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The Commission adopts a Report and Order that modernizes the carriage election notice provisions in the FCC's Rules for low-power TV and noncommercial educational translator stations, which are not required to maintain online public inspection files

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PLEADING CYCLE ESTABLISHED

The FCC will be making some big spectrum-related decisions Friday (Feb. 28) at its February public meeting that will affect broadcast and cable operators.

The commission is scheduled to vote on freeing up 300 MHz of the 500 MHz C-Band satellite spectrum for next-gen terrestrial wireless, in the process repacking satellite operators and their broadcast and cable clients into smaller space and potentially paying those satellite operators billions to exit the spectrum early.

There has been a flurry of activity at the FCC as stakeholders argue for tweaks in the item before the vote.

The meeting will also include a separate vote on proposed rules for the auction of that C-Band spectrum.

Also on the docket is a vote on freeing up more “white spaces” — the space between TV station channels — for unlicensed use by allowing for higher power and taller towers. The FCC is billing the move as a way to better close the rural digital divide.

Broadcasters have said they are willing to work with computer companies on freeing up the white spaces spectrum, but only if they have assurances it will not cause interference to their existing signals.

One of the main sticking points has been whether the FCC should allow unlicensed operations on channels adjacent to TV channels. Computer companies say they can without causing undue interference. Broadcasters are unconvinced.

The FCC will seek further input on whether that is feasible, essentially kicking that can a bit further down the road.

But wait, there’s more.

The FCC will also vote on final procedures for an auction of county-sized licenses (22,000, the most ever) for 70 MHz of midband spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band.

 

The post FCC Preps Big Spectrum Moves appeared first on Radio World.

Nautel has announced details for its annual pre-NAB Show event, and registration is now open. 

The 2020 NUG@NAB Radio Technology Forum is scheduled for April 19 from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. at the Flamingo Las Vegas’ Scenic/Twilight Ballrooms. 

The networking and educational event includes lunch. It features presentations on “broadcast transmission best practices, challenges and technology trends” from industry figures and Nautel employees. Radio World’s Paul McLane will again share his thoughts about the show’s biggest trends and technologies to watch. Additionally, McLane will present the Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award to Dave Kolesar of Hubbard Radio.

Note that participation in the NUG@NAB Radio Technology Forum qualifies for one-half of a certification credit for the Society of Broadcast Engineers. 

Registration is required, but the event is “free and open to anyone passionate about radio transmission.” Nautel says they expect more than 300 broadcasters to attend.

Nautel says it kept the Sunday schedule for this event based on attendee feedback, despite the timing change for the NAB Show itself, which had traditionally opened its show floor Monday morning and will now commence at noon on Sunday.

The post NUG@NAB Radio Technology Forum Stays on Sunday appeared first on Radio World.

Rep. Tom Emmer

Two broadcasters-turned-congressmen have established a new bipartisan caucus to represent the interests of local broadcasters in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

Representatives Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Brendan F. Boyle (D-Pa.) announced the formation of the Congressional Broadcasters Caucus and explained in a press release that this “caucus will be a resource to educate members of Congress about broadcast-related issues and the importance of local radio and television stations to tens of millions of Americans.”

Rep. Brendan Boyle

Rep. Emmer previously co-hosted a morning talk show on Minneapolis station KTLK(AM), and Rep. Boyle analyzed Notre Dame football and basketball games on the radio during college.

Through this endeavor, Emmer explained he hopes to “further the conversations about how to support” the broadcast industry.

The announcement also quoted former senator and broadcaster now National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO, Gordon Smith, who said the new “caucus will serve an important role” by fulfilling its mission of discussing and solving issues of importance to the broadcast community.

 

The post Former Air Talent Establish Congressional Broadcasters Caucus appeared first on Radio World.

Jeff Adams

Jeff Adams has joined Broadcast Pix as a product manager, heading up the business and product development of RadioPix visual radio systems. RadioPix was introduced last year at IBC Show in Amsterdam. 

In the announcement, Broadcast Pix CEO Graham Sharp charged Adams with “spearheading our new visual radio strategy — to provide the most complete and easy-to-use solutions for live broadcasting and streaming.”

