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Issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture in the amount of $3,500 to Lighthouse Ministries of Northwest Ohio failure to timely file a license renewal application and unauthorized operation of Station WKJH-LP, Bryan, Ohio

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Media Bureau Grants Requests of Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and ESPN for Audio Description Exemption and Issues Related Public Notice

Radio and television broadcasting companies publicly trading on U.S. financial markets mostly enjoyed a strong start to the new week.

Monday’s trading saw gains of significance for Salem Media Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group, ViacomCBS, Disney and Cumulus Media.

That said, Veritone Inc. suffered another dip of significance, falling $4.29 to $28.92 to continue a retreat from a recent growth trend for the audio attribution technology company actively seeking TV and radio clients.

 

The FCC has issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture to the licensee of a low-powered FM radio station in Bryan, Ohio, for the apparent willful violation of section 73.3539 of the Rules, resulting in the willful and repeated violation of section 301 of the Communications Act — the broadcasters’ regulatory Bible.

What, exactly, went wrong? This LPFM’s license renewal application was sent in too late.

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Radioplayer said its metadata will be used starting next year in new BMW cars in Europe.

“The partnership will see BMW Group using official broadcaster metadata from Radioplayer’s Worldwide Radioplayer API (WRAPI) to help create a brilliant radio interface,” the nonprofit group said in its announcement.

Radioplayer has an existing partnership with Audi/VW Group.

“BMW Group and Radioplayer will be delivering the best possible radio experience in the car, by keeping broadcast radio at its heart, enhanced by complementary metadata delivered over the internet. This guarantees a rich digital experience in BMW Group cars, while also being easy to use, with radio station search via an A-Z list, and high-resolution station logos on the screen.”

The announcement was made by Radioplayer Managing Director Michael Hill.

He said, “Together we will be delivering the next-generation smart radio interfaces that listeners expect. The agreement with BMW Group is based on our unique Radioplayer model, collaborating through us with our thousands of international member stations to keep radio strong.”

Related:

“Radioplayer Expands in Europe”

“Radioplayer Demos Three-Way Hybrid App”

The post Radioplayer, BMW Working Together appeared first on Radio World.

On Thursday (3/4), RBR+TVBR was first to share just how Salem Media Group successfully turned its financial fortunes from shaky to sturdy. Digital and publishing revenue growth fueled the impressive Q4, which sparked investor interest.

Now, an influential Wall Street blog declares that the company focused on Conservative Talk radio programming and Christian-themed content “is possibly approaching a major achievement in its business.”

That would be a profit.

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It’s been said that less fluctuation means more continual participation, breeding a group of believers — rather than experimenters.

That seems to be scenario shaping up at spot radio, the latest Media Monitors Spot Ten Radio report suggests.

With Indeed in the lead among fully paid advertising campaigns, by play count, Progressive, Babbel, GEICO, ZipRecruiter and Allstate have established strong commitments to audio advertising via AM and FM radio.

That said, the auto insurance category remains one of the most consistent, while there’s more fluctuation in other categories for Radio as the end of the first quarter of 2021 reports.

Here’s the latest Spot Ten Radio report, in full:

Yes, GEICO and Liberty Mutual Insurance are ahead of Progressive for yet another week, showing the continued dominance of auto insurance specialists in the Spot Ten TV report from Media Monitors.

That said, new activity is seen from a health and beauty aide brand, and from a furniture retailer.

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“SuperFrank” Copsidas has made a name for himself in New York State, in the Deep South, in the Hoosier State, and across New England for his investment in low-power television operations.

Now, the producer of the TV series “Pop Up Psychic,” “Just Eat It” and “Ghost Rapper” is adding another television station to his roster of LPTV facilities.

Copsidas’ MOTV LLC, referencing the state of Missouri, is agreeing to acquire KEFN-CD in St. Louis.

KEFN is a Class A station serving the Gateway City on Channel 20. As of 2019, it was using an ERI Model AL8N-20-PLC circularly polarized AL PLUS Series UHF television antenna with a narrow cardioid azimuth pattern.

Until now, KEFN had been an EWTN member station, licensed to Eternal Family Network. On March 18, 2020, KEFN went silent under an STA; its agreement to use its licensed transmitter site was “terminated.”

