

A petition filed by two of the filers — the LPFM Coalition and Fellowship — stated that a low-power FM preclusion study should be included every time a translator files a modification application as dictated by the Local Community Radio Act. The FCC disagreed with this argument, though, saying that the LCRA refers to new FM translator stations not modification applications. “Requiring such preclusion studies would be contrary to the aim of this proceeding, namely, to streamline the translator interference rules and to expedite the translator complaint resolution process,” the FCC said in its response.

The FCC also fielded an argument by Fellowship that charged that the nonadjacent channel change rule for translators violates what is known as the Ashbacker doctrine. That doctrine held that grant of a waiver requesting that a single long-distance transmitter move as a minor modification could potentially violate a competing applicants’ rights. The Supreme Court ruled in this case that where two applications are mutually exclusive, the grant of one without considering the other violates the rights of the second applicant.

But the Ashbacker doctrine does not apply to prospective applicants, the FCC said, only to those who have filed timely, mutually exclusive applications. The goal of many of the changes made in the order is to simplify the process, not make it more complex, the FCC said. In this particular case, the goal is to allow FM translator stations to deal with interference by treating channel changes as minor.

“To treat these changes as major, and therefore subject to competing applications, would undermine our efforts to provide FM translator stations with an efficient means to remediate interference,” the FCC said.

The FCC also dismissed a number of other arguments, including one by Anderson who argued that the minimum number of listener complaints should be changed from three to six. The FCC declined to consider this, saying it already thoroughly considered this issue during the original proceeding.

The commission also denied an argument from the LPFM Coalition regarding how it should handle multiple complaints from a single building. The FCC ruled that any consistent interference problem must stem from listener evidence gathered from multiple, unique locations. The commission did agree, however, that an operator must address each valid interference complaint, even if they all originate from the same building.

The commission also rejected Skywaves’ suggestion to allow listeners complaints from anywhere within the complaining station’s protected contour — even if the listener location does not satisfy the ratio of undesired to desired signal strength (the U/D test).

The U/D data requirement serves as a threshold test to eliminate obvious instances where the translator could not be the source of the alleged interference, the FCC said. “For example, a listener could be located on the opposite side of the protected contour from the translator station, with the complaining station’s transmitter located in between,” the FCC wrote. “In this situation, the translator could not possibly be the source of the alleged interference, yet under Skywaves’ proposal, we would accept the listener complaint as valid.”

The FCC said it is also not persuaded that extending the range of potential listener complaints to include all of the complaining station’s protected contour area is necessary.

“If a ‘real and consistent’ interference problem caused by a translator should occur, we anticipate that the affected station will be able to readily obtain the required minimum number of listener complaints from within the zone of potential interference.”

The FCC also reaffirmed the establishment of an outer contour limit of 45 dBu signal strength of the complaining station. Outside of this limit, interference complaints will not be considered. The commission also reaffirmed that all of the newly adopted rules will be applicable to applications or complaints that are pending.

As with many of the arguments in the filings, the FCC reminded the petitioners that it has set rules on what it reviews: reconsideration is generally appropriate only when new information is raised or if the petitioner can show the FCC made a mistake.

More comments on the Report and Order can be found within the FCC’s ECFS database using Media Bureau Docket 18-119.

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