Industry News

WGN Radio is celebrating its 100 anniversary throughout the month of May with a series of events and a documentary release.

Dating back to 1922, WGN was created by Thorne Donnelley and Elliott Jenkins, both Chicago natives and radio enthusiasts. The duo first started broadcasting from the Wrigley Building with their experimental station named WDAP. Its call letters were soon changed to WGN two years later when Col. Robert McCormick, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, acquired the station. Now, WGN is owned by Nexstar Media Group, Inc.

In addition to the famous Wrigley Building, over the years, the station has been headquartered at several other notable Chicago landmarks including The Drake Hotel and Tribune Tower.

To celebrate its centennial, WGN will debut the documentary “100 Years of WGN Radio: A Retrospective,” this Thursday, May 19. The 45-minute documentary, produced in-house, expands on the radio station’s history from its inception to present.

Other events this month include the launch of a special edition birthday lager, exclusive station broadcasts for the Indianapolis 500 and a long list of history segments. Plus, a resolution from the the State of Illinois and City of Chicago honoring WGN.

For a more detailed timeline on the station’s 100-year history and event details, visit WGN’s website.

The post Chicago’s WGN Radio Celebrates 100 Years On Air appeared first on Radio World.

Managers of radio stations, houses of worship, universities and corporate and government meeting rooms all face the question, “How can we effectively disinfect our microphones after an event?”

iSEMcon, which is in the “front of house” business, recently introduced the Li.LAC Microphone Disinfector. It uses controlled exposure to ultraviolet light (UV-C) to kill over 99% of bacteria and viruses on microphone surfaces, metal grilles and the windscreens underneath. 

It’s a rugged product, designed by live event touring professionals and mounted in a 19-inch, 3RU rackmount format. Load up to three microphones or several lavalier or headset microphones, headsets or belt packs, close the drawer, and press “Start.” Disinfection takes 12 minutes or less.

The Li.LAC Microphone Disinfector is available online. It lists for $1,599. The company is based in Germany and has an office in Ohio; general info can be found here. 

The company notes that the simple operation of this device speeds a job that’s critical in today’s environment. We’re not completely out of the woods with respect to COVID-19; and even when we get there, microphone hygiene will remain important. 

The Li.LAC Microphone Disinfector uses UV-C light to disinfect the mics.

Many arms, light work

In the Feb. 15 Workbench, we discussed a useful circuit called an Octopus. Its purpose is to analyze components while they are in a circuit. 

Longtime Workbench friend Paul Sagi first encountered the Octopus years ago in Popular Electronics magazine. At one of his first radio station jobs, he had to repair numerous switched-mode power supplies, as are found in everything from transmitters to audio processors and network gear.

The most common failure components were capacitors followed by MOSFETs, ICs and other semiconductors; Paul found that inductors almost never failed.

Removing components from a printed circuit board was a nuisance, so Paul used signal injection and an Octopus to find faulty capacitors and the rare faulty inductor.  

Paul fed a 100 kHz sine wave, 200 mV peak into the components. Those specs avoided having the semiconductor junctions respond to the test signal. By the angle of the trace on the oscilloscope, Paul could measure the equivalent series resistance of the capacitor; an ESR of less than 0.1 Ohms usually indicates a good electrolytic capacitor, as does an ellipse.

Take DAT!

Buried away in your storage closet may be a defective Digital Audio Tape machine or two. Before you toss these finicky machines, Paul passes on a document from Eddie Ciletti that describes machine repair tips for Sony and Panasonic DAT models. Find it here.

Bright ideas from Darkwood

Projects engineer Dan Slentz found a neat site that has a variety of Windows freeware, developed by Paul Marshall of Darkwood Designs using Borland Delphi. 

Offerings includes individual and multiple volume metering indicators, a dB graphical display of audio frequencies, an audio tone generator and a jpeg image cropper. 

On the company’s website, click on “More PC Software.”

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More free posters

Tektronix has put together a couple of interesting posters showing the fundamentals of oscilloscopes. The posters are in color and free to download. Head over to tektronix.com for “Anatomy of an oscilloscope” and “Basic features and functions of an oscilloscope.” 

The posters provide a good review for seasoned engineers as well as an excellent training tool for the entry-level engineer; and they will liven up your office.

Let’s go to the tape

If you work with conduit or rigid transmission line, take a look at the T1 Tomahawk Digital Tape Measure. 

This is the tape measure for all measurements! It has a physical tape plus an OLED measurement display; and its ROCK Measuring App allows the T1 to synchronize any measurements with your iOS or Android phone. 

The display can be zeroed from any position, regardless of the amount of conventional measuring tape extended. A special bracket will hold a pencil or a Sharpie (or similar brand) marker. There is a side-mounted “E-paper” feature that records an unlimited number of measurements — no more writing the measurements down on a piece of paper! Measurements are recorded electronically on the T1.

