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FM broadcast booster station NPRM comment and reply dates set

FCC grants Declaratory Petition filed by SBCA et al. against City of Chicago

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On December 29, Searchlight III UTD and ForgeLight‘s acquisition of a majority stake of Univision Holdings formally closed. As such, Searchlight, a private investment firm founded by CEO Wade Davis, and associated entity, ForgeLight — an operating and investment company focused on the media and consumer technology sectors — are now the holders of shares in Univision previously held by Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners, TPG, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and Saban Capital Group.

As expected, Davis assumed Univision’s Chief Executive chair from Vince Sadusky.

What wasn’t expected: a major house cleaning in Univision’s C-Suite.

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P1 Learning has teamed up with Marketron to expand the resources on digital advertising that are available to media sales professionals in the Marketron Learning Center, an online training platform that provides best practices, how-tos, industry information, and product guides.

“Today’s sales professional prefers bite-sized modules, so P1 Learning’s library of over 2,000 courses was exactly what we needed when launching Marketron’s NXT Training Academy,” Marketron Senior Manager, Digital Transformation & Enablement Jeff Ulrich said. “P1 Learning’s industry-specific videos have helped us quickly scale our sales enablement efforts. The measurable increases we’re seeing in learning engagement will undoubtably lead to further revenue growth for our customers.”

P1 Learning’s digital ad sales courses are designed to train sales professionals on the essentials of interactive media and how to build successful customer programs integrating both traditional and digital assets.

“We pride ourselves on being responsive to the needs of our industry and short, up-to-date and easily understandable digital sales courses continue to top the list,” said Bryan Marriott, President and GM for P1 Learning. “It’s an honor to become the preferred training provider to one of the most highly respected broadcast-based companies around.”

All Marketron NXT and Pitch customers have access to a digital education and sales training program that includes portions of P1 Learning’s video-based training content focused on selling digital advertising.

The crowd overruns and adapts barriers at the U.S. Capitol in this photo by WTOP’s Alejandro Alvarez.

Even before pro-Trump protestors gathered at Washington’s Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, journalists at WTOP, Hubbard Radio’s highly rated all-news radio station, were aware that it would be no ordinary political rally.

“We knew that there were going to be a lot of people in attendance,” said Director of News and Programming Julia Ziegler. “We knew which groups had permits to be there — there were many of them — and we knew that the president would be speaking. So you had all the makings of a very large event.”

Still, it was shocking when the election protest and rally turned into violent attacks in and around the Capitol building. When it did, the three WTOP reporters on site and the entire WTOP news team kept Washington informed.

Ready for trouble

There were signs that the rally would be emotionally charged. The president had spent two months fanning political division with unfounded assertions about a rigged election. Even the name of the event, the “Save America Rally,” was designed to stoke fury as the joint houses of Congress were ratifying Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory down the street.

Still, there have been emotionally-charged political rallies in Washington over the last year. WTOP field reporters Alejandro Alvarez and Ken Duffy knew to keep a low profile by using their consumer smartphones to file reports and capture/file photos, audio and video back to the station.

“In these kind of tense situations, you always have to think about what makes you a target as a reporter,” said Ziegler.

“So if you’re a journalist out there recording on your phone, you can mix into the crowd where everyone else is using their phones.”

Given the subsequent events — with protestors painting “Murder the Media” and smashing an Associated Press camera position, and with subsequent videos emerging of crowd confrontations with other journalists — their caution seems prudent.

“We always tell our reporters to pull back as need to stay safe,” she added. “At certain points during that day, they had to.”

Getting news to the station

The downside of using smartphones at public events is that wireless networks are prone to slowing down due to traffic.

WTOP’s reporters relied on WhatsApp to get their audio and text messages back to the station. They have found WhatsApp to be pretty reliable even when cell service starts to fail. They also use Skype and Slack as well. For video, WTOP uses Slack or pulls videos from Twitter.

“The fact that WhatsApp sends out content as soon as you record it really helps,” said Ziegler. “You don’t have to upload or download it after recording: It just goes.”

Those incoming feeds turned up on a common channel that is shared among the WTOP newsroom staff so that everyone can see what’s coming in as it arrives.

Capitol Hill Correspondent Mitchell Miller was at his broadcast booth at the House of Representatives, keeping an eye on the joint session.

