A new technology that gives sellers the ability to deliver video advertising on an addressable basis across platforms from a central decisioning center — bridging linear and digital video delivery methods — has been launched by Comcast’s FreeWheel arm.
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Today is the last day “as we know it” for a 1,600-watt Class A FM serving Lynchburg, Va.
A format change is on the way, as a Lease Management Agreement is taking immediate effect following the signing of an asset sale agreement handing this station to a new owner.
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Radio members of the National Association of Broadcasters have elected new board members.
They include Chris Ornelas, who was NAB’s chief operating officer until early last year.
Odd-numbered districts voted this year.
[Read: NAB Announces Crystal Radio Winners]
An asterisk below indicates a new board member or one who served prior but is not currently active. Others were re-elected:
Allen Power* of Salem Media Group; Mike Tarter of Forcht Broadcasting; Nick Martin* of Big River Broadcasting; Chris Ornelas* of Beasley Media Group; Dana Withers* of Withers Broadcasting and Dana Communications; Carolyn Becker of Riverfront Broadcasting; Collin Jones of Cumulus Media; station owner David Hoxent; Matt Mnich* of North American Broadcasting; Bradford Caldwell of Caldwell Media; Roger Harris of Chickasaw Nation; and Trila Bumstead of Ohana Media Group.
Their two-year terms begin in June.
Ornelas brings a great deal of NAB experience to his board role. After a decade with the association he left in 2020 to become executive vice president and general counsel at Beasley. (His successor in his NAB COO role, Curtis LeGeyt, will become NAB’s president/CEO at the end of this year.)
NAB also announced that David Bevins, COO of Connoisseur Media, was appointed to a designated seat on the radio board.
The post NAB Radio Board Gets New Members appeared first on Radio World.
Changes ahead for emergency alerting … drone inspections can save you trouble … remembering a radio tower on a little rock island …
Also, audio processors from Inovonics, Orban, Ross Video, SEPsoniX, Telos Alliance, Wheatstone and WorldCast Systems; and a useful resource for FCC rules.
These stories are in the latest issue.
The post Inside the April 14 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World.
Vinyl lovers, here’s a needle drop for you: This Saturday, April 17, is Vinylthon.
The celebration of “the magic and warmth of vinyl” is put on by the College Radio Foundation, which says the event is open “to all radio stations, commercial and noncommercial.”
“Vinylthon is the radio industry’s response to the remarkable vinyl renaissance that continues around the world,” the organizers say in their announcement. Approximately 100 stations in 12 countries plan to recognize the day; for example WMSC(FM) at Montclair State University in New Jersey will celebrate its 54th anniversary with 54 hours of playing vinyl records.
The sixth annual event benefits efforts of the foundation to help keep college stations on the air. Participation is free for noncom stations. “There is a small registration fee for commercial radio stations to benefit the foundation.”
Founder Rob Quicke is general manager of WPSC(FM) at William Paterson University of New Jersey. “Playing vinyl on the air is an amazing, hands-on experience for many of today’s radio broadcasters, and a trip down memory lane for the listeners,” he said in the announcement.
Numerous artists including Andrew Farriss of INXS, Ritchie Kotzen of Poison and Gordy Marshall of The Moody Blues are supportive.
The post Saturday Is Vinylthon, to Celebrate Records appeared first on Radio World.
You’re watching your favorite television show, dozing off on the living room couch, when all of a sudden you’re jolted awake. The volume, which was just fine, has suddenly shot up. There’s a commercial now airing, and it’s so loud your shaking and more than a little stirred.
This was supposed to cease 11 years ago. It evidently hasn’t. Now, a key Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee wants the FCC to investigate a rise in loudness complaints.
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In March, Edita Kudláčová started her new job as the European Broadcasting Union’s head of radio.
In a presentation tomorrow, she will discuss her vision for the medium at the EBU’s online Radio Assembly.
She’ll tell Europe’s largest gathering of senior public radio officials that public radio is faced with a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity as well as extreme competition in the audio market, and discuss her ideas for approaching those challenges.
Radio World spoke to Kudláčová prior to the event and was allowed a preview of her comments.
Prior to assuming her new role, Kudláčová spent more than 12 years working for Czech Radio, rising from senior international relations specialist to chief creative producer. She has won many award including first prize for Best European Online Project and the Journalism Award at the 2019 Prix Europa for “1968 Project.”
Kudláčová has been a member of the EBU’s New Radio Group and, prior to that, the International Relations Radio Group.
COVID-19 and public radioKudláčová said that, confronted with a global pandemic, the world’s citizens have been eager for information to get them through this difficult time. In Europe, a large number have turned to public broadcasters for help.
“As a result, we have seen an increase in listeners to many public radio stations/networks during the past 12 to 13 months,” she said.
“The first increase occurred during the first lockdown in March and April last year. The second increase took place last autumn due to a second wave of lockdowns in European countries.”
According to the EBU’s audience research, listeners tuned to European public radio for a variety of reasons during the pandemic. The first area of audience growth was news.
“People choose radio because it is able to deliver trustworthy information quite quickly,” Kudláčová said. “The second increase that we saw was in entertainment content, which was for music streaming and music listening on air and FM.”
Radio also gained listenership among young people, in part because “lots of parents were looking for some sort of ‘visual detox’ to keep their children from staring at screens all the time,” she told Radio World.
