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The author is SVP, Engineering — Digital Platforms at Xperi Corp.

Daily radio listening represents more than 60% of consumer media consumption worldwide — surpassing even television and content streaming in many markets.

The recent “Digital Radio Vision for India” workshop, held Feb. 12, offered an optimistic view of how India, through its “Digital India” initiative, can capitalize on the nation’s growing radio broadcasting industry.

Ashruf El-Dinary

Xperi was on hand to present its vision of how HD Radio, can support the radio industry’s transition from analog broadcasting to a significantly more robust and diverse digital broadcast platform.

Today some 2400 radio stations in several countries use HD Radio to reach more than 400 million people across North America and other countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa.

But, as the workshop outlined, while HD Radio is helping revolutionize and digitize radio services around the world, India is lagging far behind, with most of its radio stations transmitting solely in analog. The good news is that HD Radio offers All India Radio and private broadcasters an opportunity to accelerate and become world leaders in digital radio networking.  It simply makes sense.

Here’s Why:

Clear Audio, Diverse Programming, Multimedia

HD Radio allows radio stations to transmit multiple programs and other information with quality audio and robust and diverse content. While the analog transmissions that currently dominate radio in India provide listeners with music, news, or talk shows on their radio receivers — each analog radio station broadcasts only one audio program per frequency.

The mobile BeatBoy HD101 cell phone.

HD Radio, on the other hand, enables radio stations to utilize advanced technology to send multiple audio programs digitally with higher sound quality, as well as to include associated and relevant digital content and images.

For example, a digital radio receiver or mobile phone can automatically tune to digital radio programming and enable users to select from multiple audio programs on the same frequency, all while still receiving older, analog-only broadcasts.

 HD Radio Can Bring India Together

India has a diverse population, with over 23 different languages and a very mobile population. Radio listening happens on-the-go. HD Radio enables the simultaneous broadcast of programming in multiple languages and allows broadcasters to communicate national, regional, and local information on separate audio channels, as well as offering diverse programming in large urban markets like Delhi and Mumbai.

In addition, it’s possible for the government’s All India Radio broadcasts to transmit the Prime Minister’s monthly Mann Ki Baat message in multiple languages. To access this content, India requires digital radio solutions for mobile handsets, such as the BeatBoy HD101 cell phone sold in the Philippines.

Community-building, Government Communications and Emergency Alerts

As well as offering India’s listeners a multimedia experience, including program-related pictures synchronized with the audio, HD Radio enables listeners to stay in touch with their specific communities through localized entertainment, information, and talk radio shows. These incude emergency notifications and alerts to warn and inform local residents of events such as storms, fires or other threatening disasters in multiple languages.

The HD Radio system can integrate with India’s National Disaster Management Agency alerts infrastructure by importing CAP-formatted alerts into the digital broadcast chain.  These digital emergency alerts can provide critical notifications and text alerts to HD Radio enabled devices, which will “wake up” on detecting an alert message.

Also, HD Radio can help the government notify the public of non-critical information, such as reports on health and environmental matters from various ministries. For example, All India Radio can partner with the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change to provide hourly notifications on air quality index using text and graphic notification transmitted to HD Radio receivers.

Digital India Initiative

Because it is an effective way to reach the general public with audio communications, including sending information and data to millions of devices for infrastructure and IoT services, HD Radio system can help India’s radio industry and businesses. Through the Digital India Initiative, HD Radio can facilitate the development of new applications for local services to enhance control and management of infrastructure and the power grid, send traffic services to trucks and cars to improve navigation and reduce congestion, and access IoT devices with secure unidirectional smart-messaging and control.

The Time is Now — Digital Radio and All India Radio

With adults globally listening to an average of 90 minutes of radio a day, it is clear that radio is here to stay, but only so long as it adapts to the digital consumer. India has half a billion of those digital consumers and the opportunities for increasing the scope of radio communications, both locally and nationally — all while improving the radio experience — are significant, and potentially of major benefit to India’s population.

