Industry News

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

Public media is in soul-searching mode right now. Big organizations like WBUR, Houston Public Media and Minnesota Public Media have laid off scores of staff. The death of George Floyd and nationwide Black Lives Matter protests have sparked many prominent organizations to have their quinquennial (that’s “every five years,” nongrammar nerds) introspection about racial diversity. And the pandemic has pushed others to consider how to ensure noncommercial media’s existence for years to come.

The diversity conversation is of particular interest to me because, for one, to paraphrase something that became clear during my fellowship with the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, inclusion is a strategic decision for any organization, which relates back to sustainability. As well, as someone not white in noncommercial radio, I appreciate how diverse voices inform fuller conversations in media.

[Read: Community Broadcaster: Rest in Peace]

Dozens of public media groups have made statements on racial equity in the last month. I respectfully submit that anyone pondering why public media has a diversity challenge may wish to try a little harder, because those answers are quite obvious.

Public media has a fundamental problem with its orientation. Just like chasing the big headline, there is a lot of focus on the top players. Making dominant voices the default can have disastrous effects. When the frame of reference is one in which the attention is on top-tier organizations and what they do, diverse voices will always be marginalized until the aforementioned every-five-years rolls around.

To be clear, some of the biggest organizations are doing wonderful work. But they and many others would concur this is a systemic, not individuated, matter. If this normalization of power is to stay the name of the game, let’s not suffer handwringing about why black, indigenous and people of color don’t stay.

In addition, a lot of attention is also paid to hiring and leadership, but very little to governance. All-white or virtually all-white public media staffing should have been addressed long ago, of course, but hasn’t in many organizations. A board that is white by 75% or more is something worthy of conversation. This issue is complicated by boards not making diversity and inclusion explicitly central to discussions with new board members. Boards and top staffing must be replaced with those who appreciate contemporary currents.

Finally, it does not take an internet sleuth to see all the latest words from everyone in public media about racial equity and Google what actions they have taken and demonstrable successes you can see from them in the last five years in pursuit of inclusion. What is their staffing and board diversity now, last year, or the year before? How are they investing in communities of color? Who glossed over diversity or accountability? What were they doing before these statements? Maybe you can set a calendar reminder to check up on them in 12 months, too.

In full transparency, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters has a strong record on these issues since our founding in 1975. We were conducting producers of color conferences in 1982; launched African-American, Latino and indigenous initiatives in subsequent years; have the most diverse board in public media; consistently diverse staffing for decades; and are working with stations now to not just talk about, but address these issues. We’ve worked on diversity, equity and inclusion for generations. I applaud any organization that can say the same.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are more than simply the right thing. They are a choice that organizations make to align with donor and community values, and to solidify their futures.

The post Community Broadcaster: Try Harder appeared first on Radio World.

Ryan Steelberg is the president of Veritone. Our interview with him originally appeared in the free Radio World eBook “AI Comes to Radio.”

Radio World: What is Veritone’s AI offering in radio?

Ryan Steelberg: Veritone’s suite of AI-powered services and applications enable both local radio stations and networks to significantly accelerate their workflows, save costs and deliver incremental value to their advertising customers.

Veritone turns media streams into indexed and searchable data in near real-time. With Veritone Discovery, users can easily search for keywords such as brand names or talent, perform fast ad verification, analyze content and leverage custom reports and dashboards.

Veritone Attribute gives broadcasters the ability to correlate ads (including prerecorded, live and in-program executions) with the advertiser’s website traffic. This award-winning application arms sales teams with comprehensive performance insights to share with their ad clients and help them optimize campaigns, nurture client relationships, and ultimately secure more share of ad spend.

RW: What prompted you to explore this? 

Steelberg: If there’s one industry that can take advantage of the power of AI, it’s media and entertainment. Considering the large amounts of data broadcasters and content owners have to manage on a daily basis, AI is a critical component to success — it not only reduces costs and time but also opens up opportunities for incremental revenue generation as well as product innovation.

Our AI-enabled technologies put linear media on a more level playing field with digital media, giving broadcasters the analytics, transparency, efficiency and immediacy they need to help their advertising customers measure media ROI and as a result, maintain share of wallet against digital alternatives.

RW: Does any of this constitute a first for the industry?

