Industry News

The sale was approved on March 26. Now, the transaction brokered by Kalil & Co. has closed.

Get ready for the highly anticipated arrival of KLOVE and Air1 on full-market signals serving the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

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Members of the Media Ad Sales Council (MASC), an industry advocacy group founded by the media technology provider, will lead Matrix’s April Media Ad Sales Summit “Candid Conversation,” which is focused on automating the buy/sell manual transactions and processes.

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For 14 years, she’s been associated with Cox Media Group’s Tulsa radio stations.

Now, this 26-year radio industry veteran is getting promoted to Director of Radio Operations.

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Earning the new stripes at CMG is Kim Dallow. She’s been the Director of Branding & Programming for KJSR-FM “103.3 The Eagle,” Cox’s Classic Rock station in Tulsa, for the past five years. She will retain those duties, while shedding the Marketing and Promotions Director role for CMG/Tulsa first given to Dallow 11 years ago.

“Kim has been serving unofficially as our operations manager for about a year now and our cluster has only improved with her at the helm,” said Cathy Gunther, a CMG Regional VP who Dallow reports to. “I look forward to seeing what she can do in her new role as we continue to lead the radio market in Green Country with top-tier ratings, community events, and innovative promotional efforts.”

Dallow added, ‘It’s such a privilege to work with this team of outstanding broadcasters. I’m so proud of the local programming and community support that CMG Tulsa consistently provides, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to help ensure that it’s legacy of excellence continues.”

Much has been stated about the better picture, improved sound and data capabilities tied to ATSC 3.0, the new digital broadcast standard that is bringing NEXTGEN TV to markets across the U.S. on a voluntary rollout basis.

Did you know that there’s a potential boost in the riches of AM and FM broadcast stations tied to ATSC 3.0? A big TV station owner, with radio properties in Seattle, is largely to thank for this tech progression.

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The Alabama Broadcasters Association will pay for 20 broadcasters to attend the NAB Show or associated events this October, and it plans a drawing to choose them.

The association has allotted up to $2,500 per person to cover airfare to Las Vegas, meeting registration and hotel; it will conduct the drawing on April 30.

Radio World asked ABA President Sharon Tinsley about the program.

Radio World: What prompted this effort?

Sharon Tinsley: It has been a tough year for broadcasters and budgets are tight. This is a way the ABA can help broadcasters attend the trade shows and have the continuing education opportunities they need at a time when they might not have the funds to do so on their own.

RW: What are the general guidelines?

Tinsley: We’re requiring that persons who submit their names be employees of member stations; they must have worked in the state in the business for at least three years; they have to include a narrative about how they hope to benefit from the experience; and a manager must also submit the employee’s name to be included in the drawing.

RW: Has ABA done this before?

Tinsley: We’ve done this on a much smaller scale in the past. We’ve offered to pay registration fees to the NAB’s Sales and Management Television Exchange and the fall Radio Show for several years, for up to five people to attend each. This year, we’re offering to cover the majority of the cost and for many more people.

RW: What is your general sense of the willingness of broadcasters to get back to physical trade shows and other in-person events?

Tinsley: I sense that people are eager to attend meetings in person again. We’re getting a great response to announcements like this one about the NAB meetings and our plans to host the ABA conference in person later this year.

Our vaccination rollout is going well in Alabama. In half our counties, over 30% of the population has had at least one dose. At this point, all persons over age 16 are eligible. We are ahead of the national average for vaccinations.

RW: What else should we know?

Tinsley: We’re hosting an in-person gathering of about 35 broadcasters at a Birmingham area hotel ballroom to view the National Association of Broadcasters’ State Leadership Conference together in May. We are taking measures to ensure everyone’s safety with only one or two people each at large dining table. We’re doing everything we can to bring people together, but keep them far enough apart!

