Radio World

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The author is manager of broadcast systems at WBUR Boston University and former technical editor of RW Engineering Extra.

This past year-plus has been an experience in survival for everyone, with the pandemic affecting all of us in our work and personal lives.

Reflecting back on the last 14 months, I’m proud of the work we did at the height of the virus panic to convert the large majority of our on-air staff to working from home during the period from April to June of 2020. The need to protect both the staff and station operations was unarguable in those early days, when we knew little about a new virus that was spreading worldwide beyond almost anyone’s control.

For some, remote operations may become the “new normal.” Radio broadcasters have shown they can do more remotely than they believed possible. It’s of value to look back, consider what worked best and how we might continue to employ these remote techniques going forward.

Prevention success

What did we learn from moving as many people from the building as possible? Well, for one it was a fairly effective way to reduce virus infections.

Our facilities are crowded, with about 200 plus people occupying just under 40,000 square feet of office and studio space. We have  the typical open office areas with small cubicles laid out in grids for most of the support staff, combined with about 10 control rooms (some just large enough for voice-over work and others designed for a full complement to support a live news magazine style program with live phone call-ins). We had to get most people out of the building over a short period of time.

At the lowest point, we had one or two hosts in the building on sequential shifts and perhaps four to six audio engineers/producers to support all the live operations. Everything else involved in creating content for a full-service news station, including three hours of daily national programs, was coming from staff working out of their homes.

For more on the lessons that radio organizations have learned from the past year, read the free ebook “Remote Radio Phase II.” Click the image image.

That meant that we were down to less than 10% of our staff that would normally be in the building. As far as I know, there were no cases of COVID that were traced to our building, although at various times there was a need to have people “self-quarantine” for periods of time. Very effective prevention when we think about this result.

Our employer, a large university, invested in laboratory facilities that were capable of delivering test results for COVID tests within about 24 to 36 hours, considerably better than most public labs were able to do for most of 2020. Anyone working in a university building was tested weekly to allow effective contact tracing. Personally, I felt this testing was a huge assurance that the people I met in the building were safe; if not “certified” perfectly safe, the chances the virus could spread undetected for weeks amongst all of us were small if not negligible.

We maintained the well-known CDC recommendations. Masks were required by anyone moving around in the building or in common spaces. Social distancing was observed and barriers installed for safety when tasks dictated staff working in close proximity to one another.

School for remotes

From a technical standpoint, as many have noted, the pandemic showed that much of the work done in the office could be effectively done at home, if the right conditions existed.

Allowing people to work from home released an unexpectedly large groundswell of popular response from the staff. The removal of daily commuting and expensive local parking from the daily work routine was like the removal of a heavy burden, the existence of which was only acknowledged once it was absent. Combined with the additional safety this provided the staff, while maintaining their employment, working from home made employees quite grateful. For parents, whose children could no longer attend public school, it was the only solution possible.

We provided equipment for about 18 hosts to broadcast from home (some were part-time or fill-in for various lengths of time). Equipment was available for pickup without the hosts having to enter the office building. Training was required for the majority of the hosts, virtually none of whom had ever touched a mixing console in their entire careers. This training was carried out by appointment in the garage below our offices. This meant that we had to figure out ways to bring in power and Internet service to the garage area to allow actual connections to be demonstrated as we walked our hosts through the use of the equipment.

A few of our hosts had previous experience with Comrex Access portables and were assigned those since they already knew how to use them. Combined with our Access units we used the Beyer DT-297 headsets primarily. These headsets feature a condenser type microphone and comfortable earpads that can be worn for extended periods of time (a typical shift might be 4–6 hours for a host, including pre-production and live broadcast portions). While some are uncomfortable with the plosive performance of condenser mics, we found that with some coaching over Facetime or Zoom it was possible to get the mic placement working well. Many of our listeners and staff reported they felt the sound quality was hard to distinguish from the studio.

The Comrex units were supplied with at least one wireless modem and a network cable for connection to the home firewall/router.

Most of our staff used Comcast or Verizon as their home internet service provider. Over the first few weeks of operation it quickly became apparent that wired connections were always preferred over the wireless; but the ideal connection was to use both a wired and a 4G connection with the Comrex CrossLock protocol.

We already had substantial depth of experience doing live reporting using an existing fleet of Comrex portables. We slowly learned there are differences between delivering a short debrief from a news event for insertion into a news program, and setting up a host with a continuous connection to do a multi-hour show. Achieving reliability for these longer time periods required at least two ISPs.

Resource demand

As we did conversions, we soon realized our supply of Comrex equipment would not be enough. We added to our stock, but not unexpectedly those quickly became unobtainable during the first few weeks of the pandemic. Our studio inventory of Access rack units was also in demand and stretched to its limit on most days.

Since we did not have enough Comrex equipment to support the number of hosts required we had to look elsewhere and ended up putting into service a number of our legacy Suprima ISDN codecs. We own six of them and they date from the halcyon days when ISDN service was the de facto standard for studio interconnections.

Unfortunately, in our region of the U.S., Verizon discontinued ISDN years ago after the Hurricane Sandy flooding of a major central office terminal in New York City. Many people actually retired their Suprimas (sold in the U.S. by Musicam USA but made by Prodys), and forgot the Suprima’s ability to do IP connections as well as ISDN.

We had used this capability for years doing live broadcasts with the complementary Musicam USA product known as the Road Warrior which similarly supported by IP and ISDN connections. The Road Warrior was designed as a portable mixer that featured many of the capabilities required by remote hosts, such as sportscasters.

As demand increased, we brought out our working stock of Road Warriors with several of our hosts, with the requirement they be used only with wired connections. Again, these were provided with a headset microphone. By using stereo connections, and analog patch bays, we were able to add in interruptible foldback and talkback functions that replicated the controls in our studios, without having to use any add-on gear.

[I use the terms TB and IFB with the following definitions. IFB is the communications channel that goes from the studio to the remote host. It will typically allow interruption of one ear of the mix-minus program audio to allow a producer to give audible cues and other information to the host without having to type it into a chat window and hope it catches the host’s attention. TB is the communications channel used by the host that mutes their microphone and outputs a separate audio feed to the studio which does not go on air. We patched this over to a Fostex portable speaker in the control room so that engineer and producer could hear it separate from the mixer cue bus. These terms are sometimes used interchangeably and it can be confusing.]

With full TB and IFB functions, the hosts could carry on their typical conversations with their producer and ask questions about timing and program continuity. For good measure, the Road Warrior also allows mic muting to replicate the studio Cough button. These features are very popular with talent, producers, and audio engineers. In my opinion, having these features reduces errors and improves host performance due to improved communication.

As we rolled these out with good success, we realized we needed more equipment. I reached out to industry stalwart Jim Peck, of SCMS, who was able to work out an arrangement that allowed us to purchase more of the remote mixers made by Prodys directly from Spain. While the Road Warrior mixer is no longer available, there is an updated version known as the Quantum. Prodys wisely provided reverse compatibility with the older Suprima studio codecs.

I believe I may actually have bought out the entire remaining stock of available units in May and June of 2020, a total of five units. This gave us enough equipment to handle the rest of our host needs. Taking apart remote kits, we added enough studio units to cover the time periods when demand was at its highest.

Some of these studio units were added with patch cord adapters into our main patch bays since we didn’t have enough staff to put in permanent wiring at the time. While many studio sites no longer are built with patch bays, we found in an emergency they were very flexible and adaptable to the new requirements. We carefully pre-tested each of these setups with the home ISP and worked with talent to get the most reliable connections for them.

Not quite digital heaven

Personally, I was a bit surprised at the average low performance of typical home ISP connections.

In recent years more attention has been devoted to telephone type devices for consumers and the state of the art for home computers in many households seems to have ossified somewhere around 2010. With this change in demand has come a huge emphasis on wireless routers for all data connections (who puts their phone into a wired connection, right?).

As our deployments grew, we identified common problems that were experienced by all of our users by studying the statistical data plots of their connections to our studios. It wasn’t necessary to run audio over these connections; the host could go about their business as long as they dialed in and left the connection up for an hour or so. These data plots revealed that most of our host connections performed in a mediocre fashion initially.

The most common problem was the use of a consumer wireless router that was more than a year or two old. These older routers operating in overused frequency bands initially deployed for home Wifi no longer can keep up.

