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Technology experts David Layer and John Clark from the National Association of Broadcasters will keynote the radio track sessions of the Pro Audio & Radio Tech Summit on April 1.

The summit, announced this week, is a free one-day virtual trade show where radio and pro audio professionals can learn about new products and technology and network with colleagues and manufacturers. It is produced jointly by Mix magazine, Pro Sound News and Radio World.

The radio keynote session “Hybrid Radio & Android Automotive” will provide a look at two technology topics that affect how your radio station is heard in the car, said Radio World Editor in Chief Paul McLane.

Hybrid radio combines one-way OTA radio reception with two-way online connectivity and streaming, to create a new kind of platform in connected cars.

Meanwhile, the Android Automotive OS is expected to create more powerful, modern infotainment systems. Over the next couple of years, Android Automotive will be in vehicles from Ford, GM, Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi.

David Layer is vice president, advanced engineering for the NAB. John Clark is executive director of NAB’s PILOT technology development initiative.

“We’re honored to have David and John headlining our radio track,” McLane said. “The changes that are happening in the car environment will have crucial implications for radio and other audio media. And we’ll be announcing panelists for the rest of our radio track sessions soon; those will explore trends in AoIP, virtualization, transmitter design and streaming for radio.”

The Pro Audio & Radio Tech Summit will also feature a virtual exhibition floor, live chat and a separate track of presentations showcasing technologies and trends in pro audio.

Registration for the event is open.

The post Summit to Explore Hybrid Radio, Android Automotive appeared first on Radio World.

In mid-March 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic’s full arrival in North America, Townsquare Media delivered its Q4 and full-year 2020 financial results. On Wall Street, TSQ stock hemorrhaged, dipping to $3.95 after starting the month of February at $10.25.

With Tuesday’s closing bell on the NYSE, TSQ has now fully erased all of its COVID-19 stock woes.

On volume of 102,224 shares (average volume is 37,790 shares), Townsquare Media shares finished at $10.17; in early after-hours trading, TSQ was up to $10.18.

This marks a 157% improvement for TSQ, climbing from the depths of 2020, when the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic punctured media stocks severely.

Analysts have pegged a $13.33 1-year target estimate on Townsquare stock, and the latest growth is likely tied to an announcement 8 days ago that it would repurchase at least 10 million shares.

The growth further puts into question why Purcell Julie & Lefkowitz LLP, which describes itself as “a class action law firm dedicated to representing shareholders nationwide,’ is investigating “a potential breach of fiduciary duty claim involving the board of directors of Townsquare Media.”

The law firm made the announcement January 18.

Wall Street shrugged.

He’s been the Market Manager for NRG Media stations in Wausau-Stevens Point, Wisc. Most recently, he served as Market President for iHeartMedia in Wichita.

Now, this veteran radio station cluster leader has joined Cumulus Media to oversee its group of broadcast properties in Montgomery, Ala.

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I’ve heard from plenty of folks who think the boat has left the dock not only for digital on AM but for the entire AM band. Business and technical challenges facing America’s AM broadcasters have been well documented here and elsewhere.

You certainly won’t hear CEOs of big broadcast companies proclaiming their excitement around AM radio strategies unless it’s to count the cash they got from selling tower sites.

Yet when you talk with the handful of people who have real experience with the MA3 mode of HD Radio, their enthusiasm is notable. They say the signal sounds great, that coverage is strong and that they love how station metadata displays on modern dashboard displays.

Our latest Radio World ebook explores the question of what’s next.

One of the people I interviewed is Neal Ardman, who activated the MA3 mode on WMGG in Florida in January, the first station to take the step since the commission approved the option. 

“The MA3 is the great equalizer in terms of audio quality,” Ardman told me. “When we flipped the switch, the sound is incredible. The station sounds like an FM.”

He pointed out that about 30% of cars in his area have HD Radio receivers, then echoed a comment we’ve heard from Dave Kolesar of Hubbard’s WWFD: “Our thinking is, would we rather be in a third of the cars sounding phenomenal, or in all of the cars sounding sketchy and marginal? We chose to be in the cars sounding great,” Ardman said.

