Industry News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — America’s Public Television Stations have given their support to a recommendation by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies for advance funding for public broadcasting in Fiscal Year 2024.

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The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Leadership Foundation on Saturday revealed the winners of the 2021 Celebration of Service to America Awards, recognizing outstanding community service by local broadcasters. Winners were announced during a televised Celebration of Service to America Awards program, sponsored in part by Streamline Publishing’s Radio Ink and the Radio + Television Business Report. 

“America’s local radio and television broadcasters demonstrated unparalleled devotion to helping families and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic,” commented NAB Leadership Foundation President Michelle Duke. “We are pleased to honor the winners and celebrate broadcasters nationwide for their commitment to public service.”

The 2021 Service to America Award winners are:

Service to Community Award for Radio – Ownership Group
Zimmer Radio of Mid-Missouri, “Miracles for Kids Radiothon”

For the Zimmer Radio & Marketing Group team, the annual Children’s Miracle Network radiothon is personal. Raising money and awareness for MU’s Children’s Hospital to help sick kids is the main reason “why we do the radiothon,” but this radiothon also happens because many staff members have needed this hospital for their own children at some point. As the self-proclaimed “crown jewel event for the company,” this radiothon showcases the power of radio and love for local communities. The 14th annual 2020 Miracle for Kids radiothon raised over $248,000 and awareness for the phenomenal work of the doctors, nurses and staff every single day at the local Children’s Hospital.

Service to Community Award for Television – Ownership Group
The E.W. Scripps Company, “The Rebound”

In an effort to help guide communities through the COVID-19 crisis, Scripps Local Media launched “The Rebound.” This initiative provided resources to help Americans get back to work and make ends meet. Over nine months, all 61 television stations highlighted creative ways businesses stayed open and showed how communities rallied around them week after week. From the investigative teams helping people across the country get unemployment benefits to the education experts helping students get back to school safely, the Scripps Local Media team helped people manage the pressure and anxiety with advice and resources. Every day for nearly a year, this group told stories that impacted our communities and gave people hope with the help of medical experts, data analysts and more than 100 town halls and specials.

Service to Community Award for Radio – Major Market
KTMY-FM Saint Paul, Minnesota, “KTMY Rebuilds the Neighborhoods”
Hubbard Broadcasting

Minority-owned businesses in Minneapolis and St. Paul that were already disproportionately affected by COVID-19 restrictions were dealt a brutal blow during the uprising that took place in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. During the civil unrest across the cities, many of these places were vandalized, looted and burned to the ground. In partnership with the Neighborhood Development Center, KTMY launched “10 Stories in 10 Days” to tell the stories of these local businesses hurting and inspire the community to lend a hand. Their show hosts turned their mics over to these business owners, many of whom came to this country chasing the American dream, so they could share their stories with the audience. As a result of this partnership and campaign, KTMY raised over $145,000 for these businesses to rebuild and highlighted the local community’s power and small business owners’ resilience.

Service to Community Award for Television – Large Market
WISN-TV Milwaukee, Wisconsin, “WISN Feeds the Hungry”
Hearst Television, Inc.

Within two weeks of the “stay-at-home order,” WISN knew they needed to find a way to feed the struggling members of their community. As people were being laid off, kids were also home from school without school lunches and there was limited food pantry access for the elderly due to the order. The team at WISN stepped up to the “plate” to help provide hunger relief. In partnership with the Hunger Task Force, WISN held two large fundraisers to feed their communities and help local businesses. With the April Milk Buyback and Thanksgiving Virtual Fundraisers, this local station raised more than $1 million for Hunger Task Force due to WISN 12’s efforts and partnership.

Service to Community Award for Radio – Medium Market
WYCT-FM Pensacola, Florida, Hurricane Sally Relief Efforts
iHeartMedia, Inc.

In September 2020, Hurricane Sally meandered into the Gulf of Mexico and 36 hours out, this slow-moving storm was forecast to make landfall 200 miles away from Pensacola. Instead, it took a slow right turn and became the first direct hit for Pensacola in 16 years. Following the devastation of this hurricane, the team at WYCT-FM wanted to do something to help the community rebuild and recover from the storm. In partnership with United Way of West Florida and their TV partner WEAR-TV, this local station launched “Mission Restore Hope” to raise over $300,000 to help local organizations fund rebuilding efforts and help the community feel at home again.

Service to Community Award for Television – Medium Market
WMC-TV Memphis, Tennessee, “WMC Puts School on TV”
Gray Television

Memphis is home to Tennessee’s largest school district, Shelby County Schools (SCS).  It serves more than 113,000 students, ranking among the top 25 largest public-school districts in the country. Many families living in Shelby County are below the poverty line; distance learning poses a difficult challenge considering many homes do not have computers or internet access. When the team at WMC learned about the shift to virtual learning, the leadership team partnered with the SCS superintendent to offer school on TV. Offering more than 23 hours of programming each week, the WMC team worked with their education partners to ensure that students still had the chance to receive an education without worrying about having the proper equipment.