The best solution was to locate the router and plug directly into it with a wired connection. For some locations, this meant a 50 to 100 foot Ethernet cable and not the most attractive arrangements in how it connects to equipment (in at least one case a wire was initially run up a staircase, with temporary attachments to the wall).

It also affects the choice of room to work in. In households with small children it can be a considerable problem to locate within wired distance of the router while still being able to keep a private space for broadcasting without interruption.

The second most common problem was low bandwidth, especially on upload. Most users forget that residential ISPs will provide a very fast burst for download speeds, but the corresponding upload speed is typically 20% or lower. We found sites where the “100 Mbps” upgraded service only provided 5–10 Mbps on upload.

This is important. Recall that under these conditions we would get fairly reliable mix-minus returns to the host but the host audio destined for air would drop out at lower levels of utilization.

In households with more than one working adult at home (pretty typical) the demand on the ISP was continuous and spiky. Add in children doing multiple Zoom sessions from home for school and there were parts of the day when a good connection degraded into something unworkable. To the degree possible we had hosts limit simultaneous users, but in some cases we had to upgrade their internet service to something much more powerful. Fortunately, in our region Comcast took the pandemic very seriously and was offering rapid service upgrades. The costs for these were typically borne by the station.

Finally, we found some homes still using ISP connections (like DSL) which simply didn’t work reliably at all. To provide technical support for these locations we had to separately purchase a business class service for the home, if it was available. Since we were paying for it, we requested these services be used exclusively for broadcasting and generally they provided excellent results.

Then there’s “home sound”

One other comment on hosts from home.

Residences are not typically designed with acoustics in mind, and indeed this was a consideration for our plans. One of the reasons we went with headset microphones was that mic placement was controllable with some training and attention. Another reason was that headsets designed for use in very loud venues like stadiums are actually quite good at controlling external noise just by their design. Keeping the microphone close to the talent helps minimize acoustic interaction with walls and windows.

We used simple techniques such as having people stay away from room corners, large plate glass windows, and mirrors.

It’s worthwhile to mention the 3:1 rule of microphone placement. If a reflective surface is within a distance up to 3 times the distance between the microphone and their mouths it can create audible cancellation effects.

For those mathematically inclined, think of sound pressure waves as radiating in a circle of equal amplitude, where the intensity will decrease by the square of the radius. The intensity translates directly to the voltage generated by the microphone element.

Converting this into decibels, an increase in distance of 3 times will reduce the pickup by just about 20 dB. It’s impossible to get comb-filter effects by summing reflections that are 20 dB reduced from the main incident sounds. I like to aim for a ratio of 4 or 5 to 1.

For example, if the mic is placed two inches from the mouth of the announcer, then a distance of 10 inches from any reflective surfaces should provide sufficient attenuation to eliminate audible phase cancellation, a requirement that should be easily met.

This in no way means that keeping the TV on in the back of the room while announcing won’t be heard (it will!) but it removes some of the black art of getting a voice to sound clean and clear. In comparison, think about the use of a tabletop microphone on the desk at a distance of 8 inches from the mouth and it’s easy to see how walls, windows, and even a laptop computer can cause audible effects.

Behind the scenes

With the hosts settled, we also had to address the other production requirements for a busy news and sales operation. We settled on high-quality FTP servers to handle many of these needs, but in moving these functions out of the building it’s essential to carefully consider the workflow for each and to apply automation wherever possible to simplify it.

As an example, we had to support the tracking and story assembly efforts of a team of dozens of reporters. Typically, a story will be constructed by having a series of short elements mixed with location sound and interspersed with narration from the reporter. Reporters used their portable recorders and handheld microphones to voice track and gather sound. Using a laptop and the Audition, each of these elements is generally cut into an individual wav file segment in the field. From there, all the pieces are uploaded to an FTP server with folders assigned to individual reporters to keep stories sorted. An editor then can review the story and forward this material to one of the on-site production engineers for mixing. The assembled piece then gets sent to an editor for final content adjustment. The editor on site can then load a completed piece into our BE AudioVault on-air delivery system.

Some reporters would produce their own final mixes in Audition. We created automation to allow these pieces to directly import into AudioVault with included metadata. This automation made the editor’s job much easier. Without specific metadata, it is not advisable to allow anyone to import audio directly into an on-air delivery system. The most likely outcome is that it will be lost. Worse, mistakes can be made on versions of audio, intro scripts and the content of various cuts. Metadata is how everything is organized in the digital world.

We needed to support the interviewing of newsmakers in the home via telephone or other means. Generally, we found it possible to use something like a JK Audio handset coupler to go from phone to recorder. Our Tascam DRM100 recorders can be set up to do split tracks to capture the reporter on one channel and the phone isolated to a second channel which avoids the problem of someone accidentally talking over an interview and corrupting the sound.

Also required is the ability to record a live stream on the internet for news purposes, such as a press conference or speech. These days this is best done by using a capture software program, such as Audio Hijack; without this, most consumer computers do not allow the user to do it outside of using oddball external wiring schemes that feed the headphone audio back into the input on the laptop. Of recent note, more expensive external USB interfaces sometimes come with an internal client mixer that allows this in software (an example is the Focusrite Clarett within the Apple ecosystem). These USB interfaces bring with them greatly improved microphone pre-amps, support for phantom power and ability to record directly into a laptop, while costing more and adding complexity to the reporter setup.

Not for prime time

What really did not seem to work was the use of programs like Zoom on the laptop and trying to separate out the audio for use in an interview.

While having a visual connection was desirable for the reporters, the audio limitations of Zoom and all its processing of sound to control multiple sources resulted in constant upcuts and at times a complete breakdown of their codec into echoes and flangy feedback. Yuck.

While Zoom seems to have changed the workplace in terms of meetings (many feel that it has made meetings more convenient but slower), its limitations with audio make it a poor tool for production.

We do have some producers successfully using Zoom but it seems to be a small subset of the ones who have tried. By shutting off many of the features in Zoom that affect the audio improvements are possible. I would not at this time recommend its use for live radio. There are many other programs out there that work better than Zoom, but it is not always a given that the person being interviewed will have them available.

For studio interviews we make heavy use of our Comrex Opal units. It’s a simple operation for a producer to send a link to the desired person who then uses a standard browser to log into a server that provides a high-quality link.

Long strange trip

It’s hard to believe we have been doing so much from home, and continuing to perfect our methods, for more than a whole year.

Personally, I feel that it’s too early to declare that studios are a thing of the past. As much as our solutions have shown that it CAN be done, this new world has many of its own problems as noted above.

What goes on in a studio with an experienced team of professionals, who can see each other and know how to respond as a team to immediate concerns or unexpected problems, is nothing less than magic. Breaking up this team is like cutting off a limb: You can still do things, but it’s harder than it used to be.

Live production is better suited to the comfortable support of a studio. When the time comes and we can do it safely.

 

The post Coronavirus Experiences at WBUR appeared first on Radio World.

Lawo has issued a software update for users of its radio mixing consoles, Power Core mixing engines and On-Air Designer configuration software.

“The new radio software, v6.6 PL-003, represents a major upgrade to On-Air Designer, the configuration software used to customize the functions of Lawo’s radio mixing consoles and audio cores,” including the ruby radio console, it said in its announcement.

Lawo Ruby

The ruby console (the company writes its name in all lower-case) provides snapshots for recall of saved parameters and settings, with motorized faders that automatically recall saved positions and context-sensitive user keys that can be customized using On-Air Designer software.

“The new software adds the ability to selectively load snapshots using extended logic functions, enhanced AES67 stream tuning tools, and integrates control of Lawo A__line audio I/O devices into the radio workflow,” Lawo stated.

This update also adds features to the configuration web pages of Power Core, Lawo’s Ravenna / AES67 mixing engine and I/O gateway device, as well as enhancements for Lawo’s VisTool GUI Builder Software.

It was announced by Senior Product Manager, Radio, Johan Boqvist. Radio v6.6 software applies to  Lawo radio products including ruby, sapphire, sapphire compact, crystal and crystalCLEAR mixing consoles, Power Core and Nova17 MK2 engines, VisTool MK2 GUI Builder software, and the On-Air Designer console customization tool.

Release notes and a software download are available at the Downlinks link at the Lawo website.

