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Global Security Systems has acquired a license to participate in the ShakeAlert earthquake notification system through its Alert FM disaster warning system. Alert FM provides tornado, hurricane, fire and other possibly life-threatening emergency notifications across the United States.

The earthquake information is from the United States Geological Survey’s ShakeAlert earthquake detection and warning system.

[Read: Changes Coming in National Alerting]

Matthew Straeb, EVP/CTO of Global Security Systems, developer and operator of Alert FM, said, “As a long-time provider of emergency notifications for tornadoes, fires, hurricanes, evacuations, and tsunamis, adding early earthquake warning notifications is a tremendous benefit for increasing public safety in all of our communities.”

The ShakeAlert system is active on the West Coast and GSS is implementing AlertFM/ShakeAlert for customers in in California, Oregon and Washington state.

In addition in the following months, according to a release, “Alert FM will integrate automated actions to accompany earthquake early warnings for sirens, accessible devices such as bed-shakers and other consumer electronic devices. … GSS will also pursue partnerships with accessible, hospital, transportation and public utility systems.”

Straeb explained, “We will be seeking partners to integrate our low-cost FM technology to control emergency generators, door openers, production machinery, and other sensitive equipment in concert with alert messages. The benefits are nearly endless in earthquake situations.”

 

The post FM Alert to Add Earthquake Warnings appeared first on Radio World.

The National Association of Broadcasters is unhappy about a planned change to FCC rules involving sponsorship identification of content that came from foreign governments.

General Counsel Rick Kaplan wrote about it on an NAB blog. He said the Federal Communications Commission had good intentions of helping the public better understand when they are watching or listening to content sponsored by a foreign government, and he said NAB agrees with the goal even though there are few broadcast cases compared to pay TV providers and social media.

[“Pai Calls for Transparency on Government Sponsored Broadcast Content”]

But Kaplan and the NAB oppose a provision that broadcasters entering into lease agreements with any programmers must take a series of steps to determine whether they are dealing with a foreign government in the first place.

“You might be wondering if there is an exception for the station leasing time to a long-standing trusted business partner, right? Nope,” Kaplan wrote.

“What if you are leasing time to a local church for services on Sunday mornings? Nope. Surely, it can’t involve leases for the 3:30 a.m. long-form Snuggie infomercial? Sorry, it does, says the FCC.”

Kaplan said “hundreds if not thousands” of stations “are now on the verge of being mandated to undertake steps to prove in advance they are not dealing with foreign governments, even when they each know with certainty they are not.” He called it “old-world regulation at its worst.”

He said there’s no evidence of a “groundswell of foreign propaganda” on the U.S. airwaves or that stations are confused about the origins of what they air.

“The FCC should not simply saddle broadcasters with this needless obligation — or rather, multiple needless obligations — because it can regulate broadcasters but not social media companies,” he argued.

And he said that “with each added regulation, the FCC makes broadcasting a less attractive investment, including for new entrants and historically underrepresented groups.”

He urged the FCC to “fix its proposal before approving it later this week.”

Read the proposed order (PDF).

Read Kaplan’s blog post “Let’s Not Overregulate Broadcasters Yet Again Because We’re Upset With Facebook”

 

 

 

The post NAB Unhappy With Lease Agreement Proposal appeared first on Radio World.

The owl ran afoul of the comatose coxswain.

You’ve most likely heard that line a lot of late, thanks to a new Progressive audio campaign.

But, when it comes to spot TV, a competitor has risen to the top in the latest look at brand activity by play count, courtesy of Media Monitors.

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For a generation of Spanish-language radio listeners in Central Florida, the 98.1 MHz frequency licensed to Deltona, Fla., has served as a home for salsa and Tropical programming.

Now, after 21 years, programming has shifted back to English fare, as RBR+TVBR has confirmed its sale. In doing so, it has ignited a war among Christian radio operators in the Orlando DMA.

The bigger news: this radio station’s owner, Entravision Communications, is set to say goodbye to the I-4 corridor.

Learn all about the power of the Hispanic audio content consumer at the Hispanic Radio Conference. For full details on this autumn 2021 event, click here!

 

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RBR+TVBR, the publication dedicated to the business of broadcast media, is proud to unveil the third annual Broadcast’s Best Financial Leaders list.

The Top 15 finance leaders in radio and television will be revealed, based on your vote, in RBR+TVBR’s June 2021 Special Edition, distributed at the virtual Kagan Media Summit electronically as part of the official Kagan conference app and via e-mail to all RBR+TVBR Members.

Make your nomination today for the RBR+TVBR Broadcast Best Finance Leaders list. Nominations will be accepted until Friday, April 23.

To make your nomination, please click here!

Those making nominations are asked to follow RBR+TVBR’s guidelines:

1. The persons you nominate must be active in radio and television media finance today and have a minimum of five years’ experience in broadcast media.
2. Nominations can come from any department of your radio or television station or parent company.