All told, up to 26% of young people in Europe have been tuning into radio during the pandemic. This is a high level of listenership “which we have not seen in previous years, driven by public radio’s formats for these age groups.”
Opportunity and perilPandemic-driven growth in public radio listenership comes at a time when the medium is facing an increasing number of fierce competitors, both on air and particularly streaming on the web. Public radio is faced with a “one-in-a-lifetime opportunity as well as extreme competition in the audio market,” said Kudláčová. This is why European public radio has to act now to retain and grow its percentage of listeners in the multi-platform universe.
Achieving this means applying EBU members’ considerable expertise in producing high-quality audio content to create compelling content in music, sports, the arts and children’s programming, she said. Moreover, this content has to grab the attention of 21st century listeners who now enjoy an unprecedented degree of content choice.
“A lot of our member countries are already faced with increased competition in the audio market, because many digital platforms that previously only distributed audio content are now producing it as well,” Kudláčová noted.
“The degree of extreme competition that is emerging for listeners will force us to innovate quite quickly in order to survive.”
Edita Kudláčová plans to make this kind of innovation a priority for the EBU’s members and working groups, “to see where we can cooperate and progress with all of this together.”
Since her duties extend to the EBU’s Music Unit, Kudláčová is also working closely with musicians and music producers to survive COVID-caused concert cancellations.
“The EBU is already running a series of seminars together with the music creation industry on how best we can support the whole music scene and what needs to be done when the pandemic is over.”
Advancing digital and hybrid radioThe continuing progress of digital radio, specifically DAB+, and the deployment of hybrid radio within cars/trucks to retain radio’s share of the vital mobile market are priorities for Kudláčová.
“My division will continue to support the growth of DAB+ broadcasting across EBU member countries and to secure the position of public service radio in the digital market,” she said.
“The world needs independent, trustworthy public service radio now more than ever.”
As well, the EBU’s radio division will continue to work with EBU Technology & Innovation and the EBU’s Connected Cars and Devices working group to innovate the radio experience in cars and trucks.
“We’ll need to be looking at this year so that public radio stays relevant on ‘connected dashboards,’” Kudláčová said.
“I think this is a very big priority for public radio, because we need to cooperate on the international level in order to succeed — both in terms of the technology being used and the content being produced. We have to ensure that the content we distribute online makes sense for the online environment. We can do only if the EBU has an international strategy that is shared and endorsed by our members.”
Kudláčová has an ambitious agenda to fulfill as the EBU’s Head of Radio. This said, she considers herself a team player.
“It’s important that our EBU members are involved in this process, so that we really do this together,” she said. “I take it as a top priority to make sure that everyone involved in our radio efforts are well-connected and well-informed about what is going on, and that our agenda is clear and open to input from all of them.”
The post EBU’s New Head of Radio Sees Opportunity, Peril appeared first on Radio World.
Do you know precisely what information needs to be included in your station log? Are you current with the rules governing gaming ads? Do you know the legal definitions of obscenity and plugola?
A short new training course from the National Association of Broadcasters can help you or your employees with these questions.
The association is offering the scenario-based training to help people in U.S. radio have a better understanding of regulations from the Federal Communications Commission.
The course includes a lesson and four “learning activities” that take less than an hour to work through.
You also get an online PDF of the NAB’s longstanding guidebook that summarizes relevant FCC rules and policies about programming and station operation.
The guide has been updated for 2021. Its material is divided into four sections.
The Content section explains rules about the broadcast of phone conversations, contests and promotions, defamation and privacy, hoax broadcasts, obscenity, payola and similar topics. Your air talent and promotions folks definitely need to be current on this material.
The Advertising section covers alcohol, lotteries and gaming, political advertising, tobacco and marijuana issues and donor acknowledgements, among other things. Some of these topics are sensitive and fast-changing and may vary by your locale. This is obviously an important section for your sales team.
Station Operation & Management digs into topics like the EAS rules, EEO, elimination of the main studio rule, RF radiation, station logs and tower lighting.
And there’s a whole section on Public Files & Reporting. I think most broadcasters forgot to review those rules in recent years, given the rash of consent decrees that the FCC has recently announced; the settlements don’t involve financial penalties, but sooner or later I suspect the commission will decide that broadcasters have now had fair warning to get their online public files in order.
“Radio Rules: A Guide to FCC Regulations for Radio Stations” is written so that anyone working in radio can understand it. While the course and guidebook don’t replace your station attorney, they might save you from having to make an uncomfortable call to that same lawyer down the road.
The course with PDF costs $89.99 unless you are an NAB member, then the price drops to $29.99. Info is at https://education.nab.org/courses/28060.
The post Radio Rules! (A Helpful Resource From NAB) appeared first on Radio World.
Upon the unanimous recommendation of the independent members of Sinclair Broadcast Group‘s Board of Directors, the size of the board will grow from nine to 11 members.
Taking one of those new seats: the EVP/CFO of Greater Baltimore Medical Center.
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In Texas, South Padre Island is widely known as a collegiate Spring Break destination, thanks to its Gulf of Mexico beaches.
It’s also home to a Class A FM that’s been simulcasting a Mexico-licensed Regional Mexican station operated by a Rio Grande Valley-based broadcaster on the U.S. side of the border.
That simulcast will likely end soon, as the station is being spun.
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