Service to Community Award for Radio – Small Market
KNDE-FM College Station, Texas, “136 Charities, $794,573, One Day and the KNDE Team”
Bryan Broadcasting Corporation

Amid canceled events and poorly attended virtual fundraisers, many local nonprofits found themselves on the brink of extinction. In partnership with the Community Foundation of the Brazos Valley, the KNDE team decided it was time to showcase local radio’s power. During the 18-hour virtual giving event held on October 27, 2020, this local station educated its audience on the work of 136 charities and solicited donations to help keep the community members afloat. In one day, this team raised $794,573 and proved that local broadcasting does matter.

Service to Community Award for Television – Small Market
KTVB-TV Boise, Idaho, “7Cares Idaho Shares”
TEGNA

With the holiday season approaching, the team at KTVB wanted to do something to help feed the hungry and homeless in the local community because no one should go hungry during the holidays. With the launch of “7Cares Idaho Shares,” this local radio station held a two-week virtual campaign to solicit cash and food donations to help local nonprofits feed the hungry. Due to an outpouring of support from individuals and local businesses, KTVB raised more than 49,890 pounds of food and $950,000 to equal almost 2.9 million meals.

The Celebration of Service to America Awards highlight and honor the exceptional community service exhibited by local radio and television stations across the U.S. Produced by the NAB Leadership Foundation, the 2021 program was presented as a televised program and is available for airing by local stations through August 14.

Ten more Members of Congress have pledged to refrain from voting for any new “performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge” on local broadcast radio stations.

Their decision further puts the latest attempt by Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to “provide fair treatment of radio stations and artists for the use of sound recordings, and for other purposes” in doubt of succeeding on Capitol Hill.

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Take a look at the latest Media Monitors Spot Ten TV report, and you’ll see auto insurance specialists dominating the Top 5.

That said, there’s also a new entrant that’s particularly notable. It’s Starbucks.

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Their brand mission is simple: they’re “the ones who get it done.”

Perhaps it is a tag line Radio can incorporate to demonstrate how audio commercials can lift a brand’s sales.

And, it can use Grainger as an example, given its brand-new use of Spot Radio.

For the week ending July 11 as determined by Media Monitors, Grainger — the industrial supply company — ranks No. 5 by spot play count.

This puts Grainger behind just Indeed and No. 1 paid advertiser Progressive.

The activity from Grainger is highly positive, as it demonstrates the use of a media for a company that’s proven to be selective with its mix of consumer outreach platforms.

Meanwhile, Capital One is back on the Spot Ten with some 30,726 spot plays.

The author is manager of the Media Intelligence Service at the European Broadcasting Union.

In these days of flashy audio innovations — with professionals, the trade press and dedicated events and conferences often focusing on podcasts, vocal assistants and social audio — we tend to forget the central role that old-fashioned and resilient broadcast radio plays in peoples’ lives.

At the EBU, we estimate that broadcast radio still represents between 85 and 90% of total radio consumption, which remains the bulk of audio consumption.

[Read: The Great Unbundling of Radio]

To understand the situation of broadcast radio, we have recently conducted research on the distribution networks used by radio services in Europe and the northern African territories that form part of the EBU, i.e. in 56 countries with a total population of more than 1 billion.

Many readers will no doubt be surprised to learn that our census found more than 12,000 radio services across the area. These are services operating each under their own brand, independently from the number of frequencies or transmitters.

Less surprisingly, 95% of those services broadcast in FM. This sends out a strong signal showing how prevalent FM remains.

Of course, the picture on the ground is more diverse, from Southern Europe where dials are typically overcrowded to Algeria, the sole remaining public radio monopoly in the area, and on to Norway, the only country to have shut down analog FM radio nationwide. Although some countries still grant FM licenses, the total number of services in this band is on the decrease.

The future looks darker for other analog networks, medium- and longwave. There are already 19 countries with no medium-wave services, although the U.K. still operates 69 services in that band, nearly as many as all 27 countries of the European Union taken together, where 74 services were identified.

There are only 12 services available in longwave, down from 21 in 2017 and 18 in 2019. Those originate in 10 countries, with public radio in Algeria and Iceland broadcasting two different signals. The LW band is only used for radio in Region 1 of the ITU, and outside the area covered by our study, in Mongolia and Turkmenistan.

As the reader may guess, digital radio broadcast networks are the fastest-growing. In 2021 nearly 2,000 different services were identified, a 23% increase in only two years, with no sign of slowing down short term. Again, the U.K. is an outlier here, with 80% of the 265 DAB stations identified. Meanwhile, DAB+ continues gaining ground.