Now, it is poised to return to life, but with a different ownership arrangement.

Eternal Family Network wishes to continue its mission of the sharing of the Catholic Faith and “traditional values” through multimedia but is unable to do so without “the benefits obtained through entering into this agreement.”

That agreement will see EFN team with kNow Media in forming a new limited liability company, “MOTV, LLC.” Copsidas will oversee it, while MOTV will be a partnership majority owned by EFN (taking 55% equity interest).

kNow and EFN will then divide all income received with respect to the operation of the station 60/40, after expenses. Such revenues and expenses are subject to audit at the sole expense of the party requesting it.

What if KEFN is sold, or is permitted or required to participate in a reverse auction at the FCC? EFN will get $650,000. Then, kNow and Eternal will split the remainder of any proceeds 60%/40%.

For EFN, EWTN will return, with ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 broadcasts contractually guaranteed by Copsidas. The benefit for him? Digital multicast access, and the pending NEXTGEN TV data capability, which presents broadcast TV with a new revenue-generation opportunity.

All is contingent, however, on getting KEFN-CD 20 back on the air by March 18. If that doesn’t happen, the deal is off — and the station’s license is deleted and cancelled by the FCC.

The Chairman of CBS Sports has been selected to deliver the opening keynote at the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE)’s virtual conference devoted to “The Business of Live Sports,” a new event set to take place later this month.

The new event will be held across three hours of March 23.

To register, go to https://www.natpe.com/sports/attend/

 

Topics slated to be covered include the promotion of live sports, the distribution of live sports to streaming fans, the changing playing field of sport sponsorship, the power of pay per view, as well as the rise of sports gambling, international fandom, local broadcasters, and sports.

While Sean McManus of CBS Sports gets top billing, he’ll be participating in a virtual event that also includes appearances by Wyatt Hicks, the Managing Director of Digital Media at NASCAR; and Miheer Walavalkar, the CEO of LiveLike. Both will be discussing the ways of engaging fans around live sports in 2021.

Additionally, Jennifer Storms, the Chief Marketing Officer of Entertainment and Sports at NBCUniversal, will speak on promoting live sports viewership while Telemundo Deportes President Ray Warren will join a panel of other programmers and streaming service providers to discuss the benefits of distributing live sports to streaming fans everywhere.

Julian Mintz, Head of West & Central Brand Sales at Roku, and John Stainer, Managing Director of North America at Nielsen Sports, will also take time to discuss trends in where the money is flowing in live sports.

Until eleven months ago, his voice could be heard in morning drive at WIHT-FM “Hot 99.5” in Washington, D.C., and WFLZ-FM in Tampa, in addition to stations in Baltimore, Louisville, Memphis and Harrisburg via Premiere Networks syndication.

He also hosted a Sunday night program, also syndicated, that aired on some 100 stations.

In April 2020, iHeartMedia canceled the programs, hosted by a Syracuse University alum legally named Peter Deibler.

Now, legions of former listeners are joining members of the radio industry across the U.S. in remembering the life of the man known as “Kane,” as he has died “after a long illness” at the age of 43.

Lawyers for Deibler’s family at Joseph, Greenwald & Laake P.A. released the news to local Washington, D.C., media Monday morning (3/8). He passed away on Friday, March 5, at Shady Grove Adventist Medical Center.

As an anchor for Hot 99.5 from 2006 until his surprising dismissal amid a major reduction-in-force initiative at iHeartMedia, “Kane” also served as a contributor to NBC O&O WRC-4 in Washington.

“Although co-hosts came and went, Kane remained a constant, comforting voice for thousands of people driving to work, dropping the kids off at school and running errands,” lawyers for Deibler’s family said in a statement.

In another statement sent to WRC-4 by the former employer of “Kane” and those associated with The Kane Show, iHeartMedia said, “We are deeply saddened to share the news that Kane has passed away. Kane has been an important part of our iHeart family for many years, from his early days at WFLZ in Tampa, to his network of stations and success at HOT 99.5 in D.C. and ‘Club Kane.’ Please keep Kane’s family and his girls in your thoughts and prayers.”

Deibler was father to two daughters, Sam and Sophie.