The post Why HD Radio Makes Sense for India appeared first on Radio World.

Jeff Welton snags a big honor. Dan Slentz worries about the quality of music coming into your station. Scott Gerenser explains “containerization.” John Bisset pulls brush from your satellite dish. And James O’Neal looks at technology that helped launch an industry.

Read it online here.

Prefer to do your reading offline? No problem! Simply click on the Issuu link, go to the left corner and choose the download button to get a PDF version.

AUDIO FOR RADIO
“An Audio Quality Crisis in the Music Industry”

Decapitating your audio can’t be good for an industry highly dependent on sound quality. So says Dan.

COVER STORY
Welton Is More Than Just “Tips n Tricks”

The newest NAB Radio Engineering Achievement honoree is all about customer service, support and training.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

• They Set the Stage for the Birth of Radio
• Cyber Security in the COVID Age
• Containerization as an Alternative to Virtualization

The post Inside the April 29 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World.

The Society of Broadcast Engineers has added two more names to its list of Fellows. At its April 24 meeting, the SBE board of directors voted to elevate James Leifer, CBPE, and Ralph Beaver, CBT, to its highest membership level. There have been 81 Fellows during the course of the SBE’s 56-year history.

Both will be recognized Sept. 23 at the SBE National Awards Dinner, which will be held in conjunction with the SBE National Meeting. This year’s meeting is scheduled during the SBE Chapter 22 Broadcast & Technology Expo in Syracuse, N.Y.

“They both possess and regularly demonstrate the skill, attitude, professionalism and dedication to broadcast engineering that are the benchmarks of an SBE Fellow,” SBE President Wayne Pecena (CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNE) said in the announcement. Pecena also noted that he had worked with Leifer and followed Beaver’s efforts at the SBE.

James “Jim” Leifer

Leifer is the senior manager of broadcast operations for American Tower Corp. and is based in the Boston metropolitan area, where he moved in 2017 for his present role working on the TV repack. In Florida, he held engineering positions for iHeartMedia, Ion and Paxson.

Because Leifer’s broadcast career kicked off in south Florida in 1987, he initially joined  SBE Chapter 53. In 2008, Chapter 53 elected him chapter chair, a role he fulfilled until 2012.

Leifer is the SBE board’s current immediate past president. He served as president from 2017–2019, and prior to that was the board’s VP from 2015–2017. Leifer was the SBE secretary from 2011–2015, first joining the board in 2009. 

Several of his nomination letters characterize Leifer as a talented, competent and technically capable broadcast engineer, willing to help others. Leifer’s regulatory advocacy is also a standout, according to his peers.

Ralph Beaver

Beaver, NFL general manager of frequency coordination and CEO of Media Alert LLC, is another long-serving SBE Floridian. He moved to Tampa in 1973, and joined Chapter 39 two years later. Beaver is active in the chapter’s Broadcast Engineering Symposium. 

Additionally, Beaver served on the national board  from 2002 until 2012, during which time he chaired the EAS Committee and then the Frequency Coordination Committee. In the latter role, Beaver worked with the SBE/NFL Game-Day Coordinator program, a position he was well suited to, since he had begun working with the NFL in 1999 as the Tampa game-day coordinator and Super Bowl coordinator for that same year. He took on his current role with the NFL in 2011.

Beaver’s nominations highlighted his EAS efforts as well as his frequency coordination work. One letter called him “a master of spectrum allocations and spectrum compatibility studies.”

The post Leifer and Beaver Chosen as SBE Fellows appeared first on Radio World.

Nielsen’s latest report on radio listening in Norway shows that DAB+ continues to gain ground in Norway.

The report, which includes data on 2019 radio listening, finds that last year approximately 86% of Norwegians listened to radio on a weekly basis.

According to the study, more than 3.4 million people (approximately 73% of the population aged 10+) now have DAB radio in their home. This figure includes both regular DAB radios as well as analog receivers with DAB adapters.

