Radio+Television Business Report

KINGSTON, N.Y. — For two generations of public radio listeners, the call letters WAMC have meant NPR, and a host of local and national spoken word content that makes it one of the biggest Members in the U.S. today.

Over the years, what is now “WAMC Northeast Public Radio” grew with the addition of stations including WAMK-FM, in Kingston, and WOSR-FM in Middletown, serving the Catskills and Mid-Hudson Valley; and WCAN-AM in Canajoharie, serving Little Falls, Amsterdam and Gloversville. Today, the WAMC network is comprised of 11 FMs and 16 FM translators stretching from Northern Westchester County to the Canadian border, as well as WAMC-AM in Albany, N.Y.

Now, WAMC is bolstering its coverage in Northern Dutchess and Columbia Counties, while adding Litchfield County, Conn., to its Constitution State coverage.

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A company focused on cloud-based workflow management and media distribution options for the advertising and entertainment industries — connecting media buyers to local, national, and cable TV broadcasters and to radio broadcasters — has entered into a partnership with independent Connected TV advertising and measurement platform Innovid.

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Audacy has confirmed that it plans to offer, subject to market conditions and other factors, $45 million in aggregate principal amount of subsidiary Audacy Capital Corp.’s 6.500% senior secured second-lien notes due 2027.

They are “Additional Notes,” and it’s a $45 million ad-on offering for the audio content creation and distribution company that is once again struggling to gain investors on Wall Street.

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In April 2021, RBR+TVBR exclusively reported on a plan of action that would see Entravision Communications exit Central Florida, starting with the sale of WNUE-FM 98.1 in Deltona for $4 million.

That deal was completed in July, with the FM now a part of The Joy FM Contemporary Christian non-commercial network. It was tied to an arrangement that would see Univision Communications take full control of Entravision’s TV twins in the Orlando DMA.

That shift has now come to fruition, along with an announcement that a similar transfer of control of TV properties in nearby Tampa, and in the Washington, D.C., market.

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Dr. Mark Fratrik, BIA’s SVP and Chief Economist, noted Wednesday with the release of its U.S. Local Advertising forecast for 2022 that a rise in local radio advertising will be seen in 2022. Yet, the biggest headline from the report is that, for the first time, digital will surpass direct mail as the No. 1 dollar-getter from advertisers big and small come next year.

Could deregulation for broadcast media further help Radio, and over-the-air TV too? It’s a topic Fratrik will delve into at a Forecast 2022 session on November 16 in New York.

The appearance by Fratrik at Forecast 2022, presented by Radio Ink and Radio + Television Business Report, could see the longtime ad dollar prognosticator elaborate on data released October 13 that illustrate a local radio ad forecast of $12.7 billion in 2022. But, how much of that is digital? What’s the trend? And, is over-the-air dollars a challenge for over-the-air audio?

Then there is broadcast TV, which has been cushioned by strong political advertising and retransmission consent fees.

“Radio isn’t faring as well as local broadcast TV, and it doesn’t get the same bump as TV in political years,” Fratrik said. “But it is getting close to its pre-pandemic levels as people continue to return to work commutes and traveling by car.”

And, here’s something to note: BIA forecasts local radio and local television in 2022 will each see the same dollar intake for their respective digital platforms.

While that’s intriguing, OTA cash remains the driver for broadcast media. And, many ownership groups believe, further deregulation will help them better compete against that new No. 1 ad dollar magnet in 2022 — digital.

Will the FCC act, even as it awaits President Biden’s nomination for the agency’s Chairman nearly nine months after taking office? Could Congress step in, if the Commission doesn’t?

Fratrik could offer some interesting commentary, alongside Beasley Media Group CEO Caroline Beasley and moderator Frank Montero, of Fletcher Heald & Hildreth.