It’s worth noting that some AM owners are watching these developments to see if multicasting on the digital AM signal is viable and, if so, whether that might eventually give them another path to obtaining more analog FM translators — similar to how current FM hybrid digital stations can use an HD2 to feed an analog FM. 

I’m sure we’ll hear plenty about that possibility. Note, though, that while existing digital AM receivers can receive MA3, they are not set up to receive multicasting, so this isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

(Urban One tried unsuccessfully last year to obtain experimental authority to feed an FM translator from a digital AM multicast. For now the FCC has said, “Because the record does not establish that an audio stream on an HD-2 subchannel is currently technically feasible, we will evaluate requests to rebroadcast multicast channels on an FM translator on a case-by-case basis until a more fully developed record is available on this subject.”)

I hope you’ll read the free ebook and let me know what you think. 

The post Ebook Explores Digital Outlook for AM appeared first on Radio World.

NATE is encouraged by the reintroduction of a bill in the Senate to promote development of a skilled telecom workforce.

NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association commented on introduction of the Telecommunications Skilled Workforce Act by Senators John Thune, Jon Tester, Roger Wicker, Gary Peters and Jerry Moran.

Those three Republicans and two Democrats are members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation; they say they want to address a shortage of trained workers needed to fill jobs in the telecommunications industry. The bill was introduced a year ago but didn’t get out of committee.

[Read: Telecom and Workforce Development: Why It Matters to Broadcast]

Though proponents of the bill speak mostly about the need to build out 5G and broadband, the bill likely would have some benefits as well to the broadcast industry, which often draws on the same telecom workforce for tower work.

NATE President/CEO Todd Schlekeway said in a statement, “It is great to see this bipartisan group of U.S. senators come out of the gate strong in the 117th Congress through the introduction of this legislation.”

The organization says that if passed the law would be a springboard to greater collaboration between the federal government, state workforce boards, the higher education sector and industry “to accomplish the ultimate goal of developing a future pipeline of skilled technicians that the country sorely needs to meet its ambitious broadband and 5G deployment objectives.”

The bill would set up an interagency group led by the Federal Communications Commission that would work with the Labor Department and other government entities to push this issue. It would also require the FCC to publish guidance on how states can address the workforce shortage by using federal resources. And it would direct the Government Accountability Office to do a study into how many skilled workers will be required to maintain broadband infrastructure in rural areas as well as build the country’s 5G wireless infrastructure.

Schlekeway told Radio World that NATE “certainly feels like there is growing momentum behind support for telecom workforce provisions in a broadband infrastructure package that could emerge from Congress.” Last year, he said, was a difficult one for standalone legislation due to COVID-19 and the elections.

NATE formerly was called the National Association of Tower Erectors, but its name and mission have evolved. The nonprofit trade organization includes more than 1,000 member companies that construct, service and maintain hundreds of thousands of communications towers for broadcast and wireless, as well as distributed antenna systems, small cell networks and broadband.

The post NATE Welcomes Telecom Workforce Bill appeared first on Radio World.

Nearly one year after the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the U.S., it is clear that Chief Marketing Officers and media buyers and planners were hardly in unison with respect to how to react while protecting the brand.

What’s the impact on audio media, including radio and online streaming? We get fresh insight on the topic from Armando Guerrero, of digital ad agency Ntooitive, in the latest RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by DOT.FM.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Armando Guerrero, Ntooitive” on Spreaker.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of bipartisan U.S. Senators has reintroduced legislation in the upper body of Congress designed to address “the shortage” of trained workers necessary to fill next-generation jobs in the telecommunications industry in communities throughout the country.

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Audio startup Tula Microphones has unveiled its first product — the Tula Mic, a portable USB mic that doubles as a mobile recorder with added benefit of embedded noise reduction technology. The stylized microphone is intended for use by content creators and work-from-home professionals.