Visual radio has been an area of growth and interest for the broadcast community for several years, and Radio World explored the technology in the Trends in Visual Radio 2019 ebook. 

Broadcast Pix noted that Adams’ career comprises stints as a record label producer; radio talk show and TV host; creative executive at JamtheHype and Black Fuel Music; and manager of business development for Image Technologies and at multiCAM Systems. His behind-the-mic credits include “The Jeff Adams Show,” “The Shannon Burke Show,” “Jeff is Live,” “Broadcast Now,” “NAB Live” and the Facebook Live Streaming Platform BeLive.tv.

Broadcast Pix was founded in 2002 and is based in Chelmsford, Mass. However, Adams will be based in Lakeland, Fla. 

The post Broadcast Pix Names RadioPix Product Manager appeared first on Radio World.

Fig. 1: Dan’s IR SEEK Camera, available from Amazon, Grainger and Allied Electronics.

Dan Grimes handles radio broadcast maintenance for the Southwest Region of Faith Communications Corp. 

Dan recently took advantage of a Telos-sponsored tips webinar provided by the Society of Broadcast Engineers. He picked up on one of the tips provided by Richard Wood, an independent consultant and principal of Resonant Results Ltd. Richard performs infrared camera inspections for all types of facilities, among other services.

In the SBE presentation, I share some of Richard’s photos, showing “hot spots” detected by his inspections. Many of these are at rigid line junctions, or elbows, where a bullet is overheating and ready to fail.

Richard’s service becomes an insurance of sorts for stations that do not want to endure the catastrophic failure of a bullet and transmission line — potentially costing the station tens of thousands of dollars in repairs and lost revenue.

Dan has been performing this maintenance inspection for the Faith Communications Corp. stations for some time. Dan uses both the Seek IR camera and an Etekcity IR gun. His warning is that both instruments can give false results when looking at a brass rigid transmission line.  

The brass is simply an IR reflector, so the reading turns out to be whatever the brass is reflecting. If a cold door is opposite the line, it reads cold. Turn over to the other side where there is a warm transmitter, and it reads hot. 

Fig. 2: (A) Rigid Line Elbow – Angle 1 at filter; (B) the IR image with no tape covering the line; (C) black tape covering the suspect right angle, reducing reflections; (D) the IR image with black tape covering the elbow. Fig. 3: Elbow number 2, measured with the IR temperature gun.

When you have a dilemma, you turn to an expert. In this case, I contacted Richard Wood, who said that false readings are actually common in IR work. The key word is emissivity. 

Richard provided a website that discusses the different reflected versus transmitted values of thermal energy from an object.

Richard added that when he took IR training, they showed how to make a highly reflective object easier to “read.” The trick was — yep, you guessed it — Scotch 33 Tape. You cover the area to be measured with the black tape, and then you measure the object, not the reflected IR value. 

Higher-end cameras allow the operator to adjust the emissity level of the measurement, but I think you’ll find the black tape is less expensive! 

Richard also typically moves around to different angles when testing new transmission lines or highly polished brass and aluminum.

Fig. 4: (A) Angle number 2, with no tape; (B) IR image of the same angle, no tape; (C) angle number 2, showing line covered with black tape; (D) IR image of same — note the “red” temperature not seen in the image with reflections.

Richard pointed out another key feature in any measurement device — the spot size ratio. This is the pattern measurement area at a given distance. Even though there may be a “laser” pointer, that does not mean that that is the only point measured.

So Richard’s suggestion is not to just “point and shoot.” Instead, put Scotch 33 tape on the elbows you want to measure. Then use the thermal gun at the same physical distance point each time. The result will be repeatable values that can be put in a log. An easy way to accomplish this is to tape the line and an X on the floor for the measurement target and send points. 

Dan provided several images to demonstrate this effect “with and without black tape.” The results are seen in Figs. 2, 4 and 5. 

Fig. 5: (A) A third junction to be measured at the bandpass filter; (B) the IR picture of the third junction, with no tape applied to the junction; (C) the third junction with tape applied; (D) the IR image of the third junction, with tape applied — normal temperatures noted.

Richard Wood and Resonant Results can be reached at 1-608-839-3930.