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BIA Advisory Services forecasts that for the first time mobile advertising spending will surpass direct mail as the top media advertising platform in 2022. As revealed in BIA’s U.S. Local Advertising Forecast 2022, the overall local U.S. advertising market is expected to reach $161.5 billion – a 10.1 percent YoY growth – buoyed by overall strong economic tailwinds coming out of 2021. The forecast says that traditional media revenue will account for $84.6 billion and digital media will be close behind at $76.8. BIA also anticipates $7.5 billion of the sum will come from political advertising during a strong election season. “For a long time, we’ve been talking about direct mail as the king of the share of wallet in local ad spending,” said Rick Ducey, managing director of BIA Advisory Services. “This coming year, for the first time, we pass the crown over to mobile, as its momentum drives it to be the biggest overall piece of the spending wallet – and we expect that to continue in the foreseeable future.” BIA puts mobile spending at 21 percent of the 2022 forecast and direct mail at 20.7 percent, but the gap between the two will continue to widen. Overall, digital ad spending will reach $76.8 billion, with Google and Facebook controlling over half of the spending. Google takes the lion’s share at $26.8 billion, compared with Facebook’s $14.3 billion. Ducey points to four reasons mobile has become the number one advertising medium: (1) COVID’s impact on consumer’s increased time spent with mobile and other digital media making digital the place to find and target consumers; (2) digital’s overall momentum in winning more revenue share of media time from traditional media; (3) the rise of virtual consumer channels like delivery, curbside pickup and e-commerce in top categories like retail, restaurants, CPG where physical channels like retail store visits decline; and (4) greater consumer acceptance and use of virtual and e-commerce channels. Traditional Media Mark Fratrik, senior vice president and chief economist at BIA, says, that the firm’s U.S. Local Advertising forecast also sees a rise in local radio advertising revenue in 2022 and is expected to generate $12.7 billion split between over-the-air ($11.0 billion) and digital ($1.7 billion). By 2026 radio digital revenues are expected to reach $2.4 billion, while OTA goes up and down with the even political years and ends at $11.7 in 2026. “Radio isn’t faring as well as local broadcast TV, and it doesn’t get the same bump as TV in political years,” said Fratrik. “But it is getting close to its pre-pandemic levels as people continue to return to work commutes and traveling by car.” “I like to refer to our data on local television as our ‘piano key graphs,’ because during even political years it is very apparent that the advertising revenue will rise and then dip the following year.” As reported in late September, BIA forecasts local television in 2022 will rise to $19.3 billion in OTA advertising, and $1.7 billion in digital; a sign of a strong $21 billion industry that delivers its audience for political campaigners. U.S. Local Ad Forecast Report BIA’s U.S. Local Advertising Forecast Report provides a nationwide overview of U.S. spending. BIA updates it throughout the year to reflect current economic situations and to adjust ad spend across top media and business verticals. The forecast covers all media, offering a comprehensive and authoritative view of all “local” advertising spent by national and regional companies, as well as small and medium-sized businesses. The forecast can be purchased here. Clients can log into BIA ADVantage to view the full forecast report and view their local advertising market forecast by media and verticals.

For 34 years, he’s been a television executive serving the Joplin, Mo., and Pittsburg, Kan., television market.

Now, this Kansas Association of Broadcasting Hall of Famer is preparing to transition into retirement. And, his successor has been selected by Morgan Murphy Media.

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He represented Georgia’s Ninth Congressional District from 2013 to 2021.

Now, he’s the latest person to launch an audio-on-demand offering. Thank Salem Podcast Network for the opportunity.

The Doug Collins Podcast debuts on October 25.

“I am excited to be hosting a podcast that will give conservatives the tools they need to go out into the marketplace of ideas and stand up for what we believe in,” said Collins. “Our country desperately needs to hear how a little idea that started with our Founding Fathers — the pursuit of happiness. This podcast will explore all topics ranging from politics to life advice and will blend them together for a well-rounded discussion that people can listen to and use to get the most out of life.”

Collins ran for U.S. Senate in 2020, finishing in third place behind Republican Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Raphael Warnock, the eventual victor. He has served as a legal counsel for former President Donald Trump following his departure from Congress in January.