In addition, the Nielsen Audio study indicates an increase in the number of in-car DAB receivers. In Norway all new cars sold are now equipped with a DAB radio as standard, and the report stats that in 2019, 67% of the population had access to DAB radio in their car. This is up 9% from 2018. Of those, 82% say they listen to DAB radio at least once a week while in their cars, while almost half listen to it on a daily basis.

The full Nielsen Audio 2020 report is available to download here. A WorldDAB report (updated in February) on the Norwegian radio market featuring the results after the FM switch-off and lessons learned is available here.

The post Nielsen Audio 2020 Report Is Now Available appeared first on Radio World.

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Paul Alexander is president of Scott Communications and Alexander Broadcasting. Their stations are WALX(FM), WALX(HD2), WALX(HD3), WJAM(FM/AM) and WMRK(FM).

Alexander told Radio World about how local broadcasters stepped up to honor Robert Skelton, a first responder with CARE Ambulance, who died last week at age 47. Due to social distancing requirements, they were unable to host a traditional memorial service for him, however the Lawrence Brown-Service Funeral Home contacted Alexander’s company to broadcast the service for a drive up funeral. Alexander donated air time from WALX for the service, which featured a eulogy recorded by Kenneth Martin using a voice memo app.

Alexander participated in a Q&A with RW to explain how they pulled it off.

Radio World: Am I correct that the program could be heard both on 101.5 analog, as well as thd HD-2 of 100.9? 

Paul Alexander: Yes, W268BQ is the 101.5 translator for WALX(HD-2). The coverage on HD-2 allowed for a much larger footprint in coverage for anyone wishing to tune in from anywhere in the region with their HD Radio, while the analog translator served the Selma/Dallas County area for listeners without HD Radio. 

Having invested in HD Radio for the communities we serve has offered a true advantage for listeners in the market by allowing us to have additional programming streams on both the supplemental HD audio channels for WALX, as well as the associated FM translators. We have two additional stations that otherwise would not be here without HD Radio.

RW: What was the audio setup to feed the service to the station for airing?

Alexander: In the spirit of keeping station personnel as safe as possible during the pandemic, we elected to try something unconventional that kept our team at the station to do our part. We ended up connecting via FaceTime audio between my iPhone connected to the studio console and the funeral director’s iPhone connected to the podium microphone mix at the funeral. 

At first, I was fairly nervous about not having our Comrex Access at this event, but believe it or not, the audio was better than one might expect… and most importantly, we maintained connectivity the entire 30-minute service.

RW: I see online that the police department was on hand to deal with any traffic issues. How did that go?

Alexander: Many officers from the Selma Police Department and Dallas County Sheriff’s Department were very good friends with Mr. Skelton, so a good many of them were in attendance for the funeral for that reason. The officers actually assigned to the event assisted in making sure that all of the vehicles were parked with at least six feet of distance between them. They also assisted in ensuring that everyone remained inside of their vehicles for the entirety of the service, following Gov. Kay Ivey’s orders, as well as recommendations by state health officials and the CDC. Local law enforcement did a fantastic job in their role.

RW: What kind of reaction from listeners did you get?

Alexander: We received dozens of positive calls, emails, social media messages of gratitude for providing this service. One particular message stands out where a listener said: “It’s so encouraging in these especially difficult times that we can count on our local radio group to pull the community together. Please let your family and all employees of the station know that it is appreciated more than all of you may know.”

We appreciate every “pair of ears” that have tuned in to any of our stations across Alabama and Mississippi, and we also want them to know it’s always about them, and not us. I hope we do a good job expressing that in everything we do.

RW: Did Mr. Skelton die as a result of the coronavirus? 

Alexander: He passed away unexpectedly, but we are told it was not from coronavirus. The cause of death has not been disclosed to us other than it was not due to the virus.

RW: What else should we know?

Alexander: Sue Keenom, with NAB, sent the following message when she received word this had been done for Mr. Skelton and the community: “Thank you so much for sending. What a wonderful way to honor a hero when folks cannot gather for a service. I am in awe of the myriad of ways broadcasters are finding to help during this crisis.