Equipped as it is with a suite of links back to WTOP, Miller was in place when doors and windows were smashed and people started breaking into the Capitol building. He provided a steady stream of reports about the invasion no matter what was going on.

“Mitch is fabulous. He’s been with WTOP for a very long time, and he’s just one of those reporters who gets it and understands what the audience needs to hear in that moment,” said Ziegler.

“Whether during the lockdown or afterwards when he was being evacuated along with the Capitol Hill staff, Mitch kept us fully informed with multiple reports per hour as the situation evolved.”

Miller wrote after the event: “When guns were drawn and furniture was moved to block an invasion of rioters from the U.S. House chamber, the danger here at the Capitol was very clear. My broadcast booth is located across the hall from the House chamber, and as the Capitol went into lockdown, the doors of the area where I work with other Capitol Hill reporters were locked for safety.

“Every door that shut loudly, along with the dull roar of people inside and outside of the Capitol, ratcheted up the tension.”

He continued: “When we found out that a woman had been shot inside the Capitol, concern for everyone’s safety continued to rise. I later learned that the shooting happened just a floor below us, in an area known as the Speaker’s Lobby, which is outside the House chamber. I was also alarmed when I saw all the protesters gathered on the steps of the east side of the Capitol. That never happens.”

Despite the danger around him, “I continued to report on the events in real time, all the while trying to remain fully aware of my surroundings, which were troubling, to say the least,” he wrote.

“Late Wednesday afternoon, we were told by the staff in the House Radio and TV Gallery that everyone in our area needed to evacuate … We quickly gathered up our broadcasting equipment and started moving through the maze of underground tunnels that connect the Capitol to the House and Senate buildings. We were escorted to a media room in the Rayburn Office Building. We were able to still report on what was happening as we essentially sheltered in place, as lawmakers and staff members were doing.”

WTOP field reporter Alejandro Alvarez was outside watching the angry crowd as the president’s incitements spurred the crowd to violence.

“There was one precise moment I can point to when I realized that something immeasurably terrible was underway,” wrote Alvarez afterwards.

“It was in the middle of President Donald Trump’s speech, shortly after he had urged his supporters to head for the Capitol … ‘Move forward, patriots, we’re taking the Capitol,’ was one of the first things I heard on arrival at the West Lawn, where the air stung from lingering mace … ‘We’ve been nice for too long,’ I heard someone yell. And another: ‘Where are the gallows?’”

Later in the day, Ziegler said, “There was one point where Ken Duffy was live when the police were repelling the protesters. He’s describing what’s happening to him in the moment and saying things like, ‘Stay with me, Shawn [WTOP anchor Shawn Anderson], give me just a second. I’m getting pushed back. I need to move over here.’ When you hear that, it’s just so captivating, and we had so many of those moments.”

Photo by Alejandro Alvarez of WTOP shows people on scaffolding intended for the upcoming inauguration. One sign reads, “We the people will bring DC to its knees. We have the power.” In the newsroom

As the afternoon’s chaotic events unfolded, news staff at the station’s broadcast facilities just across the District border in Chevy Chase, Md., worked to get the news to air.

The hub of the action took place in WTOP’s open newsroom, whose numbers had been depleted due to people working at home thanks to COVID-19.

“Normally we have everyone together in the same room — our broadcast, on-air, and web staff — so that there’s constant one-to-one yelling of information back-and-forth,” said Ziegler.

“To include at-home workers in this during the pandemic, we set up a open conference line and speakerphones so that everyone on shift can talk to and hear each other, whether they are in the newsroom or not.”

This open line of communications made it easy to share news from Capitol Hill as it came in. Meanwhile, whenever someone got swamped by the rush of information, other staff members stepped into help.

“It may sound corny, but we really work as a team,” said Ziegler. “It’s how we’re able to do what we do.”

During its wall-to-wall coverage of the insurrection, WTOP dropped commercial breaks from mid-afternoon Jan. 6 going into the next morning. “But we kept the other breaks built into the clock such as traffic and weather every 10 minutes, sports at :15 and :45, and business at :25 and :55,” Ziegler said.

“Maintaining the traffic reports was incredibly important, because the impact of the riot on traffic was a big part of the story. This said, the rest of the broadcast just flowed organically, as usually happens during a breaking news event.”