The post Lawo Issues Software Upgrade for Radio Products appeared first on Radio World.

ENCO Systems has announced several improvements and updates to its WebDAD and enCaption products.

WebDAD is an HTML-5 browser-based native remote control companion to the DAD automation and playout system. “Across both the DAD and WebDAD products, passwords with special characters are now supported, which will help many use a more secure password to better conform with their station’s data security policies,” Media Solutions Account Manager Bill Bennett said.

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

“Along those lines, we’ve added button and deck security within WebDAD so the log-in follows button security for normal DAD users.”

For those who like to edit arrays and libraries and manipulate assets within the WebDAD interface, they can now download library cuts via the HTML client directly to their remote computer. And WebDAD’s user interface has also been updated.

enCaption is an automated captioning and transcription platform used by television and radio broadcasters to make their programming more accessible. Bennett said the system now inserts a chevron into captions to indicate when someone new is speaking.

“We’ve also integrated a powerful new punctuation detection feature that inserts commas, exclamation points, periods and question marks automatically, based on voice characteristics.”

To change input and output signal mapping across various types of sources, or to change between sources across live and file-based content, the user can now save each configuration mapping as a unique profile and call it back up, manually or by API call. enCaption also now has improved word filters and an updated optional CEA-608/708 Embedding capability.

Info: www.enco.com

 

 

The post ENCO Updates enCaption and WebDAD appeared first on Radio World.

Larry Langford is the owner of WGTO AM in Cassopolis, Michigan, and W246DV South Bend, Indiana. He can be reached at larrylangford@aol.com.

Shall we sweeten the pot to entice single- mode AM digital?

I was and still am very opposed to Hybrid AM digital (IBOC).

It kills other stations. It sounds bad and the coverage is lousy. But just like late night TV commercials say, “Wait there’s more!”

Of course, the more is — single-mode digital.

[Read: A Cumulus AM Near NYC Will Go All-Digital]

Now that is a horse of a different color. How does it sound? Great!

How is the coverage? Better than analog and, yes, it is stereo.

But as we also know the biggest drawback is the rather pesky problem of rendering analog radios obsolete.

That reminds me of the story of radio pioneer RCA engineer Edwin Armstrong and FM. Armstrong was a giant in the industry who gave us the super regenerative circuit and his work on the superheterodyne receiver (apologies to Lucien Levy!) When tasked with finding a way to get rid of static in radio reception while at RCA, he created the noise-free transmission method of frequency modulation (FM). RCA boss David Sarnoff was happy until he found out it would obsolete every radio already sold. So, his answer to Armstrong was, NO!

Well, there is no David Sarnoff in the game now and AM digital seems to be the way to go if the AM band is to remain an active player in the media game. But we still must face the problem of rendering millions of radios as nothing more than doorstops or white noise generators.

I have read the data that shows that newer cars are being equipped with radios that will play AM digital and given a few years, market penetration in cars should be reasonable. But for the mom-and-pop stations that still rely on analog to cover the market it is just not worth it yet to sound good for a few and be gone for most.

The best scenario for AM operators, especially small- to medium-sized stations is to have a good FM translator. If coverage

mimics the analog AM coverage, it’s a no brainer — turn off the analog and switch to digital!

But that is not good for everyone. While some of the AM stations in major markets own or have partnered with a full power FM to carry the AM programming, smaller AM stations may have only one translator and need another to even approach the coverage of the analog AM. And there are a number of AM stations that missed out on the window to move a translator into their market and have none. Going all-digital takes some investment and the FCC should do what it can to encourage putting analog AM to  sleep, while making the change viable for those who have struggled so long.

Well, here comes the sales pitch. I would ask the FCC to make an offer AM operators cannot refuse.

If a licensee agrees to go full-time single-mode digital for a minimum of five years with no switch back to analog, the commission will allow a limited window to acquire and move an existing licensed translator from a 250-mile radius into the coverage of the AM station going digital as long as the 60 dB contour is within the 5 mV contour covering the city of license. And the 60 dB contour does not overlap an existing translator that currently has the AM station as the primary. The parameters are of course negotiable, but the point is to allow AM stations willing to make the digital leap a safety net to remain viable as the digital radios increase in the market.

In this way your smaller AM stations could get another chance to cover the old analog area with FM while the automobile market catches up to the new all-digital method. I would also offer a sunset provision that would force the AM stations to surrender the translator after, say, seven years, depending on market penetration of AM digital. LPFM groups would have first dibs on getting the surrendered translator frequencies.

Look, we are going to have to be creative to keep AM owners alive while the newer digital ready radios gain market share. It is not going to happen overnight and AM stations making the leap need assurances   the hometown still gets something analog radios can hear. Allowing a move window for 250-mile import of translators will help solve the problem while getting some spectrum grabbing network “satellators” moved and repurposed to support AM digital and in many cases open up LPFM opportunities where “satellators” were originally parked.

It is a win-win as I see it. Small AM stations get another shot at a translator to cover the analog listeners, we can get rid of some “satellators” that are keeping LPFMs from serving local areas and AM stations start making the big migration to single-mode digital, saying goodbye to static, poor frequency response, lack of stereo and most importantly, the listening public finds a real reason to listen to the AM band again. This to me would be the best example of AM revitalization where it is the actual AM band that gets the makeover!

 

The post Sweeten the Pot to Entice AM Digital appeared first on Radio World.

Newman-Kees Consulting Engineer Frank Hertel always has one or two innovative tips to share.

He recently came across an interesting compound that can help you when you need to remove concrete or rock.

You drill holes in the concrete, then take Dexpan Expansive Demolition Grout, mix it with water and pour it into the holes.

The chemical reaction with the water expands the compound, exerting 18,000 psi expansive strength into the drilled holes. The force breaks up rock or concrete slabs, even if rebar is present.

The process is amazing, watch the time-lapse video at dexpan.com to see the “after” photo.

For anyone who has demolished concrete with a jackhammer or even a sledge, you’ll be amazed at this efficient alternative method. A bucket of the compound is less than $50 and is available from Amazon or Home Depot. Enter “Dexpan” in the search block.

Finger trap

Wayne Eckert is with the Rural Florida Communications Cooperative. He spends a lot of “hands-on, in-the-field” time dealing with communications issues.

In the Oct. 28, 2020 issue we talked about asking your tower riggers to check for problems while they are the structure to change bulbs. As an example, we ran a picture of a cable that had pulled free from a liquid-tight electrical box.

Wayne says the photo revealed an installation problem waiting to cause a serious light/electric failure.

Looking closely, he believes both cables were installed improperly and that the connectors were sized incorrectly or were not intended for supporting flexible cable.

The cable on the side of the electric junction box was bending tightly under its own weight, which, after a while, will cause the jacket to crack and permit moisture to enter the cable, compromising the insulation of the conductors.

A much better solution would be to use a connector with a strain relief, as shown in Fig. 2. These connectors look like a standard liquid-tight connector with a stainless steel loom added to it.

Wayne said the stainless steel loom works like a Chinese finger trap: Stick a finger in each end, and when a child tries to pull them out, the loom tightens up holding the fingers in place. Great fun, unless you are the kid with the stuck fingers!

The connector works the same way. Pull the loom back, and push the cord up and into the connector, leaving enough slack to be spliced in the box. Then release the loom. It grips the cable evenly over the entire length, securing it tightly to the box.

The loom will also prevent the cable from forming a tight bend, eliminating the potential for insulation to crack.

To select the correct size, note that the cable outer diameter may be listed metrically, thus 3/8-inch equals .375 and 1/2-inch equals .500. Also consider the size of the knockout hole on the junction box.

Wayne cautions that dust-tight connectors are for dry, indoor use. Deluxe grips are liquid-tight for outdoor use but can also be used indoors.

The Hubbell Company manufactures these products. Find wire mesh grips and strain relief grips at www.hubbell.com.

Tube memories

We recently featured a photo of a tube tester on display at the California Historical Radio Society museum in Alameda. Commonly seen in drug stores back in the day, they were available for customers to check their vacuum tubes at no charge.

Dave Costanza, CBNT, works in the video facility of the Pennsylvania Senate. The picture reminded him of a similar but smaller tester that his father built from a kit in the early 1950s.

Shown in Fig. 3, this tester is in remarkable condition. Dave says one of these days he’ll “fire it up” and test a few tubes.