Attendees of the funeral were asked to stay in their vehicles, and tune their radio to 101.5/100.9 HD-2 in order to hear the funeral service message from the minister as well as other notable people delivering a message such as the owner of the Ambulance company Mr. Skelton worked for as well as one of the dispatchers who voiced her last dispatch to him, which said:“Blackhawk down — rest easy, Mr. Robert Skelton, we have got it from here.” 

Coordination of this event was made between the City of Selma, Care Ambulance, The Selma Police Department, Air Evac Life-Team, Scott Communications/KIX 101.5, Lawrence Brown-Service Funeral Home and Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

The post Alexander Broadcasting Honors Selma First Responder appeared first on Radio World.

As part of our series about how very low-power radio transmitters are used during the pandemic, we asked Bill Baker of Information Station Specialists to list some of the types of applications he has seen.

We’ve reported about the use of radio in church parking lots. Bill Baker identified several other uses:

• Funeral homes — One of the saddest things about the pandemic is that families cannot gather in the traditional way to mourn loved ones. Radio signals are used by some funeral homes to allow mourners to attend in their cars.
• School graduation and commencement services — Baker said these “often the take the form of parades of graduates who get their diplomas at a stage they drive past and then on through the community.”
• Official government meetings — These might be conducted indoors but the public can listen outdoors and even participate with a microphone. He cited specific instances in California and Delaware.
• COVID-19 testing — The state transportation department in New York and a hospital in Ohio have used radio signals to broadcast local information.
• Theater groups — Performances for people in their cars.
• Civic events — A city in Utah is planning a Memorial Day parade around a park that people can attend and tune into from their cars.
• Factories — Baker said at least one organization is using transmitters to communicate with workers returning to the plant after being furloughed
• Courthouses — In some states radio is being used to provide advisories for people coming into the court complex during the coronavirus.
• A county jail in New York state put AM transmitters indoors because prisoners were not allowed to congregate outdoors.

Do you know of an application where radio is helping during the pandemic in an unusual way? Write to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Check Out These Unexpected Uses for Unlicensed Radio appeared first on Radio World.

OTTAWA, Ontario — It is a truism of the internet age that business people can successfully collaborate over the web, without ever meeting in person. CBC Radio producers Craig Desson and Kieran Oudshoorn recently put this theory to the test, by co-producing the hour-long network radio show, “Us, But Nobody Is Here” while separated by a distance of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).

Craig Desson and Kieran Oudshoorn in Desson’s Montreal home. Credit: Craig Desson

Available online, “Us, But Nobody is Here” explores the realities of long-distance business and personal relationships at a time where the web is said to bridge all gaps. The program does this through interviews with various people trying to make tech-aided long distance relationships work — including Craig Desson and Kieran Oudshoorn as they craft this show without meeting in person. Their separation was very real. Desson is based at CBC Montreal in Quebec, while Oudshoorn is about more than 2,000 kilometers north of him in Iqaluit, Nunavut; on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

The impetus for “Us, But Nobody Is Here” came from Oudshoorn’s move to CBC Iqaluit after working in southern Canada throughout his radio career.

“I moved to a place that is incredibly physically isolated from my friends and family down south,” Oudshoorn said. “I decided that to find ways to keep in touch through technology, to maintain my relationships in my personal life.”

After Oudshoorn and Desson met through a mutual CBC associate — remotely, of course — the pair realized that what Oudshoorn was dealing with was actually becoming a universal experience due to telecommuting and social media. This insight inspired them to pitch and then win approval to produce “Us, But Nobody Is Here” as a national holiday broadcast for Jan 1.

Craig Desson overlooking Montreal. Credit: Craig Desson

“We’re increasingly living in a world where geography is supposed to be meaningless; where we’re told that you can do anything from anywhere,” said Desson. “With this program we decided to push this idea to the limits, from seeing what the realities of today’s remote relationships are like to the various aids that can help bridge this emotional distance.”