“For years, I was so impressed with Doug Collins as a Congressman,” says Phil Boyce, SVP of Spoken Word at Salem. “When we had the opportunity to bring him over to the Salem Podcast Network, we moved fast. He will be a great addition to our lineup, and will help us save the country we all love.”

SAN FRANCISCO — Data connectivity platform LiveRamp has added streaming inventory forecasting and data collaboration capabilities into its TV platform.

With these additions, LiveRamp TV becomes an end-to-end platform enabling media sellers and advertisers to collaborate, activate, and quantify media campaigns in a coordinated way across all TV inventory: linear, streaming, and digital video.

And, the launch came with the support from two of broadcast television’s biggest players.

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Add the Constitution State to the list of locales where local TV viewers who own television sets capable of receiving NEXTGEN TV-powered signals can enjoy watching them.

The next-generation digital television signals, which offer improved sound and picture quality for consumers along with new revenue opportunities for broadcast media, make their debut on Tuesday in Hartford.

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It’s a Class A FM covering a rural portion of Arkansas, just south of the Ozarks resort town of Branson, Mo. Until now, it’s been a part of the “Here’s Help Network,” tied to stations offering the religious-themed programming to towns in Missouri.

That’s about to change thanks to the second-largest licensee of FM radio stations in the U.S.

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At the start of 2021, it became known that Iliana Communications had agreed to divest its stations in one Illinois town.

Now, Iliana has agreed to sell an AM, along with its FM translator, in another municipality in the Land of Lincoln.

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There’s a flurry of activity going on at both the FCC and on Capitol Hill that directly impacts broadcast media leaders. From a new bill that could force a New Jersey TV station to devote specific hours of the day to “local” programming to concerns that President Biden will not nominate a FCC Chair, there’s much to discuss.

Forecast 2022 participants will get to hear all about it during a session moderated by Frank Montero, the notable attorney at Fletcher Heald & Hildreth with a pulse on what’s happening Inside the Beltway.

In this InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, Montero shares his thoughts on a notion once thought to be preposterous — a possible Republican FCC majority during a Democratic presidency.

He also tackles a question that perhaps no one wants to answer. Is a Democratic majority at the FCC doom for deregulation? “By and large, Democrats at the FCC have really not focused that much on broadcasting,” Montero says, noting that broadband, wireless, infrastructure and other topics have been their forte.

But, when Democrats do discuss broadcasting, they have perhaps unfairly put their collective lenses on consolidation, and whether or not it has harmed consumers.

At Forecast 2022, Montero will moderate a session that sees Beasley Media Group CEO Caroline Beasley take the stage as a panelist. Joining her: BIA Advisory Services Chief Economist Dr. Mark Fratrik.

This podcast offers a great preview of what’s to come on November 16 at Forecast 2022. Listen now, and then be sure to save your seat at Forecast 2022 in New York. It’s easy — just click here!

 

 

 
Listen to “Frank Montero, Fletcher Heald & Hildreth” on Spreaker.
 

One month ago, a seemingly final plan of action was put in place for RBR+TVBR as it reviewed the full agenda of 2021 NAB Show sessions, selecting which ones to cover for its readers. Among the topics on tap for today: New Perspectives for Local Radio Audience Measurement, Reception of All-digital AM Radio in Electric Vehicles and The TV Industry’s New Normal.

Alas, there would be no discussion of the “new normal” come October 12 — aside from the decision by several Cumulus Media air personalities to leave their respective jobs rather than be forced to vaccinate against COVID-19, the very reason the NAB scrapped their event with less than a month to go.

Yet, there are several radio industry professionals who have just wrapped up a two-day event full of discussions and insight on the future of radio, and of audio.

With an in-person and virtual option, Radiodays Europe concluded its postponed event five months after its originally scheduled date on Monday in Lisbon, Portugal.