And what about international radio? More shortwave services are appearing, but often at a high cost: large, well-known broadcasters are turning away from a bandwidth that is increasingly being taken over by religious denominational and other niche services. DRM, for its part, has not been embraced so far as a viable digital alternative to shortwave.

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

The post EBU Finds That Radio Is in the Air appeared first on Radio World.

REC Networks founder Michi Bradley is criticizing the National Association of Broadcasters for running what she describes as a conspiracy campaign against her petition to increase the maximum power for low-power FMs to 250 watts.

NAB has been a vocal opponent of REC’s “Simple 250” proposal, telling the FCC it has concerns about potential interference to existing FM signals, in particular to translators. The association also has questioned the capabilities of some LPFM stations to address interference complaints adequately.

The petition would amend Parts 73 and 74 of the rules to create an LP250 class of service with an effective service contour of about 4-1/2 miles, in addition to the current LP100 service. The NAB has been vigorous in opposition, and last week we told you about its latest reply comments.

REC Networks too has filed replies, alleging that NAB relies on several “conspiracy theories.”

One, Bradley says, is the “crowded spectrum” argument: “NAB continues to [revel] in this ongoing conspiracy theory that claims that LP250 would result in ‘further congestion’ of the already crowded FM band, yet provides absolutely no technical data to support their claim.”

REC continues: “[C]ontour overlap between commercial stations already exists because of the use of distance separation instead of contours in order to space stations apart. The NAB does not seem to have any problem with that kind of spectrum crowding and interference as it would likely involve its own membership. If anything, it is REC and not the NAB that has been the most transparent in disclosing isolated incidents of interference with the upgrade to LP250 and as we will explain, that upgrades to LP250 follow the same accepted standards that currently allow full-service commercial FM stations to be able to be spaced, without regard to contour overlap.”

REC Networks proposes that an upgrade from LP100 to LP250 be allowed as a simple minor change application.

It acknowledges the potential for an LPFM to create or increase overlap with an authorized facility due to specific geographic situations, and says it understands comments from ABC-Disney expressing concern over LP250 and its potential impact on WPVI(TV), a legacy Channel 6 station in Philadelphia.

However, REC says the possibility of any new LP100 stations near Philadelphia is extremely small. “ABC-Disney should not need to be concerned about the outcome of this proceeding as it will have no impact on WPVI operations.”

NAB also portrays LPFM stakeholders as “having no regard for the rules,” Bradley wrote, but this generalizes to the entire service from a small number of situations, she argues.

Further, she argues that “NAB tries to play the COVID sympathy card.” The association, she wrote, “claims that radio stations had to quickly reconfigure their systems to comply with social distancing guidelines and remote operations, newsgathering and reporting. It would be completely pathetic to assume that these reactions and precautions to protect and inform the local community were exclusive to full-service broadcast stations.”

And NAB says the economic downturn caused by the pandemic has severely impacted the radio industry and that advertising dollars which sustain radio were among the first business cuts when businesses contract during downturns, according to REC.

“They fail to recognize that LPFM stations were in a similar situation during the pandemic,” REC told the FCC.

There are 2,159 licensed LPFM 100 stations in the United States, according to the latest data from the FCC. The approximate service range of a 100 watt LPFM station is 3.5 miles radius.

The post REC Networks Sees NAB “Conspiracy Campaign” appeared first on Radio World.

They proudly serve Wyoming’s Wind River Basin.

Now, an AM/FM combo, along with an FM translator, are heading to a new owner in a deal brokered by an individual who knows the lay of the land — Cody, Wyo.-based Larry and Susan Patrick.

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Broadcast equipment manufacturer BW Broadcast has shut down, at least temporarily, after the death of its co-founder Scott Incz, according to BW’s U.S. distributor SCMS.

The manufacturer’s other co-founder, Roger Howe, died last year.

SCMS President Bob Cauthen said he was notified last week by BW Broadcast that Incz had died but that he had no further details.

Cauthen said he expects BW “will be reopened at some point under a new ownership.”

“As the U.S. distributor, we will continue to provide service and parts to our U.S. customers as well as offer service at our North Carolina corporate facility and provide parts as they are available,” Cauthen said. “We have a significant stock of finished product and parts to accomplish this. Additionally, we will be able to work closely with several BW employees for worldwide service support.”

BW Broadcast makes transmitters, audio processors, monitors and other equipment. It was founded by Roger Howe and Scott Incz in 1997. Howe died in early 2020.

“Scott was a valued business partner for many years,” said Matt Cauthen, vice president of SCMS, “and more importantly, a friend. He will be missed.”

The post BW Broadcast Closes, at Least Temporarily appeared first on Radio World.

According to an amended statement of ownership filed Monday with the SEC, the sixth-largest institutional investor in radio industry pure-play Saga Communications has lowered its attributable interest in the company.

Based on reported share totals as of March 30, this puts this investment management house founded by Larry Fink out of the top 10 of Saga’s Wall Street dollar-injectors.

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