Industry News

Calling all vinyl aficionados: Apr. 23, 2022, will be the day to celebrate the unique, much-loved and resurging medium known as vinyl. Vinylthon 2022 will feature a full day of vinyl-only broadcasts from stations across the U.S. and around the world.

The nonprofit College Radio Foundation, which is organizing the event, described Vinylthon as the radio industry’s response to the “remarkable vinyl renaissance” that continues around the world. The event is open to all stations both commercial and noncommercial and will raise scholarship funds for students interested in a career in the radio industry.

“This event is a hugely fun day for both listeners and broadcasters alike,” said Vinylthon Founder Rob Quicke, a faculty advisor at WPSC(FM) at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. “People are still very passionate about the magic and warmth of vinyl.”

Over the past 15 years, sales of vinyl have seen steady growth, reaching a “post-Napster high” of $467 million in the first half of 2021, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, despite supply chain shortfalls affecting production. In 2020, vinyl sales overtook CD sales for the first time since the 1980s.

2022 marks the seventh Vinylthon event, with more than 150 radio stations participating in 2021. The event has been supported in the past by music artists such as Andrew Farriss from INXS, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Ritchie Kotzen from Mr. Big and Poison, and Mike Peters from The Alarm.

The event is free for noncommercial radio stations to register; there is a small fee for commercial stations to participate, said Quicke. “Commercial radio stations that participate are paying it forward to the next generation of professional broadcasters, who really need the financial support,” he said.

Stations that air more than 12 hours of vinyl-only recordings during the event will earn the Golden Slipmat Award — a pair of golden slipmats that can be used on turntables or displayed on a studio wall.

“Playing vinyl on the air is an amazing, hands-on experience for many of today’s radio broadcasters, and a trip down memory lane for the listeners,” Quicke said.

The organization has released additional information on the event, including information on registering and a list of participating stations. As of press time, nearly 100 U.S. stations and a dozen international stations had registered.

The post Vinylthon 2022 Honors Warmth, Vitality of Vinyl appeared first on Radio World.

As of today, the Local Radio Freedom Act has the support of 208 House representatives and 24 Senators. While that’s a sign that the resolution has strong support on Capitol Hill, there’s no guarantee that it will get passed by the House or Senate.

Here’s how you can led your support to the LRFA.

If your Congressional representatives are not on this list, we strongly encourage that you take a few minutes and ask them to join in supporting the act. And, if they have already signed on, it wouldn’t hurt to remember what your mother taught you: Say thank you.

Here is a form provided by the NAB that makes it easy to do both. It encourages those in Congress who have yet to add their name to the act to do so and it says thank you to those who have already done that. How easy can that be?

As a reminder, here is a list of the current congressional supporters of the Local Radio Freedom Act.

Click here and do your part for the Local Radio Freedom Act. Your e-mail could be the one that helps enact the Local Radio Freedom Act.

From our People News page: Futuri has created two new positions. Tracy Gilliam was named chief strategy officer, and Todd Storch becomes chief revenue officer.

Futuri offers audience engagement and sales intelligence services for broadcasters and digital publishers, using artificial intelligence and the cloud. Daniel Anstandig is its CEO.

“Gilliam will focus on M&A and strategic growth, as well as further developing Futuri’s client solutions and best-in-class Customer Experience team,” the company wrote.

Futuri in 2015 acquired TopLine Matters, a sales intelligence system Gilliam launched. She also is a former general sales manager for CBS Radio in Los Angeles and VP/market manager for Clear Channel, now iHeartMedia.

“Storch will be responsible for driving Futuri’s continued revenue growth through aligned sales and marketing go-to-market strategies and operational plans for profitable growth,” Futuri wrote.

He is former CEO of Kindrid and Five Star Global, and was SVP, Strategic Initiatives at Ministry Brands. He’s a former VP/senior consultant at The Center for Sales Strategy and co-founder of Taylor’s Gift Foundation.

Send your people news to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Futuri Names Gilliam, Storch to New Roles appeared first on Radio World.

Nexstar Media Inc. has upped a pair of experienced broadcast leaders and current Nexstar executives to the respective roles of VP/GM to the company’s broadcast and digital operations in Peoria, Ill., and in Columbus, Ga.