The Tula Mic includes dedicated cardioid and omnidirectional ECM capsules, Burr-Brown op amps, a Texas Instruments audio codec and a 3.5 mm headphone jack that doubles as an input for a lavalier microphone. Also, the microphone sports 8 GB of internal memory, and a rechargeable battery, enabling up to 14 hours of audio recording on the go. The Tula records in WAV file format. The mic connects to other devices such as computers via USB-C, and is also compatible with Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android.

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

While the mic is designed for portable use, that inevitably means it will be used often in less-than-ideal acoustic environments. With that mind, Tula teamed up with Swedish music software company Klevgrand to create an embedded version of that company’s noise reduction algorithm, Brusfri, which gives users the option to reduce background noise onsite while recording, reportedly without unwanted artifacts.

The Tula Mic sports a retro-modern design developed by Red Dot Award-winning industrial designers in Barcelona, and math fans may note that Tula’s form factor features an exact Golden Ratio. The Tula is available in three colors: classic black, vintage cream and a vibrant red. The built-in base is detachable and the mic includes a universal adaptor for use on mic stands and arms.

“As a longtime musician and songwriter, I’ve spent countless hours in recording studios and have a great respect and appreciation for good audio.” said Tula Founder and CEO David Brown, previously of the Soyuz Microphones brand. “I’ve long dreamt of designing a microphone that would bring high-quality sound to the masses. With the rapid growth of podcasting and YouTube channels and the more recent shift to remote working, it feels like the timing couldn’t be better for a product like the Tula Mic.”

The Tula Mic is available to order at US$199.

Info: www.tulamics.com

The post Tula Microphone Debuts for Podcasting, WFH Use appeared first on Radio World.

SiriusXM posted a net loss in its most recent business quarter but the company describes its full-year financial results as strong and expressed excitement about its audio strategies as well as its satellite radio penetration in new cars.

SiriusXM lost $677 million in the fourth quarter; but for all of 2020 SiriusXM had net income of $131 million. Still, that latter number was way off of the $914 million of net income the prior year, thanks to a big “impairment charge” associated with Pandora, primarily related to royalty costs.

[Read: SiriusXM’s New Satellite Is in Orbit]

Overall in 2020 the company generated revenue of $8.04 billion, up 3% despite the pandemic.

CEO Jennifer Witz, who succeeded Jim Meyer on Jan. 1, said in a statement, “SiriusXM turned in strong operating and financial results in 2020: we grew SiriusXM self-pay subscribers, revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow despite the pandemic. Our new car penetration reached approximately 80% in the fourth quarter and is set to rise above 80% this year, and the incorporation of 360L, our next generation in-car entertainment platform, is accelerating.”

She said SiriusXM, Pandora and Stitcher, plus the company’s investment in SoundCloud, now reach an audience of more than 150 million. She said the company is “bolstering our position as North America’s leading audio entertainment company” through new shows and podcasts, streaming channels targeting younger consumers and deals with NBCUniversal News Group, The Masters, the NFL and NBA. The company also recently extended its agreement with Howard Stern.

SiriusXM added 909,000 net new self-pay subscribers for the full year, ending with 30.9 million. Total subscribers are now 34.7 million.

The company’s Pandora segment saw ad revenue decline 1% to $1.18 billion, but said this was notable in the context of significant weakness in the ad market during the pandemic. And fourth quarter Pandora ad revenue jumped 22% to $425 million compared to the prior year quarter.

The post SiriusXM Hails Its 2020 Results appeared first on Radio World.

The FCC has entered into an agreement with the National Science Foundation and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to support NSF’s Spectrum Innovation Initiative.

NSF launched the initiative last year to seek innovative advancements in research and development on the biggest challenges facing the United States due to increased demand for electromagnetic spectrum access.

“This Memorandum of Agreement between the National Science Foundation, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission is one step toward revitalizing the interagency coordination process so that it once again is able to produce results for American consumers and the economy,” said FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Better coordination between these agencies ultimately means more spectrum and more innovation to help restore American wireless leadership and build the 5G future.”

The Memorandum of Agreement between the agencies is intended to ensure that FCC and NTIA staff can provide their subject matter expertise to help ensure that NSF’s Spectrum Innovation Initiative investments in spectrum research, infrastructure, and workforce development are in alignment with U.S. spectrum regulatory and policy objectives, principles, and strategies.