The Tomahawk Digital Tape Measure

The T1 Tomahawk Digital Tape Measure also includes a high-visibility green laser. 

There’s a good video about it on YouTube.

This tool is not cheap, listing for around $250, but judging from the reviews on the Reekon Tools website, the time savings and accuracy may make it a worthwhile investment. 

John Bisset, CPBE, has spent over 50 years in the broadcasting industry and is in his 33nd year writing Workbench. He handles western U.S. radio sales for the Telos Alliance and is a past recipient of the SBE’s Educator of the Year Award. Workbench submissions are encouraged and qualify for SBE recertification credit. Email johnpbisset@gmail.com.  

The post Freshen Your Mics With Li.LAC appeared first on Radio World.

This story appeared in the Radio World ebook “Spectacular Radio Studios.”

The Athletic Department at the University of Nebraska became the first major U.S. college athletic department to bring its multimedia operation fully in house, starting with the 2021–22 sports season. Part of the challenge was to bring up a statewide radio network on a very short timeline.

Director of Broadcast Operations Mike Elliott said the new facilities serve the Huskers Radio Network, with its 50+ radio stations across the Midwest, plus internet audio broadcasts across the world on Huskers.com and the official Husker App.

“This was not your typical radio station operation with ‘studios,’” Elliott said. 

“The Huskers Radio Network had to be built to support up to four simultaneous live Husker sporting event broadcasts to terrestrial radio affiliates, with up to eight live simultaneous internet radio streams of live Husker sporting events and programming.”

The network has the capability to send a live video stream of the network’s “Sports Nightly” talk show, heard on more than two dozen terrestrial radio affiliates, plus internet radio streams and free live video streams on YouTube, Huskers.com and the app. The show produces audio and video two hours a day, five nights a week, 52 weeks a year.

The Broadcast Operations Center has five live event production pods. Video can be ingested from any Husker Athletics venue, and audio from anywhere across the globe.

“Private video capability with ultra low latency — under half a second — is part of the Broadcast Center to accommodate non-traveling, COVID-safe broadcasting of any home or road game, with talent in isolated studios and/or offsite locations around the country,” Elliott said. “All audio connectivity to remote sites was using Tieline technology and products.”

At work in the Huskers Radio Network Broadcast Center

Bilingual broadcasts of all Husker Football games was a requirement of the facility, utilizing announcers at remote sites, often different remote sites for every game.

Elliott designed and built the Broadcast Operations Center and all REMI systems, with support from various Husker Athletics departments. 

“When Nebraska Athletics made the decision to bring their radio operation in house, they asked me to join the Athletic Department as Director of Broadcast Operations,” he said. “Initially that was system design, RFPs, buildout, testing, and training of all staff to operate and produce Husker broadcasts.”

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Elliott said the department took an unusual approach to producing road game radio broadcasts.

“Instead of sending producers and engineers to remote sites, we designed a radio version of the TV remote integration, or REMI, model. We send on-air talent to road games but do not send production or engineering staff. Using Tieline Gateway and Via codecs and their Cloud Codec Controller technology, a simple road kit travels. Each and every road game announcer microphone is individually returned to our Broadcast Operations Center. Each and every road talent has their own individual IFB mix to the broadcast operations center production team. 

“Every remote game-site talent — play by play, color, stats, even the sideline reporter — appear on individual ‘pots’ on the Husker Broadcast Center pod assigned to that game,” he continued. 

A producer position to monitor and operate the HDVMixer video production system

“With Wheatstone LXE and AoIP technology, we can easily generate custom mixes, and adjust any needed audio processing for each and every road game microphone while mixing at the Huskers Broadcast Center.”

For example, if the color announcer wanted to hear more nat sound, that’s handled at the broadcast center. Included in the return feeds are various nat sound feeds from the remote venue. 

“Furthermore, all of these feeds are also available to mix into the Spanish broadcast, with the Spanish broadcasters at another remote site.”

They use MaxxKonnect Wireless for automatic failover connectivity to the REMI road kit, with stadium Ethernet as the primary. 

“Using the Tieline CCC we had full monitoring and control of the Tieline equipment at the game site, no matter what IP patch the signals were taking.”

Setup at the remote site, he said, is simple. “Plug in Ethernet from the venue. Plug in headsets. Mount the antennas for the sideline reporter wireless. Power the kit up and the Huskers Broadcast Center takes over from there via Tieline CCC and VPN connectivity to the REMI kit.”

Given changes coming to satellite distribution, Elliott continued, the school decided not to set up a satellite uplink to distribute the network, as had been done in the past.

“We elected to not invest in a satellite system, instead to design and implement an independent redundant IP-based radio network audio and control distribution system. I designed a system using Barix hardware with full dual-provider redundancy, which has proven to be an excellent distribution system to all terrestrial network affiliates.”