Dave joins scores of other readers who thanked us for the memory.

Speaking of memories, New England broadcast engineer Bob Meister saw our mention of the lifetime guarantee for Realistic vacuum tubes.

Workbench readers may remember that Motorola two-way radios also had a lifetime warranty on the “PermaKay IF filter” used in the receivers.

Bob wonders, “Whose lifetime were we talking about? The part’s lifetime, or the company’s?”

John Bisset, CPBE, has spent over 50 years in broadcasting and is in his 31st year of Workbench. He handles western U.S. radio sales for the Telos Alliance and is a past recipient of the SBE’s Educator of the Year Award.

Workbench submissions are encouraged and qualify for SBE recertification. Email johnpbisset@gmail.com.

The post Workbench: Blast Through Concrete Silently appeared first on Radio World.

The author is executive director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. NFCB commentaries are featured regularly at www.radioworld.com.

The Federal Emergency Management has confirmed a date for the next national test of the Emergency Alert System, this summer. For the last month or so, there has been chattering about a 2021 EAS test. FEMA says this year’s test will happen on Wednesday, Aug. 11, at 2:20 p.m., Eastern. A backup date on Wednesday, Aug. 25, has also been rolled out.

For radio stations, it is time to prepare, and even catch up on things you may have forgotten about during the pandemic.

[Read: Community Broadcaster: Reopening Radio]

Blanked on the EAS test? You’re likely not alone. With remote work taking over radio everywhere, surely some of you may have wistful memories of that old EAS gear. Consider the next few months as your time to get reacquainted.

What do stations need to do in the months leading up to this summer’s test?

Updating firmware for your EAS equipment is a top priority. Sage and other manufacturers have posted firmware updates over the last 12–18 months. In a few instances, getting the newest version may require your station to be current with its support subscription. However, no one can blame you if those subscriptions lapsed during the shutdowns brought on by the pandemic. So, it would be prudent to skim your email archive and office mail bin to ensure your relationship with your equipment provider is current.

Your next step will be to dust off and review your EAS processes and policies. For some stations, EAS tests are automated, but others prefer, or have by circumstance, manual runs of weekly tests. Does your staff need a refresher of how to run its test? Or has your studio setup changed, as many stations did in tweaking their facilities during COVID-19? Especially as stations are welcoming back staff and volunteers, you may want to update your operations guidance.

[Read: Aug. 11 Is the Next National EAS Test]

Finally, and most importantly, proper education and messaging with staff and volunteers about the upcoming EAS test is critical. The test is more than tones over your broadcast. The national EAS effort is a chance for radio stations to remind audiences about our valued role in the nation’s media infrastructure. Where internet access remains spotty, radio is there. Where communities search for trust, radio is present. The national EAS test is our time to remind listeners of our place in their lives.

No matter who you are in radio, the EAS is your obligation. Community radio stations, low-power FM stations, everyone is required to participate and complete the appropriate reporting once the EAS test is over. You have a few months to resolve any issues before you.

Don’t wait until August.

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Swiss hearing care equipment manufacturer Sonova has acquired Sennheiser’s Consumer Electronics business. The move comes three months after Sennheiser announced it was searching for a new corporate partner that would take over the consumer division — a move that would allow Sennheiser to focus on its Neumann, pro audio and business communications business units.

Sonova Holding AG, headquartered in Stäfa, Switzerland, is a global provider of medical hearing solutions with three core businesses — hearing instruments, audiological care and cochlear implants. Founded in 1947, it has a workforce of more than 14,000 employees and generated sales of ₣2.92 billion [Swiss francs] (US$3.27 billion) in the financial year 2019/20 as well as a net profit of ₣490 million (US$543.2 million).

[Read: Sennheiser Plans a “Repositioning”]

As part of the partnership, a complete transfer of the consumer electronics business’ operations is expected to be completed by the end of 2021. Roughly 600 Sennheiser employees work for the Sennheiser consumer business.

With the takeover of the Sennheiser consumer business, Sonova is adding headphones and soundbars to its product, which includes hearing aids and cochlear implants, among other hearing solutions. A “permanent cooperation” is planned under the joint Sennheiser brand umbrella in order to continue offering Sennheiser customers first-class audio solutions in the future, and a license agreement for future use of the Sennheiser brand has been made.

Sennheiser co-CEOs Daniel (left) and Andreas Sennheiser.

The move to partner with another company for the consumer business was not a rushed decision, co-CEO Daniel Sennheiser told Pro Sound News in February: “Looking at [our] different business units in more detail, we realized we need different strategies to make them successful. How we can develop all four business segments at the same time with the necessary power, so all markets that we’re in have great growth opportunities? We saw that the consumer part can be really driven to the full extent if we can find a partner and focus on the pro part.”

Sennheiser co-CEO Dr. Andreas Sennheiser noted, “The combination of our strengths provides a very good starting point for future growth. We are convinced that Sonova will strengthen the Sennheiser consumer business in the long term and capture the major growth opportunities.” Both partners see potential for speech-enhanced hearables and for true wireless and audiophile headphones.

Arnd Kaldowski, CEO of Sonova, says: “I am very pleased that Sennheiser has chosen Sonova to further develop the well-renowned consumer division. We look forward to welcoming our new colleagues and to building on the combined strengths of both organizations to successfully shape our joint future. The fast-growing market for personal audio devices is rapidly evolving. Combining our audiological expertise with Sennheiser’s know-how in sound delivery, their great reputation as well as their high-quality products will allow us to expand our offering and to create important touchpoints with consumers earlier in their hearing journey.”

 

The post Sonova Acquires Sennheiser’s Consumer Division appeared first on Radio World.

Earnings reports from major radio broadcast groups this week show the damage to the bottom line caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is easing a bit as the economy recovers and advertisers return.

iHeartMedia in its financial report on Thursday said consolidated revenue clocked in at $707 million for the first quarter of 2021, which is better than it expected but still down 9.5% compared to Q1 of 2020. Take out political and revenue dipped 7.2% in the quarter, according to the broadcasters filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Those numbers appear to be a little better than several of iHeartMedia’s major competitors. Audacy (formerly Entercom) said today its net revenues for the first quarter were $240.8 million, which is down 19% year-over-year. Audacy’s broadcast radio revenue was down approximately 24% in the quarter. Meanwhile, Cumulus reported overall revenues declined 11.5% in the first quarter of this year, but its radio revenue declined 23.8% compared to Q1 last year.

[Read: iHeart Launches “Private Marketplace” for Podcasts]

iHeart Media recently realigned its reporting segments and for the first time broke out three specific sectors of its business on its first quarter balance sheet. The company’s Multiplatform Group, which includes its 860 broadcast radio stations and Premiere Networks, reported Q1 revenue was down 20.9% compared to the same quarter in 2021. Specifically, broadcast revenue was down 22.3% year-over-year while network revenue declined 6% YoY, according to the company.

The largest radio broadcaster in the United States said operating expenses for the Multiplatform Group decreased 17.8% in Q1 compared to the same period in 2020 primarily due to lower employee compensation and other cost-reduction initiatives in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. That included staffing cuts in iHeartMedia’s engineering department earlier this year. Observers at the time noted the company appears to be relying on a more regional approach to engineering staffing.

The iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group, which includes all digital assets like podcasting, grew revenue by 69.8% year-over-year. iHeartMedia says the digital audio business encompasses approximately 22% of the company’s consolidated revenue. The sector was led by continued growth in podcasting, which increased by 141.9% YoY, according to the investor report.

iHeartMedia Chairman and CEO Bob Pittman said during Thursday’s call the Digital Audio Group is “well on its way to becoming our most profitable segment.”

Meanwhile, the company’s Audio and Media Services Group, which includes Katz Media Group and RCS, saw revenue decrease 8.5% comparative to the same quarter last year. Katz specifically was hard hit in Q1as a result of the presidential election in the year prior. Excluding the impact of political, revenues in the sector were actually up 0.7%, according to the company’s balance sheet.

Pittman told investors the company continues to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and expects to see a full recovery to 2019 levels by the end of this year.

