A licensee of an FM translator serving Marion, Ind., has received a proposed fine from the FCC much like several other NALs issued within the last month.
It shows that the FCC means business when it comes to filing deadlines — and that it hopes to add to its coffers from tardy radio licensees.
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In February, the 12-year-old Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) took to Zoom and conducted the first of its two virtual sessions comprising the 10th annual Cross-Platform Video Measurement & Data Summit.
Six months later, we’re pleased to be checking in with Managing Director and CEO Jane Clarke to get a new look on the state of measurement. Among Clarke’s choice declarations: The panel just doesn’t work anymore.
For all of what Clarke has to say in just under 15 minutes, check out this must-listen RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM!
Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Jane Clarke, CIMM” on Spreaker.
The Museum of Broadcast Communications has unveiled the names of eight new inductees, as well as a new class of 33 Legacy inductees, into the Chicago-based Radio Hall of Fame for 2021.
The 2021 inductees will be honored at an in-person 2021 Radio Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Thursday, October 28 at Chicago’s Wintrust Grand Banking Hall.
THE 2021 RADIO HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES ARE:
Brother Wease – Radio 95.1, Rochester, NY
Longstanding Network/Syndication (20 years or more)
Elliot Segal – DC101, Washington, DC
Active Local/Regional (10 years or more)
Dan Patrick – The Dan Patrick Show
Longstanding Networks/Syndication (20 years or more)
Kim Komando – The Kim Komando Show
Active Network/Syndication (10 Years or more)
Javier Romero – WAMR-FM/Amor 107.5, Univision Miami
Music Format On-Air Personality
Preston & Steve – 93.3 WMMR, Philadelphia, PA
Spoken Word On-Air Personality
Erica Farber, President and CEO, Radio Advertising Bureau
Bill Siemering, Founding Director of Programming and Founding Member of the Board of Directors, NPR
Four inductees were determined by a voting participant panel comprised of more than 600 industry professionals and four inductees were voted on by the Radio Hall of Fame Nominating Committee, two with input from the public. The outcome of the listener vote for a music format and spoken word format on-air personality counted as one vote among the committee votes. The process was overseen by the certified public accounting firm Miller Kaplan Arase LLP.
Kraig T. Kitchin, Radio Hall of Fame chairman, commented, “I’m thrilled to welcome this deserving Class of 2021 and look forward to celebrating their inductions in late October in Chicago. In addition, it’s my honor to announce and recognize the talents of individuals who provided the foundation for so much of our industry’s success, but have not been yet recognized by this institution. These individuals have earned their place within the Radio Hall of Fame. We used the opportunity of this medium’s 100th anniversary to undertake a review of the industry’s past performers and operators, to identify a select group of industry legends that left us before they could be properly recognized. We honor their contributions and their memory by these inductions.“
In addition, to honor the 100th year of radio, the Radio Hall of Fame has established a Legends induction, recognizing the talents and efforts of air personalities, programmers and operators who although they have died, spent their lives contributing their talents to the industry. While the industry celebrates 100 years of existence, the industry’s Hall of Fame is only 33 years into existence. The centennial milestone provides an opportunity to recognize the talents and efforts of 33 individuals in 2021, as well.
The following 33 radio legends take their place in the Radio Hall of Fame immediately, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of radio:The Mix Group is the presenting sponsor of the Radio Hall of Fame 2021 induction ceremony. The Radio Hall of Fame was founded by the Emerson Radio Corporation in 1988. The Museum of Broadcast Communications took over operations in 1991.
The FCC’s process for assessing and collecting regulatory fees continues to draw daggers from the National Association of Broadcasters. The lobbying group says the commission is using a “pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey approach to assessing fees.”
The association has been vocal on this topic for the past few years and seems particularly determined this year, with fees scheduled to go up again.
NAB representatives met by teleconference with FCC staff members on Aug. 18 to review their arguments against the proposed hikes in fees to be paid by radio and television stations.
The average proposed increase in MD Docket No. 21-190 is about 8 percent, though some stations could see fees jump by as much as 15%.
[“State Associations Push Back on Fee Increases”]
According to a summary of the “ex parte” meeting, NAB objects to what it considers discrepancies in how the commission sets these fees and specifically argues that the FCC has no right to require broadcasters to contribute to a $33 million broadband mapping fee as directed in the proposal.
The NAB estimates that broadcasters use 0.07% of allotted spectrum but account for at least 16% of the FCC’s entire budget — all while offering a free service to the public.
The commission proposes collecting $374 million from all the industries it regulates. It could act on the proposal within days, given that the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, according to legal observers, which adds a sense of urgency to broadcaster arguments.