Key research areas include spectrum flexibility and agility, working towards near real-time spectrum awareness, and improved spectrum efficiency and effectiveness through secure and autonomous spectrum decision-making.

The first key goal will be establishing the U.S.’s first National Center for Wireless Spectrum Research.

Univision has joined the consortium of U.S. media companies created to establish a common technology for dynamic, addressable advertising management for TV.

The multimedia company superserving Hispanic audiences will serve as a member of the primary Steering Committee on Project OAR, dedicated to creating a standard by which all parties in the TV ecosystem can collaborate and unite on addressable advertising.

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Advanced TV platform company Cadent has expanded its current agreement with the TEGNA-owned premium CTV/OTT advertising platform for regional and local advertisers.

Under the terms of the new agreement, Cadent Viewer Graph, the company’s proprietary and cookieless matching technology, will be employed to unify audiences across Premion’s inventory of branded networks and providers.

This, the TEGNA-owned Premion says, is being done so advertisers may activate cross-screen campaigns against custom segments.

Cadent Viewer Graph uses patented technology, as well as a combination of first- and third-party data, to connect multiple TV devices back to viewing households. This empowers TV advertisers to deduplicate and map any audience segment to television with minimal drop-off and maximum reach, as well as resolution and match rates.

Cadent Advanced TV Platform will provide Premion with a complete suite of audience solutions and tools, including first-party data onboarding, audience building, insights, analytics, reporting, and campaign deployment. Advertiser CRM files will be onboarded for direct matching with all the consumer TV devices within Cadent Viewer Graph’s 104 million household graph, allowing Premion to activate an advertiser’s first-party data and create unique datasets for targeting and lookalike modeling.

Premion will leverage Cadent’s proprietary, location-based, syndicated audience data as its primary dataset for targeting purposes. In addition, Premion will have access to other third-party behavioral datasets from leading data partners within Cadent’s Data Marketplace to help advertisers build a fully comprehensive view of their audiences.

“True audience-based targeting tied to real-world business outcomes is critical for marketers today,” said Tom Cox, President of Premion. “Our agreement with Cadent allows us to better understand the value of our audiences so that we can provide best-in-class solutions to advertisers.”

On January 29, word first surfaced that Cox Media Group — fresh off a victory in getting some of its broadcast TV stations restored to Suddenlink systems thanks to the signing of a new retransmission consent accord — would soon face a new retrans “blackout.”

Lo and behold, that has transpired. On Monday evening at 11:59pm local time, all CMG stations were blocked from viewers who get their TV services from AT&T‘s direct broadcast satellite service: DirecTV.

It marks the second retrans-related scuffle of 2021 for Cox, and puts a black mark on Apollo Global Management, the majority owner of CMG. Since the completion of Apollo’s takeover of CMG, CEO Kim Guthrie exited. Then, EVP of Radio Bill Hendrich announced his retirement — just as several high-profile programming and air personalities were no longer at some of CMG’s biggest station in Florida, WFEZ “Easy 93.1.”

To make matters worse for Apollo, its founder, Leon Black, is stepping down as Chairman?CEO due to his ties to one of the most infamous American financiers of the modern era, the late Jeffrey Epstein.

This dispute sees the prevention of all Cox-owned stations from reaching DirecTV users.

The stations potentially impacted include its legacy properties, and several properties once owned by Brian Brady‘s Northwest Broadcasting: 

• WSB-2, the ABC affiliate in Atlanta
• WFXT-25, the FOX affiliate in Boston
• WSOC-9, the ABC affiliate in Charlotte, and independent sibling WAXN-64
• WHIO-7 in Dayton, the market’s dominant station and a CBS affiliate
• WFOX-30 in Jacksonville, the FOX affiliate along Florida’s First Coast, and the MyNetwork TV affiliate using WFOX-30.2
• WHBQ-13, the FOX affiliate in Memphis
• WFTV-9, the ABC affiliate in Orlando, and unaffiliated WRDQ-27
• WPXI-11, the NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh
• KIRO-7, the CBS affiliate in Seattle
• KOKI-23, the FOX affiliate in Tulsa, and MyNetwork TV sibling KMYT-41
• KIEM-3, the NBC affiliate, and low-powered KVIQ-14, the CBS affiliate, in Eureka-Arcata, Calif.
• KAYU-28 in Spokane, the FOX affiliate