Tieline and WheatNet equipment is visible in the rack area

The timeline to complete this project was remarkable, especially given current supply chain challenges.

“The decision to bring the radio network operation in house at Husker Athletics was finalized in the early second quarter of 2021,” Elliott said. 

“System design had to occur in record time, with RFPs in place for all interested bidders through the University of Nebraska public bidding process. RFPs were posted, bids accepted and reviewed, and bids awarded in the second quarter of 2021.”

Key technology components include the Tieline Gateway, Via, Cloud Codec Controller and ReportIT systems; Wheatstone WheatNet, LXE surfaces and StreamBlades; HDVMixer video technology; Telos VX Prime VoIP phone system; Barix codecs; and RCS Zetta automation. Dealer Broadcast Supply Worldwide provided much of the equipment.

Most of the products arrived at the stadium loading dock on May 27, which Elliott called “a herculean effort” by the suppliers. 

“Our first live radio network broadcast from the new Huskers Broadcast Center was June 28, 2021 — that’s from a completely open space on May 27, to a complete live radio and video production/live studio facility, including IP radio network distribution to 50+ sites, live video and audio streaming, full automation signaling to affiliates and training production staff. 

“Then over the next month we built and prepared for all live game-site production with our new radio REMI model of no traveling producers or engineers.”

The post Go Big Red: A New Radio Network for the Huskers appeared first on Radio World.

Last week’s release of TechSurvey 2022 shows the rise in popularity of digital audio and its role in the listening habits of the survey’s respondents, especially among younger radio listeners. 

Survey data shows the percent of time core radio listeners spent with their P1 station through a traditional manner with a radio — either in the car, at home, work or school — is 61%, while digital accounts for 35% of listening. 

That data has mirrored itself the past two surveys, according to Jacobs Media, but the gap has narrowed over the past decade. In 2013 it was 85% traditional listening and 14% digital via an Internet stream or mobile app.

“You can see the trajectories very clearly and where we are headed. Every year it seems digital becomes just a little more important while traditional listening is dropping, said Fred Jacobs, president of Jacobs Media. 

Age difference also impacts how TechSurvey participants are listening to the radio. Last week’s online presentation shows Baby Boomers listen to radio by traditional means at 66% and digital 31%. Meanwhile, Millenials are listening on a regular radio at home, work, school or in the car at 53% and digital plots the graph at 42%.

“So Millenials are way lest likely to have a traditional radio in those traditional areas,” Jacobs said. “It’s when you start looking at generations that you can really see the listening difference. Gen Z is beginning to challenge traditional listening and digital. A 49% to 42% split between traditional and digital.”

Jacobs says broadcasters forging a digital strategy and meeting listeners where they want to listen is crucial.   

Techsurvey 2022 includes a media usage pyramid that reflects compilation data collected in early 2022 from survey respondents. AM/FM radio usage was down a couple of percent from 2021 levels. Audio streaming was down a bit but Smart Speaker and Smartphone usage was flat while use of hearables, things like Airpods and Bluetooth headphones, jumped up to 50% of respondents saying they use them.

Of interest to broadcasters who are following dashboard developments in connected cars is data showing that 30% of survey respondents drive a connected car, as compared to 27% a year ago. “That means three out of ten respondents now drives a connected car with a system like Ford Sync,” Jacobs said. 

This is another in a series of stories examining the results from TechSurvey 2022. The 18th annual web survey tracks audio listening habits and how core radio listeners interact with the mediascape away from the radio. The population spread of this year’s TechSurvey crew is 48% men and 52% female with the largest age group being 55-64, which represents 36% of respondents. 

The annual project, which measures the amount of change in the tech space and its impact on radio broadcasters, engaged radio listeners throughout the United States from more than 470 participating stations with some 31,000 respondents. Interviews took place in January and February of this year, according to Jacobs Media. 

This is the fourth in a series of stories examining the results from TechSurvey 2022. Click here to read part three.

The post TechSurvey 2022: Influence of Digital Audio Grows appeared first on Radio World.

Franken FM is on the agenda at the FCC.

Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has released a list of topics for the commission’s June meeting and FM6 is on it.

“We’re asking about preserving established local programming for radio audiences,” she wrote.

“For years, some low-power television stations licensed on Channel 6 have provided listeners local radio programming that was picked up on the FM dial, so-called FM6 stations. These stations sought to maintain this service to their existing audiences after the LPTV digital transition by seeking commission approval to provide their analog radio service as ‘ancillary or supplementary services.’”

Rosenworcel said the commission will consider a proposal to allow these broadcasters to continue their existing FM6 radio service, “provided that they meet certain conditions, including interference protection and the provision of a synchronous TV service to consumers.”

The Educational Media Foundation has been among those pressing the FCC for approval and clarification on policies around FM6 stations.