Desson and Oudshoorn started fleshing out their program in March 2019, working out of their respective homes, CBC Radio facilities and local communities. “The initial production process entailed a lot of phone calls and emails,” said Oudshoorn. “We sketched out the main ideas in Google Docs, which allowed us to share the developing storyline over the web and work on it together in real-time.”

EMOJIS MATTER

Working in this way limited the degree between the two producers. Having never met in person they had no real sense of who the other was. This is why Desson and Oudshoorn decided to also connect by videoconferences, “which allowed us to at least see some of each other’s body language,” Desson said. “Sometimes we would go into radio studios in our stations and connect to interviewees in other cities over ISDN phone lines in order to get broadcast quality audio remotely.”

Polar bear tracks leading into Iqaluit, where Kieran Oudshoorn lives. Credit: Kieran Oudshorn

One tool that proved unexpectedly useful were emojis in emails and texts. “There are so many animal layers to in-person interactions, which don’t come across when you are communicating remotely,” said Desson. “Used thoughtfully, emojis can be an effective graphical shorthand to tell the other person what you are feeling as you are writing something.”

Much of the field audio used in “Us, But Nobody Is Here” was captured using a range of Zoom handheld digital audio recorders with built-in microphones. “Kieran is the King of the Zoom recorders,” Desson said. “He’s got about every model that is currently available, and he used them all to record the show.”

A case in point: “Craig and I recorded my remote interactions for use in the program, which included me walking out in the Arctic tundra in the middle of nowhere, talking to him on my cellphone and capturing the audio on my Zoom,” said Oudshoorn.

PRODUCTION LIMITS

The growing multichannel program was mixed on their personal computers using Adobe Audition. Desson and Oudshoorn took turns adding content and making changes, and then shared the updated file with the other via the web.

The sun coming up in Iqaluit. Credit: Kieran Oudshoorn

“This is where we ran into problems,” Oudshoorn said. “There would be disconnects where one of us had done edits and pieces would be somehow go missing in the mix, forcing us to repopulate it all again. What was fascinating was the difficulty we had in communicating editing nuances to each other over the distance. Without hearing the same thing in the same room together at the same time, it was hard for us to understand what each of us was getting at creatively.”

It wasn’t until October 2019 that Craig Desson and Kieran Oudshoorn met in person. They came together at CBC Montreal to finish mastering the program using the corporation’s Dalet audio production system.

“Working in the same space, we were able to get quite a lot done in a short time period,” said Oudshoorn. “But then again, we had already built a relationship remotely that we were able to draw upon. So we were already very comfortable together and on a similar wavelength.”

Having put remote radio production to the test, what did they learn from the experience? And what would they do differently next time?

These answers weren’t evident in the initial interview this reporter conducted with Desson and Oudshoorn during a three-way teleconference between Ottawa, Iqaluit and Montreal. So, in the spirit of remote collaboration, I sent them a draft of this text, so that they could add their own conclusions directly.

“It was a great way to get things rolling,” said Desson. “However, you still feel that remote tech is a lower bandwidth than the real world. It takes longer to communicate ideas and sharing project files has a long way to go. That being said, working remotely opened a door for us to collaborate that wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for all these collaboration tools,” he said.

“Out of sight, out of mind: It’s painful how accurate this truism is,” said Oudshoorn. “It takes real intent to break through and connect at a distance. This is one of the lessons I learned, be intentional. My distance relationships are all the more rich now because I now go into them with focused attention.”

“This goes double for working at a distance like Craig and I did,” he added. “We were intentional about the time we took to be friendly and shoot the breeze when we talked, and we were intentional when we got down to business and made sure our work was done. As communication technology continues to change and improve we must be intentional about harnessing its possibilities and minding its pitfalls.”

The post Making a Radio Show While Separated by 2,000 Kilometers appeared first on Radio World.

This document summarizes the public notice that announces the indefinite postponement of Auction 106, an auction of construction permits in the FM broadcast service, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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