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The SBE membership drive is underway. If you opt for SBE MemberPlus membership, you’ll have access to the library of all SBE webinars — including the Workbench Tips Webinar. 

These webinars are an excellent resource for engineering education — whether you’re new to the industry or an old salt like me, but still learning! 

Head to www.sbe.org for more information.

John Bisset has spent 50 years in the broadcasting industry and is still learning. He handles western U.S. radio sales for the Telos Alliance. He holds CPBE certification with the Society of Broadcast Engineers and is a past recipient of the SBE’s Educator of the Year Award.

The post Prevent False Hot Spot Readings With These Tips appeared first on Radio World.

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Before: WDNP shared the floor with a yoga studio.

WDNP(LP) went on the air in Dover-New Philadelphia, Ohio, on July 13, 2015. Five years later, this little LPFM has continued to grow.

Being in a small market with four commercial stations and two full-power noncoms has been an advantage. The fact that signals from a larger market (Canton and Akron) penetrate the county could have been a little more of a concern; but the initial focus of the station was to fill a void in programming, with the added element of hyperfocus on localism and being a real part of the community. 

This has proven to be the right thing to do as the station holds a 6.1 rating and is near the very top of the 14 rated stations in the market.

That success has translated to strong support not just from underwriters but from listeners, donors and organizations who recognize the station as a nonprofit with a mission to support all the other nonprofits of the area as “their voice.” And to the listeners, DNP 102.3 “sounds” like any full-power station with strong imaging and playing “hits all day, rock all night, and oldies and specialty shows on the weekend.” 

For five years, this slogan (and “your hometown station”) have been the foundation of growth.

GROWING PAINS

The station started as a studio, transmitter “room” (rack in closet with glass door facing the control room), reception area and small office that doubled for editing areas for content). The growth of volunteers and the huge increase in production has taxed the tiny studio and has made it necessary for volunteers to work at midnight or overnight to produce content or even voice-track a show. 

The problem of too many people and too few resources is a nice problem to have! 

The station started the process of improvements two years ago, planning to add an additional production studio, but it quickly became apparent that the community had bigger requests than a single additional studio could support. With this in mind, we took it to “Phase II,” and that would include a major amount of significant upgrades.   

After: Here the new large room can be used as a meeting room.

The upgrades included increasing the office/work area size to accommodate the PD, plus numerous volunteers. And with many guests arriving to be a part of live shows like “Gimme That Shu,” we had to be able to give a good impression to the numerous listeners that were finding their way into our office and studio. 

In addition to the office growth, a production studio (B) would be added along with a multitrack studio (C) for more complex editing and production. The big addition would be the very necessary large space to hold volunteer meetings (which now numbered more than 25 people), but this space would be far more than a meeting area. The new area would be designated the Performance Studio/Conference/Community Room.   

Since DNP has an all-volunteer organization with no paid staff, the board supported the idea of creating space that our small nonprofit could allow other small (or smaller) nonprofits to use at no cost. As a nonprofit, WDNP (or Dover/New Philadelphia Educational Broadcasting) has been fortunate to continue to grow and have great support. It is the intent to share that blessing with other nonprofits who might not have a place where they can meet, so sharing our community room aspect of the performance studio was added.

But that performance studio with a digital multitrack room was going to be pushed even further. In a rural county of about 90,000 people, the station felt that giving local musicians a place to record CDs or even perform live on-the-air would be something that would take DNP to the next level. 

So the design allows musicians to create music. And since DNP wanted to relaunch “Saturday Night Live & Local,” a live music show Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to midnight, creating this new performance space would allow us to do what we couldn’t before, which was to have five or six band members together to perform live. Previously, two or three were in our main studio, and another two or three were miked out in the office with cables running into that studio. The show sounded great, but very difficult to manage in that scenario.

[LPFM operators shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help]

So we cut to where things are today. Over the past few weeks, the remodeling has started and things underway for Phase 2. The office size is increased, new studios framed and insulated and the shell is nearly complete. Drywall is being finished shortly and doors installed.

After: Here the new large room can be used as a meeting room.