During the recent meeting, NAB again said the FCC proposal ignores a requirement by Congress for the commission “to take into account factors that are reasonably related to the benefits provided to the payor of the fee by the commission’s activities,” as required by the Ray Baum Act of 2018, which states that the “touchstone” for setting fees should be benefits rather than licenses.
NAB also argues that under the Communications Act, the commission “must not only analyze the changes in the number of full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) across the agency, but also must adjust the resulting fees based on the benefits provided to the payor of the fee.”
It continued: “And apart from a very brief discussion of benefits provided in the context of non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite systems, the proposed rulemaking notice setting the regulatory fees for the new fiscal year blows past this obligation as if Congress never mandated it.”
The broadcast group goes on to stake out its argument:
“The error infects the entire Notice, but is particularly acute when considering Congress’s unusual step of earmarking $33 million for broadband mapping beyond the commission’s general appropriation. The Notice’s treatment of the $33 million could not possibly be more violative of the statute.
“First, it makes no attempt to tie which FTEs [full-time equivalent employees] are working on broadband mapping to the fees associated with that project. If it had, it would have recognized that the Media Bureau has no role in the project and therefore Media Bureau regulatees are not responsible for contributing to its overall cost.
“Second, even beyond the first-step FTE examination, had the Notice bothered even acknowledging its benefits provided obligation, it undoubtedly would have concluded that broadcasters should not have to contribute to the $33 million broadband mapping cost because they receive no benefits whatsoever from that effort. The Notice’s failure to exempt broadcasters from that $33 million is a blatant violation of the statute.”
NAB concludes: “It is well past time for the commission to change its unlawful and unjust approach to regulatory fees. At the very least, the commission must exempt broadcasters from contributing to the commission’s broadband mapping efforts.”
The broadcast industry as a whole has been hyper critical of the FCC proposal. All 50 state broadcast associations in comments to the FCC have argued that their industry has been unfairly subsidizing competitors through fees for decades. Broadcasters also argue that the fee hike is unfair coming on the heels of a pandemic, hurt advertising revenue.
The post NAB Continues Its Fight Against Higher Station Fees appeared first on Radio World.
From the current incarnation of “93KHJ” in American Samoa to his properties in the Deep South, Larry Fuss has gained national attention as one of the last radio owner/entrepreneurs.
Now, Fuss is in the news for what amounts to a reversal of his 2011 sale of a 1,000-watt AM and its FM translator serving a small city in Mississippi.
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RBR+TVBR first learned August 19 that NEXTGEN TV was coming to Atlanta.
It is now known that that’s not the only new market now offering local viewers broadcast TV channels powered by the ATSC 3.0 digital broadcast standard.
Kansas City television stations KMBC-9 (ABC), KCTV-5 (CBS), KSHB-41 (NBC), WDAF-4 (FOX), KCPT (PBS), KCWE-29 (CW), KSMO-TV (MyNet) and KMCI-38 (“The Spot”) are all now available to Kansas City area viewers in the NEXTGEN TV format.
The E.W. Scripps Co. owns KMCI and KSHB, while Hearst is the owner of KCWE & KMBC; Nexstar owns WDAF; and Meredith Local Media is the owner of KSMO, pending the closing of the group’s sale to Gray Television.
Tuesday’s launch in Kansas City specifically involves KMCI-38 and KSMO-62, owned by the Meredith Corporation. These facilities, UHF digital channels 25 and 32, respectively, have converted to ATSC 3.0 transmissions.
This means that there are two ATSC 3.0 “lighthouse” stations in the market.
BitPath, which is developing new data broadcasting services, led the planning process and coordinated efforts across the eight television stations.
— Adam R Jacobson, in Los Angeles
RBR+TVBR has learned that Comscore and the Media Rating Council are currently working to commence an audit of Comscore’s national and local TV measurement.
To confirm, the MRC has not officially started an audit. But, it has a statement on what’s to come.
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It’s not easy to get the FCC’s Media Bureau to cancel a forfeiture. But a broadcaster in Alabama has done so after pointing out a problem with the commission’s own online database system.
The commission had issued a notice of apparent liability to Autaugaville Radio, which owns AM station WXKD in Brantley, Ala., and an FM translator in Troy. The FCC said the broadcaster had failed to file for license renewal by April 1 as required, so it was apparently on the hook for a $4,500 penalty.
The station wrote back saying its attorney had thought the deadline was in June and that it did file on June 18. That explanation alone would be unlikely to impress the commission; but the station also told the FCC that until June 16, the FCC’s own LMS filing database did not reflect the actual expiration dates of the licenses.
“Instead, LMS listed the stations’ licenses as expiring on April 1, 2028,” according to a commission summary. “The licensee states that, until this error was brought to the attention of the bureau staff by licensee’s counsel, and corrected on June 16, 2021, LMS would not accept applications to renew the stations’ licenses.”