Steelberg: At Veritone, we unify substantial domain knowledge from previous successful companies and technologies (AdForce, 2CAN Media, dMarc, Google) with in-depth AI technology expertise and vision, all of which position us uniquely in the marketplace and give us competitive advantage — we are the first AI-native company in this industry.

Today, we are ingesting, indexing and analyzing over 60,000 hours of unique audio and video content each day. The scale of this processing, for audio and video, is a first in any industry.

RW: What do you allow radio professionals to do that they couldn’t before? 

Steelberg: Two things: One, Veritone radio customers can validate placements in near real-time, expediting the clearance process faster than ever before. Second, our radio customers are now able to compete with digital advertising alternatives by definitive attribution of e-commerce or other website transactions correlated to radio ad placements. To validate placements, sales teams can search on-air content within minutes of the broadcast and perform on-demand or automated searches to track any advertising message, whether live-read or prerecorded, through a simple user interface.

RW: Who are some of Veritone’s radio customers using AI?

Steelberg: iHeart, Learfield IMG College, Cox Media Group, Entercom, Cumulus Media, Beasley Media Group, Bell Media, CMG Radio.

RW: Where do you think AI for radio is going next? 

Steelberg: We believe that AI is already changing the game for radio today, and broadcasters who embrace AI technologies will reap tremendous opportunities and competitive advantage. However, we are convinced that this is just the start for an industry that will reinvent itself. We are excited to be part of this development and to help those who are ready to embark on this journey.

We just announced aiWARE’s expanded content classification capabilities, powering contextual ad placements and brand safety management at scale for podcasting. And also, our VeriAds program, which is helping broadcasters to liquidate unsold ad inventory and drive incremental revenue, is growing rapidly in the radio space.

The post AI Will Help the Industry Reinvent Itself appeared first on Radio World.

The Tonor TC-777 is an inexpensive multichannel USB cardioid pattern microphones mic package.

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

Tonor gives it a frequency response of 100 Hz–16 kHz and a 16-bit 44.1 kHz/48 kHz sample rate.

It ships with USB cable, foldable tripod mic stand with folding feet, mini shockmount, pop screen and a pop filter with its own clip.

Info: www.tonormic.com

The post Tonor Releases TC-777 USB Mic appeared first on Radio World.

From the Radio World “Who’s Buying What” page:

KNDE(FM) “Candy 95.1” in College Station, Texas, took delivery of a new Nautel GV5 FM transmitter last month.

According to Nautel, the project was initiated though Giesler Broadcasting Supply, a Nautel Factory Authorized Sales and Service partner in Alvin, Texas.

Ben Downs is the general manager and self-described “transmitter wrangler” for KNDE, which is part of Bryan Broadcasting. He told Nautel that the GV5 was purchased along with a new STL system to allow all of its HD channels to be broadcast.

The manufacturer quoted Downs as saying, “Past experiences have made us expect challenges from a digital install, but the GV5 made this even less a headache than some analog installs.”

He complimented the front-panel AUI that measures and displays operating aspects of the RF signal.

RW welcomes submissions for Who’s Buying What, from both buyers and sellers. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post KNDE Gets New Nautel FM Transmitter appeared first on Radio World.

The SiriusXM audio platform that includes hybrid radio capabilities will be available on the popular Ford F-150 model trucks. The two companies announced that SiriusXM with 360L will be available in 2021 F-150s.

Hybrid radio combines one-way over-the-air reception with streaming delivery and two-way data; in this case the OTA service is a satellite signal.

Broadcast companies too are interested in hybrid radio capabilities to keep competitive in the dash, and have been dealing with both technical and royalty questions, as we have reported.

[Read: “Hybrid Radio Picks Up Momentum”]

Among the hybrid radio benefits of the 360L system are On Demand functionality and personalized recommendations. SiriusXM also promotes “seamless navigation between satellite and streaming channels and SiriusXM On Demand content.” The system can receive over-the-air software updates as well.

Ford buyers and lessees get a trial subscription to SiriusXM’s All Access package. The audio platform will be integrated into Ford’s new SYNC 4 infotainment system.

Audi recently announced it would offer hybrid radio capable of receiving terrestrial analog and HD Radio signals, and it also will support the SiriusXM system in several models. Dodge Ram was the first to offer 360L in a 2019 model; and GM announced in December that it planned to bring 360L to a million cars in 2020. But Audi is believed to be the only system with hybrid radio capability that supports terrestrial FM radio as well.