 

HURRY! You may make up to three nominations by our deadline of Friday, April 23 at 5pm Eastern/2pm Pacific. Please fill out only one ballot.

The latest Media Monitors Spot Ten Radio report is out, and it’s very clear who wins the home improvement retailer battle when it comes to spot count.

Lowe’s has been practically silent with its radio advertising, while Menards continues to use radio where it has stores. Nationally, there’s no competition.

And, that Home Depot domination continued in the week ending April 18, Media Monitors data show.

The latest report also shows that Indeed, the job search website, is the lone other campaign to register more than 50,000 play counts in the last week.

 

Vandalia Media Partners is inching closer to receiving an answer on its whether its license renewal application will be granted or denied.

The Media Bureau at the Federal Communications Commissioned announced that a status conference will be held virtually on April 28, at 10 a.m. as part of a hearing on renewing Vandalia’s license. Earlier this month the Media Bureau announced that an administrative law judge will work to determine whether or not to renew the license of AM radio station WJEH in Gallipolis, Ohio.

[Read: AM Station’s Spotty Operational Schedule Puts License at Risk]

The move is in light of the station’s minimal record of operation, the bureau said. Vandalia began broadcasting with the WJEH license on Dec. 31, 2019, and during its tenure as licensee (from December 2019 through 2020), the station was silent for 364 days and operated for two days at an authorized reduced power level of 100 W.

The Communications Act states that if a broadcasting station fails to transmit broadcast signals for any consecutive 12-month period, then the station license expires at the end of that period. This was set up by Congress to relieve the burden of conducting a drawn-out license renewal or revocation proceedings for stations that remain silent for extended periods of time.

The commission subsequently found that some licensees of silent stations respond by resuming operation for a short period of time — in some cases as short as a day — before the one-year-limit hits to prevent automatically license expiration. Others alternate between periods of silence and operations with minimal power levels that only cover a small portion of their service areas.

In cases such as these, the commission cautioned that “a licensee will face a very heavy burden in demonstrating that it has served the public interest where it has remained silent for most or all of the prior license term.”

The method for renewing an application is fairly straightforward. According to the FCC Rules, a renewal is granted if the bureau finds that the station met three key requirements: the station served the public interest, convenience and necessity; there have been no serious violations of the Communications Act of 1934 or FCC Rules; and there are no major violations that would constitute a pattern of abuse.

When these three tenets cannot be met, the renewal application is designated for a hearing. Because of the WJEH’s extended periods of silence and operation at significantly reduced power during its license term, the bureau was unable to find that grant of the renewal application is in the public interest.

A proposed schedule with next steps will be laid out during the virtual conference. The commission said that interested parties can share relevant documents and comments about this case through April 26 via the commission’s Electronic Comment Filing System.

 

The post Hearing Set to Determine Ohio AM License appeared first on Radio World.

The TM-250U from TASCAM is a USB condenser microphone with a supercardioid pattern.

The company says that it is aimed at direct connection computer audio for podcasting, dialog and vocal recording, music recording, conferencing, and other forms of online audio.

[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]

The digital audio output is 16-bit/48 kHz. It has mic gain and a headphone output volume control along with a mute switch.

It also ships with a 6-foot USB C-A mic cable, mic holder and a desktop mic tripod.

Info: www.tascam.com

 

The post TASCAM Releases USB Microphone appeared first on Radio World.

Spanish-language content was in focus last week with the blockbuster news that Univision Communications would be merging with Mexico-based Televisa, combining the struggling operator’s content operations with Univision — a key recipient of its programming.

GroupM’s Global President of Business Intelligence, Brian Wieser, was compelled to take a close look at the deal.

His assessment? “With a similar scale among Spain’s dominant media owners and significant investment in related content from Netflix, ViacomCBS, Disney and others, significantly increased investment will likely be required to accomplish stated goals.”

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Despite what MoffettNathanson Senior Analyst Michael Nathanson calls the “recent turmoil” among media stocks, the respected Wall Street financial house has increased confidence that Fox Corporation shares will outperform.

Why? Nathanson points to “improving fundamentals in the near term.”

He also likes what Thursday night holds for FOX in the coming years.

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LOS ANGELES — The owner of The Weather Channel and a growing collection of broadcast TV stations including the ABC affiliate for the Hawaiian Islands has just launched a free streaming ad-supported service steeped in local news.

It’s available on most major platforms, bringing information on demand through another “over the top” offering.

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He’s enjoyed a 53-year career in radio that saw him break through the sales management ranks by taking the General Manager role for a heritage Class A AM in Des Moines and its FM sibling.

In 2004, he joined Salem Media Group, and today oversees its AM/FM combo in Houston.

On April 30, Chuck Jewell will bid farewell to Salem, and to the radio industry.

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iHeartMedia has snared a huge sports brand for its latest podcast partnership: the National Football League.

The two organizations announced an “exclusive” partnership to launch the NFL’s podcast network; it will include distribution of NFL Media’s current podcasts plus co-production and distribution of two dozen more.