The loss of KIEM and KVIQ, and of KAYU, from DirecTV is especially frustrating, as some local TV consumers switched to that service during Suddenlink’s blackout of those stations during the first three weeks of January 2021.

In a statement appearing on the website for KIEM — a statement mirroring one posted to all CMG TV station websites — Cox put all of the blame once again on AT&T and DirecTV.

CMG assailed DirecTV, which it said “refused to agree to a fair agreement.”

Then came a statement that’s simply untrue:

We cannot force AT&T/DIRECTV to keep retransmitting our stations – we are dark because AT&T/DIRECTV has chosen to remove KIEM and KVIQ from its service. We are hopeful that AT&T/DIRECTV will abandon its blackout of our stations to the detriment of viewers in favor of meaningful negotiations that lead to a mutually beneficial deal for all parties. 

By law, a MVPD cannot bring a broadcast TV signal to its customers without a retransmission consent accord. And, it takes the cooperation of both parties to get it signed.

As such, CMG is taking a highly aggressive approach in its quest for much higher rates for its TV stations.

In a statement appearing across all Cox station websites, the company said, “During these times of uncertainty, it is more important than ever that our viewers know their trusted local stations are there for them, providing the news and information they need to make critical decisions for their families.  CMG stations take pride in being trustworthy resources for our communities, and we will fight to continue to fulfill this responsibility.”

Yet, they are not there if the viewers subscribe to DirecTV.

What does AT&T have to say? In a statement provided to consumer bog TV Answer Man, the DirecTV owner said in late January, while negotiations were still ongoing, “We’re disappointed to see Cox Media Group put our customers in the middle of a private business matter. We want to keep the Cox stations in their local lineups, but Cox alone has exclusive control over which homes are allowed to receive ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and CW in certain cities.”

AT&T then assailed Cox for its “long history of either threatening or pulling the Super Bowl and other important events from our customers and other providers.”

With the release early Tuesday (2/2) of Sirius XM‘s fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 results, specific data tied to its Pandora segment were shared.

How is Pandora performing? It is perhaps the weakest link in the Sirius XM family. But, it could be worse.

Full-year ad revenue at Pandora, which includes off-platform results such as the company’s AdsWizz business, declined by 1% year-over-year to $1.18 billion.

Sirius XM’s C-Suite is happy, as this small decline was registered “despite significant weakness in the advertising market” resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic earlier in 2020.

Monetization of $79.24 per thousand hours at Pandora was down “just 1%” year-over-year, Sirius XM adds.

In Q4, Pandora ad revenue increased by 22% to $425 million from $348 million, on a year-over-year basis.

With its Pandora for Business arm likely hampered by shelter-at-home edicts in markets across the U.S., Monthly Active Users (MAUs) at Pandora were 58.9 million at the end of 2020, down from 63.5 million at the end of 2019. Total ad supported listener hours were 12.50 billion in 2020, down from 13.44 billion in 2019.

But, there’s some good news: Pandora added 133,000 net new self-pay subscribers to its Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium services in 2020, ending with nearly 6.3 million self-pay subscribers to those services.

Strong operating and financial results.

Adjusted EBITDA growth of 6% for the year, compared to 2019.

For an audio media company, such achievements could be the stuff of dreams, considering the battering COVID-19 and the pandemic, entering its 12th month, has brought to Radio.

Yet, that’s exactly what Sirius XM is touting, as its fourth quarter and full-year 2020 results released early Tuesday paint a rosy picture that will certainly make newly appointed CEO Jennifer Witz happy.

For the three months ended December 31, 2020, Sirius XM enjoyed growth in both its subscriber and advertiser revenue — incredible accomplishments given the pandemic and its initial impact on radio’s cume due to fewer in-car occurrences.