The post Popular Ford Truck Gets SiriusXM Hybrid Radio appeared first on Radio World.

Supporters of a proposal to create a new class of FM in the United States say they will push ahead despite news reports this week that indicate FCC Chairman Ajit Pai doesn’t have the majority of support among FCC commissioners needed to launch a rulemaking process to advance the plan.

Chairman Pai, who in the past has advocated for the new class of service, made the disclosure during testimony Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, according to those familiar with the latest development.

The C4 proposal would allow Class A stations to upgrade their signal strength. Experts familiar with the proposal say existing Class A stations would double their power level from 6 kW to 12 kW if C4 is created, but the NAB and others worry that the move would create further interference challenges in the FM band.

[Read: Commentary: Buffer Compromise Would Boost FM Class C4]

The most recent development doesn’t surprise Matthew Wesolowski, CEO of SSR Communications Inc. He is licensee of WYAB(FM) in Flora, Miss., and was co-petitioner of the FM Class C4 petition for rulemaking (RM-11727) in 2014.

The FCC issued a Notice of Inquiry in 2018 (MB 18-184) to further examine the proposal, but comments collected at the time reflected trepidation by some broadcasters and industry experts over the potential for increased interference in the FM band, especially considering the proliferation of FM translators in this country. FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly is on the record as not supporting the C4 FM proposal.

Wesolowski says his C4 FM proposal has faced hurdles in Washington since the beginning.

“In February, 2018, when Chairman Pai announced that a FM Class C4 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would be forthcoming, I polled the media advisors of each of the commissioners to see where they stood. At the time, there were at least three votes in the affirmative to move forward on the NPRM, including from the chairman’s office itself,” Wesolowski says. “The Chairman did have a member of his own party coming out against the idea, so it is understandable that he did not want to rush something along without general agreement from his side of the aisle.

Since then Wesolowski says he and other C4 FM advocates have presented Pai and the commissioners with several alternatives and creative workarounds in an effort to win consensus, he said. “We believe that we have several acceptable proposals before the commission right now.”

One of those creative solutions might be waiver-based applications, Wesolowski says. Since 2018 three Class A FM stations have submitted waiver-based applications that would result in the same type of power upgrade sought by supporters of the C4 proceeding. One of the applications failed to gain FCC approval while the other two are still pending, he said.

However, Al Shuldiner, chief of the FCC’s Audio Division, told Radio World earlier this year that he does not view waivers “as a workable solution for something as significant as a new class of service.” He said at the time the FCC would continue to study the issue.

Wesolowski says the interference concerns voiced by the NAB and some of the major broadcast groups, specifically in regards to FM translators, are unfounded.

“Several large groups, relying on intuition instead of hard data, have posited that the FM Class C4 proposal would cause devastating effects to secondary services. The studies do not support that conclusion,” he said. “The FCC’s recent FM translator interference mitigation efforts and reporting standards have further diminished any potential for problems.”

In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, Wesolowski says many Class A broadcasters, hampered by their weak signals, are struggling in the current economic climate. “There are many small broadcasters who are barely hanging on these days and need the commission to approve the FM Class C4 proposal.”

The post C4 FM Proposal Stalls at FCC appeared first on Radio World.

I would like to thank Frank Karkota for the excellent article “No to Digital AM” and I have to agree with him 100%. AM radio works, it always works; neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night makes it fail (with the exception of the daytimers).

I have a real hatred for digital RF. I am one of those people who live in a rural area, where we still use outside antennas for television. Back in the good old NTSC days we could watch all of the channels we could receive, some maybe a little snowy, but we could watch them all. Now with this digital stuff, only on the second Tuesday of the odd months when the moon is in its third quarter can we watch half as many stations because the audio and or video are constantly breaking up.

Now, digital FM. I put together a Class C HD station a few years ago. I can hear the very clean analog signal on a fair automobile radio in stereo up to about 50 miles from the transmitter, while the HD signal is gone in 15.

I am a volunteer fireman, have been for 50 years. Our county switched from analog to digital two-way. Well, let me say, if I go into a burning building, I won’t take a digital HT; they either work or they don’t, and in a hot fire scene, they don’t. The old analog HTs maybe get a little noisy; but if I am trapped inside, the analog radio will get me out.

