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In 2020, for the first time, the Radio + Television Business Report offered readers the opportunity to submit their nominations and vote for the individuals who have demonstrated leadership excellence at the local level — serving as the stewards of sales and on-air operations that deserve national recognition. Now, RBR+TVBR is pleased to accept your nomination for the Top Local Leaders of 2021. There’s limited time for your vote, however. PLEASE TAKE THREE MINUTES NOW TO SUBMIT YOUR BALLOT. Voting ends August 20, 2021 at 5PM Pacific/8PM Eastern. 

 

It owns such broadcast TV stations as WUSA-9 in Washington, D.C., the CBS affiliate serving the National Capital Region; and key NBC affiliates including KPNX-12 in Phoenix, WGRZ-2 in Buffalo, and KGW-8 in Portland, Ore. It also owns the Premion over-the-top (OTT) advertising platform.

How did TEGNA perform in Q2 2021? Its quarterly revenue beat Wall Street forecasts, as its earnings per share on an adjusted basis beat the Street by a penny.

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Come Wednesday, FEMA and the FCC will test the nation’s public alert and warning systems at 2:20pm Eastern.

Here are all of the details of what this means for your broadcast radio and/or television stations.

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The Commission has before it a petition for rulemaking filed by KPTV-KPDX Broadcasting Corporation (Petitioner), the licensee of KPTV (FOX), channel 12, Portland, Oregon. The Petitioner requests the substitution of channel 21 for channel 12 at in the DTV Table of Allotments.

Military mothers face unique challenges when it comes to celebrating occasions like Mother’s Day. WHUR teams with FedEx to host an annual luncheon just for military moms.

Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, owns WHUR(FM), one of the few university-owned commercial stations in the country.

Considered a standalone radio station because the school owns no other full-power stations, WHUR nevertheless consists of seven entities: the flagship FM, which is heard on 96.3 MHz; three additional HD Radio multicast channels; two SiriusXM channels; and GlassHouse Radio, a student-run podcast operation.

The original content for all these outlets is created in one building on campus that also houses the university’s public TV station WHUT.

While the stations play music that appeals to underserved segments of the Washington community, many hours each week are dedicated to community outreach and public service.

Because of its year-round dedication, WHUR this year received the NAB Crystal Heritage Award, an honor reserved for stations that have earned five Crystal Awards. Only 10 stations have been given the Crystal Heritage Award by the National Association of Broadcasters.

 

“Giving Listeners”

WHUR sponsors a Rolling Food Drive. General Manager Sean Plater, left, and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, center, are shown taking part in a presentation to benefit the Capital Area Food Bank.

“Service is a huge part of what we do,” said General Manager Sean Plater.

“We hold an annual toy drive for kids in October and a coat drive in December. Then for the last 40 years we have dedicated a day’s programming to our Food2Feed event, during which we collect canned food and take donations over the phone and online for about 12 hours. We even ask students to go out with buckets to collect money. All proceeds go to the Capital Area Food Bank and Shabach Ministries.”

Denise McCain is executive director of the Family Justice Center of Prince George’s County in Maryland, an organization affiliated with the circuit court in that area.

“Over the last three years, WHUR donated 300 toys to families who would have otherwise been unable to provide presents for their families curing the Christmas holiday,” she said.

“We also received 60 boys’ and girls’ coats varying in sizes from newborn to adolescent to keep children warm. I can’t tell you how much this has meant to the survivors and children we serve in Family Justice Center.”

The station sponsored a three-day fundraiser in 2010 called “Holding on to Haiti,” benefiting Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children. Haiti had suffered a major earthquake earlier that month. The effort raised more than $42,000. Students who formed a “Bucket Brigade” collected most of the donations.

The station also has an ongoing event to assist Howard University students travel to various cities around the world to work on whatever the local communities need. It’s called Helping Hands, and WHUR runs it during spring break each year.

“We have some of the most giving listeners in the world, if you just tell them what you are trying to do,” said Plater. “For example, we held a radiothon, “Give Me Shelter,” to help build a house for women and children who deal with domestic violence, and we had people stopping our mobile vehicle on the street to donate cash.”

McCain also worked with Plater on Give Me Shelter.

“This initiative raised over $800,000, increasing the number of shelter beds from 18 to 42. We value our partnership with WHUR,” she said.

Another beneficiary of WHUR’s efforts is the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington.

“We worked together with Sean on opening up the totally rebuilt first African-American YMCA in the world, named after a slave called Anthony Bowen,” said Donnie Shaw, director of community relations-DC.

