Radio World

The author is co-founder of consulting firm P1 Media Group.

The year 2020 was like no other, a year we’d all rather forget. Coronavirus turned our world upside down.

But rather than dwelling on how COVID-19 decimated radio listening, revenue and personnel, we want to close out the year by sharing some of the amazing and extraordinary ways radio worldwide responded to the pandemic.

In mid-March when the lockdowns began, P1 Media Group felt compelled to do something, someway, somehow, to help radio. We knew there was no programming playbook for COVID-19, yet listeners all around the world were depending on us to keep them informed and entertained during this unimaginable time.

Smiles online

With P1’s global footprint we were beginning to see some very interesting ideas stations were executing in different parts of the world and had a feeling that if we could create a hub for stations to share and exchange these ideas, those ideas would spark more ideas and inspire more stations, and radio listeners everywhere would benefit.

It was our desire to use radio’s collective brainpower to help us through the pandemic that led us to the formation of the Facebook group “Coronavirus Radio Ideas.”

Thanks to the support of Benztown and Radio Days Europe, the Coronavirus Radio Ideas Facebook group took off like a rocket.

It quickly attracted several thousand members representing radio in more than 80 countries spanning six continents. Over 300 ideas were shared in the first months, covering everything from programming to podcasting, promotion to marketing, sales to social media and much, much more.

 

A laugh and a smile can be just what a listener needs to cope during challenging times and radio delivered its share of smiles both on air and online.

“The Kyle and Jackie O Show” from KIIS in Sydney, Australia created several amusing social media videos. One featured show producer Pete demonstrating social distancing on the sidewalks of Sydney with a homemade contraption that kept him six feet apart.

Another video revealed how parents could teach kids simple fractions while drinking wine.

CFOX in Vancouver, Canada produced a clever video — based on BBC nature series including an impeccable impersonation of the one and only Sir David Attenborough — called “Humans Are Emerging.”

“Intern Pete,” aka Pete Deppeler, shows off his homemade social distancing system for “The Kyle and Jackie O Show” in Sydney.

ACE Radio Network in Australia created wonderful theater of the mind with an extremely well-written and -produced call of a fictitious horse of race, naturally called “The COVID Cup.”

Songs parodies also provided fun topical ways to cope with life during a  pandemic.

Retired morning man and Twisted Tunes genius, Bob Rivers, changed the Beatles classic “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “You Gotta Wash Your Hands.”

FFN radio in Germany changed Camila Cabello’s hit from “Havana” to “Corona.” And in Seattle, the Fitz morning on show on 98.7 The Bull, transformed 90s Hip Hop song “O.P.P.”  to “We’ve got no TP” to promote their toilet paper giveaway.

Music at home

COVID 19 closed the curtain on live concerts, so radio created new ways to bring live performances to listeners safely.

NRJ Radio in France held the “NRJ Music Tour at Home” while in Spain Europe FM showcased live performance through its “Home Festival.” And NRG Radio Kenya produced a massive one day fundraiser “We are One Africa Concert.”

Radio 7 in Hannover and the Local Media San Diego cluster produced drive-in concerts, where listeners were treated to live performances from the safety of their cars.

Some stations went to extraordinary lengths to honor our heroes on the frontlines.

Power 96.1 Atlanta arranged a salute to essential workers that included a massive heart over downtown.

Hospital workers in Cyprus were quarantined at hotels between long and grueling shifts at local hospitals. Mix radio threw those heroes a massive rave. iHeartMedia station Power 96.1 Atlanta took their nightly salutes for essential workers to the skies one evening, with skywriters creating a massive heart over downtown Atlanta. Z100 New York and Elvis Duran held nightly light shows set to music on the Empire State Building.

Yet stations didn’t recognize only the frontline heroes; the BBC in the UK staged weekly on-air sing-a-longs across their stations to raise the spirits of an entire nation.

Affirming

Revenues were decimated due to COVID-19 and radio had to become more resourceful than ever to retain its advertisers.

There were stations offering one week of free ads or “run your schedule now and pay when you can” promotions, while others bundled hundreds of thousands of dollars in free airtime for clients and charities that needed it most.

In Dallas, Texas, iHeartradio called on the help of local billionaire Mark Cuban to provide insights and encouragement in a special five-station simulcast aimed at helping businesses.

Despite all the challenges we faced in 2020, radio found many ways to positively impact their local communities.

The NENT Radio Group in Sweden started “Listener Help,” a program that connected listeners in need with listeners willing to help. Listeners brought food, medicine and a smiling face to those who needed it most.

The Rolling Stones came to the aide of Fabulous 103 in Pattaya, Thailand, where the once-thriving tourist town was devastated by COVID-19, donating the proceeds from the song “Living in a Ghost Town” to feed the impoverished unemployed tourism workers.

Our global response to COVID 19 reaffirms radio is an amazing and remarkable medium with talented and creative content producers all over the world. Radio delivered the laughs and smiles, the essential information and the hope and reassurance we needed when we needed it most.

Get inspired and join the group at www.facebook.com/groups/coronavirusradioideas. View winners from the recent Global Coronavirus Radio Awards at https://p1mediagroup.com and click on Coronavirus Radio Ideas Winners.

The post Radio’s Global Response to COVID-19 appeared first on Radio World.

Outgoing Chairman Ajit Pai will use his last FCC meeting on Jan. 13 to showcase the commission’s work over four years.

“Serving as chairman of the FCC has been the honor of a lifetime,” Pai wrote in a blog post. “And soon, my time in this position will conclude.” He departs on Jan. 20 as the new Democratic presidential administration comes in.

“The FCC’s monthly meetings showcase the agency’s highest-profile work. And by any metric, we have been more productive, more collaborative, and more transparent since January 2017 than at any time in recent history,” Pai wrote.

“At the 48 meetings held under my leadership, we’ve voted on a total of 286 items at our monthly meetings — an average of six (5.96, to be precise) items per meeting. That compares to a recent historical average of well under three. Of the votes on those 286 items, 205 (71.7%) featured no dissents and 253 (88.5%) were bipartisan. These figures are far higher than comparable figures from the four preceding years.”

Pai expressed pride in his efforts to increase transparency, for the agency to “show its work” by sharing ahead of time what the FCC would be voting on.

“It’s now routine for the agency to publish the exact text of commission meeting items three weeks in advance of any votes being cast; to include a one-page fact sheet describing in plain English what each item does; and to post a monthly blog from yours truly introducing the agenda in a hopefully-engaging way.”

And for the January meeting, Pai said he has invited FCC bureaus, offices, and task forces to prepare presentations highlighting their accomplishments over four years.

“Three weeks hence, the spotlight properly should shine on them.”

 

The post FCC Teams Will Summarize Work on Jan. 13 appeared first on Radio World.

Radio is part of the content pitch that Sinclair Broadcast Group is using as it highlights a new TV service in Seattle based on the NextGen TV standard.

Sinclair’s One Media 3.0 subsidiary described the benefits for viewers in that market: “Consumers can now begin receiving both television and radio programming in the new format,” it stated in a press release.

The “radio” content is online audio, but the company also indicated it plans to integrate OTA radio soon.

“Using radio content from its over-the-top internet service STIRR, the audio channels will be available for free immediately to anyone with a NextGen television set connected to the Web,” it said Wednesday.

“Included among the radio channels will be Stingray Hits List, Stingray Hot Country, Stingray Latin Hits and a dozen others.  The new service coincides with the launch of seven television stations using the new digital standard.”

Sinclair has been a big advocate of the ATSC 3.0 standard, highlighting its video quality as well as mobile delivery and the ability to combine wireless broadcast content with content from online. One Media 3.0 developed its broadcast app to take advantage of that.

“Piloted by One Media 3.0 in Nashville, NextGen radio services, branded as STIRR XT, are now available in Seattle,” the company said.