Radio World contributor James O’Neal has an ongoing series of articles on these stations; the first provided an overview, the second focuses on the tech behind the stations in the era of ATSC 3.0.

The post FCC Will Consider Franken FMs in June appeared first on Radio World.

On March 1, the new President and CEO of the nation’s primary advocacy and lobbying group for radio and television broadcasting companies issued a request. Despite being a “fierce defender” of the First Amendment, Curtis LeGeyt asked that any state-sponsored programming with ties to Moscow be pulled from U.S. airwaves — now.

LeGeyt seemingly took aim at Sputnik, the English-language service of the Voice of Russia. It is heard for six hours each weekday in St. Louis, in addition to 24/7 service on an AM and an FM translator serving Washington, D.C.

The owner of the St. Louis station has already been vocal, sharing his ire over LeGeyt’s request. This week, KCXL-AM‘s owner renewed his disdain for LeGeyt’s request, labeling it “a call to disregard our right of free speech.”

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Roger Wahl is a convicted felon. As the FCC’s Media Bureau noted, Wahl’s convictions of a felony and multiple misdemeanors alone “raise the question under the Commission’s Character Qualifications Policy Statement whether he possesses the requisite character qualifications to remain a Commission licensee.”

Indeed, Wahl could be stripped of his license. But, that may not happen for a year, based on a Hearing Designation Order schedule released by the FCC on Thursday.

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B. Eric Rhoads, CEO of Streamline Publishing, is asking fellow broadcasters for one minute of their time to consider a way radio can help change the world.

“The situation in Ukraine is dire,” he says. “Radio around the country is raising money and doing what they can to help. But we can do more.”

Rhoads writes:

Radio has changed lives, raised money for charity, and made a difference in each of our communities. We have all used our platforms to create awareness, help our neighbors, and use music to move hearts.

Years ago, radio pushed the song “We are the World” as an anthem to help people in Africa. Radio made that movement possible.

An anthem for Ukraine is needed to bring the world together to keep a focus on Ukraine until this situation is resolved fully.

Feeling the need to do something, I came up with a concept and co-wrote this song, “Tears for Ukraine,” with artist Billy Craig and Matt Jacobs.

Please consider doing your part and adding this song into rotation. Show that the radio industry continues to have influence over the world to unify our listeners.

Let’s use the power of radio to impact worldwide sentiment to raise awareness and prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again.

To download, click on the image below:

To download this song in WAV or MP3 file format, click on this image. https://www.rbr.com/wp-content/uploads/BC-Tears-For-UkraineWAV.wav

Listen to the song by clicking above.

Watch the Video on YouTube by Clicking Here.

“Uncle” Bob and “Cousin” Mark have signed a deal that will make one of those two figures an owner of “The Talk of the Town” in Athens, Tenn., situated between Chattanooga and Knoxville on U.S. 11.

Why? The Uncle has decided to sell his stake in the station.

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Radioplayer, the partnership between the BBC and U.K. commercial radio responsible for ensuring easy access to radio via IP platforms, is adding digital radio to its remit.

Following the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport’s October 2021 Digital Radio and Audio Review report, Radioplayer and Digital Radio UK saw significant benefits in merging operations.

The restructuring and merger was agreed to by the BBC, the U.K. commercial radio organization Radiocentre, and the national broadcast groups Global and Bauer Media.

The merger will, according to a statement from the organizations, strengthen partnerships and cooperation among U.K. broadcasters, as well as partnerships with European radio broadcasters, audio device manufacturers and with retailers. The goal is “to promote the benefits of radio and audio, and the increased choice of services available.”

[Related: “Radioplayer Expands in Europe”]

In the joint statement, the BBC, Bauer, Global and Radiocentre said: “We know there are further significant changes taking place in the audio market and in how audiences are accessing our content, as the recent Digital Radio and Audio Review highlighted. The newly structured Radioplayer, combined with increased investment and continued collaboration, will allow us to embrace every digital opportunity available to us and successfully deliver the next phase of innovation and transformation for the radio industry.”

While the U.K. has committed to continue FM broadcasting until at least 2030, the industry sees the future of radio as both digital and multiplatform, according to the statement, with online platforms playing an increasingly important role alongside DAB/DAB+ — particularly in cars.

As part of the restructuring, Ford Ennals will step down as CEO of Digital Radio UK. Ennals was appointed as Digital Radio UK’s first CEO in 2009, following his work as head of the British digital television switchover body, Digital UK. The statement thanked Ennals “for his services to digital listening, which is now the way most people listen to radio.”

With the restructuring, the BBC, Global and Bauer are expected to increase their investment in Radioplayer and to seek further international collaboration for the benefit of the radio industry as a whole.

The post Digital Radio UK to Merge with Radioplayer appeared first on Radio World.