“Sean has remained accessible to the Y, always returning phone calls with a smile. He’s a Y Guy!”

 

In a Digital World

The Food2Feed event has been held for four decades. It generates canned food and cash donations for the Capital Area Food Bank and Shabach Ministries.

WHUR, which streams at www.whur.com, also was an early adopter of digital radio. On Jan. 21, 2004, it became the first commercial station in the D.C. area to deploy HD Radio.

Then in 2006 WHUR-World launched on its HD2 channel, with jazz, hip-hop, blues, African-American folk and music from other parts of the world. WHUR-World was a two-time winner of the NAB Multicast Award.

Recently, the HD2 relaunched as “The Quiet Storm Station,” a 24/7 channel celebrating the iconic Quiet Storm R&B format that was created at WHUR in 1976 and has proliferated on the airwaves of many other stations.

“We’re very excited to celebrate this format, especially as the station heads towards its 50th anniversary in December 2021,” Plater said.

Another campus station, WHBC, has moved from carrier current to WHUR’s HD3 channel. WHUR’s HD4 is DC Radio, run in cooperation with the Washington city government. It carries hearings and local community content.

The annual “Protect Your Dream” campaign.

The two SiriusXM channels are programmed by WHUR personnel. In 2011 the satellite company leased several channels to third parties, including Howard University, to fulfill a condition of its merger.

Channel 141 is known as “HUR Voices,” and it combines music and talk on issues of importance to people of color. Channel 142 (HBCU) focuses on the Black college experience and includes viewpoints of alumni, current and prospective students nationally.

 

Making It All Work

It takes a lot of people power to run a complex operation like this.

Plater said there are 40 full-time employees and about 15 part-timers, all of whom are paid.

Frank Ski is afternoon drivetime host. He’s shown at a station Toy Drive.

“We also have up to 60 nonpaid students working with us throughout the semester. The students get involved in all aspects of operation including engineering, programming and sales. We talk with them to understand their listening habits because the younger generation consumes radio in a different way. Of course they are hoping for jobs when they graduate, so we use the same automation and other equipment here at WHUR that they will find elsewhere in industry.”

Plater said that the aim of WHUR staff is to talk with the audience, not to the audience.

“Almost everything on WHUR is locally-oriented, and while our morning program, “The Steve Harvey Show,” is syndicated, we still have a segment called ‘Taking It to the Streets.’ This runs about two and a half minutes every hour, and it’s local content. Then we have something different between 7 and 7:30 p.m. on WHUR, a news show called ‘The Daily Drum.’ It starts with an update of news headlines and then goes into an interview section with local politicians, shows on COVID, anything that relates to the community.”

To give the community yet another forum during the pandemic and social justice protests, the station set up a listener response phone line to let people express themselves. Listeners can speak out about whatever is on their mind and those calls are played back on the air.

 

Looking to the Future

Plater said that the biggest challenge he faces is just trying to stay ahead.

“We are a standalone going up against large companies in a large market, and we’re competing well,” he said. “But we have to continue to provide the best product we can. From a service standpoint we can never lose those things that make us special, like that community connection.  That means staying relevant to our audience on all of our channels.

“But another goal of mine is to continue to develop the next generation of broadcasters, and part of that is helping the students understand how great this industry is and what opportunities exist. I want to bring the next generation along to love radio as much as I do.”

The post WHUR Serves on Multiple Platforms appeared first on Radio World.

The Federal Communications Commission will amend its rules governing short-range, low-power radio services that will affect the CB radio service, general mobile radio services (GMRS) and family radio service (FRS).

At its Open Meeting on Aug. 5, the FCC ruled on three petitions for reconsideration of the 2017 Report and Order to update the commission’s Part 95 personal radio services rules. The move will allow the FM band to be used as an optional modulation scheme for all existing CB radio service channels and allow automatic or periodic location and data transmissions in the GMRS and FRS, which are sometimes used during recreational activities and during emergencies and natural disasters.

Cobra 29LTD Classic CB Radio

The commission decided the public interest would be served by adopting additional rule changes. Cobra Electronics requested the commission permit frequency modulation as an optional modulation scheme in the CB radio service. Motorola Solutions asked the commission to allow automatic or periodic location and data transmissions on GMRS and FRS frequencies. Medtronic sought the correction of typographical errors and rule changes that inadvertently altered the substance of the Medical Device Radiocommunications Service (MedRadio) rules.