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Lawo has announced the end of production of its sapphire mixing console.

In an email notice to clients, it said existing users have a window to buy modules and boards through June.

The sapphire was introduced in 2010. “We always aim to maintain availability of our products for as long as possible; however, the discontinuation of key components and other factors inevitably leads to the end of a product’s life,” the company stated.

“Sapphire and Nova17 technology have been at the heart of many of the largest broadcast productions over the last decade. The product family supports many different application scenarios and various types of audio formats, with the introduction of Ravenna connectivity as early as 2012,” it wrote.

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

“With the introduction of the new diamond surface in late 2021, sapphire and its related components approached the end of its life as a mixing console.”

For existing installations that use sapphire modules, Nova17 core and DALLIS Master boards, Lawo is offering a final purchase window until June 30.

“Lawo’s service team will continue to support all sapphire installations based on the final software release for each sapphire module,” it continued.

“Support will be offered according to our terms and conditions of sale; however, due to increasing complexity in supply chain, Lawo’s support team will only be able to service sapphire with components still in stock; supplies of replacement components will be limited to stock on hand. Limited numbers of products for replacement may also be available until end of stock.”

As a product alternative, Lawo suggests its diamond console and Power Core.

The post Lawo Ends Production of Sapphire appeared first on Radio World.

It’s a company offering radio stations products and services products and services designed to increase sales, improve ratings and lower expenses for barter that’s sister to a radio programming syndicator.

As of today, both entities have a new COO. And, it is a 30-year veteran of network radio sales and operations.

Taking the Chief Operating Officer role at Sun & Fun Media and Key Networks is Dennis Green.

He rises from the role of Chief Revenue Officer.

Green will continue to report to Rob Koblasz, Founder and Chief Executive
Officer of Sun & Fun Media and Key Networks and will continue to be based in New
York.

Green joined Sun & Fun Media as Chief Revenue Officer in May 2018 and added Chief
Revenue Officer responsibilities for Key Networks upon the network’s launch in March
2019.

In his new role, Green will oversee operations for Sun & Fun Media’s products
and services for barter to radio and for Key Networks’ portfolio of nationally syndicated
programming and services including Bloomberg Radio, The O’Reilly Update With Bill
O’Reilly, The O’Reilly Update – Morning Edition, Shawn Parr’s Across the Country,
Virtual Jock and other programs.  “Dennis is one of the hardest working people in radio, and we are very pleased to reward his efforts with this much-deserved promotion,” Koblasz said.

Green added, “I’ve been fortunate in my career to work with amazing talent and provide
programming and services for stations. Rob Koblasz gave me an opportunity to build
upon the success at Sun & Fun and to start Key Networks … Thank you to the best-in-class staff we have assembled to help lead the charge to provide best-in-class products and services to affiliates around the country. The best is yet to come.”

Prior to joining Sun & Fun Media and Key Networks, Dennis spent 22 years at Westwood One, where he departed as SVP of Affiliate Sales and Broadcast Operations rising from other affiliate sales roles.

Earlier in his career, Green served as Head of Multimedia Syndication for Bloomberg.

Audience engagement and sales intelligence tech firm Futuri has expanded its leadership team by welcoming a Chief Strategy Officer and, concurrently, a Chief Revenue Officer.

The two individuals are taking roles Futuri says are designed to support its growth and expansion initiatives.

Taking the Chief Strategy Officer role is Tracy Gilliam. In this role, Gilliam will focus on M&A and strategic growth, as well as further developing Futuri’s products and customer experience specialists.

Gilliam is one of Futuri’s founding members, thanks to the company’s acquisition of a sales intelligence system she launched in 2015, TopLine Matters.

The product is now known as TopLine.

Gilliam’s resume includes role as General Sales Manager for CBS Radio in Los Angeles, and as a VP/Market Manager for Clear Channel Communications, today known as iHeartMedia.

Meanwhile, Todd Storch has been named Chief Revenue Officer. Storch will be responsible for driving Futuri’s continued revenue growth through aligned sales and marketing go-to-market strategies and operational plans for profitable growth. He brings more than 25 years of executive business management experience to Futuri, having held CEO roles at Kindrid and Five Star Global, and serving as SVP/Strategic Initiatives at Ministry Brands. He is also a former VP/senior consultant at The Center for Sales Strategy.