This speaks to Sirius XM’s ease of accessibility outside the vehicle, perhaps — exposing a weakness of Radio it has not fully come to terms with.

Q4 2020 subscriber revenue for Sirius XM grew to $1.62 billion, from $1.57 billion. Advertising revenue in the quarter grew to $474 million, from $403 million.

Along with an equipment revenue gain to $60 million from $46 million and “other revenue” of $40 million compared to $44 million a year ago, total consolidated revenue in Q4 grew to $2.19 billion, from $2.06 billion.

Sirius XM’s expenses ballooned to $2.69 billion, from $1.66 billion.

However, a $976 million impairment charge is a big reason for this increase. If not for that, there’s only one other category where the cost of services noticeably increase.

Thank you, artist advocates and recording industry royalty increase lobbyists.

Sirius XM’s revenue share and royalty fees grew to $662 million, from $607 million, in Q4.

Including the impairment charge, Sirius XM swung to a net loss of $662 million (-$0.16 per diluted share), from net income of $243 million ($0.05).

On an unaudited pro-forma basis, adjusted EBITDA increased to $660 million, from $587 million. That translates to EPS of $0.07, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.05.S

Also on an adjusted basis, Q4 Free Cash Flow grew to $448 million, from $408 million.

And, that’s what Wall Street watchers will likely cheer about across Tuesday’s trading on the Nasdaq GlobalSelect market. SIRI started the day at $6.26, and has largely been in the $6 range for the last 50 weeks.

On a year-over-year basis, FY2020 results show Sirius XM’s consolidated revenue at $8.04 billion, a 3% increase from FY2019. Adjusted EBITDA grew to $2.58 billion in 2020, an increase of approximately 6% from $2.43 billion in 2019.

SLOWING THE CHURN

For years, analysts and radio industry execs traditionally looked closely at Sirius XM’s subscriber count, and then ask the question, “How many subscribers did Sirius XM lose, compared to how many it gained?”

Here’s the answer: “ending subscribers” decreased 1% for the full year of 2020.

That’s correct: Sirius XM lost fewer subscribers in the pandemic-plagued year of 2020 than in the go-go days of 2019.

Wait, there’s more: As the percentage of paid promotional subscribers fell by 22% year-over-year to 3.83 million, the amount of self paid subscribers increased by 3%, to 30.89 million.

In Canada, however, where Sirius XM penetration has largely been seen in big markets such as Toronto and Calgary, subscribers decreased by 3% to 2.62 million; the Canadian economy, coupled with more stringent COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions in Ontario, could be factors there.

Looking specifically at Q4, self-pay subscriber rolls surged by 19% year-over-year.

And, that all-important self-paid monthly churn is at 1.6%.

A FAMILIAR WORD FOR RADIO

In prepared comments, Sirius XM Chief Financial Officer Sean Sullivan, who landed the role on Oct. 26, 2020, used a word that broadcast radio has incorporated into dozens of quarterly earnings calls — reach.

“The tremendous reach of SiriusXM’s platforms, the company’s unique business model, and the quality of its people attracted me to join the company last fall as CFO,” he said. “All of these attributes have been affirmed in the past three months since I came on board, and it has been a pleasure to partner with Jennifer as she made the transition to CEO.”

That reach story seems to be working for Sirius XM.

SiriusXM increased its regular quarterly dividend by 10% in November for the fourth consecutive year; some radio companies have retained their deeply slashed or suspended dividends.

At the end of the fourth quarter, SiriusXM’s debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was 3.3x.

And, Sullivan concluded, “We have tremendous liquidity to continue investing in the business and returning capital to stockholders.”

2021 GUIDANCE

The company reiterated its 2021 guidance for SiriusXM self-pay net subscriber additions, revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow originally issued on January 7, 2021:

• SiriusXM self-pay net subscriber additions of approximately 800,000
• Total revenue of approximately $8.35 billion
• Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $2.575 billion
• Free cash flow of approximately $1.6 billion