When the FCC last considered changes to Part 95 rules surrounding CB radio in 2017, the commission declined to allow use of FM frequency modulation; AM amplitude modulation and SSB single side band remained the only permitted voice-emission types. At the time, the commission concluded that such a change might substantially change the character of the service.

After considering Cobra’s request, however, the commission found that permitting dual modulation will provide a significant benefit to CB radio users, giving them an additional modulation option while still maintaining the basic character of the service. “The addition of FM as a permitted mode will not result in additional interference because users who hear unintelligible audio on a particular channel can simply select another channel or switch modes,” the commission said in its most recent ruling.

The commission noted that AM and FM operations are permitted in other Part 95 services under similar technical parameters. The commission will generally apply the technical rules to FM signals as they are currently applied to AM signals for the CB Radio Service, an approach taken in other Part 95 services.

The commission also made a specific note about peak frequency deviations. In those cases, the commission said it adopted a limit of ±2 kHz due to the 10 kHz channel spacing and 8 kHz occupied bandwidth maximum in the CB radio service. Although this specific limit differs from those established in other Part 95 services (such as ±2.5 kHz for 12.5 kHz channel bandwidth in the GMRS and Multi-Use Radio Service [MURS]), it is consistent across Part 95 services considering the respective occupied bandwidths.

The commission noted that parties planning to incorporate FM mode into CB radios will need to obtain a grant of certification under the commission’s equipment authorization rules.

The commission also agreed with Motorola’s petition and concluded that public interest will be furthered by allowing automatic or periodic location and data transmission on all GMRS channels. In an emergency situation, the FCC said, an individual who is disoriented or unable to send a manual transmission could be helped by the automatic transmission of location information.

The commission also agreed to fix typographical errors, clarify language within the Part 95 rules and correct unintended substantive changes made in earlier changes as part of this petition for reconsideration.

 

The post FCC Finalizes Changes to Part 95 Rules appeared first on Radio World.

Audacy’s plan to adopt a more centralized programming system and eliminate some on-air positions may have created some controversy, but this country’s second largest radio company says its second quarter financial report shows positive news that it is emerging from the havoc created by the pandemic.

The broadcaster, which has more than 200 radio stations and rebranded itself as Audacy earlier this year, did squeeze out a second-quarter income of $1.4 million after reporting a loss in the same period a year ago. The Philadelphia-based company posted revenue of $304.5 million total for Q2, which is an increase of 73% over 2020. That was led by a 98% increase YoY in spot radio advertising to $202.8 million of revenue in Q2.

[Read: Audacy/Entercom Signs Deal With Big Sportsbook]

Digital revenues were $58.4 million and up about 41% compared to the same quarter a year prior. The company notes it has launched some 350 new digital stations available on Audacy’s digital platform. Audacy, which rebranded to better reflect its push into the audio space outside traditional terrestrial radio, has made a concerted effort to monetize its streaming audio platform.

Audacy President and CEO David Field said while the company’s broadcast segment is recovering from the pandemic, it is still being negatively impacted by other “significant disruptions” facing some large sector advertising clients.

“Our recovery is being constrained by the widely reported disruption in supply chain and labor shortages that has impacted a number of our customers, including auto, our largest category,” Field says.

Audacy has aggressively expanded into sports betting content and what is calls “wagertainment” that focuses on “all things sports betting,” according to the company. The broadcaster announced in June it was converting six broadcast stations to a sports betting format with programming provided by partner BetQL.

The broadcaster, which operates nearly 40 all-sports stations across the country, also has advertising and marketing agreements in place with sports betting platforms like BetMGM and FanDuel while naming them preferred sports betting partners.

“The sports betting business is growing at a rapid pace. We expect sports betting to grow into a $100 million category for us in a few years as legalized sports betting grows across the country,” Field said on Friday’s earnings call.

[Read: Audacy Expands BetQL Sports Betting Network]

Audacy reported total operating expenses of $286.5 million in Q2, up 29% compared to $221.4 million in the second quarter of 2020. The rise in expenses is partly due to the build out of a team of digital professionals at the corporate level. “We have digital resources at the local market level as part of station operation’s costs, but there is also a growing and increasingly significant digital team not housed at the market level and that is the most significant driver of our so-called expense growth,” said Rich Schmaeling, chief financial officer for Audacy.