Now that I have expounded on my distaste of digital RF, let’s go into AM. Frank hits the nail on the head: You can receive AM radio on anything. How many people remember the razor blade radio, it’s a crystal set but used a piece of graphite and a razor blade edge for a detector.

AM is simple, digital is overly complicated. The way things are going in this world, it might not be long before we are all hiding in foxholes trying to build an AM receiver.

Frank also mentions quality. I personally couldn’t care less if the radio station has a response from DC to light at .00000001% harmonic distortion and -125 dB S/N; if the programming sucks, I won’t listen, case closed. I would much prefer any AM  station that is programmed with what I want to hear, and don’t care if the response limit is 3 kHz with 10% distortion in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Radio listening is down not because it needs to be digital, it’s down because much of the programming is just plain bad. Everything voice tracked, no local personalities,very limited music rotation, dollar a holler 40 minute stop sets, it’s bad.

I gave up on most FM years ago although there still are a few good small-owner FMs around here in Iowa. The AMs for the most part dial up stuff on the old XDS receiver and walk away. So what’s the difference; make AM all digital and the programming will still stink. There have been some improvements in AM programming because of the FM translators, but the AMs just sound like automated FMs with nobody home.

I have to agree 100% with Frank, let’s keep at least one form of communications reliable: good old tried-and-true analog AM. With the newer receivers it sounds good and works. Maybe at night with the skywave it fades in and out, but it will never go to complete nothing, as when a digital data stream gets  the slightest glitch. It’s another case where “we built something now let’s force it down their throats to create a market.”

What’s wrong with Class B modulators and Class C RF amps anyway?

[Related: “Don’t Shrug Off Benefits of AM in Digital”]

The post Letter: AM Is Simple, Digital Is Overly Complicated appeared first on Radio World.

Here’s news of interest to the alerting community, including those working in broadcasting.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency now makes available an archive of Common Alerting Protocol, or CAP, messages sent by alerting authorities through the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) since mid-2012.

Check it out here. (Note that traditional “EAS only” alerts are not part of this.)

“FEMA leadership prioritizes hosting and publishing the datasets, which allows internal and external partners to understand IPAWS data, conduct analysis and to inform decisions to improve alert and warning,” FEMA stated in an announcement.

“Several stakeholders, including researchers, media, the public and those who have submitted FOIA requests, are now being directed to OpenFEMA for information.”

One of the people interested in this development is Ed Czarnecki, senior director of strategy and government affairs for technology manufacturer Digital Alerting Systems.

“This new IPAWS web archive of alerts should provide a very handy reference source of historical CAP alert data for a variety of users, including academics, policy researchers, the press and others,” he told Radio World.

“The IPAWS archive isn’t a real-time resource, and includes a 24-hour delay in archiving messages,” he noted. That delay is to reduce the risk of being confused with an active alert received from the live IPAWS feed.

“So it isn’t something for monitoring or compliance purposes. The new IPAWS archive will only show what CAP alert have been sent into the IPAWS system. It will not reflect which CAP messages have actually been received or processed by broadcasters. The archive will also only show the CAP messages that have been entered into IPAWS, and not any conventional EAS-only messages.”

He noted that for monitoring, aggregating and auditing alert messages at broadcast stations, companies like his own provide tools that aggregate real-time EAS and CAP alert data.

As described more specifically on the OpenFEMA site: “This data set contains recent, historic and archived IPAWS Common Alerting Protocol v1.2 messages from June 2012 to the present including date, time, event code … city, county, joint agency, police, law enforcement, Collaborative Operating Group (COG), state(s), locality, territory or tribe. It can be used to capture and analyze historic and archived messages.”

This is raw, unedited data from the IPAWS Alert Aggregator created by over 1,450 alert originators across the country.

Questions about the program can be emailed to OpenFEMA@fema.dhs.gov.

[Related: “FEMA Says No National Alert Test This Year”]

The post FEMA Makes Archive of IPAWS Alerts Available appeared first on Radio World.

The sale of the legacy WMAL(AM) tower site near Washington has been completed by Cumulus Media.

The company said this week that it has finally closed on the sale of the 75-acre piece of land in heavily populated Bethesda, Md.

The buyer is Toll Brothers, which plans a housing development.