“The new technology brings a new ‘age of radio’ into the listening environment of NextGen viewers by utilizing NextGen-enabled TVs and mobile devices to expand the reach of audio services. Combining these internet audio services with over-the-air radio is next on the horizon for the Seattle market.”

It quoted VP of Technology Strategy Michael Bouchard saying the technology “lays the groundwork for our future plans of enhancing the reception of terrestrial over-the-air radio services throughout the country, as NextGen TV is deployed by broadcasters everywhere.”

The STIRR radio channels and some STIRR video channels are available to anyone with a NextGen TV connected to the internet.

 

The post One Media 3.0 Highlights Radio in NextGen TV appeared first on Radio World.

From our Who’s Buying What page:

DHD Audio highlighted several uses of its technology in 2020. The company said it saw “an accelerating transition to IP technology throughout the broadcast audio business sector” this year.

It participated with Thum + Mahr in the integration of a DHD Audio platform into the new Cardiff headquarters of BBC Cymru Wales, and said the system is being used across the radio division. “The DHD environment comprises four independent audio clusters, serving as an adaptable infrastructure. Every area of the studio is able to broadcast autonomously.”

It said Radio Cottbus in Germany relocated to digital studios in August after 18 years at its former site. It is now one of Germany’s most modern media centers. The main control console is equipped with three DHD SX2 fader modules; audio signals are transmitted via Dante Audio over IP.

The DHD Assist app running alongside an RX2 audio mixer.

French language public broadcaster RTBF opened new studios in January at its regional center in Mons; the radio infrastructure is based on a DHD XC2 platform.

VRT regional channel Radio 2 Antwerpen inaugurated studios based on a modular structure in an open office environment, with a DHD 52/XC2 core serving the main on-air studio. And it said Studio Hamburg MCI chose DHD mixing consoles for Germany public radio station NDR Kultur.

DHD also announced a firmware update for broadcast audio mixing consoles, routers and control interfaces. “The latest firmware additions expand the capabilities of version 9.1 which we announced in Q1,” said International Sales Manager Christoph Gottert.

“That update included support for Unicode character sets such as Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Korean, Snapshots app and Labels app, enhanced log-in, hot configuration and refinements to the DHD REST API. We have now introduced two additional web apps — the Assist app and System app — plus an advanced SNMP interface.”

The post DHD Notes Recent AoIP Projects appeared first on Radio World.

iHeartMedia named Jordan Fasbender executive vice president, general counsel and secretary, a year and a half after she joined the company. She had been deputy general counsel.

She succeeds Paul McNicol, who will retire at the end of next year and meantime will remain as EVP and help with the transition.

She will oversee legal functions for iHeartMedia’s divisions and multiplatform assets, including its 860 radio stations, iHeart Podcast, the iHeartRadio App and other digital assets and the company’s “tentpole” live events like the iHeartRadio Music Festival.

Also she will continue to oversee government affairs, business affairs, compliance, regulatory and governance functions, and be responsible for operations and transactions, securities, intellectual property, litigation and privacy.

Fasbender came to the company in 2019 from Twenty-First Century Fox where she held several leadership legal positions. She was a lead team member on The Walt Disney Company acquisition of the company and the spinoff of Fox Corp. Before that she worked at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.

She will report to Chairman/CEO Bob Pittman and President/COO/CFO Rich Bressler.

The post iHeart Names Fasbender to Top Legal Spot appeared first on Radio World.

The recipient of the Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award for 2020–21 is Jason Ornellas, regional director of engineering for Bonneville International.

Recipients of the award represent the highest ideals of the radio broadcast engineering profession and reflect those ideals through contributions to the industry.

We selected Ornellas as the 17th recipient of this award because of his years of outstanding current and past work for four major broadcast companies; his project expertise, exemplified in recent large studio projects in California including one completed during early weeks of the pandemic; and for his role in streamlining and reimagining workflows at Bonneville.

We also salute the way Jason celebrates the successes of fellow engineers; for his work as part of the NAB Radio Technology Committee’s Next Gen Radio Architecture group and its PPM subgroup; and for his growing national profile including multiple terms on the board of the Society of Broadcast Engineers.

Jason Ornellas is 33, but he already has 15 years of solid engineering work and accomplishments to his credit. And we’re not the only ones who have noticed. Just this fall he was promoted to oversee Bonneville’s chief engineers and IT specialists in its West Coast markets of Seattle, San Francisco and Sacramento, a position in which he works more closely with senior leadership.

Quick learner

Born and raised in San Francisco, Ornellas was not looking for a radio technology career when he went to college. While attending the University of Indianapolis on a baseball scholarship, he took communication courses.

“One of the options was PR, radio, TV or journalism,” he told me. “And who doesn’t like music? So I ended up going for radio and got into it. [But] I realized really early on: I’m a terrible jock. I needed to not be on the air.”

He worked as a broadcast technician at the university’s FM station WICR, where he tinkered with IT, did remotes and maintenance, worked with audio consoles and automation, learned from the chief engineer and helped build his first AoIP studio.

“I really just got fascinated with signal flows and all of the under-the-hood stuff.”

He also had an internship with Clear Channel Radio in San Francisco during that time; and though it was a promotions internship rather than a technical one, it allowed him a foot in the door.

He stayed in touch with the staff in the Bay Area and told them of his interest; and at graduation time, when Clear Channel had an opening for a staff engineer there, Ornellas was ready.

During that two-year stint he managed 10 studios for the San Jose cluster and was responsible for the San Jose Sharks Radio Network.

He learned more about automation systems, facility and studio wiring, and networking. He gained experience with satellite feeds, on-call support, remote vans, webcasting, EAS and other meat-and-potatoes aspects of radio technology.

After two years, he was offered a job across the country as chief engineer of Greater Media’s New Jersey operations, including WDHA(FM) and WMTR(AM) and regional duties at several other stations.

“I’ve been very fortunate that the companies that I’ve worked for are all very well-respected and have always had great leadership from an engineering side,” he said.

He and his wife Ashley wanted to be back in California though, to be closer to family; so in 2014 they headed west again, and he became director of engineering for CBS Radio in Sacramento, overseeing technical aspects of a cluster of four FMs and one AM. During that time he also led the integration and worked on the design for the Jim Rome Studio in Costa Mesa, Calif.

Later, when Entercom merged with CBS Radio, four of the stations were sold to Bonneville — and Ornellas went along with them. He now reports to Scott Jones, Bonneville’s senior vice president for engineering and technology.

Along the way, people who have been particularly helpful in his career so far include Scott Uecker, general manager of WICR in Indianapolis and one of his college professors. “I owe him a lot for the opportunity, to have that kind of program at the University of Indianapolis that allowed this kind of hands-on experience.”

Also influential are David Williams at Clear Channel San Francisco (now iHeart); Milford Smith and Keith Smeal at Greater Media; and “all the legendary engineers at CBS, including Erik Disen and Sam Cappas … And here I am with Bonneville, and hopefully one day, I’m that mentor to someone else.”

Persistence

He’s had a super experience working for the company since he joined it.

“I’ve got a great team of engineers in all the markets. I love what I do. I’m a big believer in pushing the limits, trying to be innovative, and really thinking outside the box,” he said.

“I don’t like the answer, ‘It can’t be done.’ Well, let’s figure that out. Everything can be done. Someone has done something before, so let’s start peeling back the layers of what’s stopping it, and let’s move forward.”

To that end he has led two notable studio projects in the past two years.

The first came about when Entercom sold those Sacramento stations to Bonneville. As a result, studios and some operations of former CBS outlets KHTK(AM) and KNCI(FM) needed to move quickly to a location that was already serving KZZO(FM) and KYMX(FM).

“We left the facility in immaculate shape and successfully made the transition to all under one roof with zero downtime and under budget,” he recalls proudly.