To create a broadcast-quality studio, things were done in a less-than-traditional method, yet my own experience working with some incredible people (including acousticians) allowed the design of primary walls between the performance studio and studios B and C to be double walled with mineral wool in each wall, and the walls isolated from each other with foam board between them. Truly, one wall has no contact with the inner wall. As high-priced acoustic doors aren’t possible in a “budget environment,” outdoor doors and windows that are double-paned and insulated with argon-filled gas serve to provide excellent acoustic isolation between areas.

The pictures show the original WDNP and the new DNP with Phase 2. To prep for the necessary cabling, three 2-inch conduits were run inside the interior wall to allow cables to chase above the ceiling. As the ceilings in this original building are 15 feet, a standard height studio allows for six feet of storage above each studio. So in the sound-lock hallway between each studio, a heavy (400-pound rated) pull-down ladder was added. 

To give us a unique and unusual space, the station opted to create a “loft” (of sorts) above Studio C so guests/groupies/friends of bands could actually sit up in that “cozy” area and watch their bands perform … and even be a part of a “live audience.” Later we may add a small spiral staircase up to this loft from the performance studio side of the wall.

What comes next is a split zone, low-noise HVAC system to each studio. I’ve done this before with KERA(FM) in Dallas, and the noise level of these systems is acceptable (and surprisingly quiet) since they use low velocity fans that run very slow and quiet but only ramp up in heavy conditions (still, at a low volume).

HARDWARE

Finally, the equipment! When all the area is fully prepped and HVAC ready, the consideration of adding equipment to Studio B and Studio C made one thing very clear: Staying with traditional point-to-point wired audio consoles (whether analog or digital) made little sense. For only a very slight increase in cost, the station could go full AoIP and network the whole thing, greatly simplifying all aspects of installation.

Which system is still to be determined as there are a number of good manufacturers with excellent products out there. It will need to be something “in our price range,” but that doesn’t exclude much but the highest “major market-type” AoIP systems. With the primary air studio A and the production studio B being AoIP, it will only make sense to take that digital multitrack system into a similar world, so a board like the PreSonus Live32 is being considered. The “musician’s world” includes things not native to radio, like AVB networking, but to interconnect a broadcast AoIP system with a multitrack digital “musician’s mixer/recorder,” the easy answer will simply be to bridge them with their AES digital interfacing to keep everything clean and digital.

There’s still a lot of work to go, but things are looking excellent for the future and growth of this small market station. And weighing in the fact that it’s an LPFM with an ERP of 100 watts makes it an even sweeter success story. The station certainly hopes the FCC considers small rural LPFMs for a future 250-watt upgrade, not necessarily to increase coverage as much as giving a stronger signal in the six miles around the station, featuring  better signal penetration into local factories and offices.

The author is a regular contributor to Radio World. He has written about WDNP(LP) at several stages of its conception, launch and growth.

The post Small Station WDNP(LP) Finds It Needs More Space appeared first on Radio World.

Vibenomics Chief Strategy Officer Paul Brenner has added responsibilities as the Indianapolis-based company’s new president, six months after joining the out-of-home programmatic advertising marketplace. 

Paul Brenner

The company also named Josh Pyne as vice president of ad sales and tapped Brian Liebler to serve as director of national ad sales.

Brenner, former president of NextRadio, will now “own the overall vision and go-to-market strategy for Vibenomics’ audio out-of-home advertising,” according to the press release.

In the announcement, Vibenomics co-founder and CEO Brent Oakley described Brenner as having the “full support of our entire team” during his tenure at the company.

[Vibenomics Launches Audio Out-Of-Home Advertising Marketplace With Brenner at Helm]

In his new role, Pyne will report to Brenner and will oversee Vibenomics’ category direct advertising account executives. Liebler most recently served as VP of U.S. sales for Launchmetrics, after stints as Whisper’s vice president of advertising sales and as ooVoo vice president of advertising sales and business development.

The post Vibenomics Promotes Paul Brenner to President appeared first on Radio World.

The author is digital media instructor/athletics video producer for Morgan County High School.

MADISON, Ga. — Prior to teaching, I was in radio. During that time products from Henry Engineering were everywhere. We used a ton of different tools depending on what we needed and they all seemed to be Henry Engineering. From analog to digital conversion to cough boxes, we used them all.

