Industry News

Seventeen days ago, the nation’s No. 1 audio media company by number of radio stations announced it would prepay $250 million in term loan facilities while repricing its incremental term loan.

The announcement was icing on the cake for IHRT shareholders who have enjoyed an incredible rebound from COVID-19-influenced lows seen in March and April of 2020.

With iHeart’s June 24 closing price, a 473.5% improvement has been seen since March 30, 2020.

As of 1:27pm Eastern on July 9, IHRT sat at $26.02.

By comparison, IHRT was trading in the $17 range until mid-February, when COVID-19 fears pummeled the issue — and just about every other publicly traded company.

For iHeart, however, meaningful recovery for its battered stock began in May 2020. And, aside from a few profit-taking ebbs and flows, the growth of its stock is unprecedented.

What’s to come for a company that seeks to transition the bulk of Rush Limbaugh’s listening audience to a team of Clay Travis and Buck Sexton as questions on how to transition aging Top 40 personalities such as Ryan Seacrest loom?

As far as Wall Street is concerned, long-term forecasts are in line with what the company expects, as podcasting and digital revenue show no signs of a slowdown.

The 1-year revenue estimate put on IHRT by Wall Street analysts: $29.14.

For some, the buying and selling of broadcast media properties over the past 12 months has been nothing short of dismal. Aside from cash-rich non-profit broadcast ministries seeking FM properties they couldn’t get a decade ago, radio industry transactions have come in small trickles. The TV industry, on the other hand, has seen colossal mega-mergers involving companies such as The E.W. Scripps Co. and Gray Television.

Television industry transactions of late have also included deals involving unbuilt low-power TV stations. With a sign-on deadline of Tuesday, time is rapidly ticking for those seeking to spin these facilities and cash out. For those still in need of a facility fire-up, an automatic forfeit of the CP looms.

Then, there’s a group of LPTVs for sale that are a bit unique. How so? They don’t need to be built until 2023.

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We all know that there’s power in a melody. But how closely do listeners actually associate a melody with a brand?

A recent study conducted by one audio company set to find out. The 2021 Audio Logo Index survey gathered responses of 3,700 consumers in the U.S. and U.K. to evaluate more than 100 consumer brands’ audio logos. The survey found that consumers were more consistently able to identify a brand when the name of that brand was tied to an audio melody.

According to the audio intelligence company Veritonic, which conducted the survey, two strong features work best to define a strong sonic brand: one, the audio logo has to say the name of the brand and two, the logo must have a melody to it.

[Read: Survey Says U.S. Radio Listeners Engaged and Receptive to Ads]

The study specifically analyzed how memorable an audio logo was and what emotional resonance it held for a listener. The survey measured and scored all types of audio content including voices, music, ads and audio logos.

For example, the survey found that those with a combined audio feature that mentions the brand name and have a melody led to higher scores. Those with both a melody and a brand name mention scored an average 78 Veritonic Audio Score. Those without scored a 54 average.

The survey also asked respondents to name the company that came to mind when they heard an audio logo. Topping the list of brands that have the strongest degree of association: State Farm, followed by Arby’s, Ace Hardware and AutoZone. Insurance firms in particular seem to understand the power of putting a brand name into the sonic brand: three of the top 10 strongest audio logos with brand association are State Farm, Farmers and Liberty Mutual.

The study also found a weak brand association for those audio logos that do not say the brand name or have a melody. Less than 2% of respondents were able to correctly associate the audio logo belonging to mainstream brands like Southwest, T-Mobile or Amazon.

Another weak brand association: those audio logos that have a melody but don’t mention the name itself. Despite investment in its long-standing sonic brand, only 13% of respondents could correctly associate the specific audio “ding” belonging to the technology company Intel. The same issues arose with the audio logo for Mastercard; upon hearing the Mastercard logo, none of the respondents could associate it with the brand.

Mastercard isn’t the only major company with a sonic brand no one can associate with the company. Honda, Audi, Nissan and Sprint share that same fate, the survey found.

So how can companies grow association of their audio logo with their brands? In a blog post, Pierre Bouvard, chief Insights Officer at Cumulus Media/Westwood One, “they should take a page from State Farm’s resurgence of brand association and introduce the brand name into the audio logo.”