The company’s recent implementation of a centralized CHR programming structure, which involves importing several DJs to multiple stations across the country, has gained considerable industry attention. The move, which was announced in July, followed a similar streamlining of Audacy’s alternative and country formats earlier this year.

There are critics of Audacy’s format reorganizations and the resulting job losses due to consolidation of on-air positions. Jerry Del Colliano, editor of the Inside Music Media newsletter, said he believes Audacy’s debt is responsible for the programming shakeups, which results in less service to listeners in local markets and hurts ratings.

“Audacy ratings have been eroding as the company has aggressively sought to regionalize its programming and fire live and local talent to save money,” Del Colliano recently wrote in his newsletter. “One thing that is a proven fact is that live and local talent almost always generates better ratings than out of market syndication, nationalization or regionalization of programming.”

Audacy has close to $2 billion in debt, according to its most recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company did receive a large infusion of cash in July — pegged at approximately $75 million — after it entered into a three-year “trade receivables securitization” with several banks.

 

The post Audacy Recaps Q2 Earnings appeared first on Radio World.

Issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture in the amount of $15,000 to Bethany Church for public file violations for Station WLFT-CD, Baton Rouge, LA

Media Bureau grants in part and denies in part the One Ministries Television Market Modification Petition for KQSL(DT)

Issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture in the amount of $20,000 to Prism Broadcasting Network, Inc. for public file violations for Station WANN-CD, Atlanta, GA

Having a little fun at the microphone a few years ago, during a guest appearance with the Crosley Radio Players in Terre Haute, Ind.

With our latest issue, I’m taking a moment to note my 25th anniversary of joining Radio World and to appreciate the circle of friends and colleagues who create the memories and stories we’ve shared and continue to make. 

The year 1996, in addition to being a landmark one for U.S. radio regulation, was also when I came on board here, having cut my teeth in radio newsrooms and then learning about radio technology as a sales and marketing executive on the manufacturing and dealer side of our business.

This crazy industry has changed so much since. The challenges that have faced broadcast radio stations, radio executives and radio engineers over those 25 years have been remarkable.

But so is radio’s capability for reinvention.

It has been exhilarating to guide Radio World’s content through a similar process, in partnership with the leadership of IMAS, NewBay Media and now Future, our most dynamic parent company yet.

I’m grateful to today’s business leaders who have put their trust in me, including Carmel King, Rick Stamberger, John Casey and Zillah Byng-Thorne, and to our many advertisers. I’m also privileged to work with a remarkable cadre of contributors, including a “brain trust” of engineers who have become my dear friends.

But none of it happens without you, the industry professional who reads our stories, saves our ebooks, watches our webcasts.

Whether your title is chief engineer, station owner, department head, manufacturing employee, regulator or one of any number of other key radio roles, my hope is that Radio World’s content continues to help you in your job as well as your career, keeping you informed while also entertaining you and stimulating new thinking.  

So thank you for the trust and loyalty you’ve shown to me and to Radio World in those 25 years — and here’s to many more years together.

The post 25 Years and Counting appeared first on Radio World.

Spotify’s Megaphone is launching an audience insights tool for podcasters which will be powered by Nielsen. The new reporting tool will offer publishers a real-time look at their listeners’ demographics, interests, and behaviors.

Through the dashboard, publishers will see insights about which audiences are listening and compare trends year-over-year across their entire podcast network or on an individual show-by-show basis.

Matt Turck, Head of Megaphone Publisher Solutions, will be discussing the new dashboard live at Podcast Movement today.

More details on the new product can be found HERE

The nation’s No. 1 owner of broadcast radio station late Thursday released Q2 earnings that reflect strong year-over-year improvement as it continues to dig itself out of a multi-billion financial hole.

Things are progressing. The net loss narrowed year-over-year. But, perhaps the existence of any net loss worries Wall Street. Shares of iHeartMedia stock tumbled significantly in Friday’s trading.

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RBR+TVBR OBSERVATION

The FCC’s “Auction 109,” which saw active bidding for a host of new radio stations, is over.

As expected, iHeartMedia and Radio Brands Inc., an entity tied to the CEO of Ampex Brands were the big winners. Other winning bidders include a Hispanic media entrepreneur in the Savannah, Ga., market; and a Maria Guel’s Mekaddesh Group Corporation, devoted to evangelical programming en español.

Yet the biggest takeaway from Auction 109 is the fate of four defunct AM radio stations in Market No. 24.

Zero bids came for these facilities. Even with the prospect of HD Radio on AM, not one bidder for the AMs emerged.