Also, we are awarding $25,000 in Education Debt Retirement Grants this year, through which we will pay off $5,000 of student debt for five broadcasters. This is our second year to do this. And we are endowing a $50,000 scholarship fund at another Alabama college or university this spring. It will be our third year to do so.

Alabama broadcasters interested in the program should contact Sharon Tinsley. The deadline is April 30 at 4 p.m. Central time.

The NAB Show is scheduled for Oct. 9–13 in Las Vegas. The fall Radio Show is collocated with it on Oct. 13 and 14. Registrants to SMTE and the Radio Show can access to NAB Show exhibit floor at no additional cost.

The post ABA Will Send 20 People to NAB Events appeared first on Radio World.

He was formerly the U.S. Head of Industries for Google Cloud’s Deal Pursuit Organization.

Now, he’s the General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development for FOX News Media.

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Taking the role and reporting to CEO Suzanne Scott is Bernard T. Gugar.

“His extensive expertise and highly accomplished background will add immeasurable value to our thriving multiplatform brand,” Scott said.

Gugar added, “I am excited to join one of the most influential news operations in the world and look forward to utilizing my experience spanning media, law and technology to help FOX News Media grow, evolve and develop a diversified digital footprint.”

At Google, Gugar led a team that drives Google Cloud’s most strategic and complex transactions across several industry sectors. Prior to that, Gugar provided his skills and background to the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Booth School of Business, where he guided tech entrepreneurs spanning digital media, fintech, healthcare, artificial intelligence and E-commerce industries in developing and monetizing their business ventures.

Before that, Gugar served as the SVP and General Counsel of Oprah Winfrey’s privately-held Harpo Inc., where he worked from 2007 to 2015. He began his career at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett as an associate in the corporate group, after which he moved to Bear Stearns & Co., where he served as a Vice President within the Investment Banking Division.

FOX News Media operates the FOX News Channel (FNC); FOX Business Network (FBN); FOX News Digital; FOX News Audio; FOX News Books; the direct-to-consumer digital streaming services FOX Nation and FOX News International; and the recently announced AVOD platform FOX Weather.

The author is project director of RadioDNS. His commentaries appear regularly in Radio World.

Consider two organizations, both well established, commercially successful and global in reach. One makes products that the other distributes to consumers, each equally reliant on the other.

It would be pointless to make a product that couldn’t be distributed to consumers, or to create a distribution network for a product that doesn’t exist. And yet that happens when radio stations create services that car radios can’t use, and car radios implement functionality that radio stations don’t support. It’s a waste of time (and money) that we don’t have a lot of. When auto manufacturers work with companies like Spotify or Sirius XM, they get a clear brief, consistently implemented.

[Read: SurferNetwork Partners With RadioDNS]

Part of the challenge is the diversity and scale of the radio industry. Radio isn’t one single organization, but a myriad of different owners, brands, products and technical capabilities. On the relatively egalitarian radio dial, a huge media organization with big production budgets can be side-by-side with a small community broadcaster that works hard to stay on-air. Both have a presence that needs to be available to consumers. When you’re an automotive manufacturer, you can hear from a cacophony of radio stations, and working out if they’re all asking for the same things but in different ways is impossibly time-consuming.

The radio industry is getting better at focusing its requirements and communicating them clearly, and the automotive industry is getting better at realizing that communication with broadcasters avoids costly misunderstandings. Organizations like the NAB, WorldDAB and RadioDNS create opportunities for both sides to talk through the detail of how to implement the best possible radio experience in the car.

WorldDAB and RadioDNS jointly organize Automotive Workshops three times a year, specifically to address things that aren’t working as well as could be expected. These roundtable meetings discuss a mixture of current implementation issues, and identify gaps in functionality that could be easily closed. This focus on here, now and addressable problems is very different from the longer term horizon of groups like the WorldDAB Technical Committee or the RadioDNS Technical Group.

At the latest workshop, held in February 2021, we discussed current issues where we can see that the alignment between broadcasters and manufacturers isn’t right, and is causing problems.