Other findings revealed by the study found that:

• Audio logos that mention the brand scored a Veritonic Audio Score of 69 on average. Audio logos that did not mention the brand scored significantly lower with an average 55 Veritonic Audio Score.
• Audio logos that included a melody saw a 77 average Veritonic Audio Score compared to those without a melody at an average of 60.

More information is available at the 2021 Audio Logo Index.

The post Uncovering What Makes an Effective Sonic Brand appeared first on Radio World.

A group of minority shareholders in DTV America Corp. has taken another legal action against what it calls “a conglomerate of overlapping entities and their interlocking directors and officers” that presently possess majority control of the entity known for its low-power TV stations.

What is that “conglomerate”? It’s HC2 Holdings.

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Its mission was simple: To re-purpose 600 MHz and other spectrum and rapidly deploy a world-class 5G network in the United States.

This could explain why the individual behind Landover Wireless, a 30-year veteran of the global wireless telecommunications industry, had an interest in low-power TV stations.

That venture, however, was never fully realized. Earlier this year, it drafted two transactions selling unbuilt LPTVs to Jeff Winemiller. Now, it is spinning an unbuilt LPTV property in Idaho.

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One has been the EVP of Operations at Cumulus Media since April 2017 and has been with the company since the end of 2014. The other individual is also a EVP of Operations at the audio media company and has been there since January 2013.

Both executives are now getting presidential appointments from Mary Berner.

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Dave Milner and Bob Walker have each ascended to respective roles as President of Cumulus Operations, effective immediately.

They report to Berner, Cumulus’ President/CEO, who calls their elevation “a well-deserved recognition of their respective contributions to the company’s success. Over the past several years, not only has the scope of both Bob’s and Dave’s direct responsibilities grown beyond their market portfolios, they also play a significant and vital role in the operations of the Company overall. Moreover, in addition to being terrific executives, they are terrific colleagues as well.”

Milner, who joined Cumulus in December 2014, has a rich resume steeped in Northern California radio. He was President/Market Manager of iHeartMedia’s San Francisco stations from May 2012 through his arrival at Cumulus. Before that, he was VP of Sales for Entercom (now Audacy) in Sacramento. From 2004-February 2007, he worked for Cumulus — then led by the Dickey brothers. His role: GSM for the San Francisco stations.

Walker is responsible for the P&L of 65 markets across the Cumulus portfolio, and started his tenure at the company as SVP of Brand Solutions. He’s one of the rare individuals who shifted from television to radio, as he served as WXIA-11 in Atlanta President/GM under Gannett ownership from 1996-2010. He’d been associated with “11Alive” since May 1988, first handling marketing and sales roles.

From April 2010 until arriving at Cumulus, Walker was EVP/GM of Network and Content at The Weather Channel.

It’s repeatedly put the blame on nearly every retransmission consent impasse, leading to a “blackout” of local TV stations, on the station owner.

It’s unabashedly in support of anything that favors a MVPD.

Now, the American Television Alliance (ATVA) has commented on a half-million-dollar-plus Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture handed to Gray Television by the FCC for allegedly violating the Commission’s Top Four station rule.

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How has the advertising landscape evolved in Northern California? What’s the sense of “new normal” client activity, in particular for Spanish-language radio?

The return of live events is a big deal. Automotive is on the rebound.

Those are just some of the takeaways from Angie Balderas, the SVP of Integrated Marketing Solutions at Entravision Communications in Sacramento.

She’s the latest guest in this all-new InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Angie Balderas” on Spreaker.

In the last week, NEXTGEN TV has gone live in such markets as Charlotte and Little Rock.

You can now add the California state capital to the list of cities where ATSC 3.0-powered television is now available for those that actually have the next-gen TV sets needed to get the signals.

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Although its shares are down from a five-year high seen in mid-April, TEGNA‘s stock price hasn’t been this good since September 2015, just months after it changed its name from Gannett and spun off its newspaper assets.

With a healthy 1-year target estimate handed to TEGNA by Wall Street analysts and a beneficial long-term prognosis in hand, company executives could be preparing a positive Q2 2021 earnings report. We now know when those results will be released.

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