During a basketball broadcast, my play-by-play guy got choked up a bit and started to cough. Before I could mute his mic (I was producing that game), he snatched his headphones off and started coughing. As you know, there are very few things as startling and amateur sounding as someone taking off a hot headset but when you have to cough, you have no choice. I started researching inexpensive solutions and found more than I bargained for.

Henry Engineering Sports Pod is the solution I needed. The Sports Pod is an “announcer’s mini-console” that gives each announcer control of his (or her) mic and headphones. Each announcer can turn the mic on or off; talk-back to the producer; and custom-mix their headphone audio. Now my talent can not only turn their own microphone on and off but they can communicate with me off air anytime they need do.

[Learn why Henry Sports Pod won a Radio World Cool Stuff Award in 2013.]

Our previous setup required me to turn their microphone off and on as well as mute it to use back channels on the mixer for off-air communication. This is OK 90% of the time but if the talent wants something from the producer, they have to give a visual sign or some other means of communicating. Using the Sports Pod allows my air talent to simply hit the talkback button and ask for a stat or whatever else they may need.

The unit is about the size of a small book and can sit flat or be placed on an angle with the optional desk-mount. The front panel is simple — three buttons (mic on, cough, talkback), two knobs (local and return level controls for headphone mix) and two switches that allow you to choose left, right, or center headphone channels for local and return audio. 

The rear of the unit is a bit more complex but still simple enough to wire correctly in no time. There are two 1/4-inch TRS inputs and two 1/4-inch TRS outputs. The inputs are local headphone audio (main mix from the board) and return feed (IFB for producer audio). The outputs are talkback (off-air communication with producer) and headphones for the talent. There are two XLR connections (input from talent microphone/output to audio mixer). There is also a 12 V power connection on the back.

The Sports Pod as a standalone unit is an incredible asset to our broadcast plan. We are able to have professional-level communication and a simple user interface for our broadcasts. For even more convenience and total audio control, we also use Henry’s SportsCaster, which combines all mixing, headphone audio distribution, and intercom functions into one comprehensive and compact 1-RU system.

The system is easy to set up. There are no problems at all getting it up and running in minutes. Henry now offers a retractable desk stand that can be folded-down for easy transport and storage.

For information, contact Hank Landsberg at Henry Engineering in California at 1-562-493-3589 or visit www.henryeng.com.

The post User Report: Sports Pods Are Ideal for Play-by-Play appeared first on Radio World.

MUNICH — Traffic is a key content in many stations’ schedules. Some stations are renowned for their timely, detailed traffic breaks. Others specifically target motorists driving along a given motorway or within a region. Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting), instead, went a step further with BR Verkehr.

Dominik Einzel, traffic journalist at BR and anchor for Bayern1, in one of BR studios. CREDIT: Dominik Einzel

BR is a public-service radio and television broadcaster, based in Munich, and is a member organization of the ARD consortium of public broadcasters in Germany. They air five radio stations in both FM and DAB, plus five digital-only stations.

FULLY AUTOMATED

As a pioneer of digital radio broadcasts, in 2005 BR began broadcasting a digital-only station — BR Verkehr [BR Traffic] to air traffic information only.

BR Verkehr is a fully automated station. A speech synthesizer “reads” the various traffic news and composes a traffic newscast that lasts a few minutes, depending on the actual number of alerts. The process then restarts from the beginning.

“We have a traffic newsroom where one journalist is on duty 24 hours a day,” said Daniela Rembold, BR Traffic coordinator, “and a second one from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m.. In this newsroom we manage all the traffic information for each of our radio stations, for our website and for our videotext services.”

Daniela Rembold is traffic coordinator at BR. CREDIT: BR / Lisa Hinder/Max Hofstetter

BR receives traffic information and alerts from many sources, including the police, the ADAC [the German automobile club] and the TomTom Traffic service.

One of the two journalists on duty has the task to gather and merge the various pieces of information that arrives from available sources. After having received the information, the journalist identifies the locality of a reported event and double checks the affected area on Google Maps to verify the situation and expected time delays.