Watchers of iHeartMedia stock saw positive signs in the past month when a bullish analyst report raised its rating on the audio company. BofA Securities media analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich bumped her rating up to Buy from Underperform. The company’s stock price immediately jumped about 13% and has held relatively steady since mid-April. It opened Friday at $19.86. The stock returned to the public markets in July 2019 following its emergence from bankruptcy.

Despite the positive stock news the audio company is still loaded down with debt, according to its SEC report. iHeartMedia had total debt of just over $6 billion at the end of March. iHeartMedia President and COO Rich Bressler said Thursday the company’s “interest expense will be approximately $335 million to $345 million” for 2021.

Bressler also discussed cap-ex spending by the broadcast giant: “Due to the significant real estate reductions we are working on to drive meaningful savings, our capital expenditures in 2021 will be $165 million to $185 million and then return to normal levels in 2022. Due to the timing of the real estate consolidation, capital expenditures will be heavily weighted to the second half of (2021).”

You could pardon iHeartMedia executives if they wanted to present investors the abridged version of the company’s Q1 results on Thursday and quickly move on to discuss their projections for the second quarter. The company says April 2021 revenues were up approximately 85% year over year. Keep in mind the company says that April 2020 was the month hardest hit by COVID. Company leadership expects second quarter revenues overall this year to be up around 65% YoY.

iHeartMedia also completed its acquisition of Triton Digital, a digital audio publishing, advertising and audience measurement business, during the first quarter. The company says the move will help tie together its various lines in the digital infrastructure space.

 

The post iHeartMedia Continues in Recovery Mode appeared first on Radio World.

Dave Kolesar shares this photo to update us on field testing at all-digital AM station WWFD.

In the background is the Xperi test van and Xperi’s Mike Raide. They’re at the transmitter site in Frederick, Md., where they’ve started another round of HD2 testing on the station at 820 AM.

Kolesar is senior broadcast engineer at WTOP/WFED and program director of the format “The Gamut.” He and Raide have worked together extensively on the digital project at WWFD, as we’ve reported.

[Read: Real-World Tests Make Business Case for MA3]

“The testing is being done to determine coverage of an HD2 MA3 signal, as it’s not quite the same as a main channel, unlike FM HD,” Kolesar told us.

“It involves driving along selected radials and noting where the HD2 audio fails, taking field strength readings at those points. Test gear includes the calibrated loop antenna on the roof, a FIM-4100 field strength meter, a spectrum analyzer, and an Xperi test receiver capable of receiving the HD2 signal.”

He said it takes about a half-day to drive a typical radial, so testing will be going on over several days.

“When we’re done, what we learn will incorporated into WWFD’s report to the FCC under its experimental authorization, as well as being submitted for publication at this year’s BEIT conference at NAB.”

Radio World welcomes images of your own radio technical projects. Email us at radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

The post WWFD Conducts More HD2 Testing appeared first on Radio World.

JW Marriott Downtown Austin

The Texas Association of Broadcasters announced in an email that its exhibits for the TAB Show in Austin in August have sold out, with 100 vendors booking space.

We took it as our prompt to check in with the TAB on its plans for holding a physical trade show on Aug. 3 and 4. It would be one of the first events in the U.S. radio industry to “go back live” since the pandemic began early last year.

Oscar Rodriguez is TAB’s president.

Radio World: It looks like TAB is moving firmly ahead with plans to hold a physical event. I’m sure you have a sense that you will be one of the first. What factors led you to decide to proceed in physical form?

Oscar Rodriguez: Our members. They’ve been hunting down vaccines since they first became available and now there’s an ample supply in Texas, so that was our primary consideration. But ultimately, they’re ready to meet and do business.

They want to explore new gear and revenue building strategies that’ll make them more efficient and profitable … lessons learned during this long-running disaster. They want to reconnect with friends across the state. And they know they’ll get a big bang out of the very few bucks it all costs.

RW: Will there be a virtual component as well?

Rodriguez: We definitely considered a virtual component or hosting a hybrid event. After much discussion, we decided to move forward and dedicate our resources to bringing in some top-notch presenters/panels and encouraging folks to join us — safely — in-person in Austin.

After more than 18 months of virtual events, most folks are burnt out on virtual gatherings.

RW: Describe the precautions show planners are taking, and how the attendee experience will be different. 

Rodriguez: Our team has been working diligently with the JW Marriott (our host venue) since last year to make sure all safety precautions are in place. Believe me, this has been no easy task with everything changing so quickly.

The JW currently requires wearing of face masks in all indoor public areas, and we will enforce that or whatever requirements are in place at the time of the event.

[Related: “IBC Show Set to Go Ahead in September”]

We also are asking all registrants to agree to our health and wellness waiver before they are allowed to enter the show. Of course, we are setting the events/meetings and including floor decals to allow for social distancing, providing many hand sanitizer stations, and working with the JW to stay on top of frequently sanitizing common areas, etc.

We’ve also redesigned our big meal events to ensure safety and comfort, while making sure everyone has the sustenance they need for the non-stop schedule we always present.

RW: What will the experience of visiting a booth be like, and are there rules or guidance for those interactions?

Rodriguez: Initially, we’d planned to have 166 booths in the Trade Show. In order to respect social distancing rules, and best use our contracted space, we had to widen aisles and leave more open space, forcing us to reduce the exhibits to 100 8-by-8-foot booths.

Booth sales opened at the beginning of March (our latest start date ever) and sold out May 4, and we already have a waiting list.

In terms of the experience of visiting a booth, to be honest, we don’t know. Every exhibiting company will have their different level of comfort, and we will work with them to make sure we make that happens.

We’ll have our lead retrieval system in place so there won’t need to be any need to exchange business cards. But a lot of our exhibitors have hands-on equipment that they want to demo. And we are leaving it up to the individual exhibiting companies to decide how they want to handle their one-on-one interactions.

We’ve heard from some attendees/exhibitors who just don’t feel comfortable traveling yet, or their companies won’t allow it. We completely understand that and know that we’ll see them back in Austin in 2022.

For the most part, however, we’ve been hearing from both our exhibitors and broadcast attendees that they are ready to travel and reconnect in person with industry clients and friends who they haven’t seen in close to two years. They are excited — and we are too!

We’re expecting exhibitors to send fewer reps to work the show. And where a broadcast station might have sent five or six people in the past, they’ll most likely be sending fewer … though we’ve had some register more team members than ever before, so it may balance out.

Our Convention Committee has been working diligently on crafting a fantastic schedule of sessions and events and I’m confident their hard work will pay off in terms of broadcast attendees.

RW: What will the experience of attending a session be like?

Rodriguez: In the past, we set the meeting rooms to max capacity. Obviously, that’s not an option this time around. We’re setting each room to allow for social distancing and encouraging mask wearing whenever not seated.

RW: What else should we know?

Rodriguez: We’ll be celebrating 100 years of broadcasting in the Lone Star State! The 2021 TAB Show coincides with the centennial anniversary of the first broadcast signal in Texas, by WRR Dallas, on Aug. 4. That celebration, of course, will cover a lot of history. It’ll also be rooted in the present as the agenda focuses on the technology and practices powering modern radio stations, as well as the ATSC 3.0 “Next Generation” TV standard that’s already on-air in Texas.

Information including a list of exhibitors, sponsors, registration fees and schedule are at https://www.tab.org/convention-and-trade-show. Session topics and presenters for the sales, marketing and technical programs are pending.

The post TAB Is Ready for an In-Person Show in 12 Weeks appeared first on Radio World.

Reftone, the company created by engineers Dave Hampton and Lisa Chamblee, recently started shipping the LD-3B Ref-Cube. The cube-shaped monitor with a single 4-inch driver is a powered version of the company’s Ref-Cube monitors. The LD-3B is the first active model released by Reftone.

Available singly or in pairs, the LD-3B is capable of putting out 25 W at 8 Ohms. It offers two connection options: Bluetooth 4.2 or analog via a 3.5 mm input.

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

The monitors are 5 x 5 inches in size, weigh 5.5 pounds each, and are housed in magnetically sealed birch-plywood enclosures. Because they have no ports, the cabinets are less prone to resonance and offer clear midrange reproduction. According to Reftone, they designed the Ref-Cubes to “allow you to hear full-range audio clearly at low volumes.”

The LD-3B provides more than just midrange, however. Thanks to its full-range driver, it boasts a frequency response of 70 Hz to 20 kHz, which is wider on both ends than similarly designed speakers from its competitors.

