Industry News

Add St. Louis to the market roster of locales where ATSC 3.0-powered NEXTGEN TV is now available to those who have a television set capable of receiving the next-generation broadcast TV signals.

The September 23 launch includes Sinclair Broadcast Group, Meredith Local Media, TEGNA and two Nexstar Media Group stations.

The launch in St. Louis follows a decade of development and months of planning and preparation by the local stations in the market, with Nexstar-owned KPLR-11 serving as the “lighthouse” for sibling KTVI-2, the FOX affiliate; Sinclair’s ABC affiliated KDNL-30, Meredith’s KMOV-4 and TEGNA’s NBC-affiliated KSDK-5.

NEW YORK — Hearst Television has officially turned on the lights at Hearst Audience Marketplace, described as “a data-driven audience-targeting feature enabling marketers to use connected TV (CTV), over-the-top (OTT) and programmatic display/video platforms more easily to reach the most specific category of consumer down to zip-code level.”

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NEW YORK — The Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) has released an in-depth custom analysis of the marketing and media investment strategies of some of the fastest-growing DTC brands.

VAB analyzed the following 30 brands, which the groups says “are each embracing a total audience marketing strategy to successfully fuel business outcomes.”

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In March, Gray Television announced that it was leading a $40 million investment round for Envy Gaming, an eSports and entertainment company based in Dallas. It was noteworthy, as the broadcast TV station owner became the first company among its peers to follow the radio industry’s lead by investing in the growing gaming industry.

Now, The E.W. Scripps Co. is following Gray’s lead by dropping its dollars into a Boca Raton, Fla.-based gaming group.

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NEW YORK — The independent TV measurement and analytics firm known as 605 has expanded its partnership with data and technology provider PlaceIQ, a relationship that brings “always on” planning, measurement and attribution to the television marketplace.

How so?

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If you had registered to attend the 2021 NAB Show that was supposed to take place this October, you can expect to receive a notice that your registration has rolled over to the spring show automatically.

The rollover is for the same attendance package or value.

A spokesperson for the association said that if attendees prefer a refund, they can obtain one by request through March 22.

The 2021 NAB Show had been set for October but was cancelled on Sept. 15 because of the ongoing pandemic. The 2022 convention is scheduled for April 23 to 27.

Meanwhile the AES Show, which had planned to colocate with NAB, now will be done online; program details have been posted.

The post NAB Show Registrations Roll Over appeared first on Radio World.

A Class B FM serving the capital city of Ohio with rock ‘n’ roll programming, along with its “Jack FM” Class A sibling and “Easy” AM with a FM translator, are getting a little bit of an ownership twist.

Not to worry, listeners: North American Broadcasting Company isn’t making any changes to the station’s programming.

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Joan Warner, the CEO of Commercial Radio Australia, will step down early next year.

“The search for a replacement CEO will commence immediately with the aim of a new CEO taking up the position during the first quarter of 2022,” the organization stated in an announcement.

It said she originally intended to leave at the end of December but will stay another three months to allow a more comprehensive search.

“There are also major projects with which the board has asked I continue to assist in the early implementation stages and to ensure a smooth and seamless handover to the incoming CEO.”

This past July was her 20th anniversary in the CEO position. CRA represents the interests of commercial radio broadcasters in the country. Known as the Federation of Australian Radio Broadcasters when Warner started, it changed its name to Commercial Radio Australia Limited in 2002.

The announcement was made by CRA Chair Grant Blackley, who said Warner has had “a substantial and meaningful impact on CRA and the industry over the past two decades and has worked tirelessly to advance the strategic imperatives for a healthy and vibrant radio industry.

“The radio industry has recovered well from the COVID impact and is gaining further momentum with a renewed commercial approach at industry level to drive increased share of advertising to radio,” Blackley said.

He noted that CRA recently announced an important change in radio measurement. “The Australian metropolitan radio ratings will undergo a major revolution in response to the rapid digitization of audio consumption in Australia, with live streaming data to be integrated into a new multimillion dollar hybrid measurement system.

“There is an extensive amount of work already underway across industry integration with smart speakers and connected cars, an improved and comprehensive all-of-industry automated trading platform to be implemented in 2022, and the continued maturity and acceleration of both podcasting and audio streaming platforms.”

The website The Industry Obsesrver wrote, “During her tenure, Warner was responsible for the planning, rollout and implementation of DAB+ digital radio in the five metro capitals, covering up to 60% of the natation population, and the subsequent push into regional Australia … Her relationship with creatives, rightsholders and the state-funded triple j network was, at times, frosty.”

[Related: Read Radio World’s interview with Warner about DAB+ in Australia in our recent free ebook.]

The post Warner to Step Down at Commercial Radio Australia appeared first on Radio World.

As Angie Balderas, the SVP of Entravision Communications’ Sacramento, Stockton and Modesto, Calif., radio stations sees it, the pandemic hit the Spanish-language radio industry in the U.S. “probably harder than any other traditional media.”

Why? Stay-at-home ordinances and remote work mandates eliminated the daily commute. As a result, from her perspective, in-car radio listening and ad revenue “plummeted” during the early months of the global COVID-19 2020 shutdown.

Now, dollars are surging, she says.

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A Swiss company that specializes in small-scale DAB has created a U.K. business to apply for multiplex licenses there.

Digris Switzerland said it incorporated digris Limited in partnership with Rash Mustapha, a former senior technologist at British communications regulator Ofcom. It says Mustapha is credited with developing small-scale DAB in the U.K.

In addition to applying for licenses, the new entity will offer managed services for radio stations and other network operators.

“Digris Switzerland is also not altogether unknown, being developers of the software-based distribution platform of Opendigitalradio, which enables smaller radio stations to broadcast digitally,” Digris stated in an email.

“This distribution concept, known as small-scale DAB, has now established itself throughout Europe. The company’s cost-oriented approach is favorable to media diversity and an open information society. Digris is also a network operator and operates small-scale DAB+ networks as both single-frequency and multifrequency networks in Switzerland and France since 2014.”

Mustapha was named chief technology officer and will lead digris Limited in the UK.

He was quoted in the announcement: “The opportunity now being presented is a step-change from what has been tested in the trials. We’re expecting to see lots of single-frequency networks and there simply isn’t enough experienced technical resource out there to build so many, and then support them adequately at scale. I’m obviously very keen for small-scale DAB to be a success and I know, with digris, it can be.”

Digris says it broadcasts 60% of the DAB+ radio services in Switzerland and France.

Small-scale DAB is described as a low-cost route for local commercial, community and specialist music services to broadcast on terrestrial digital radio to a relatively small area. According to Ofcom, a number of small-scale DAB multiplexes have been running on a trial basis over the past five years, but the regulator is now advertising non-trial small-scale radio multiplex licenses.

The post Digris Sets Up Shop in the U.K. appeared first on Radio World.