“The family is requesting that their privacy be honored during this difficult time,” his representatives said.

A memorial service will also be planned at a future date.

Deibler made headlines in June 2016 after being arrested for assault after his soon-to-be ex-wife accused him of second-degree assault, The Washington Post reported at the time.

It was a blemish on a storied career that began at WKCI-FM “KC101” in New Haven, where he was an intern while still in high school, Lance Venta of RadioInsight.com reports. He’d later hold nights at WWHT-FM “Hot 107.9” in Syracuse and joined WFLZ in 1998 for evenings.

Two years later, he moved to Washington, to join the former XM Satellite Radio.

In 2004, Deibler would return to Tampa, as PD/afternoon host of WFLZ. Then, in October 2006, “The Kane Show” would debut at Hot 99.5; he’d continue to host afternoons on 93.3 FLZ in Tampa.

DISH Network Corporation has embarked on a big business initiative that’s designed to shift it away from strictly offering direct broadcast satellite TV services that, quite often, do not offer consumers every local channel due to its penchant to play hardball with respect to any retransmission consent accords.

It involves 5G, and wireless technology. DISH just took another step toward achieving that goal, by acquiring a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that’s using the T-Mobile infrastructure.

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So much for that COVID-19 subscriber bump.

Full market estimates from Kagan, the S&P Global Market Intelligence media research group, are out. And … they’re not pretty.

Millions of subscriptions by multichannel video services were shed in 2020. As such, the cord-cutting story is real.

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

SoundCloud has announced a new funding model for musicians on its service. What does it mean for the wider world of music royalties?

On March 2 SoundCloud introduced the program it calls fan-powered royalties. Through this initiative, SoundCloud says it will pay musical performers posting tracks on its service based on the number of plays by listeners. The announcement is thin on specifics. For example, the rates artists will get and how SoundCloud will halt the market in purchased plays are not detailed. However, the proposal has kicked off a fresh debate on the nature of music royalties.

[Read: Community Broadcaster: Things Fall Apart]

Most audiences presume that an artist gets some amount of money when their music is streamed or broadcast. Radio stations know that music royalties are a byzantine subject. There are terrestrial and streaming platforms to be covered separately by fees; performance and composition delineations; and categories such as mechanical licensing. Then there are the various competing organizations representing songwriters and other creatives wanting their voices heard. The result is a system where many artists believe they get little compensation. The current schema has been decried by groups like the Future of Music Coalition as needing greater attention from lawmakers, broadcasters and the music industry.

How radical or bold the SoundCloud approach is depends on who you ask.

Calling this campaign “royalties” is a bit of a misnomer. The audience-funded endeavor is not a challenge to the current royalties arrangement. SoundCloud is not introducing artist representation for payment like SESAC, ASCAP and BMI, where songwriters’ rights to payment are advocated for and upheld for families of deceased performers. Nor is its program really a replacement for the royalty model. In fact, SoundCloud will presumably continue to contribute to the existing music payment framework because it has to do so legally, meaning the artists in its audience-driven program will also see monies from the existing royalties paradigm.

What it is offering, though, is a crowdfunding hybrid — an OnlyFans for musical performers, if you will, where artists are paid by content consumption. If you’re an artist getting 5,000 streaming plays per month, the check you’d normally receive might be no more than a few dollars annually. Depending on the details of the SoundCloud deal, such an artist could stand to earn more. Unlike other platforms, which have largely not budged from their payment obligations, SoundCloud’s experiment seems more equitable. A lingering question of what this means for mega-artists that also have SoundCloud channels and how they’ll be compensated under the new plan.

Community radio in particular has had its own contentions with the current royalties, especially in how local, independent performers are supported. Ongoing negotiations seem to indicate change will be hard. Still, many of us in radio may be watching SoundCloud’s development in May, when the first payments to artists are expected to be delivered.

The post Community Broadcaster: Is OnlyFans Music’s Next Royalty Model? appeared first on Radio World.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate late Friday (3/5) approved a budget reconciliation bill that doesn’t raise the minimum wage to a statutory $15 per hour and will put an extra $1,400 in the hands of many Americans.

The legislation also will direct hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 related emergency assistance to public radio and television stations.

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