You can purchase the LD-3B singly mono ($399) or as a stereo pair ($599). A special white stereo pair is available at $699. For the pairs the left monitor functions as a satellite, which is connected to the right with an included speaker wire equipped with banana plugs.

According to Reftone, these powered Ref-Cubes are designed for a wide range of applications, including tracking, editing, mixing, mastering, broadcast and post-production. Due to their small dimensions, magnetic shielding and ability to connect to an audio source using Bluetooth, the LD-3Bs are easy to place in virtually any production environment.

Info: https://reftone.com

 

The post Reftone Releases LD-3B Ref-Cube Monitors appeared first on Radio World.

My column about the FCC’s political-file consent decrees caught the eye of an engineer whose  employer has one radio station under a decree; he was appointed to be its designated compliance officer, so he’s getting a close look at the impact.

“I thought I might offer you a little off-the-record inside look at how easy it is to run afoul of the FCC’s political broadcasting rules,” he told me. But given how many stations are affected by this issue, I asked permission to share his comments anonymously, and he agreed.

Here’s what he wrote:

Paul, 73.1943(c) requires: “All records required by this paragraph shall be placed in the online political file as soon as possible and shall be retained for a period of two years. As soon as possible means immediately absent unusual circumstances.” That “as soon as possible” and “immediately” is what got us and a lot of others in trouble.

I get it … political candidates need to know right away, the same day, what competing candidates are doing in terms of advertising schedules, so that info needs to be up and available… immediately.

What happened in our case was that a gubernatorial candidate placed an order last October for an ad buy on our station. The account executive dutifully entered the order. Traffic got the spots scheduled and the spots aired right on time.

However, the paperwork for the order sat on the AE’s desk for a few days before she gave it to the person responsible for OPIF uploads. And just like that, because an AE set another piece of paper on top of the order sheet, we were in violation. When the OPIF manager got the order sheet, she immediately uploaded it and of course it was time stamped … several days after the order date.

There was no way around it, and we owned up to it in our renewal application.

It was nothing malicious, nothing particularly careless, just an honest mistake on the part of an employee who probably should have had a greater awareness of the rule and the possible consequences of violation.

Paul, another perilous, treacherous path to violation is network programming.

Oftentimes, political buys are made at the network level. The syndicators are required by contract (by our contracts, anyway) to immediately send us the paperwork so that we can upload it, but they quite often do not, either at all or not until several days later if they do at all.

We have no way of knowing what political ads are embedded until/unless we hear them or the syndicators tell us. When we do get the paperwork, we always annotate it with the date/time received and immediately upload it. But that could still constitute a violation, even though it is arguably beyond our control. The FCC would argue that we are responsible for everything that goes out over our airwaves, and they are correct.

The point of all this is that while political OPIF violations in this renewal cycle may seem epidemic, I don’t believe that is the case.

The OPIF and time stamping of uploads make it impossible to claim compliance if even a little late — not that we would ever knowingly do that anyway (we always in the past disclaimed our certifications in license renewal applications, “to the best of our knowledge …”). A tiny mistake under the current system makes for a black-and-white license renewal issue. It’s all very frustrating.

For now, we have put an embargo on all non-federal political advertising and will only take federal candidate ads that we are required to by law.

We hate to leave money on the table and not give candidates a platform, but we simply cannot take a chance that another small mistake will be made and affect our licenses.

Thanks to this reader for sharing his experience of how the current FCC initiative is affecting one company’s daily operations.

The post “It’s All Very Frustrating”: Life Under a Consent Decree appeared first on Radio World.

An interesting new series of infographic maps attempts one sort of answer to the common question, “Who is making money off of podcasting?”

The maps identify top-earning podcasts by country and by several popular genres.

The company that put them together believes the highest-earning podcast, in the United States and globally, is “The Joe Rogan Experience” with $72.3 million in what it calls “potential earnings.”

Click to enlarge.

They think Europe’s top-earning podcast is comedy show “Sh**ged Married Annoyed,” with an estimated annual value of $10.6 million. And the highest-earning business podcast is U.S. show “The GaryVee Audio Experience” with $6.3 million.

The overall global map is fun to browse; click the image at right to see it enlarged. (A link to the full set of maps is at the end of this story.)

These were put together by financial blog Top Dollar Financial Insights Hub, which is part of debt consolidation company Accredited Debt Relief, working with UK-based content marketing agency NeoMam Studios (the latter produces “creative content that online audiences will want to share and journalists will want to write about”).

They did a similar project last year called YouTube Moneymakers, identifying the most popular YouTuber in various countries and estimating their earnings.

in issuing the podcast infographics, they noted that there are an estimated 850,000 active podcasts and 30 million podcast episodes, but that the industry’s revenue is estimated at less than $1 billion dollars right now.

Big media companies like iHeartMedia believe there is a lot more to be made in podcasting, and have made investments in the infrastructure and analytics to build that business, as seen in IHM’s launch of a programmatic “private marketplace” just this week.

Describing their process, the mapmakers say they compiled the top 20 podcasts in various countries across Spotify and Apple lists using Chartable, found the podcasts on Castbox and recorded the number of plays, number of overall episode and the number of episodes in the last 12 months.

“Following the calculation that Castbox sees about 2% of overall plays, Top Dollar multiplied the number of plays by 50 and calculated the number of plays by episode,” the organization stated in a press release.

“The team went on to estimate the potential earnings in the last 12 months by assuming three 60 second ads per episode and taking CPM values from AdvertiseCast.”

It then applied the same process for several specific genres as well.

See all the maps here: https://www.accrediteddebtrelief.com/blog/every-countrys-highest-earning-podcast/.

The post Maps Identify Top-Earning Podcasts by Country appeared first on Radio World.

 

Getty Images/Mehau Kulyk Science Photo Library

David Bialik consults to stations on their streaming and audio processing. He is an AES Fellow and award-winning leader who has held technical positions with Entercom, CBS, Bloomberg, United Broadcasting, Bonneville International and the National Association of Broadcasters.

This interview originally appeared in the ebook “Trends in Audio Processing for Radio.”

Radio World: What would you say is the most notable trend in processing?

David Bialik: An important development in the use of processors is the awareness that streaming requires different processing than “over-the-air.” While broadcasters want to be the “legally” loudest, streaming does not have to be the loudest, but they can be the clearest; and with commercials originating from various locations, matching loudness levels is extremely important. 

The current recommendation from the AES’ recommendation for Streaming Loudness (currently being revised) is –17 LKFS.

Stations (and engineers) are now understanding that one size of processing does not fit all. You should not use the same processing for over-the-air that you do for streams. Use a loudness meter. Orban released a free one that is quite good!

As far as features: Many processors are good and have good features. Bob Orban and Frank Foti have often joked that they make the gun but you do not have to shoot it. Do not process so aggressively that you cannot identify the instruments. You should always be able to hear the cymbals! Ask yourself if the artist wants to hear their audio clipped or not.

RW: How will the cloud and virtualization affect the processing sector? 

Bialik: Stations are hoping this will cost less and take up less real estate. Hopefully the benefit of a cloud architecture will create redundancy and eliminate a point of failure. 

It also makes your internet connection more important and the need for backup more critical.

RW: With so many people working remotely, what are the implications for managing processing today?

Bialik: Security will be important, of course. Routing will be incredibly important since a station will have to set a “Quality of Service” to guarantee that the audio always has the bandwidth needed.

Stations will want remote facilities to sound the same as studios. Remote users will need good acoustics, and be able to produce high-quality audio — we do not want 1K telephone sound.

RW: Content comes at us from so many locations. What role do loudness and LRA (loudness range) play? 

Bialik: This will be more important, especially for streaming where Direct Ad Insertion is being used. You do not want to be listening to content (at –17 LKFS) and then have commercials and interstitials played much louder. I have heard this happen at 6 dB louder at times. You will be knocked off your chair. 

RW: Are listeners, especially younger ones, moving toward greater fidelity because of their use of on-demand services and personal downloads? 

Bialik: Stations with a good dynamic range will always sound more appealing to the listener.

RW: There are committees at the Audio Engineering Society working on recommendations and guidelines for online audio content. What would you like to see from this work?

Bialik: I am chairing much of this. Loudness issues invite the listener to constantly adjust the level. If they are adjusting one control it is as easy to turn the content off. How will that help the TLH?