Steve Cottingim, senior vice president and market manager for Bonneville Sacramento, told me, “When Bonneville began operating the Sacramento stations for the Entercom Trust, we had to move all of the stations to one building. Jason spearheaded the entire move and worked with Scott Jones to build out the studios and move all the equipment to get us back up and running with no interruption.

“Jason always rises to the occasion and delivers outstanding results. He is respected and loved by everyone in Sacramento. Jason is an individual who will go through walls to get things done. The engineering team that works with him all work together as a cohesive team because of his leadership.”

With Bonneville colleagues on a helo pad on Farnsworth Peak in Salt Lake City. From left: Shawn Calloway, Aaron Farnham, Jason Ornellas and Brad Russell.

The second project was construction of a new studio location for Bonneville’s four FM stations in the Bay Area, KOIT, KMVQ, KBLX and KUFX .

Scott Jones said, “Jason was our project manager for our move out of San Francisco to our new, state-of-the-art facility in Daly City. Integrating a new AoIP plant built on the WheatNet architecture, our new studios are the crown jewel of Bonneville. His leadership kept us on schedule, even during the shelter-in-place orders in effect due to the global pandemic.”

That project came with another complication, a personal one. Jason and his wife Ashley have three kids under the age of 2; when their twin boys arrived in January this year, the babies needed to spend time in neonatal intensive care.

“The NICU, visiting them every day, as well as making sure San Francisco’s project stayed on task — it was definitely balancing life and work,” he recalled.

“But family’s first. My wife — bless her, because radio engineers’ wives don’t get enough credit. I’ve had to leave her at the table when I’m taking calls on a vacation. But she understands the role of the job. And I love being a dad.”

Consistency

So what’s ahead?

Part of his job is to implement standards that Bonneville wants to roll out for its air chains, systems and workflows. Seeking consistency across its markets, the company is standardizing on important components like Wheatstone AoIP networks, consoles and routing; RCS Zetta Automation; Telos VX studio phone systems; and Mitel Office phone systems.

“Our next big project is taking a step back, looking at our infrastructure. What is critical and high-risk that we need to get our eyes on? We’ve got some older transmitters that we need to get up to par with the solid-state, as well as finishing our rollout of our automation system to markets that we haven’t finished yet. … We’ve got to make sure our transmitters, our tower sites are up to par with how nice our studios look. We also will be transitioning to standardizing our HD transport with GatesAir and the FMXi4g Importer/Exporter unit.”

He expresses excitement about Bonneville’s efforts at streamlining systems and workflows, and how the technology team supports one another — driving to help a colleague in another market, raising a hand to help out or logging into a GUI remotely to help with a problem.

Managing a remote workforce for a radio organization, he points out, multiplies the usual number of technical problems that must be investigated.

“What are their resources like at home, with their network? Is it their network having issues? Is it the VPN having issues? It’s very time-consuming. But with this regional engineering technical infrastructure, we now have engineering teams that [can say], ‘Hey, I can take this one; I’ll deal with this issue; I’ll work on this ticket. Hey, I’m on a transmitter site today.’

Embracing change Installing a Gates Air FAX20 at KZZO(FM)

Beyond his immediate projects, I asked him about important trends in our industry. Ornellas describes himself as “all in” on the connected car.

“The more information, the more data, the more content that we can put in that dashboard,” he said, the better. He also has been a key part of Bonneville stations becoming active with the RadioDNS hybrid radio initiative.

Radio, he notes, remains the most popular source for people in their cars. “Now it’s up to broadcasters and manufacturers to make sure we don’t lose our place there. We have competition; there’s no doubt about it. But we still have that connection that will be hard to beat, as long as we provide the content that our consumers and clients are looking for.”

Meanwhile, within broadcast companies, he expects functions will increasingly become “virtualized” and that more hardware will become obsolete.

He has first-hand experience with this. Ornellas is a member of the NAB Radio Technology Committee’s Next-Generation Radio Architecture working group, and he chairs the PPM subgroup that has been working with manufacturers to get Nielsen Audio PPM encoding built into on-air processors.

As part of that work, he participated in a beta test of PPM encoding inside an Orban AM audio processor; and the working group plans a similar effort for FM and streaming, he said. Perhaps someday processing can even move to the cloud.

In general, he said, “We’re eliminating hardware and we’re integrating more software, to the point where we’re going to have be taking care of a lot more software than hardware. And we can fix a lot more with software than fixing it with a hardware box. … It’s exciting to see.”

The pandemic seems to have accelerated a change in thinking around the industry.

“I think a lot of manufacturers hit that reset button, and it gave everyone that little jolt that we needed as an industry, to really start thinking of the cloud architecture, about WANcasting, using your automation systems to its full capabilities and beyond, not just scratching the surface.”

He’s eager to see how workflows change over three to five years. “Everything will have an IP [connection] by then — if not already, we’re very close to that — but just being able to do one click and let it do multiple steps in multiple markets for us.”

I asked if this trend means big facility jobs like the one he recently completed will be the last of their kind.

“I don’t think the San Francisco project is the last one. However, I do think that they will be designed a lot differently.” The pandemic forced the idea of “broadcasting from home” into the mainstream, and its lessons won’t be forgotten.

“Studios are still going to be studios. I do think the common areas, the performance studios, large break rooms,—those are where you’re going to start seeing square footage not needed. Does every AE and sales manager need an office? Maybe have four or five community desks, not a dedicated seat for everyone.

“There’s going to be a lot of questions. Until we get to the next build, I don’t know the answer. But the facilities aren’t going to get bigger; they’re continuing to get smaller.”

Service

One of the things that impresses about Jason is how active he is at the national level. He is already on his third term as a member of the board of the Society of Broadcast Engineers.

“SBE has done a great job with creating new programs within memberships to really educate and get people more resources to learn and grow, within a reasonable budget and membership cost,” he said.

“We’re trying to stay really relevant and get a younger core to embrace the SBE — and not forget the history of it as well.”

To that point, I reminded him that people have been asking where the next generation of engineers will come from for decades. At 33 years old he is, unfortunately, atypical — a relatively fresh face with potentially decades of career in front of him, a young man who radiates ardent enthusiasm for radio engineering and technology.

Is he, in fact, a unicorn?

“I think I’m definitely one of the few. But they are out there,” he replied. To encourage more, he hopes the industry will expand the way it defines radio engineering. “It’s not just radio. It’s audio. It’s streaming. It’s metadata. It’s IP packets. It’s algorithms of the processors and encoding,” he said.

“There’s so much more to it, and we probably do ourselves a disservice by just thinking of RF. The RF side has gotten a lot easier, with computer monitoring and remote controls and whatnot; the RF isn’t as daunting anymore, especially with solid-state transmitters and not having to worry about tubes and retuning the grid or the cavity.”

Ornellas is heavily involved in his company’s streaming and podcast systems. “Everything I touch has an IP on it. It doesn’t need to be physically touched anymore like in the old days.”

He feels the industry has hurt itself by pushing many engineers out instead of helping them grow into these areas. And he expects the need for this expertise will only grow, given the trend toward virtualization and software.

“We might have an influx of new type of broadcast engineers. They might be very IT-driven, yet understand the signal flow of radio — the microphone, the console to STL, to processor, to transmitter. Everything’s going to be a lot more simple. The job is getting easier because it’s become more streamlined and because of how companies are looking at doing things.”

Positive force

I should add that anyone who has seen Jason’s posts on social media knows that he’ll be the first to cheer on colleagues and to spread positive feelings.

His boss Scott Jones calls Jason Ornellas “a born leader, with a keen technical mind and an innovative approach to broadcasting. He’s a positive force with his encouragement and passion. I am very proud of his leadership in driving excellence for Bonneville.”

Radio World couldn’t agree more.