Storch also co-founded Taylor’s Gift Foundation, a non-profit organization providing grief support to organ donor families. It was created after the loss of his oldest daughter, Taylor.

Storch and Gilliam report to Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig.

On Tuesday, November 30, 2021, Los Angeles-based U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin gave a big win — or so it seemed — to one of the world’s biggest Quick Service Restaurant brands, McDonald’s.

In a six-page order, Olguin moved forward with McDonald’s Corporation’s Motion to Dismiss a racial discrimination case filed against the company by the Byron Allen-led Entertainment Studios Networks Inc. But, the judge left the door open for ES to file a Second Amended Complaint.

Allen’s team moved forward with doing so. A second Motion to Dismiss was filed by McDonald’s attorneys. Olguin has now denied that second motion.

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It’s known across the radio industry for its compliance and content distribution software that provides stations products designed to reach total ad accountability.

Now, it is joining a portfolio of media companies including vCreative and Counterpoint Software.

In an announcement released Tuesday (1/25), Banyan Software Inc. revealed that it has purchased Mr. Master Inc.

Terms of the deal, including the price, were not disclosed.

However, Banyan notes that it “employs a decentralized management philosophy, allowing Mr. Master to operate independently and continue the successful practices that led to Banyan’s acquisition interest.”

Mr. Master products include Automation Import Manager (AIM) software, which processes more than 1 million spots each week in addition to short and long-form programming for the radio industry.

“The Mr. Master team has deep, network radio software expertise and has spent over two
decades developing market leading products that serve the unique needs of its long-standing customers,” said David Berkal, CEO of Banyan Software. “We are excited to welcome Mr. Master into the Banyan family of companies and look forward to supporting the company’s future growth in the coming years.”

Mr. Master was founded by President Stu Jacobs. He commented, “We have a great team and product that radio has embraced as its go-to traffic and production workflow solution and partnering with Banyan marks an exciting new chapter in our journey.”

Jacobs is remaining in his role as CEO and will work alongside Banyan.

Mr. Master’s client roster includes iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media, Townsquare Media, Audacy Inc. and Cox Media Group.

As of today, the U.S. television industry has “one-stop access” to patents that are essential to the next generation broadcast standard developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC).

Now available: the ATSC 3.0 Patent Portfolio License, courtesy of MPEG LA.

“As a convenience to ATSC 3.0 implementers and the potential that ATSC 3.0 brings to market, our ATSC 3.0 License will continue MPEG LA’s rich and reliable tradition of addressing the market’s need for transactional efficiency and predictability in accessing necessary intellectual property rights owned by many different organizations under a single license,” says MPEG LA President/CEO Larry Horn. “We are especially proud to be joined in this effort by leading ATSC 3.0 developers from all over the world.”

The initial patent owners to MPEG LA’s ATSC 3.0 License are CableTelevision Laboratories, Inc.; Cerinet USA Inc.; Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC), part of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada; Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation; Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.; Koninklijke KPN N.V.; Koninklijke Philips N.V.; NEC Corporation; Nippon Hoso Kyokai; ONE Media, LLC; Panasonic Corporation; Shanghai National Engineering Research Center of Digital Television Co., Ltd (NERC-DTV); and Sun Patent Trust.

ONE Media, the joint venture between Sinclair Broadcast Group  and Coherent Logix and one of the primary architects of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard, applauded the formation of the ATSC 3.0 Patent Pool by MPEG LA. As ONE Media sees it, “formation of the pool will dramatically simplify the efficient licensing of the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology in multiple-receive devices, easing the distribution and deployment process.”

Patent pools provide for a consortium of companies agreeing to combine related intellectual property and offer “one-stop licensing” to vendors that want to include the technology in their equipment for sale to the public. MPEG LA is a pioneer in the formation and management of these types of pools, ONE Media notes. It adds that ATSC 3.0 is an ideal candidate for such pooling. Multiple companies have “standard essential patents” necessary for vendors to offer the advanced services in their equipment, ONE Media notes.

The ATSC 3.0 Patent Portfolio License and a summary of the License terms may be obtained here.