RW: AES loudness metrics are moving to a lower target level for content, streams, podcasts and on-demand file transfer, like metrics established for online and over-the-top video. Given current practices, could radio see loss of potential audience due to listener fatigue?

Bialik: I believe the lack of dynamic range will cause listener fatigue. Hopefully the content will have good dynamic range and good loudness levels. The level of audio-only streams is being targeted at –17 LKFS while video is at –24 LKFS. Within the short term future, loudness could be controlled by metadata. Yes we are talking a 7 dB difference. The recording industry is also pushing for –24 LKFS. This allows for more headroom as well.

RW: With new “hybrid” radio platforms coming out, a listener might tune to an FM signal in a market but then drive out of it, with the receiver switching to the station’s online stream. What matching challenges does this present?

Bialik: Stations that have to cover ads and sports blackouts will sound worse. 

RW: What else should we know?

Bialik: If everyone say streaming is the future, why not invest in the future now and do the best audio you can?

Read other recent articles about processing for radio broadcast applications.

The post Streaming Has Its Own Processing Needs appeared first on Radio World.

The author is editor in chief of Radio World.

The consent decree announcements involving online political files keep rolling out from the Federal Communications Commission. Radio World has learned that more than 2,100 radio stations in the United States now are covered by these agreements, which require station owners to put compliance plans in place.

The latest examples include Major Broadcasting Corp. for WYGO(FM) in Madisonville, Tenn.; Custer County Community Broadcasting for KMTA(AM) and KYUS(FM) in Miles City, Mont.; and San Luis Valley Broadcasting for stations KSLV(FM) in Del Norte, Colo., and KYDN(FM) in Monte Vista, Colo.

But these broadcasters are in good company. Many similar announcements have been coming out since last July, as we’ve reported, and have involved radio licensees of all shapes and sizes.

I’ve been curious about this project from the start. I reached out to the FCC staff for an update this week.

To start with, a commission spokesperson tells me that to date, the Audio Division of the Media Bureau has adopted approximately 130 consent decrees that cover approximately 250 stations. The stations had their license renewal applications put on hold pending FCC investigations; those holds were later lifted under the consent agreements.

But this doesn’t don’t tell the whole tale, because those numbers exclude the “Big Six” broadcast groups that first entered into consent decree agreements with the FCC last year. Those agreements were brokered with the help of the National Association of Broadcasters, and the FCC’s announcement about them last summer put this overall effort into the public eye.

The six broadcasters — iHeart Media, Alpha Media, Beasley, Cumulus, Entercom Radio and Salem Broadcasting — entered into consent decrees that require compliance reporting for all of the stations they own.

So if we include them, the number of consent decrees is about 136 but the number of stations covered by them is 2,135, including some that had not yet filed their own renewal applications.

It’s hard to give an exact number because in some cases, other owners also entered agreements that included not only stations with pending license renewals but some that had not yet filed. But it’s evident that the program has touched many broadcasters.

The consent decrees generally are all similar. A broadcaster acknowledges failure to comply with the rules for maintaining online political files, and it commits to a compliance plan and to report back later. The broadcaster avoids a financial fine. The FCC ends its investigation and removes the “hold” on the license renewal; it also acknowledges that the pandemic created exceptional circumstances for many broadcasters. (The FCC is not aware of any stations that were denied renewal for other reasons after a hold was lifted.)

To my eye, this program should be considered a success for both the FCC Media Bureau and the National Association of Broadcasters.

The regulator effectively gets the message out that it is serious about enforcing this particular set of rules and laws, with the clear implication that at some point in the future, more costly outcomes can be expected. Broadcasters avoid financial penalties and agree to follow rules they were supposed to be following all along. Meanwhile the industry’s largest broadcast association helps its members (and non-members) come into compliance and avoid fines.

I strongly suspect that failure to maintain political files properly (“derelictions” in the FCC’s language) have been the norm for a long time. So if we accept the premise that the political file rules are justified in the first place (a separate discussion), this outcome is also a win for the folks who developed the FCC’s program to put files online — though I’m sure plenty of broadcasters may have preferred not to have the commission looking directly into their paperwork all the time!

And I’d say that, in our current political climate, anything that tends to make our nation’s political process more transparent is a good thing.

The commission adopted rules requiring broadcasters to maintain public files about requests for political ad time more than 80 years ago. Political file obligations have been part of Section 315(e) of the Telecom Act since 2002. A full-power station’s political file is part of its public inspection file.

[Read more on this topic, “The FCC Can See Your Public File”]

Radio licensees must maintain information about requests to buy broadcast time from or on behalf of candidates for public office, or by an issue advertiser whose ad communicates a message relating to “a political matter of national importance,” and it must make that information available for public inspection.

Stations must place info about requests into their political files “as soon as possible.” Stations must maintain and make available information about all requests for broadcast time made by or on behalf of candidates for public office. And stations must upload the information to their online political files “as soon as possible,” meaning “immediately absent unusual circumstances.”

The commission has written that “It is crucial that stations maintain political files that are complete and up to date because the information in them directly affects, among other things, the statutory rights of opposing candidates to request equal opportunities.”

The post FCC Political File Consent Decrees Proliferate appeared first on Radio World.

Known to Radio World readers for his  broadcast engineering work at Greater Media and Burk Technology, and his presentations at numerous engineering conferences, Paul Shulins has struck out on his own.

Naturally he’s taking advantage of his past broadcast experience in this endeavor; and the result is Shulins Solutions, a broadcast technical consultancy.

Radio World: What is Shulins Solutions?

Paul Shulins: It has three pillars: the Stellar Eclipse platform which provides unique monitor, control and protection solutions for transmission sites; drone-based tower inspections; and a full range of consulting services based on years’ of practical experience on the ground building and operating broadcast facilities.

Stellar Eclipse broadcast site monitoring platform provides a systems approach to monitoring and protection of RF systems from simple to complex featuring exclusive VSWR Sentinel protection technology.

[Read: “Stellar Eclipse in Space City”]

sUAS Drone-based tower structure visual and infrared surveys provide an indispensable tool to diagnose the health of RF systems and tower structures without the risk of climbing the towers.

Broadcast Technology Consulting meets the demands of broadcasters, specializing in remote control solutions, studio design and construction, antenna protection systems and ratings metrics.

We pride ourselves on solving problems with an attention to detail that only comes from firsthand experience in the field. All of our products and services come from the point of view of the user, and are crafted with the passion of a lifelong broadcaster.

RW: I assume it’s mostly you doing the work. Do you contract out when you need others? Do you have employees?

Shulins: We were a virtual organization before working virtually was cool.

While I wear many hats, including having the technical vision and architecture for our offerings, I have a group of talented people who provide important skills like cloud-based software, hardware layout and fabrication, installations, marketing and so forth, all needed to bring world class products and services to market.

As a longtime licensed pilot and of course a career broadcast engineer I have a pretty unique skillset to fly our drones.

Even with the help I am typically the guy who answers the phone. I like being directly in touch with customers.

RW: Many readers will know you from your tenure at Greater Media and Burk, and your work and presentations at NAB conferences. What prompted you to become an entrepreneur?

Shulins: With the amazing support of longtime DOE Milford Smith of Greater Media, I was able to think outside the box, and provide exciting new technical solutions to problems that materialized due to the growing industry and technology.

Many of these solutions came in the form of digital playout systems, multi-site remote controls, and Part 101 studio-to-transmitter links before they were popular.

I decided that thinking in this way often led to solutions that others can benefit from too. My drive to share my passion for innovation presented the perfect opportunity to start this business.

RW: How do recent trends in how broadcast companies manage engineering affect the marketplace for the services you offer?

Shulins: For sure the market is changing. We are all balancing more projects at the same time, and resources are stretched thin.

During my long tenure at Greater Media, I was fortunate to have the time and flexibility to be able to creates a number of custom software systems that really helped improve the operating efficiency of the stations, and are the foundation of many of the products and services I offer today. That being said, many very capable broadcast engineers simply don’t have the time to be able to take on these types of projects themselves.

The solutions we offer can really help engineers manage their transmission sites, and provide a level of protections and monitoring that simplifies their operation. Our drone tower inspections using thermal imagery can help find issues quickly before they cause serious down time. We strive to provide tools that help engineers make the most of their time and help simplify with an approach that is based on my experience waking in their shoes for many years.