Jason reminds us that radio is supposed to be fun. “It’s something new every day. You might have a plan, but that plan might get derailed,” he said.

“I like that. I like the unknown. I like fixing things and repairing things, playing with new equipment, installing it, testing, doing the R&D. There’s just so much that falls into engineering that it’s never a dull moment.

“And I love what I do.”

Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

HONOR ROLL

Recipients of the Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award represent the highest ideals of the U.S. radio broadcast engineering profession and reflect those ideals through contributions to the industry. (Read profiles of other recent recipients.)

2020-21 Jason Ornellas

2019-20 Dave Kolesar

2018-19 Russ Mundschenk

2017-18 Larry Wilkins

2016-17 Michael Cooney

2015 David H. Layer

2014 Wayne Pecena

2013 Marty Garrison

2012 Paul Brenner

2011 Barry Thomas

2010 Milford Smith

2009 Gary Kline

2008 Jeff Littlejohn

2007 Clay Freinwald

2006 John Lyons

2005 Mike Starling

2004 Andy Andreson

 

The post Jason Ornellas Makes His Mark appeared first on Radio World.

The National Association of Broadcasters is highlighting a new study about the challenges and opportunities for media as they cover the story of vaccines being deployed to fight COVID-19.

NAB and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute commissioned the survey, which was conducted by SmithGeiger.

They found that “a strong majority of Americans are eager for a COVID-19 vaccine and interested in news coverage that provides expert testimony on the safety and efficacy of vaccination.”

They said a desire to get back to normal is the biggest motivator for getting vaccinated and that “media organizations could encourage vaccinations by focusing on messages regarding reducing loss of life and helping others.”

Respondents said local news, via TV, radio and print, are their most reliable source of information.

“The information respondents want most centers on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. The most important voices to these respondents are those of their own doctors and nurses (88%) followed by experts at federal, state and local health agencies (87%), their own pharmacist (82%) and friends and family (78%),” the NAB and RJI said in a summary of the research.

“The survey finds the most impactful local news reporting would be an investigation into the safety/effectiveness of a vaccine or recommendations focused on wearing masks, with 58% of respondents saying this type of coverage would lead them to trust that news organization more.”

They said respondents want stories that “make recommendations based on detailed reporting,” to facilitate personal health decisions, rather than stories that offer information without recommendations or personal stories from journalists about the pandemic.

“They express a preference for coverage that focuses on ‘just the facts,’” according to the press release.

“Respondents prefer messaging that highlights concern for others, such as, ‘Don’t put your family through the pain of losing you…’ and, ‘Protect yourself, protect your neighbors’. In both cases, roughly half of all respondents say they are more likely to get vaccinated as a result of seeing that message, versus just 16% who are less likely.”

Six out of 10 respondents intend to get a vaccine once it is available to them, with 13% of respondents saying they “definitely will not” get vaccinated.

Among other findings, African Americans are “significantly more worried” than the broader public about the vaccine making people sick, and “significantly less confident” that it has been adequately tested. (Read the full press release including other findings.)

NAB and RJI will put together a “messaging toolkit” to be available early next year to help with local and regional vaccine education communications. It will be in English and Spanish and shared with local radio and television stations, journalists and partner groups.

 

The post People Want “Just the Facts” in Vaccine Coverage appeared first on Radio World.

The author of this commentary is director, business development for CommScope.

As the auction for the much-coveted C-Band spectrum kicks off, we are another step into the complicated process to relocate or repack C-Band FSS earth stations.

While the process has been very well explained, it’s worth taking a little more time to discuss some more background and some of the impacts.

Let’s start off by highlighting the new band plan illustrated below in Fig.1.

Fig. 1: 3.7 GHz Service Band Plan

The Federal Communications Commission has reallocated the lower 280 MHz of the band to be auctioned for new 5G uses and renamed it the 3.7 GHz Service.

This means that all the earth stations in the 3.7–4.0 GHz portion of the band will have to be repacked, or relocated, into the upper 200 MHz (4.0–4.2 GHz). The FCC also allowed for a 20 MHz guard band between the new 5G entrants and the relocated earth stations.

Repacking will be accomplished in two phases:

• Phase I – Earth stations in the lower 100 MHz of the band (3.7–3.8 GHz) must be repacked by December 5, 2021.
• Phase II – Remaining earth stations must be repacked by December 5, 2023.

Based on the FCC’s latest list of incumbent earth stations, there are close to 16,000 as shown in Fig. 2 seen farther below. Intel has put these into the following categories:

Broadcast, Religious, Radio, Data: 9% Cable: 9% LDS: 19% Other: 63%

The majority of these earth stations are capable of receiving across the entire 3.7–4.2 GHz band. In addition, since these earth stations typically receive from several satellites, they are configured to operate across the full satellite arc. Thus, the challenge is compressing earth stations into 200 MHz from 500 MHz, possibly configuring to receive from fewer satellites and in some cases, actual physical relocation.

The effect of this moving or compression on the earth stations will be mostly related to modification of existing equipment including:

• Limiting their receive band to the 4.0–4.2 GHz range
• Re-orientation of antennas to different satellites as needed
• Possible filtering required to mitigate interference
• Possible physical relocation if new siting is required or desired

The main challenge for earth station licensees will be managing the logistics and timing required to make the changes needed to their respective systems.

Fortunately, earth station operators don’t necessarily have to foot the bill for this on their own.

The FCC proceeding for this band clearing / repurposing / auctioning is complex, but it affords earth station operators the opportunity to have repacking or relocation costs covered by the new 3.7 GHz Service entrants.

Fig. 2: Earth Stations and Phase 1/2 Market Areas

In late July, the FCC issued a Public Notice (DA 20-802) announcing publication of its “3.7 GHz Transition Final Cost Category Schedule Of Potential Expenses And Estimated Costs.” This catalog describes the potential expenses and estimated costs that incumbent earth station operators may incur as a result of the repacking or relocation.

The FCC worked with RKF Engineering Solutions LLC to develop the catalog. It includes any necessary changes that will allow the earth stations to receive C-Band services throughout the transition — and after the applicable relocation deadline once satellite operators have relocated their services into the upper portion of the band.

The FCC has noted that it is likely most earth stations that are repacking will require filtering to prevent interference from new 5G users operating below 3980 MHz. It is important to note that this conclusion is supported by a multi-stakeholder group representing a diverse collection of many different interested companies and organizations who assembled to study terrestrial-satellite coexistence during and after the transition.

The group (called Technical Working Group 1, “TWG-1”) created a best practices report concluding that: “3.7 GHz Service operators and earth station operators should work cooperatively to avoid interference problems during the network design stage and continue to work cooperatively to resolve interference problems that may arise.”

Members of the TWG discussed possible coordination between new 3.7 GHz Service operators and incumbent earth station operators — yet could not come to a conclusion on how to establish and manage a coordination process. Earth station operators may wish to keep track of the 3.7 GHz Service auction results and possibly contact auction winners in your area, particularly those operating in the 3.9–3.98 GHz portion of the band.

As mentioned, this is one of the most complex proceedings the FCC has undertaken, similar to the TV station repacking where all the TV stations above channel 38 were repacked into channels 2-31 to make way for new wireless operators.

The good news is that this completed with few major issues, other than taking a little longer than expected. So, as we continue stepping through this process, it’s helpful knowing this isn’t the first time. As well, there is plenty of information and help available to smooth the transition.

The post Repacking C-Band Earth Stations appeared first on Radio World.

Here’s your 2021 Radio World Source Book & Directory, a cross-indexed guide to the manufacturers and suppliers of technology products and services for the global radio broadcast industry and digital audio marketplace.

This free reference includes an alphabetical list of industry companies with their contact information, as well as a cross-index that tells you which companies offer which kinds of products. Also learn about spotlighted new products from our sponsors who make this directory possible.