Where will the top broadcast media industry leaders be this autumn? The only time this year you’ll get to see them — and perhaps the final time you’ll get to see soon-to-retire NAB head Gordon Smith — is at Forecast 2022 on November 16. Learn more, and register today, by visiting the official event website.

 

 

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In late September, the analytics and advertising division of AT&T that operates the Community digital advertising online platform released its annual “Relevance Report” findings.”

This year’s report focuses on the state of convergence and advanced TV, and there’s certainly something to glean for over-the-air broadcast television station operators from the findings.

AT&T ad tech company Xandr examined the data and automation that are bringing video into the future of advertising. Xandr spoke with 357 advertising decision-makers across five global regions — the U.S., the U.K., Australia, France and Germany — to get a holistic picture of the state of convergence.

The full report, available here, found that much of the world is experiencing a “golden age” of premium video content for viewers, it is also the height of complexity for advertisers.

Among the key findings from Xandr:

• Data-driven linear (DDL) is gaining momentum in the U.S. with 3 in 4 advertisers believing it gives marketers the very best of TV and digital advertising and over half planning to increase DDL spending in the next year.
• OTT and CTV remain a top strategic priority among advertisers with 4 out of 5 regions surveyed ranking it as a top priority among video types.
• There is work to be done to move people and technology to a converged future as a third of advertisers surveyed lack familiarity with the programmatic OTT buying process.

The first point is perhaps the most intriguing one. How is that helping broadcast television?

“In short, Data Driven Linear is a more precise approach to buying linear TV, without compromising scale,” a Xandr spokesperson tells Weekly Tech Roundup.

Literature shared by Xandr elaborates that “data-driven linear leverages advanced data and automation to further define and target audiences across national linear TV.”

Why? Traditional TV advertising, in its view, is broad. “From a marketing perspective, women 25-54 can be very different,” Xandr shares.

With Data Driven Linear opportunities, a marketer can gain access to targeted audiences, “optimized plans across high-indexing networks and dayparts on the largest national TV networks to deliver on KPIs,” drive efficiencies with streamlined RFPs and negotiation, and “advanced measurement.”

 

BELLEVUE, WASH. — A “real-time platform” for measuring the business and brand impact of cross-platform television advertising has agreed to purchase a real-time television ad measurement company that specializes in products for D2C and direct response TV advertisers.

The deal, which sees the acquisition of DRMetrix by iSpot.tv, widens iSpot’s measurement of emerging formats for addressable advertising.

And, the iSpot.tv says, it enhances its ability to track rotating calls-to-actions, including website URLs, SMS and toll-free numbers.

“This capability — coupled with iSpot’s ability to track distinct creatives at scale and correlate ad exposures to conversion events such as digital actions and in-store traffic — gives brands of all sizes the expanded ability to measure the business impact of complex and dynamic ad buys across platforms,” iSpot notes.

Sean Muller, founder and CEO of iSpot, elaborates, “DRMetrix has developed unique and real-time measurement capabilities around creative versioning and dynamic advertising that will become increasingly important as the TV ad market evolves.”

DRMetrix’s AdSphere developed a measurement system for monitoring all TV ad formats and executions including those delivered via digital program insertion (DPI) ad breaks. The DPI measurement capabilities allow precise identification of ad creatives that are sold by the cable networks as “cover-ups,” which MVPDs inconsistently overlay with their own inventories.

This inventory, which includes addressable and local advertising, creates a continuous blind spot for networks, agencies and brands. The cover-ups are a favorite means for DTC and DR advertisers to invest in and test television, as they often come at a heavy discount. But both the buy and sell side struggle to accurately quantify the performance and value of this inventory because, until the combination of DRMetrix and iSpot, they could not be measured precisely at scale.

“We developed a unique system for accurately measuring one of the most dynamic and difficult portions of TV advertising, and we amassed a client base that represents a growing and important part of the TV ecosystem,” says Joseph Gray, founder/CEO of DRMetrix. “In iSpot, we’ve found a home for our innovations to thrive and a vehicle to accelerate our shared goals of making all TV ad measurement more transparent, more actionable and easier.”