A couple of days after the assault, with additional images of Jan. 6 violence against both law enforcement and journalists emerging on social media, Alvarez wrote in a tweet, “I have plenty of colleagues on this beat who’ve been attacked or arrested. You know the risks but can’t help but wonder if your next assignment is the one you won’t get to walk away from safe and sound. It’s always at the back of my mind.”

More trouble to come?

Not long after the assault had ended and a curfew implemented, the building was protected by a seven-foot metal fence and the National Guard. Joe Biden had been confirmed as winner of the presidential election, and his inauguration was set to proceed on Jan. 20 — without President Trump in attendance.

The WTOP news team was pressing on to cover the aftermath, as the nation wondered how Trump’s last days in office would unfold, and reports surfaced of further threats against public officials and public buildings between now and the inauguration.

Ziegler expressed pride in WTOP’s team and how they have endured a year of crisis.

“We have gone through COVID, all the protests all throughout the summer/fall of 2020, and then the election. So we’ve been running a marathon and with the inauguration still to come, it’s still not over.

“Journalists are mission-driven people,” she said. “Our purpose is to help people, and our mission at WTOP News is to make sure that we are providing our community with everything they need to know about the biggest stories of the day. [Jan. 6] was huge from many different perspectives, but it’s not the only huge story we’ll be covering this year.”

 

The post How WTOP Covered the Assault on Congress appeared first on Radio World.

Between July 13 and November 5, 2020, Townsquare Media shares were rather stagnant, trading in the mid-$4 range for much of the period.

It was a far cry from the first days of February, when a $10.25 closing price was seen and many Wall Street observers noted how the local digital and audio company had enjoyed two solid years of share growth.

It appears the election of Joe Biden as U.S. president may have served as some sort of spark for TSQ, given its performance over the last nine weeks.

BE SURE TO FOLLOW RBR+TVBR ON FACEBOOK!

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The Federal Communications Commission has announced the deadline for public comments about its proposed rulemaking for FM boosters and geo-targeting.

Comments are due Feb. 10, 2021. Reply comments must be submitted by March 12. Comments can be filed via the commission’s online portal; refer to MB Dockets 20-401 and 17-105.

Comments must be submitted no later than Feb. 10, 2021. Reply comments must be submitted no later than March 12.

The commission proposes to let FM broadcasters use FM booster stations to air geo-targeted content independent of the signals of a primary station within different portions of the primary station’s protected service contour for a few minutes during each broadcast hour. The goal is to provide hyper-localized advertising, information and other content.

As we’re reported, this is a proposal being driven by GeoBroadcast Solutions, a company that has a proprietary technology called ZoneCasting that it wants to bring to market.

[Read: “FCC Asks for Comments on FM Geo-Targeting”]

Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Brendan Carr recently have worked together to bring the proposal to this point.

Then-Commissioner Michael O’Rielly expressed concern in November that the proposal was moving too fast, given the “substantial implications for reshaping FM radio policy and the radio advertising marketplace.”

The post FCC Sets Deadline for Geo-Targeting Comments appeared first on Radio World.

Travel some 90 minutes to the east of Pittsburgh, and you’ll find yourself in the Johnstown, Pa., media market.

Here, Sinclair Broadcast Group owns and operates NBC affiliate WJAC-6, which airs The CW+ national network feed on a digital multicast channel. Sinclair also operates two other stations in the market, via somewhat complex master service arrangements.

Now, one of those stations is shifting from its licensee to its Time Brokerage Agreement partner — an entity with a long history of letting Sinclair handle most of the operations.

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Take a glance at the latest Media Monitors Spot Ten TV report, and you’ll see one matter of fact as clear as today: auto insurance brands are as competitive as ever.

And, they’re spending money at spot TV.

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He has more than 30 years of programming and production experience, having held leadership roles at Viacom, The Walt Disney Company and CBS.

Most recently, he led programming strategy for MGM Global Networks’ linear and digital networks.

Now, he’ll serve as the head of programming for The E.W. Scripps Co.’s national TV networks business — which now incorporates ION Media’s brands.

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If you were wondering where one big auto insurance specialist has been of late, perhaps it was simply in production on new creative to freshen up its 2021 marketing and advertising slate.

Progressive is back at spot radio — and in a big way.

Thanks to a new effort, the brand has propelled its way to No. 3 for the week ending Jan. 10, 2021 on the latest Media Monitors Spot Ten Radio report.

It’s the No. 2 paid campaign for the week, behind new No. 1 Babbel.