Read it here.

 

The post Radio World’s 2021 Source Book & Directory appeared first on Radio World.

I read the article “Community Stations Share COVID Stories” and thought you might like our perspective from New Zealand.

When the COVID virus struck here in New Zealand, the government and health authorities were very quick to act.

Everyone in New Zealand was put in Level 4 lockdown immediately within 24 hours of the first cases being identified. Stay at home, work at home, no visits, no travel.

Studio at Radio Woodville

Everyone had to stay in their bubble except for essential services. Only supermarkets, hospitals and radio and TV were allowed to operate under very strict rules. Community stations like our Radio Woodville were allowed only two people on station.

Hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes were abundant. The outside door was closed and locked. Anyone who was sick with no matter what stayed away. “Alph,” our automation computer, played on 24/7.

The community council had emailed me and asked we broadcast public health and safety messages if needed and requested by them. We were to stay positive and stay in touch with the community.

That’s how it was for four weeks of Level 4 and three weeks of Level 3. Staying isolated in bubbles was how it was. No going out to work and no school. Those who were nonessential workers were only allowed off their properties to shop for food and walk for exercise but maintaining a strict 2 meter social distancing.

Supermarkets were a nightmare because only 10 people were allowed in at a time, queues were long and delays were longer. Once in Level 2 social distancing was still required. The public had to keep a contact register whereever they went. We did this in our station logbook. Under this level the commercial world was starting to get back to normal.

We are not free of COVID yet, however all the cases are in managed isolation. This bug is sneaky. We got cases from people working in a cool stores unpacking imported meat. Again by quick action and tracing the source was identified and isolated.

We have a very resilient audio and transmitter chain and had no technical issues. The power supply also carried on without any outages.

Eric Bodell, QSM, is station manager of Radio Woodville.

The post Letter: Broadcasting From in the Bubble appeared first on Radio World.

Christopher Tobin. Courtesy “This Week in Radio Tech”

Colleagues are mourning the sudden death this weekend of radio engineer Chris Tobin.

He suffered a heart attack during HVAC project work for his employer WBGO in Newark, N.J., on Saturday, according to the station’s Interim President/CEO Robert Ottenhoff.

Tobin had been chief engineer of WBGO and this year was promoted to chief technology officer.

Ottenhoff described Tobin as not only a “spectacular engineer” with “amazing technical and engineering expertise, creative and innovative,” but also as a positive presence in the workplace.

“Optimistic and friendly. Everyone loved Chris, he did so much for so many people,” Otenhoff said.

Tobin also was known in the engineering community for his work as co-host for 11 years of the online program “This Week in Radio Tech,” or TWiRT. Show host Kirk Harnack posted a note on social media calling it “devastating news.”

Tobin was also former president of Content Creator Solutions, according to his LinkedIn page.

 

The post Chris Tobin Dies, Was WBGO Engineer appeared first on Radio World.

Dec. 21 is a big day for digital radio in Europe. All radios in new cars and other passenger vehicles must be capable of receiving digital terrestrial radio.

That stipulation is part of the European Electronic Communications Code, and digital radio proponents have been looking forward to it.

WorldDAB, which has said that DAB is “firmly established as the core future platform for radio in Europe,” welcomed the milestone date.

“Despite the impact of Covid-19, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Denmark have already introduced laws mandating digital terrestrial radio in cars and other countries are expected to follow shortly,” the organization stated.

“In the first half of 2020, over 50% of new cars sold in Europe included DAB+ as standard — a number that is expected to reach 100% by the end of 2021 as DAB+ adoption continues to grow across Europe.” It has a factsheet about the EECC rule.

Meanwhile the proponents of the Digital Radio Mondiale platform have said they too welcomed the EECC initiative because it “serves as a good example to all the countries and administrations around the world adopting or considering the rollout of DRM technology.”

 

The post WorldDAB Welcomes EECC Milestone Date appeared first on Radio World.

The tools of radio newsgathering have evolved constantly. Shown in 1989, British Conservative politician Chris Patten does a radio interview in London. Two portable recorders are visible. (Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Digging through a cabinet one day at my first radio news job at WOSH in Oshkosh, Wis., I discovered a Uher portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. News Director Bud McBain told me the German-made recorder had been standard gear for an earlier generation of radio news reporters.

That exotic Uher stayed in the back of my mind for years. I was curious to know more about how it fit into the history of radio news.

When my radio news career began in the early 1970s reporters were already depending on cassette machines for field reporting. The Sony TC-110 was ideal for broadcast news and used widely.

In those days, just about every commercial radio station had its own news department. At WOSH, and the other stations where I worked for the next decade, we covered the legislature, city council, school board, county board, courts and every local news conference we could get to.

We used alligator clip leads to tap our recorders into telephone handsets for feeding our live and recorded reports from the field to the newsroom. Usually our reports included actualities from newsmakers, sometimes they were ROSRs — radio on-scene reports — that used ambient sound in the background.

Back at the station the news anchor could go live at any time and speak to a reporter or newsmaker anywhere in the world, as long as they were near a telephone.

One day I heard a report on the police scanner that snow had caved in the roof of a local grocery story. With just minutes to my next newscast I consulted the city directory and called the barber shop across the street to record an eyewitness report.

Our tape-recorded audio cuts conveyed a sense of immediacy about news events every time we played them on the air.

Eventually FCC deregulation and radio consolidation removed the incentive for every station to do news, and a large percentage of stations freed themselves from that obligation.

I left my last full-time radio news job a decade and a half ago but I couldn’t forget that snazzy Uher recorder in the WOSH news cabinet. How did local radio news become the powerful medium that I discovered when I graduated from college and became a reporter?

Gathering stories

The stories of how news figured in radio’s beginnings in the 1920s, and how radio networks were created so that the world could be informed of the momentous events of the late 1930s and the 1940s, are well told in authoritative sources such as Erik Barnouw’s “A History of Broadcasting in the United States” trilogy and Ed Bliss’s “Now the News.”

But these sources typically shift focus to television when they get to the 1950s. They fail to tell the story of what I would call The Golden Era of Local Radio News.

My search for books on the history of radio news after the development of television was fruitless. I had to go to other sources: former supervisors and their colleagues who were all a decade or two older than me and who had lived through this transitional period.

Radio news in the first half of the twentieth century was almost always live, for two basic reasons. The networks had policies against using recorded audio, and the available recording technology was bulky and unreliable. The news of that day was reported through wire copy and occasional live special event coverage. Wire recorders existed but they were not user-friendly.

The first major innovation that reshaped radio news was the magnetic tape recorder, which made recorded events sound as if they were live. German engineers played an important role it its development, and the technology helped trick the Allies during World War II. Captured models were spirited back to the U.S. right after the war ended. Magnetic reel-to-reel tape recorders began to be used in radio stations in the 1950s.

Wayne Corey was with WBCH in Hastings, Mich., when the station acquired two state-of-the-art, portable Ampex recorders in the early 1960s. They were in two big suitcases and were used primarily in the main control room. They could also be deployed for special events.

“I took one of them out to tape football games and occasionally set one up at a city council meeting,” he said. “The things we taped were rebroadcast in long segments.”

At about the same time Jim Orr was at KCRG radio in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He remembered noticing news sound bites, or actualities, starting to appear in ABC network newscasts in the early 1960s.

“Portable tape recorders were never used by newsmen at that station through 1964, possibly because the equipment wasn’t out there to any degree; it just wasn’t being done,” he said.

It took two more major technical innovations to complete the recorded audio revolution in radio news. The audio tape cartridge was introduced in 1959, and the tape cassette was introduced in 1963.

The tape cartridge used a tape loop of varying standard lengths to record commercials, news actualities, and other programming elements. After each play the cart would loop back to the beginning and stop. To be able to pop a cart in a player and press the start button was a great advancement.