DRMetrix serves 120 brands, networks and agencies, growing iSpot’s customer footprint to more than 450 annual brand subscriptions representing 50%+ of brands in the Ad Age 100 and 95% of TV networks in North America. This is iSpot’s second acquisition of a real-time ad measurement company, as it acquired Ace Metrix in January 2021 to combine business and brand impact using Ace’s comprehensive qualitative approach to measurement and scoring of creative performance.

— Reporting by Melissa Hourigan

NEW YORK — Audio analytics company Veritonic has a new VP of Marketing.

The company has selected a 10-year Triton Digital veteran for the role, as she exits the company just months after its acquisition by iHeartMedia from The E.W. Scripps Co.

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Broadcast audio processing company Orban has brought to market its new OPTIMOD XPN-Enterprise ecosystem. The company describes the product as an “an easy-to-use, customizable Linux-based processing platform for multiple broadcast stations or streaming services, with centralized control.”

It provides Orban’s proprietary OptiCloud processing for up to 8 FM and 8 HD/DAB+/Streaming processing channels in a 1 RU package, using an enterprise-class SoftGear server and the appropriate OPTIMOD XPN-Enterprise Nodes, Orban notes.

The XPN-Enterprise server that’s now shipping provides 16 processing channels via AoIP and supports AES-67/SMPTE-2110 protocols.

Also shipping now: the XPN-Enterprise AES3 Input/Output Node.

Additional nodes to extend the available outputs and functionalities, e.g., DMPX, Kantar and Nielsen watermarking and Orban uMPX, will be released in the near future.

The XPN-Enterprise system has been extensively field-tested and approved by national broadcasters, Orban President David Day said.

Content to be OptiCloud processed is brought to one location, utilizing any of the most common methods of audio transport – AES3, AES-67, SMPTE-2110-30, Dante or Livewire+, and creates the necessary outputs (FM Composite, DMPX, uMPX, and DAB+HD) using the appropriate Orban XPN-Enterprise Nodes for distribution to each transmitter site.

Processed channels destined for streaming are also handled by the XPN-Enterprise server, which sends those outputs to the appropriate streaming devices.

Each signal coming into the OPTIMOD XPN-Enterprise server can be individually processed, with Orban’s OptiCloud providing precision tailoring of each station’s broadcast or stream to meet the requirements of the audience and delivery method. OptiCloud factory presets give users a quick start for each format; Orban’s exclusive “Less-More” controls simplify “dialing in” the desired sound by combining multiple OptiCloud processing parameters with a handful of controls.

Further simplifying the processing path, Orban offers “Last Mile” products including XPN-
Enterprise input and output nodes and low bandwidth (<500 kbps for FM & HD-1, HD-2 & HD-3) equipment for “virtually any requirement,” Day says.

He comments, “We make it possible to manage our processing remotely and feed that signal to a site on lines as slow as 500 kbps, and many nodes are ‘Power over Ethernet’ (PoE) capable, further simplifying installation.”

For more information, visit https://www.orban.com.

Today, digital media and technology have permeated businesses at every level. Yet, they continue to create fundamentally new challenges in the crisis and risk management field.

Perhaps Edelman’s just released 2021 Connected Crisis Study can help. It sheds new light on how significant this shift has become, and how far companies still have to go, to adapt.

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Harker Bos Group recently fielded a study documenting the consumption habits and voting trends of Hispanic Radio Listeners.

A cursory overview of some findings was shared at the Hispanic Radio Conference in late September. Now, an eight-page report with further details is available for public view.

How has revenue recovered from the onset of a pandemic that saw generally steep declines and where some categories continue to experience slower than hoped for rebounds? A Forecast 2022 panel of experts are preparing a provocative discussion about who is going to “show us the money” in the year to come. For more, click on the logo at left!

 

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