RW: How widely are drones being used now in broadcast inspection work?

Shulins: We see it growing more and more each day. I think the TV spectrum repack really put a lot of pressure on the tower climbing resources and brought focused, alternative ways to inspect towers beyond simply climbing them. While nothing can fully replace a physical inspection, sUAS inspections bring new technology and capabilities, allowing for inspections that can be made more frequently, less expensively, and in many cases with more detail than a physical inspection often finding problems not obvious from the ground.

RW: Give an example of a project you’re working on or recently did.

Shulins: I recently had the honor of working with some very talented engineers on a 10-station FM combiner system that had very complex switching and safety requirements. The type of software and hardware solutions I deploy happened to be a perfect fit for this operation. Features like automatic power reduction in the event of line pressure loss, and integrated mode switching using multiple motorized coaxial switches. It was a lot of fun to design and deploy.

I have also recently been able to pinpoint transmission line problems with the sUAS using thermal imagery when more conventional resources like spectrum analyzers and ground based TDRs were unable to localize the issue.

RW: What else should we know?

Shulins: My strength is my experience and my passion. The old cliche holds true that if you love what you do for work, then it really isn’t work. My entire career has been about innovation and technology, but the most important part is the people. I have had the good fortune of working with some of the very best in the world, and learning from all of them. I enjoy making people’s lives easier by providing exciting ideas and solutions to help them save money and compete effectively. I approach each day with excitement and can’t wait to see what opportunities are around the corner.

The post Shulins Opens Up His Own Shop appeared first on Radio World.

Getty Images/Carol Yepes

Wearing its “world’s largest podcast publisher” hat, iHeartMedia has launched something it describes as unique. It’s a “Private Marketplace” to offer advertisers a programmatic buying way to reach listeners to podcasts in the iHeartPodcast Network.

The system was developed through Voxnest, which iHeart acquired last fall.

Brian Kaminsky, chief data officer and president of revenue strategies, said the goal of that purchase was to let iHeart give podcast advertisers “additional targetable inventory at scale.” The company said in its announcement that the iHeartPodcast Network offers “30 million US monthly uniques and 257 million global downloads and streams.”

The technology will let advertisers create their own “marketplaces” consisting of specific audience targets and pricing, “to dial up and down across each year as their marketing needs require.”

Those advertisers will have on three targeting options: Category, Geolocation and Psychographic.

“Categories” include business and finance, TV and film, music, true crime and so on, while “Geolocation” promises to deliver relevant messaging to a specific region.

“Psychographic” lets an advertiser buy into shows that “speak to specific consumer behaviors like the conqueror, explorer, legend, cultivator, decider, thriver, rising star, advocate, backer and intrepid.”

Buyers will be able to choose multiple deal types including Programmatic Guaranteed (PG), Preferred Deal (PD), Private Auction (PA) and Open Marketplace (OMP).

In 2016 iHeart launched a “programmatic private marketplace for digital radio” in an announcement with AdsWizz.

The post iHeart Launches “Private Marketplace” for Podcasts appeared first on Radio World.

Al Kenyon

Al Kenyon has a couple of suggestions of his own for the Federal Communications Commission regarding the Emergency Alert System — specifically involving EAS Originator and Event Codes.

He is intimately familiar with the topic as chief of FEMA’s IPAWS Customer Support Branch; but he emphasized that he was making his suggestions as an individual, not speaking for FEMA. He thinks the suggestions will improve public-facing EAS messaging without significant additional costs to industry or the alerting community.

[“FCC Releases Details of EAS Proposal”]

Kenyon filed comments in the FCC’s notice of public rulemaking regarding changes to the nation’s alerting systems.

He says originator codes need to make clear who or what organization originated the message. He also would like to see the addition of a Domestic Terrorism Event code.

First, he noted that two of the four currently authorized EAS originator codes convey descriptive information regarding who originated the alert.

“WXR and CIV indicate that the message originator was the National Weather Service or a Civil Authority, respectively. The third originator code, EAS, was commonly and interchangeably used with CIV when broadcast stations were always manned during operation and key local primary stations were expected to originate EAS messages at the request of local officials.” But he said that is no longer the case. “Use of the ‘EAS’ ORG code is now limited to use in conjunction with EAS Participant-originated RWT and RMT test messages.

“The fourth originator code was not based on the originating office or official but rather on the name of the top-level national EAS dissemination system, the Primary Entry Point system, ‘PEP.’ This collection of stations and facilities is now referred to by FEMA as the National Public Warning System or NPWS.”

But Kenyon noted that the PEP is not an originator, it is a message dissemination system.

“An EAS message scroll that begins with ‘The Primary Entry Point System has issued an …’ has little or no meaning to the general public and can only contribute to general confusion,” he said. “For the benefit of the public, originator codes should reflect who or what organization originated the message, not what collection of technical facilities were enlisted for top level dissemination of the message.”

Kenyon recommended that the FCC consider a replacement organization code such as FEO, for Federal Executive Official, or a similar alternative. He said this would be compatible the idea of renaming the current WEA Presidential Alert to allow for common use of that category by the president or by the FEMA administrator, as laid out by Congress in the legislation that prompted the current NPRM.

Second, “Regarding possible additions to EAS Event Codes, I ask the commission to consider authorizing a new Event Code for use in urgent instant action situations such as a radiation hazard caused by detonation of a ‘dirty’ bomb or improvised nuclear device,” Kenyon continued.

“While discussion of such hopefully unlikely events may be both unpopular and unpleasant, should such an event occur, it will be essential to the public health and welfare that people take shelter immediately. (That means Mommy should not get in a car and drive to little Timmy’s school. Little Timmy will be sheltering in place in school. Both Mommy and Timmy will be much better off if Mommy does not risk exposure during the period of greatest hazard immediately following the event.)”

For such a case Kenyon proposes adding a Domestic Terrorism Event, DTE, or similar event code. “Ideally a DTE Event Code would be a must-carry event similar in required retransmission status to an Emergency Action Notification. Presumably, such status could be granted through presidential delegation of authority to an appropriate fast response agency or organization.”

He closed his filing by saying that he doesn’t realistically expect the FCC to act on the proposed additional Event Code in the current proceeding. “But I would be remiss if I did not get this recommendation on the record now before the ebb and flow of international relations and splinter factions reaches a point where this becomes an imminent concern.”

Kenyon is a former engineering executive or chief engineer with broadcast companies Clear Channel, Jacor and Taft. He also has done significant volunteer work with EBS and EAS committees at various levels from local to national. He also worked for Denny & Associates, ManTech and Five Rivers Services before joining FEMA in 2010. In 2017 he was named IPAWS Customer Support Branch Chief.

The post Kenyon Says Make EAS Originator Codes Clearer appeared first on Radio World.

Radio and TV broadcast antenna and RF support equipment maker Dielectric has appointed Dan Glavin as its new western region sales manager. He succeeds Steve Moreen.

Glavin will be responsible for sales west of the Mississippi River. He’ll report to Vice President of Sales Jay Martin.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

According to a release, Glavin started with the company in 2018 as an electrical engineer and expanded that job with outstanding performance. Martin pointed to that in the selection of Glavin for the job. “The ability to identify product requirements and respond in a technical capacity is key to this position, and Dan’s level of problem-solving expertise is rare among field sales,” said Martin. It is also noted that he is fluent in Spanish.

Send your people news to radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

The post Dielectric’s Glavin Goes West appeared first on Radio World.

HHB headquarters in London

HHB Communications is now the primary distributor for Comrex in the United Kingdom.

“The strength of HHB’s reseller relationships in the UK, Scotland and Ireland and their focus on

customer service make them an exceptional choice to distribute Comrex products,” said Comrex Sales Director Chris Crump in the announcement, made jointly with HHB Head of Sales Matthew Fletcher.

Comrex was incorporated in 1961 and is known for its audio and video codecs, telco interfaces and related products.

[Read more of our recent coverage of Comrex news and products.]

HHB Communications was founded in 1976 and serves pro audio solutions to broadcasters, recording studios, post facilities, and system integrators. Consultation, training and installation are among its services.

 

The post Comrex Names HHB Its Primary UK Distributor appeared first on Radio World.