“Even when properly cued on a rack-mounted reel-to-reel machine with remote start/stop switch right next to the mike button, there was always a risk of a wow sound as the reel to reel machine achieved full playback speed,” Orr said.

“The cart machine changed all that. Plus, you could have three or four cuts in the same newscast which would have otherwise required cueing and using four different reel-to-reel decks.”

Bill Vancil, a veteran programmer of radio stations in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, said stations in the early 1960s typically used small reels (3 to 5 inches in diameter). “They had a wall of pegs with these little tapes that they would quickly play, rewind, and replace just as they used cart machines later.”

Putting news stories on the air with actualities using tape cartridges was becoming common in 1966, when Orr arrived at KSTT in Davenport, Iowa, to be a field reporter and news anchor. Cassette recorders were available at this time, but the audio quality was deemed not yet equal to the larger tape format. Orr and other news reporters still preferred using portable reel-to-reel recorders, that by this time had shrunk to the size of a dictionary.

That’s when the Uher entered the story. Dick Record, a former news reporter at WISM in Madison, Wis., and then general manager of WIZM in La Crosse, remembers his Uher well.

“It was smaller and easier to carry and operate. It used a 5-inch reel but had several speeds including, I believe, 15/16ths inches per second. That meant I could tape a whole county board or city council meeting and get audio cuts for air use.”

Music and news

The technology of the 1960s allowed for more aggressive radio news coverage at the local level. Record believes it was actually the competitive radio environment that drove the change.

In earlier decades, when network entertainment ruled radio, listeners tuned in to hear their favorite shows rather than a particular radio station. After network entertainment jumped to television, innovative radio programmers seized on the idea of jukebox-style music programming. The Top 40 format arrived to revive radio in the mid-1950s.

When another decade had gone by, there were a lot of Top 40 radio stations. Many were searching for programming distinctions to help them attract larger audiences. They discovered that a station that had reporters on the street, covering local news events, had a promotional advantage. Unlike the early days of radio, newscasts were now heard hourly, even more frequently during rush hour.

Vancil recalled that this was a time when powerhouse Top 40 stations successfully combined fast-paced hourly newscasts with rock and roll music and personality announcers. They promoted news heavily, and in many markets they became a more popular news source than the traditional full-service stations.

He cited examples such as WISM vs. WIBA in Madison; KSTT vs. WOC in Davenport; KIOA vs. WHO in Des Moines; WLS vs. WGN in Chicago and WMCA vs. WNBC in New York City.

The 1960s and ’70s was an exciting time to be a radio news reporter. Society was going through major changes and there was lots of news to report. There were hundreds of radio news jobs across the country, with many stations in each market competing to have the best news coverage.

Since then the technology has evolved in other directions thanks to digital platforms, smartphones and the internet. Today there’s still radio news but it’s primarily confined to a much smaller number of all-news, news/talk and public radio stations.

However, there are thousands of men and women who share the memories of reporting news on the radio during the highly competitive Golden Era of Local Radio News.

Gordon Govier reported on news in Wisconsin, Ill., and Nebraska during his 30-year radio career. He produces a self-syndicated weekly radio program/podcast called “The Book & The Spade,” which covers biblical archaeology and can be heard at radioscribe.com.

 

The post The Golden Era of Local Radio News appeared first on Radio World.

Gary Fisher

The author is president/partner at Equity Communications, a radio ownership group in southern New Jersey.

It was a brisk chilly April 15 morning on the Black Horse Pike in West Atlantic City.

It should have been the start of another bustling summer season at the Jersey shore; but we had just finished chatting with the mailman, who’d left without delivering any checks for the fifth straight day. (He did leave everyone else’s mail with Equity, since no other businesses in our five-story office building were open.)

This was exactly one month into what would become the depths of the pandemic.

No emails, no voice mails and 50% of Equity’s second quarter bookings had been cancelled in the previous 30 days.

Sales visits and phone calls were out of the question. No salespeople to make them, no clients to accept them. No local businesses planning their start-of-season promotions.

Phillies baseball, usually a $250,000+ revenue contributor for Equity, had been postponed indefinitely. The WZXL Beer Fest and Music Festival, a $100,000 event marketing revenue generator, was cancelled.

It was nuclear winter in April.

Biblical

My partner Steve Gormley and I formed Equity Communications in 1996 to hold nine radio stations and, more recently, a digital advertising and streaming business.

We’d been through 9/11, the 2006 financial crisis, Hurricane Sandy, the collapse of the local casino industry and the digital disruption of traditional media. But the pandemic and the plunge it created in revenues were like nothing we had ever seen. We’d spent 24 years building this company; almost half of it disappeared overnight. Earlier disruptions were rounding errors by comparison.

In March everything suddenly stopped. No cars on the road to listen to radio. No car dealers or casinos open to buy ads. No one at work to write checks for the ads we had already run.

The standstill was downright biblical. And Equity of course was not alone in that.

We had to take stock of everything we’d been doing for 24 years and put it through a COVID lens. Our company was forced to cut expenses, downsize staff, reduce salaries, reduce employee benefits, sell off assets and re-engineer its sales, programming and administrative departments.

Veteran AEs and DJs left, new digital salespeople emerged, hard personnel decisions had to be made. Legacy operations strategies and practices with diminishing effect were scrapped, new ones instituted. We listened harder to our clients and audiences to set our direction.

We were forced to get slimmer and faster. For Equity it was a complete reset.

Compressed changes

In a weird way we’d been prepared for this new economic reality. Our company had been growing its streaming audiences via websites and mobile apps, and had increased revenues five-fold by staffing up our highly successful in-house digital sales division.

The pandemic accelerated forces that had already been in play in advertising, delivering years of change in just a few short months.

From a sales point of view, everyone was thrust out of their comfort zones. From an expense control viewpoint, we stopped doing stupid, silly and fun stuff. From an operations point of view things, we looked at practices we’d deemed mission-critical and said, “Why in the world are we doing this?” From a content point of view, streaming music and digital programming, once thought of as an existential threat to over-the-air radio media, became our saviors.

We felt we had reinvent the company or we might not have one left. It was an opportunity to fast-forward modernization.

We took the approach that the pandemic didn’t happen to us, it may have happened for us. The worst crisis we had ever seen presented innumerable opportunities. We became the epitome of a modern media company.

We were at a bit of a disadvantage compared to local competitors like Comcast, Townsquare and the Atlantic City Press; we did not have the backing or liquidity of a larger corporation. On the other hand we had no debt or debt service to worry about.

We were also fortunate that Equity had an amazing core of a dozen or so employees who have showed up every day to keep the doors open. Staggered hours, skeleton staffing, physical distancing, separation, sanitation, ventilation, mitigation, lots of cleaning and masking kept us going.

An image from the Equity Communications media kit

These staff members, most of whom have been with us for well over 15 years, are the real architects of our reset — our essential workers.

Along the way Equity learned valuable lessons about dealing with adversity and with COVID. As cases start spiking again, our pivot may offer useful lessons to local businesses that have made it this far but may struggle to get through a tough winter.

Coming back

We’ve been telling our clients: We’re still here, we’re still big and popular, and now we’re more affordable than ever. Staying big, digital, friendly, local and cheap is our way through this.

We’re getting to the other side and are now seeing sequential improvement month after month. Our third quarter revenues improved by 66% over our second quarter, mirroring the recovery seen in other media companies. Actual forward pacing has returned for the fourth quarter as I write.

I’m encouraged that many banks, law firms, health care providers, car dealers, restaurants and casinos are calling staffs back to work. That should be a precursor to advertising and spending eventually coming back.

I’m sure most of the clients we’re Zooming with are still in their sweat pants and underwear; but it seems like more and more staffs are drifting back to work each week.