The bureau staff found that this was, in fact the case.
“While the licensee could have discovered this issue sooner if it had correctly calculated the deadline for filing applications to renew the stations’ licenses, the licensee brought the error to our attention upon its discovery, and filed the applications to renew the stations’ licenses two days after the error was corrected,” the commission wrote.
So the FCC has canceled the NAL and admonished the broadcaster for violating the rules.
The post Station Avoids Fine Thanks to FCC Database Error appeared first on Radio World.
Erica Farber and Bill Siemering, prominent figures in U.S. commercial radio and public radio, respectively, are among eight new members of the Radio Hall of Fame.
The Museum of Broadcast Communications also named its first 33 “Legends” inductees, one for each year of the hall’s existence.
Farber is president/CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau and the former publisher/CEO of Radio & Records. Siemering played a critical role in the founding of National Public Radio.
Bill SiemeringThe other inductees are air talent. They are Brother Wease, Elliot Segal, Dan Patrick, Kim Komando, Javier Romero and “Preston & Steve,” aka Preston Elliot and Steve Morrison.
All will be honored at a ceremony in Chicago in October. The Radio Hall of Fame was founded by the Emerson Radio Corp. in 1988. The museum has run it since 1991.
The Radio Hall of Fame also decided to recognize of past innovators who have since died.
“While the industry celebrates 100 years of existence, the industry’s Hall of Fame is only 33 years into existence. The centennial milestone provides an opportunity to recognize the talents and efforts of 33 individuals in 2021, as well,” it stated.
The Legacy inductees are:
Museum Chairman David Plier said, “The combined list is the most diverse group of nominees in the hall of fame’s history, which is reflective of the audiences that are and have been listening to radio stations across America all these years.”
The post Radio Hall of Fame Announces 2021 Inductees appeared first on Radio World.
A Class A FM serving the city of Macomb, Ill., has a new owner.
The transaction is hardly a surprise, however, as the seller has been allowing the buyer to operate the facility, resulting in a change in the non-secular worship and praise programming heard on the station.
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Real-time engagement — digital experiences that are interactive, collaborative and shared through technology such as live video, live audio and extended reality (AR and VR) — is of increasing desire among U.S. consumers. People increasingly want RTE video or audio features in the apps they use. For example, buyers in a shopping app want to talk to sellers.
Can broadcast radio or TV benefit from this growing desire for “RTE,” something wholly different than Ireland’s government-funded radio and TV organization? An Agora survey may have some very interesting takeaways.
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The FCC Media Bureau has found an FM translator permittee liable for $3,500 for apparently willfully violating FCC Rules regarding filing a renewal license.
The bureau issued a construction permit for FM translator station W285FR in Palatka, Fla., to Natkim Radio in 2018 with an expiration date of Jan. 17, 2021. However, Natkim did not file a covering license application by that date and the permit expired. Nearly two months later Natkim filed a petition for reconsideration demonstrating that the translator was built and that they wanted to proceed with licensing. The bureau treated the petition as a waiver request, granted it, reinstated the permit and gave the permittee until Aug. 13, to file a covering license application. Just before the deadline, on Aug. 12, Natkim filed the application.
[Read: For Willfully Operating Without a License, Permittee Handed $3,500 Forfeiture]
But the permittee failed to file a covering license as required by FCC Rules and continued transmitting for nearly a month after the permit expired.
As a result, the Media Bureau issued a Notice of Apparent Liability. The commission’s Forfeiture Policy Statement establishes a base forfeiture amount of $3,000 for failing to file a required form and a base forfeiture of $10,000 for construction or operation without a permit. Based on its review of the facts and circumstances, the bureau found that a $7,000 base forfeiture is appropriate because the licensee failed to file a covering license application for the translator and engaged in unauthorized operation after the permit expired.
Taking into consideration all of the factors required by the Communications Act, the bureau decided to reduce the forfeiture further to $3,500 because the station is a translator and as such the station provides a secondary service.
As a result, Natkim Radio has 30 days to pay the full amount or file a written statement seeking reduction or cancellation of the proposed forfeiture.
The post Missed License Renewal Earns FM Translator a $3,500 Forfeiture appeared first on Radio World.
MIAMI — Streamline Publishing’s annual event devoted to Hispanic audio opportunities for marketers, programmers and broadcast media ownership groups is moving forward with a hybrid format amid continued concerns over the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus.
The parent company of Radio Ink and the Radio + Television Business Report announced Tuesday (8/24) that the Hispanic Radio Conference will be presented this year in a manner that will allow those unable or not inclined to travel at this time to attend the event from the comfort of their home and/or office.