The first journalist then composes a traffic alert message, while the second journalist, in the studio, is ready to break-into the current program feed of BR’s station Bayern1 to broadcast severe alerts, like a ghost driver (someone driving in the wrong direction) or animals on the road, as they arrive.

TIMELINESS

“We do not have an approval process on traffic news,” Rembold explains “timeliness is key to us, so we rely on each of our journalists.”

BR’s editors do not forward the received traffic news or alerts as they are. Instead, they optimize the wording in order to ensure that each sentence sounds clear and can be properly understood by listeners.

“Their job is turning the received information into clear, effective and easily understood messages that can successfully reach our audience, as well as our website’s readers,” Rembold added.

Firstly the journalists tailor the message that’ll be broadcast on air, then they prepare a specific version of the same message for BR’s website and for the speech synthesizer process.

The workflow of BR’s traffic newsroom is based on the continuous, automated ingestion of data feeds from trusted sources in the form of TPEG and TMC metadata, while TomTom Traffic has its own proprietary format. A specific software suite turns the received feeds into understandable information.

No manual action is usually required to receive the information. If a reporter finds out about a major accident, they call the police or an involved authority and run a remote interview in order to provide a complete, ongoing picture to their listeners.

Unlike traditional stations, BR Verkehr focuses only on the continuous update of “fresh,” brief and effective news — there is no space for interviews and side information.

EARLY TRIGGER

The user interface of the latest release of the Xebris Flow traffic suite.

In order to check the present conditions of traffic impairments and delays, BR journalists rely on TomTom information and the Floating Car Data service (FCD) from the ADAC. If required, they can also access Google Maps to double check as many details as they can, especially the impact the given event can have on travel times.

Google Maps does not feature a “trigger event,” which can activate a sort of flag to tell reporters that something is happening, like TPEG and TMC metadata do. Since Google Maps can’t prompt editors with pushed alerts or events, reporters need to manually check the Google Maps website for what’s happening at the involved location.

BR’s traffic newsroom relies on the Xebris Flow software suite from Xebris Solutions (an Austria-based IT traffic data management company) to ingest and manage incoming traffic and news reports, as well as to prepare their traffic bulletins.

Anton Fitzthum is business development partner at Xebris Solutions.

Anton Fitzthum, Xebris Solutions business development partner, believes that radio stations can’t rely just on information coming from police departments as an initial trigger for traffic alerts.

“In Germany,” he said “the average delay between the time a police patrol on the road notices an accident and broadcast editors receive the relevant message is between 15 to 20 minutes,” he explained. “So, when the editors get the alert it could be that there is no congestion anymore. Or that maybe the situation has degraded.”

Fitzthum believes the integration of traffic information from TomTom Traffic, Google Maps or other third-party real-time level of service data provider within a broadcasters’ traffic newsroom systems is crucial for consistent early triggers of traffic events.

“Otherwise, even the best designed traffic information newsroom could produce bulletins that are timely with respect to the information received, but dramatically late on real events.”

The post BR Verkehr Puts Focus on Traffic appeared first on Radio World.

The author is the executive director of Radio VOP in Zimbabwe and a fellow at the Center Media Data and Society at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Ensuring diversity in radio broadcasting is crucial for democracy in Africa, as radio remains one of the most popular forms of media. The picture is still patchy. Many African countries have improved significantly. But there are still nations where promoters of radio diversity face an uphill battle.

John Masuku

Marked on the day of 13 February following UNESCO’s designation nine years ago, World Radio Day is “a celebration of the first electronic medium that has, over the decades, remained a powerful medium for connecting people and possessing the potential to reinforce critical governance concerns such as access to information, media diversity and pluralism,” Mirta Lourenço, chief of UNESCO’s Media Development and Society, Communication and Information section said in an interview with Radio World International.

That is especially true in Africa where radio has remained the most popular mass-medium thanks to its adaptability to rapidly changing living conditions on the continent, Zimbabwean academic Winston Mano wrote in a book published in 2011. He attributes radio’s growth to its simplicity, flexibility and easy access.

The sector has been thriving in Africa in recent years, significantly diversifying in terms of ownership, content and access platforms.