We don’t know what the coming quarters hold but we’re doing OK and our doors are open. We’re still here and we’ll be here.

I’m worried about projections that say one out of five small businesses will close this winter. But I hope after all our “eLectile dysfunction” calms down, there will be another round of stimulus for our clients. The real recovery will begin later in 2021 when everyone feels safe and people can eat in restaurants, hang out in bars and shop in stores without a concern.

When the exciting new vaccines and therapeutics are served up, combined with a side order of herd immunity, I think our local radio and digital will really take off. And with our new lean-mean-machine expense structure we should see actual profit and cash flow again.

We’re not bulletproof; but I feel we’ve toughened ourselves against second and third waves and associated shutdowns. Likewise I feel we’ll be ready to pounce on any real recovery the minute it starts. We’re like that Timex watch from those John Cameron Swayze TV commercials from 50 years ago. We took a licking but we’re still ticking.

Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post How We Took on the Pandemic, and Won appeared first on Radio World.

Organizers of World College Radio Day saluted 10 stations in six countries that made special efforts for the event this year.

WCRD announced recipients of the “Bret Michaels’ Spirit of College Radio Awards” recognizing efforts made by college stations on Oct. 2.

The award was named this year for Bret Michaels, singer-songwriter, entrepreneur and front man for the band Poison. He is also a diabetic and survivor of a brain hemorrhage, and is active in a number of causes and charitable efforts.

He took part in a Q&A with students and donated $10,000 through his Life Rocks Foundation.

The 10 winners, listed below, were announced by Anabella Poland, president of College Radio Day 2020, and Eva Gustavfsson, president of World College Radio Day. They said a total of 570 stations in 43 countries participated in the day.

• Aggie Radio 92.3 KBLU-LP at Utah State University (USA)
• K103 Gothenburg Student Radio at University of Gothenburg/ Chalmers University (Sweden)
• KRSC-FM at Rogers State University (USA)
• MavRadio.fm at University of Nebraska-Omaha (USA)
• RADIO-E at Universidad de Costa Rica (Costa Rica)
• Radio 6023 at Università del Piemonte Orientale (Italy)
• Radio Katipunan 87.9 FM at Ateneo de Manila University (Philippines)
• The Wolf Internet Radio at University of West Georgia (USA)
• UST Tiger Radio at University of Santo Tomas (Philippines)
• Webradio EAP at Hellenic Open University (Greece)

The College Radio Foundation supports student radio including online, cable, carrier current, FM and AM outlets.

The post World College Radio Day Salutes 10 Stations appeared first on Radio World.

The recently published book “Radio’s Second Century: Past, Present and Future Perspectives” is an academic survey of our industry, a collection of essays, statistics, graphs and antidotes edited by author and professor John Allen Hendricks that features contributions from scholars in media and journalism.

Hendricks is department chair and professor of mass communication at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, and author or editor of 11 books.

This one is a collection that belongs on the shelf labeled “media studies.”

Promotional information for the book notes that as the industry enters its second century, it continues to be a dominant mass medium even in the face of competition.

“Lasting influences such as on-air personalities, audience behavior, fan relationships and localism are analyzed [in the book], as well as contemporary issues including social and digital media,” it states.

“Other essays examine the regulatory concerns that continue to exist for public radio, commercial radio and community radio, and discuss the hindrances and challenges posed by government regulation with an emphasis on both American and international perspectives. Radio’s impact on cultural hegemony through creative programming content in the areas of religion, ethnic inclusivity and gender parity is also explored.”

Michael Brown writes in the forward that the book “points to a diverse and open field for those who wish to study radio and those who have an interest in learning what we know about the technology, programming, social issues and international use of radio.”

Academic text John Allen Hendricks

To give you a further idea of its content mix, Part I is titled “Contemporary Radio: Social and Digital Media.”

This section includes discussions about listening “from AM to FM to XM, and beyond”; audience research and web features in radio; the “para-social” nature of podcasting; and social media analytics.

Part 2 explores “Programming Matters: Localism, Personalities and Audiences.” Chapters focus on “the shrinking electronic town square” and localism in talk radio; the fandom of Howard Stern; lessons from the “War of the Worlds” broadcast; and how to encourage creative programming.

Part 3, “Social Issues,” includes chapters on religion in radio, NPR’s role in America and “resisting podcasting’s sonic whiteness,” while Part 4 takes on international perspectives including community/campus radio in Canada, the dominance of public radio in podcasting and the role of women in radio.

Among discussions I found interesting are ones focusing on radio as “theater of the mind”; how NPR aspires to create “driveway moments” through storytelling; how radio and podcast producers use sound to create a feeling of intimacy and connection; and how using headphones changes the listening experience.

The book would be an excellent read for a college student pursuing a degree in communications or journalism and needing insight into the radio industry. It’s also suitable for those who like to think hard about the roles that radio and audio play in our culture and how people interact with them.

This isn’t a book for those who want to know how to sell more radio spots or learn about the next technology platform that will change our industry. In general I found that it does not offer much in the way of definitive direction and improvement; a reader is left to conclude what direction radio should take in the next century. The stats and graphs can get repetitive, causing one to want to skim ahead.

However a strength of the book is its exploration of podcasting. It breaks down the success and appeal of the new medium and why it has such dominance with radio listeners:

I enjoyed passages about podcasting as a “converged medium” that brings together audio, the web and portable media devices, as well as a disruptive technology that has forced some in radio to reconsider established practices. I think the book is spot-on in its conclusion that podcasting will continue to dominate and be a strong substitute for listeners seeking news, information and entertainment.

The book is published by Rutgers University Press and retails for $39.95 in its paperback version.

The author is a project engineer at Lawo North America.

The post Book Takes Scholarly Look at Radio appeared first on Radio World.

We’ve received good feedback and a couple of questions regarding Wayne Eckert’s submission on grounding wooden poles used to support STL antennas, described in the Workbench column in the Nov. 25 issue. (Like all recent issues of Radio World, you can access it online at radioworld.com/digital-editions.)

You’ll recall that Wayne is an engineer with the Rural Florida Communications Cooperative, so he’s had a bit of experience in bonding and grounding to reduce lightning damage.

Fig. 1: Wayne’s drawing of a properly grounded pole for supporting an STL antenna.

He told us last time about an AT&T document “Grounding and Bonding for Network Facilities.” It’s on the website https://ebiznet.att.com/sbcnebs/.  Much of the document is applicable to broadcast sites and studios.

Fig. 1 is Wayne’s diagram detailing the bonding of an STL antenna to a down ground. Note that the bond sweeps down from the antenna to the grounding conductor.

In answer to the first question we got, yes, the down ground wire does extend above the pole by about 6 inches to a foot. This “pigtail” conductor then is sticking up from the pole.

The down ground cable is typically #6 hard-drawn copper, solid or stranded. Yes, all pole attachments should be connected to the down ground cable using silver solder and short sections of the same #6 gauge cable.

These short grounding cables, attached to the mounted structures can be connected to the down ground using a C-Tap crimp lug (Fig. 2). If the installer doesn’t have crimping tools and dies, the connection can be made with silver solder.

Fig. 2: You can crimp connections to the down conductor using a C-Tap and lug.

Silver solder should be used for all RF and grounding connections — 60/40 tin/lead solder will melt under the heat of a lightning strike given that its melting point is only 360 degrees Fahrenheit. Silver solder’s melting point is above 1,000 degrees.

Strong adhesive

You may have gone to the dentist and received a filling made of a composite resin, a mixture of plastic and glass or quartz. It’s applied in layers, with each layer cured using an ultraviolet light.

A similar liquid plastic adhesive that uses UV light is available for consumer use. Bondic is ultra-strong and unlike super glues is not messy.

Fig. 3: An image from a promotional video for Bondic. The adhesive works on nearly everything and doesn’t “stick” until it’s cured by UV light.