On the subject of providing real-time metadata, we looked at the big divergence between the relatively widespread support in cars for DL+ (and RT+), which allows specific identification of artist, title and other key pieces of metadata, and the fairly poor support of it by broadcasters. It was an opportunity for auto manufacturers to show how that function is displayed to drivers and why they value it, which was new information for many broadcasters. It’s a function that’s implemented and broadcasters haven’t been utilizing because they didn’t understand why they should.

We also discussed driver distraction, which is influencing so many decisions in the automotive industry about what drivers can see and can do. We talked about how broadcasters could reduce the risks of creating distractions by considering issues such as the repetition speed of text information and tailoring visual content to consider design elements like text size, text density, colors and brightness, particularly the potential for distracting glare from bright images during night time. It’s an effective way for manufacturers to educate broadcasters on how to create content and support functionality that manufacturers want and can include in vehicles.

RadioDNS and WorldDAB run a help desk facility for broadcasters and manufacturers, recognizing that often the problem with solving a problem is getting hold of the right person. By acting as an information exchange, they can route problems to the people who can solve them, and look out for trends and issues that should be addressed by the whole community.

At the workshop RadioDNS and WorldDAB also announced they will be carrying out an extensive and detailed survey of manufacturers’ and broadcasters’ capabilities, to identify and close as many implementation gaps as possible. The first results will be presented to the next workshop, and comprehensive results available later in the year. It’s an opportunity to create a step change in the experience of radio in cars on the road today for the least effort on behalf of both broadcasters and manufacturers.

The automotive workshops are unique in structure, encouraging interaction and discussion about implementation and problem solving. With over 70 people attending the last workshop, they’re also very well attended with people with knowledge and ability.

The next WorldDAB and RadioDNS Automotive Workshop will be on June 8. Information about registration will be made available close to the time, on both the WorldDAB and RadioDNS websites.

The post Automotive Audio Workshops Organized by RadioDNS and WorldDAB appeared first on Radio World.

Nexstar Media Group’s MVPD-distributed channel formerly known as WGN America has bolstered its Washington, D.C., news coverage by bringing on a correspondent with experience covering politics in the Lone Star State — in addition to social justice protests and Hurricane Harvey in Texas.

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On April 1, Hispanic consumer-focused Entravision Communications disclosed to the SEC that it would not be able to file its annual report in a timely manner. This triggered a warning from the New York Stock Exchange.

All is better now, as far as NYSE compliance is concerned. But, Entravision now has a potential headache on its hands regarding the entity that is to blame for the 10-K filing delay.

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Major League Baseball and SiriusXM have expanded their agreement to include additional streaming rights starting with the 2021 MLB season.

As such, for the first time SiriusXM subscribers with a streaming-only subscription have access to live play-by-play broadcasts of every MLB game as they listen on the SiriusXM app and on connected devices and speakers in their home.

The SiriusXM app offers 30 play-by-play channels dedicated to streaming the official radio broadcasts of every MLB team, giving fans the choice between the home and visiting team announcers for every game, all season long.

The 30 MLB play-by-play channels are also available on vehicles equipped with next-generation SiriusXM with 360L radios.

SiriusXM satellite subscribers continue to get access to every MLB game on both their SiriusXM radios and on the SiriusXM app.  Certain subscriptions are required.

The new agreement also includes a multi-year extension of SiriusXM’s rights to broadcast every MLB game.

In related news, starting this month SiriusXM and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum will present an exclusive new podcast series, Black Diamonds. Hosted by museum president and historian Bob Kendrick, the podcast will showcase the history of the Negro Leagues, highlighting the players, people and events that shaped them, as well as spotlighting the leagues’ achievements and innovations during a time of segregation and inequality.

Black Diamonds, a SiriusXM original podcast, will debut on MLB’s Jackie Robinson Day (April 15).  The 20-episode series can be heard on the SiriusXM app, Pandora, Stitcher and other podcast platforms.