DEEPENING DEMOCRACY

Having a diverse radio framework helps deepen democracy, said Lumko Mtimde, former head of the Media Diversity and Development Agency (MDDA) in South Africa.

“The policy, legislative and regulatory framework in South Africa provides a diverse radio industry with three tiers, namely public, private commercial and community radio. This framework defines ownership and control, governance and licensing,” said Mtimde, who also worked for the media regulator in South Africa as well as various community radio associations both national and international including the Canada-headquartered World Association of Community Radio Stations (AMARC). The diversity in the industry also facilitates a more diverse programming structure, he said.

The situation is similar in some other countries, for example Kenya where the market has more than 100 radio stations. Media freedom and civil society activist Grace Githaiga says that “most of them play music, but they have freedom to broadcast any content so long as it does not offend the senses. Some do go overboard especially with content that may be of sexual nature but the regulator has now come up with a code of conduct that outlines the watershed period. Otherwise, stations continue to be licensed without any hindrance.”

“In Africa radio has remained the most popular mass-medium thanks to its adaptability to rapidly changing living conditions on the continent.”

Radio in Ghana is also diverse in terms of output, ownership and even language, according to Atiewin Mbillah-Lawson, a senior broadcast journalist with the privately owned Starr FM. “While some stations aim at attracting youths with good music, witty banter and interviews with trendy celebrities, others focus on news and current affairs programs aimed at promoting good governance, democracy and accountability.”

These radio stations broadcast in English, but also in many local languages like Twi, Ga and Kusaal. Broadcasting in different languages helps include minorities in radio programs, which is a very important aspect of diversity. In South Africa, the public broadcaster SABC broadcasts in 11 languages, says Shepi Mati, journalism lecturer at Rhodes University.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

Wits Radio Academy and community media trainer Jacob Ntshangase says that community radio in particular helped boost the diversity of sector. “People in remote rural communities are now able to listen to news and content that is about them. Radio space is open for anyone to venture into commercial entities at regional level,” he says.

Credit: Lameck Masina

Nevertheless, community radio stations face several challenges. They “sometimes seem to struggle to maintain the initial language conditions of their license due to social mobility and migration,” Mati says. Furthermore, Ntshangase says, some of the founders of various community radio stations “want to turn them into private properties,” which is the perfect diversity-killer recipe.

Dangers remain in other African nations, too. Sam Phiri, a former journalist and media studies lecturer at the University of Zambia, said that in Zambia broadcast diversity “is constrained by its self-proclaimed status of being a Christian nation. For years Muslims have applied for radio broadcast licenses but have never been allowed to broadcast even on the state-owned Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC).” At the same time, Christian stations, run by both the Catholic and Pentecostal churches, strengthened their control over an increasing share of the nation’s airwaves, Phiri added.

LONG WAY TO GO

Still, in some African countries community radio stations are the only media that can offer diverse programming. In eSwatini, formerly Swaziland, Radio Lubombo, the first community radio station in the country, has spent 19 years lobbying heavily to be allowed to register; and still has to apply for a broadcast license to be able to launch broadcasting. Nearly all broadcast media in eSwatini are state-controlled propaganda arms in the service of the King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), an NGO in Zimbabwe, for many years has expressed concerns about the state ownership in most of the country’s radio stations. Zimpapers, a pro-government newspaper company also offers radio and television services. But that is hardly an example of media diversity. The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), the country’s media regulator, has not licensed any community radio station to date.

Mano says: “We have a monolithic radio space which is pro-ruling party. Minorities of languages and other interests are still poorly served. Rural audiences have poor signal and new players are crowded in urban centers.”

The need for diversity in the media is not a new concept in Africa. Media Monitoring South Africa’s Radio News Diversity Project highlighted the importance of media diversity already in 1998. After more than 20 years, diversity of media still has a long way to go in some of Africa’s nations.

John Masuku is a media trainer/writer and has been a radio broadcaster since 1974. He is the Executive Director of Radio VOP in Zimbabwe and a fellow at the Center Media Data and Society at Central European University (CEU), Budapest, Hungary.

This article was first published on Center for Media, Data and Society website.

The post Radio Gains in Diversity in Most of Africa appeared first on Radio World.

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