Each Bondic kit includes a special dual-purpose pen. One end dispenses the liquid plastic, the other consists of a UV LED used to cure the bonding material. So this is not really a glue but rather a liquid plastic which, when activated by the UV light, welds the pieces together.

The bond is waterproof, and (should you wish to repair a coffee cup handle) it’s dishwasher safe. Another plus: Unlike glues that eventually dry out in the tube, Bondic stays wet until it is cured by the UV light.

Bondic can be used not only to bond two items but to fill in chips or cracks in metal, wood, plastic, ceramic or glass. One typical use is to repair broken insulation on a smartphone charging cable.

In addition to the starter kit, refill tubes of the Bondic liquid are available. Search Bondic on Amazon or visit getbondic.io.

Guy insulators

Professional Engineer Charles “Buc” Fitch writes that he was quite surprised to find out that Preformed Products, the folks who make all those guy wire grips and associated mounts for towers, also manufactures fiberglass guy wire insulators. Buc says they offer a full line of ceramic insulators as well as fiberglass guy strain insulators. Visit www.preformed.com.

Buc points out the importance of using isolating guy wires with these fiberglass extensions near an FM antenna, as the steel guys can cause FM signal distortion.in nearfield positions. Visit the Preformed site, you’ll be amazed at their varied products.

Classic mic repair

Dan Slentz is always finding entertaining or educational subjects on the web and often shares with Workbench readers. His latest submission is both entertaining and educational.

Fig. 4: A video on YouTube profiles Clarence Kane, a former RCA employee who is still servicing microphones.

Clarence Kane is the owner of ENAK Microphone Repair (ENAK is Kane spelled backward!). He was born in 1926 and got interested in electronics while in the service. Afterwards he attended the Radio Electronics Institute and went to work at RCA, where he worked for 33 years, mostly repairing microphones.

Radio World’s James O’Neal wrote about him in Radio World in 2010. His company continues that service, and he’s the last remaining RCA employee still servicing microphones.

Dan points us to this 12-minute mini documentary video about him on YouTube.

John Bisset has spent more than 50 years in broadcasting and recently began his 31st year writing Workbench. He handles western U.S. radio sales for the Telos Alliance. He holds CPBE certification with the Society of Broadcast Engineers. He is also a past recipient of the SBE’s Educator of the Year Award.

Workbench submissions are encouraged, qualify for SBE Recertification and can be emailed to johnpbisset@gmail.com.

The post Workbench: More on the STL Support Pole appeared first on Radio World.

Have you ever wondered how many ads you should be airing in a certain week in order to reach your audience effectively? The short answer is, “it depends on what your goals are.”

Cumulus Media/Westwood One and the Radio Advertising Bureau partnered to offer some specific guidelines for radio stations. The goal was to reach  a range of listeners, ranging from a 34% reach to a 78% reach of a station’s audience, with four separate campaign goals defined as very light, light, medium and heavy.

The very light and light schedules were ideal for advertisers who want a maintenance campaign with modest levels of reach and frequency. A medium schedule is a good fit for a general sales event or promotional campaign with modest levels of reach and frequency. A heavy schedule is best for a major sales event or a product launch where many listeners are reached very frequently.

Those four approaches offer stations guidance as to how much and how often an audience is reached, wrote Pierre Bouvard, chief insights officer at Cumulus Media/Westwood One, in a blog post.

The study revealed that turnover is a key factor. Turnover is calculated by dividing a radio station’s cume (the number of different people reached by a station in a week) by its average quarter-hour audience. The greater the turnover, the more ads needed to reach an audience in a typical quarter hour. Stations with high turnovers have lower time spent listening while stations with lower turnovers have higher time spent listening.

“There’s no such thing as good or bad turnover,” Bouvard wrote. “You just need to know what it is. Turnover is a helpful ratio to understand how many commercials, promos or song spins are needed to reach a station’s audience.”

To determine the ads needed for a very light schedule, for example, take half the turn over. For a medium schedule, double the turnover.

The report also offered suggestions for different radio formats. For a top 40 station, for example, a station would need to air 15 ads, promos of song spins per week to reach 34% of its audience. To reach 78% of its audience, a station would need to air 103 ads.

The study also found that although agencies and FM/AM radio sellers agree on the number of ads needed for light schedules, they typically underestimate the number of ads needed for medium or heavy campaigns.

A companion study determined what kinds of campaigns are actually being run across the country. Cumulus Media conducted a Media Monitors analysis of AM/FM radio advertising in 99 markets during a week. The report found that during the first week of August 2020, 182,425 commercials were run on 1,685 monitoring radio stations in 99 markets. The study assigned one of the four types of schedules — very light, light, medium and heavy — in those 99 markets.

The report found that the vast majority of weekly radio station campaigns (73%) are very light, meaning they are reaching only one-third of a station’s audience. Only 2% of radio campaigns were considered heavy while 4% were considered medium intensity and 66% were considered medium.

It appears that the underestimation of the number of ads needed for medium and heavy schedules is the reason why there are so few medium/heavy campaigns, Bouvard said, even though heavy campaigns are an important strategy for advertisers.

[Read: Bouvard: More People Are “Ready to Go”]

One of the best practices as recommended by the study is that radio stations run heavy schedules of AM/FM radio ads if these advertisers are looking to generate significant impact. A previous study conducted by the National Association of Broadcasters and Coleman Insights found that advertisers who run heavy schedules rate the campaigns as excellent far more often than those running different campaigns.

The bottom line: set the right expectations with your advertisers. “Don’t expect grand opening results from a light weekly campaign,” Bouvard wrote.

Instead, press your advertisers to examine their existing plan to see if the schedule intensity matches desired results. The strategy that answers an advertiser’s concern about cost of medium- and heavy-intensity ads is two-fold: run shorter ads and run ads at all day and time periods, since ad costs for nights/weekends generally run about half of prime-time hours.

Remember, Bouvard wrote: advertising is not one-size-fits-all. “Understanding the campaign goal is crucial to determining a correct AM/FM radio plan strategy and as important as the message itself,” he wrote. “While the number of occurrences/spots needed for various campaign goals might be underestimated, the use of these tools can serve as guidelines to better optimize the AM/FM radio planning and buying process.”

 

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Eliminating injuries and fatalities in tower work is the aim of a new partnership of OSHA, NATE and the FCC.

 “The goal of the three-year partnership is to eliminate worker injuries and fatalities while performing wireless and telecommunications, tower erection and maintenance operations,” they said in an announcement.

“The partnership will address some of the industry’s frequently encountered hazards, including falls from height, electric, falling objects, tower collapses, and inclement weather.”

[Read: FCC, OSHA Team Up on Tower Safety]

The agreement was signed in an online ceremony involving officials of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association and the Federal Communications Commission.

They included Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor Loren Sweatt, NATE Chairman Jimmy Miller and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Sweatt said demand for wireless communications and broadcast services has increased the need for construction, service and maintenance of towers around the country.

The effort is being done under OSHA’s Strategic Partnership Program.

 

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Entercom named Ashok Sinha to a key communications role.

As senior VP, head of corporate communications and PR, “will lead the communications strategy and execution across the company’s entire portfolio of assets.”

[Read: Entercom-Urban One Deal Shakes Up Four Markets]

That includes oversight of internal and external comms, media and press relations, corporate messaging, crisis communications and issues management, and “executive thought leadership management.”

He was formerly vice president, communications lead, technology at WarnerMedia. He has also held communications positions at Publicis Media, NBCUniversal, Viacom and Product(RED).

He reports to Chief Marketing Officer Paul Suchman, who said the appointment is part of the company’s efforts to “build the future of audio.”

In the announcement, Sinha called himself “a lifelong consumer of music and the spoken word” and said “I believe in the power of audio and its ability to engage, entertain and inform the world.”

 

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