[Related: “WMAL Tower Site Demolition Begins,” 2016]

President/CEO Mary Berner issued a statement: “Given the difficult operating environment, our ability to continue to strengthen our balance sheet with the proceeds of this deal is particularly meaningful, and we greatly appreciate the efforts of Toll Brothers in working with us to bring this five-year effort to completion.”

The sale price was $74.1 million. “Net proceeds from the sale are required to be used to pay down debt, unless otherwise reinvested in the Company’s business over the next 12 months,” it stated.

The site had been active since WMAL put a transmitter into service there in 1941. Cumulus turned off service from the site in 2018. The call sign of its station on 630 kHz is now WSBN.

[Read a related technical story, “Diplex Two Four-Tower DA Stations 60 kHz Apart? No Way!”]

Watch a drone video of the site below.

The post Cumulus Completes Handoff of Old WMAL Tower Site appeared first on Radio World.

“Unfortunate and substantively wrong.”

That’s the reply from a group of broadcast owners to the criticisms they received this week from GeoBroadcast Solutions.

This is a brewing disagreement about separate proposals which nevertheless are related, given that they both seek to envision new and potentially dramatic changes to how FM licensees in the United States are allowed to use the spectrum.

To review the background: Technology company GeoBroadcast Solutions wants the Federal Communications Commission to allow FM stations to air unique content on synchronized FM boosters, to create very localized “geo-targeting” ability, an idea it has been working on for most of the past decade.

A group of two dozen owners collectively called Broadcasters for Limited Program Origination recently told the FCC that if it were to allow that idea, the commission should also allow translators to originate content, potentially an even bigger change in the FM landscape. (Here’s a link to that proposal.)

Boosters and translators were created to help deliver a primary station’s content (on the same or different frequencies, respectively). They are prevented from originating their own content. But the number of translators has skyrocketed in this century due to several factors, most recently the FCC decision to grant AM stations FM translators of their own.

GBS visibly has been working to garner industry support for its idea and would like the FCC to take the next regulatory steps. So one can imagine the reactions in its offices when a group of broadcasters came forth with a call to broaden the discussion to translators. As we reported, the company this week “took issue” with how the broadcast group had connected their proposal to its idea. [Read “GBS Emphasizes That Translator Proposal Is Separate From Its Own.”]

Now the owners have fired back through a statement from their attorney John Garziglia of Womble Bond Dickinson. They say they are just seeking the same opportunity for limited program origination for translators as GBS is asking for boosters.

“GeoBroadcast Solutions’ claim that geo-targeted programming emanating from an FM translator is ‘fundamentally different’ is only true in the sense that GeoBroadcast Solutions will be unable to profit from the proposed FM translator service to the public,” it stated.

“FM translators and FM boosters are both secondary FM facilities carrying the programming of a primary radio station. The only substantive technical distinction between the two is that an FM booster is on-frequency and has a significant potential to cause interference to its primary station’s radio listeners, while an FM translator has no potential of causing such interference.”

The broadcast group said it is not critical of the GBS concept and that indeed it makes “eminent sense for secondary facilities that re-broadcast the programming of a primary station such as FM translators and FM boosters to have the flexibility to be able to broadcast geo-targeted programming that a broadcaster determines will best serve its listening audience, including localized emergency alerts, news, advertising, city council meetings and high school sports games.”

But, they said, this shouldn’t be limited to boosters. In fact, they said, “Multiple FM translators serving different portions of a station’s coverage area could now, but for the FCC’s program origination restrictions, geo-target different areas, since many radio receivers with RBDS will switch frequencies between geo-targeting FM translators carrying the same primary station.”

Touching on an issue of industry concerns about the GBS proposal, the broadcasters said that if translators were to be allowed to work in a geo-targeting capacity, they would not be subject to destructive interference to the primary station’s radio audiences, “unlike FM boosters in which interference may be reduced but never entirely eliminated.”

The group further criticized GBS for “troublesome chutzpa” in comparing its technology work to the innovations of ATSC 3.0. The booster proposal, they said, “is hardly a ‘technological advancement.’” GBS declined further comment.

We’ll see where this goes next. The FCC is taking comments about RM No. 11858 via its comment system by July 23. You can read our coverage of recent comments about the booster proposals here.

The post FM Translator, Booster Advocates Disagree in Origination Dispute appeared first on Radio World.