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Audacy CFO Rich Schmaeling and CEO David Field had much to offer beyond what was stated in the company’s second quarter earnings release early Friday.

Chatting with a variety of financial analysts, Schmaeling said Local is narrowing the gap in Q3 for Audacy. He also offered an update on net leverage goals, while adding that the depth of active advertisers is significantly higher than in recent months.

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The FCC Enforcement Bureau has issued a $20,000 fine against ESPN for “willfully violating the commission’s rules that prohibit the transmission of false or deceptive emergency alert system” tones during a program.

The FCC said the violation occurred during the airing of the program “30 for 30: Roll Tide/War Eagle” on Oct. 20, 2020. After receiving a complaint about the broadcast of the tones on Oct. 27, 2020, the FCC started an investigation and notified ESPN.

In a March 21 response, ESPN admitted that the tones had been broadcast but said they were part of the depiction of April 27, 2011 tornadoes “for storytelling purposes” during the documentary.

[Read: Entercom Faces Penalty for Misuse of EAS Tones in 2018]

ESPN also admitted that the transmission was not part of any actual emergency or EAS test.

The network argued, however, that the broadcast EAS tones could “not have triggered any automated relay equipment” because the portion transmitted “did not include audio frequency-shift (AFSK) tones” and that the tones appeared very briefly in the program for only 1.83 seconds.

The FCC rejected those arguments and proposed a higher fine than the $8,000 base forfeiture for section 11.45 of the commission’s rules covering violations of emergency alerts.

“The nature of EAS violations requires particularly serious consideration because, among other issues, such violations undermine the integrity of the EAS by desensitizing viewers to the potential importance of warning tones and therefore implicate substantial public safety concerns,” the FCC concluded. It also noted that ESPN had been fined in the past for violating these rules.

“Although only a single transmission was involved, given the totality of the circumstances, and consistent with the Forfeiture Policy Statement, we conclude that an $8,000 base forfeiture plus an upward adjustment in the amount of $12,000 is warranted,” the FCC concluded.

 

The post FCC Proposes a $20K Fine for ESPN appeared first on Radio World.

The Entertainment Sports Programming Network known as ESPN has received a proposed fine from the FCC for its use of an emergency alert system (EAS) code during a documentary it aired in October 2020 as part of its popular 30 for 30 series.

BE SURE TO FOLLOW RBR+TVBR ON TWITTER!

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DAYTON, OHIO — It’s no secret that Cox Media Group and its related Cox Enterprises maintains a dominant position in the Miami Valley, with its WHIO-7 perhaps the nation’s most-watched CBS affiliate, its WHIO radio operation a top ratings-getter, and the Dayton Daily News a near-monopoly among print publications.

Yet, Nexstar Media Group has a formidable presence, too. It owns the local NBC affiliate.

Soon, it will also own a second station in this market.

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Over the past year, ViacomCBS has “bravely jumped into the streaming deep end,” notes MoffettNathanson Senior Analyst Michael Nathanson.

With its relaunch of CBS All Access as Paramount+, accelerating investment and revenue growth at Pluto and promoting Showtime OTT to help offset linear declines, Nathanson says ViacomCBS harbors a heightened focus on becoming “a scaled global competitor” in the business of streaming.

There’s just one question about ViacomCBS’s goals that’s vexing to him.

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Florence Deusi, right, was a child bride at age 16. She talks with a Mudzi Wathu Radio youth reporter.

The U.S.-based NGO Developing Radio Partners is playing a crucial role in socioeconomic development in several African countries by using local radio to address their communities’ greatest needs.

In Malawi, DRP is closing the knowledge and information gap on sexual reproductive health with a project that helps young people know their health rights. The project, supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, has trained more than 400 young people ages 14 to 19 to produce weekly radio programs on diverse topics related to reproductive health.

The project is aimed at making sure boys and girls understand their health rights and are aware of the reproductive health services that are available to them. DRP’s project includes partnerships with nine community-based radio stations that are focusing their weekly radio programs and public service announcements (PSAs) on topics aimed at ending child marriage and reducing rates of teen pregnancy, HIV infections and COVID-19.

The programs also encourage girls and boys to stay in school and complete their education.

In Burkina Faso, DRP trained community health workers and radio reporters to produce a weekly program that was broadcast by a community-based radio station. They believed that if local health workers delivered messages about COVID-19, the communities would pay attention and take preventive measures.