The announcement was made by NFL Senior Vice President, Media Strategy and Business Development Kevin LaForce, iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group CEO Conal Byrne and iHeartMedia President of Entertainment Enterprises John Sykes.

LaForce was quoted in the announcement, “Podcasts are an increasingly important way to reach fans and a compelling way to tell NFL stories.”

The partnership will have access to NFL Films archival content. Tbe NFL podcasts will be distributed through the iHeartPodcast Network.

Byrne called the deal “an incredible moment for iHeart and the podcast industry, period.”

The post NFL, iHeartMedia Launch NFL’s Podcast Network appeared first on Radio World.

U.S. Highway 160 traverses the Navajo Nation, from northern Arizona through the “Four Corners” region and onward to Interstate 25 on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. It’s one of the most picturesque routes in North America, and along the way one can tune to a New Mexico-based FM with a trio of translators in key southwest Colorado cities where Native Americans reside.

This explains why Vertical Radio, the first Christian radio station serving the region, was born. Now, the station’s Navajo operators are yielding the 40-year old facility to the fastest-growing non-secular broadcaster on the continent.

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Some 19 years ago, a Class C AM serving a coastal North Carolina community began simulcasting an FM Talk station with a signal best heard in Morehead City, New Bern and points east. This gave the Talker better coverage of Jacksonville, N.C.

Now, “The Talk Station” is saying goodbye to its AM component.

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Due south of Shreveport is the city of Mansfield, La. It’s home to a Class A station licensed to Leon Hunt and his Hunt Broadcasting.

Soon, it will be licensed to a new owner.

Classic Country KJVC-FM 92.7 is being spun to Sputnik Media LLC.

To be clear, this isn’t the controversial “Sputnik” operation tied to the Russian government. Rather, it is a Louisiana operation led by Quinn Echols.

A $100,000 purchase price has been agreed upon, with a 10% earnest money deposit made to Hunt.

As a separate transaction, Sputnik, for a period ending three months after the date of Closing, gains the exclusive option to acquire from Hunt Broadcasting a Broadcast Electronics STX LP-2 2 kW FM Transmitter for a purchase price of $15,000 cash.

The author is sound technician for Nicklas Strömberg Produktion AB.

TRELLEBORG, Sweden — The last bit of the sound chain has sometimes been the most awkward.

Long distances, humming copper wires, external interference, heavy rain, lightning and hard-to-reach towers can be challenging. Not to mention the expensive sound processors that have to be placed at the transmitter out in the woods or up on the mountain!

Now, with the technology that transmits a complete MPX signal from the studio-side audio processor to the transmitter, it has become so much easier.

In a recent project for a customer, we replaced seven AoIP codecs, seven sound processors and seven RDS encoders with a single Omnia.9 processor and seven Omnia MPX Nodes.

Having the Omnia.9 in-studio also means that the customer’s Livewire production environment now delivers a completely unbroken digital audio chain from playout server to transmitter, and each transmitter gets fed the same great Omnia.9 sound.

The connections from the studio to the seven sites are of different classes. Point-to-point fiber, radio link and internet via ADSL. Since the MPX Node only requires a 320 kbps data stream, there are no problems with buffering. In an emergency, 4G mobile data also works well, but there can be problems with that, for example, longer latency.

It came as an unpleasant surprise to another client when their old internet-connected AoIP equipment was hacked and destroyed, with dead air as a result. Luckily they already had an Omnia.9 in the studio.

When they called me for help, I quickly ordered an Omnia Audio µMPX FM composite license for their Omnia.9 (basically turning it into an STL), and took my spare MPX Node to their transmitter. Only a short while later, they were on air again, and now they no longer have to worry about data intrusion because the MPX node has a built-in secure firewall.

There are several methods of implementation. In some cases, the customer already has an audio processor but it does not support µMPX. The Omnia MPX Node is also available as an encoder providing an easy end-to-end connection by simply adding two to the workflow. The MPX node encoder can even send redundant streams to multiple MPX Node decoders for multiple transmitter sites.

The easiest implementation is if the sound processor is an Omnia.9, which has the secure µMPX function built in. It can send up to 16 simultaneous streams (or more on a private network that permits multicast), so if it is a large station with 16  transmitters, it can save a lot of money as the air chain no longer needs expensive sound processors at each transmitter. One Omnia.9 in the studio and 16 MPX Nodes is enough. This reduction in technology investment means there will be more money left over for content and staff.

Radio World User Reports are testimonial articles intended to help readers understand why a colleague chose a particular product to solve a technical situation.

For information contact Cam Eicher at The Telos Alliance in Ohio at 1-216-241-7225 or visit www.telosalliance.com.

The post User Report: Telos Keeps It All in the Family appeared first on Radio World.

Haven’t had much luck locating the Estrella Media-owned Spanish-language broadcast TV network on your MVPD’s channel lineup?

Here’s another way to view it — one that may work for you, or TV viewers in your market.

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