As shown below, Progressive is competing for consumers at spot radio with GEICO and Liberty Mutual Insurance.

 

New York, NY – Nexstar Inc., America’s largest local broadcasting company, is seeking an experienced and dynamic Vice President/General Manager to oversee its operational agreement with Mission Broadcasting, providing services to WPIX-TV in New York City, the #1-ranked market in the country.

In this role, the Vice President/General Manager will have full oversight over Nexstar’s operations at WPIX-TV (CW), as well as the station’s digital, mobile and social media assets. WPIX-TV is owned by Mission Broadcasting and Nexstar Inc. provides operational support under the terms of a Local Programming and Marketing Agreement.

Nexstar seeks a proven leader to join the ranks of the country’s largest local broadcast company in the largest DMA in the United States. Proven skillsets and demonstrable experience in leading broadcast operational teams with sales-driven organizations, developing locally originated content, and a commitment to community service are fundamental requirements of this position.

Additionally, the successful candidate will have demonstrated results in developing revenue across multiple platforms, promoting teamwork within all station departments and a track record of success in maintaining a focus on operational efficiencies and growth in programming performance and new local revenue generation.

Essential Duties and Requirements

Ideal candidates will have a minimum of five years of general management experience at a commercial broadcast television station with accompanying digital assets. The right fit for this position will be a seasoned and knowledgeable professional who is a driven advocate of local broadcasting and digital service to the community in which they have previously served. This position requires a leader with exemplary strategic vision, focused execution, and a verified understanding of local outreach and thoughtful community involvement. In addition to having a proven track record of managing high-performing sales, and news teams, the successful candidate must be effective in collaborating with department heads, staff members and promoting teamwork within all areas of station operations, preferably with oversight of a large staff. The ability to engage local community leaders and develop long-term relationships with key station clients is essential.

If you are interested in joining the executive ranks of Nexstar Inc.’s operational leadership team, and making an impact in the nation’s largest DMA, you are encouraged to apply online at www.nexstar.tv/careers/

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Leadership Foundation is now accepting entries for the 2021 Celebration of Service to America Awards, recognizing outstanding community service by local broadcasters.

Following the pattern of the 2020 Celebration of Service to America Awards, winners and finalists will again be honored during a special televised event, available for stations to air next summer.

The one-hour program will feature celebrity guests, past honorees and D.C. policymakers commending local radio and television stations from across the country for their commitment to public service and the measures taken throughout 2020 to keep communities informed, supported and safe.

Eight Service to Community Awards will be presented, with one radio and one television honoree in each of the following categories:

• Broadcast Ownership Group
• Large/Major Market (TV DMAs 1-50, Radio Markets 1-50)
• Medium Market (TV DMAs 51-100, Radio Markets 51-150)
• Small Market (TV DMAs 101-210, Radio Markets 151-300)

Radio and television stations, as well as broadcast groups, are encouraged to enter their best community service efforts from the past year. Both NAB members and non-members are eligible to enter.

Entries must be submitted by Friday, March 5, 2021 at 11:59 PST.

Additional information on the awards entry rules is available at ServiceToAmericaAwards.org.

New research released Monday (1/11) by groupM finds that more than half of its respondents believe it is important to be equipped with the latest technology.

An even greater percentage of respondents think that either they or a family member should be the only ones with access to health and fitness tracker data — an interesting privacy concern that media may wish to take note of when seeking to build their consumer databases based on opt-out criteria some may not be aware of.

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In January 2015, she joined conservative Talk station WIND-AM 560 in Chicago as a Senior Account Executive. In August 2018, she rose to GSM.

Now, she’s been promoted to Director of Sales for Salem Media Group‘s entire Windy City operations.

Earning the bump up in responsibilities is  Angenette Natkowski. It’s a newly created position, one that sees her add duties for Salem Surround Chicago and sales leadership for Christian Talk & Teaching WYLL-AM 1160.

“As a salesperson, she not only had success selling AM 560, Angenette was instrumental with the launch of Salem Chicago’s digital division,” said Salem Media Group Chicago VP/GM Jeff Reisman. “Over the past two plus years, Angenette has proven herself to be a strategic sales manager and a strong leader. She is a seasoned marketing and communications professional. I am thrilled to put Angenette’s creativity and expertise to work on AM 1160 and have her lead Chicago’s talented sales team.”