Charles Rice, DRP president and chief executive officer, says radio is how most people in Malawi and Burkina Faso get their news and information.

Internet is often nonexistent or very limited in rural areas, and television can be expensive and require electricity. Radio, on the other hand, is relatively inexpensive, and a radio set can be powered by batteries or by solar.

“We have found radio to be the best option to reach a lot of people all at once. In Malawi, for instance, our potential listening audience among the nine radio stations we work with is about 6.5 million people,” Rice said.

“We work with community radio stations because they are part of the community; they are operated by the community. They are often trusted, and the stations we work with often focus on stories that affect the community – whether it’s related to farming, public health or the environment.”

Chanco Radio RLC member Micah Mwalala reads the COVID 19 Bulletin.

Chiko Moyo, DRP’s coordinator and trainer in Malawi, works directly with the mentors, the youth reporters and the radio listening clubs at the nine partner radio stations.

“Just as an example, the youth are taught how to hold public officers accountable and they see the fruits that come out of such actions; public funds for SRH (sexual and reproductive health) are put to good use, youth arise to monitor how officers are conducting youth friendly health services, and many other things that help communities to be served better,” Moyo explains.

DRP conducts trainings on a monthly basis and sends weekly tip sheets to help youth reporters focus on specific topics for their weekly programs and PSAs. The Weekly Bulletin is researched, written, and fact-checked in Malawi; it provides background on specific issues as well as questions for the reporters to use in their programs and contact details for people to interview.

“Station partners have told us that they rely on these bulletins because they are accurate and timely — and we believe this is why their weekly radio programs are popular. Listeners know that the information they are hearing is accurate” said Mercy Malikwa, who writes the Weekly Bulletin.

DRP has been producing the Weekly Bulletin on sexual reproductive health since May 2017. It started a special weekly bulletin on COVID-19 in March 2020 and it is still being produced.

Changing behavior

The radio programs, both in Malawi and Burkina Faso, have proven to be popular with listeners as well as health officials.

“The project has tremendously improved youth reproductive health awareness and rights in the sense that we have better information dissemination through radio, and that has improved the lives of youth and changed their behavior,” said Jossein Chazala, the Youth Friendly Health Services Coordinator in Malawi’s Nkhotakota District.

In Burkina Faso, the radio program led to the creation of a health association covering 16 villages in the listening area; it comprises community leaders and local health workers who work closely with villagers to ensure everyone gets regular health checks and observes COVID-19 preventive measures.

The Malawi stations often use peer-to-peer storytelling to change behavior, and that was dramatically illustrative for Florence Deusi, who was a child bride at 16 but says the weekly youth program on her local station (Mudzi Wathu Community Radio in Mchinji in central Malawi) helped her escape her illegal marriage to a much older man.

“Whenever I was alone I could tune in to the youth program and that’s where I gathered courage to get out of the mess that I was in.”

Now 19, Florence has told her story on the program, “and I encourage girls who are in situations like me to get out of such marriages and go back to school.”

The Malawi stations have other notable successes, including a yearlong campaign by youth reporters at Chirundu Community Radio in Nkhata Bay to have an abandoned hospital converted into a vocational school teaching such skills as bricklaying, welding, and plumbing.

Women in Vithenja village listenito Nkhotakota Radio Youth Health Program in Malawi.

Also, data tracked by DRP and the stations suggests that programs and PSAs at the Mchinji station from January to March 2021 led to an eight-fold increase in the number of young people seeking HIV testing and counseling services. The station manager launched the programs after noticing a huge drop in visits related to HIV testing between October and December 2020.

After Gaka FM in Nsanje in southern Malawi began partnering with DRP in January 2021, visits to the local youth health clinic climbed 81% between January and March compared to figures from July-December 2020.

Data from the Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare also suggest that there is correlation between the reduction in child marriages and the radio programs and PSAs produced by DRP-partner stations.

“Based on the data, we believe the radio programs are having a significant impact by reducing child marriages in the districts where we work and increasing the number of COVID-19 vaccinations in those districts where DRP is operating” Rice said.

Raphael Obonyo is a public policy analyst. He has served as a consultant with the United Nations and the World Bank. Also, he’s a writer and widely published in Africa and beyond. An alumnus of Duke University, he has authored and coauthored numerous books, including Conversations about the Youth in Kenya. Obonyo is a TEDx fellow and has won numerous awards. Read more articles by this author.

The post Developing Radio Partners Makes a Difference in Africa appeared first on Radio World.