Commenting on the decision, RBR+TVBR Publisher Deborah Parenti said, “With so much on the table, we have decided to add a virtual component to this year’s event. All speakers and panelists are set to present from our stage at the InterContinental at Doral in front of a live audience, but with the addition of a virtual option that will allow those who may have reservations or restrictions on travel the opportunity to be part of the conference and participate in the conversation.”
Parenti continued, “This is an extremely important year for Hispanic radio and the conference agenda is set to tackle many of the issues facing it and the radio industry in general. Considering all of the pressing matters of the past year – from the pandemic and the subsequent economic issues that followed, to changes on Capital Hill, at the FCC, and pending legislation impacting broadcasters, the 12th Hispanic Radio Conference could not come at a more crucial time.”
FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington will address attendees in a keynote address on the second day of the two-day conference. Other Washington notables confirmed as attendees is former House Member Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
In person and virtual registrations can be made here. If you are attending the conference live, be sure to register at the special hotel rate here.
LOS ANGELES — Buyers and sellers of linear television ad inventory now have a fully transparent solution enabling them to automate and expedite the activation of data-driven linear video inventory without changing existing workflows or technologies.
Be sure to follow RBR+TVBR on Twitter!
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No, Educational Media Foundation isn’t about to launch a Spanish-language Christian music station in Oklahoma’s second-largest market.
Rather, it is making a deal with David Ingles Ministries for a noncommercial band FM in Tulsa.
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Looking to upgrade those studio cameras to newer technology?
Who knew that a religious television outfit found on three MVPDs across the New York Tri-State area would provide a wholly different kind of inspiration than that it provides its viewers every day.
The Catholic Faith Network (CFN), a Long Island, N.Y.-based not-for-profit television organization that uses all forms of media to keep the Catholic community connected to their faith, is now future-proofed in the studio thanks to the addition of a trio of SK-HD1800 HDTV production cameras from Hitachi Kokusai Electric America Ltd. (Hitachi Kokusai).
CFN is available on Optimum, Verizon FiOS and Charter Spectrum systems throughout the Five Boroughs of New York, and communities across Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Ulster, Dutchess, Sullivan, Orange, Putnam and Rockland Counties; Northern New Jersey, and in Fairfield County, Conn. Select cable and satellite systems nationwide also provide CFN to viewers. CFN’s programming includes live masses, talk shows, and topics ranging from faith and societal issues to health and cooking.
With Catholic Faith Network expanding, CFN senior executive producer Sean Kennedy explains, “With our productions expanding and our existing Z-HD5000 models still going strong but over eight years old, we decided to double our roster of cameras by adding the latest and greatest HD technology. We didn’t go up to 4K because we wouldn’t really be able to take advantage of the extra resolution. We broadcast in HD, but some of our carriers even still down-convert our signal to standard definition.”
Before working at CFN, Kennedy and studio and production coordinator Bryan Butler worked for a high school sports network. There, they used twelve Hitachi cameras on the HD trucks. “We compared Hitachi picture quality side-by-side to more expensive alternatives, and nobody could tell the difference,” Butler says. “Despite constantly beating up those cameras while producing sports six days a week with many different operators, they withstood everything we threw at them without any issues.”
CFN purchased their new SK-HD1800 cameras in March. Setting them up went seamlessly. “We built the three cameras ourselves within 45 minutes from opening the boxes – more than 20 of them, from camera heads to lenses and teleprompters – to fully built,” Butler says. “Local Hitachi staff helped us wire in our new CU-HD1200 CCUs in the control room and commission the cameras. We were all done within two hours and shooting just three hours later.”
The CFN team points to the SK-HD1800’s global shutter sensor as one of their favorite features of the new cameras, and particularly valuable in their LED-intensive environment. Some of CFN’s sets are heavily monitor based — with a nine-by-nine monitor wall, monitor strip, and large standalone monitor – and also use a mix of generations of LED lighting.
“I do a lot of the set design in terms of lighting, and I’m dealing with a lot of different types of LED fixtures from various manufacturers,” adds TJ Katsoulas, studio manager at CFN. “With earlier camera technologies we could get rolling shutter artifacts from LEDs, so I would manually dial in the shutter to avoid issues such as banding. However, making those adjustments would affect my lighting. Now with the SK-HD1800’s global shutter I don’t need to worry about that, and it’s tremendous how much it has helped me in making my compositions what I want them to be.”
Katsoulas also highlights the SK-HD1800’s enhanced skin tone adjustments and notes that the ability to dial in and preset multiple skin tones has been very helpful when dealing with multiple people on set. “Other standouts from our upgrade include the RU-1500JY remote control units with their amazing LCD touchscreens, and the VF-PBM-307 color viewfinders, which our camera operators love,” he adds.
— Reporting by Brian Galante. Editing by Adam R Jacobson
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