Industry News

Who Are Radio and Television’s IT and engineering leaders? It’s Your Decision

 

From Chief Technology Officers to Chief Information Officers, these broadcast media leaders are more essential than ever.

 

From cybersecurity to essential systems operations and tech innovations, these individuals are often overlooked for their triumphs and accomplishments. RBR+TVBR now recognizes these leaders for the first time, with input from you — industry leaders and peers who fully understand the leadership these tech-savvy executives bring to the entire organization. Please take a moment to select the first-ever honor roll saluting Broadcast Media’s Top Tech Leaders. You may select from among our honorees, or offer your own nominee. This is a reader-generated ranked honor roll — the voting is in your hands. Broadcast Media’s Top Tech Leaders will be honored for their achievements and overall contributions to the U.S. broadcast media business. Who’s made the list, and where they rank, will be revealed in RBR+TVBR’s Winter 2021/2022 Special Edition. It’s an all-new technology-focused report, distributed January 24, 2022. Make your nomination today for Broadcast Media’s Top Tech Leaders! To make your nomination, please follow RBR+TVBR’s guidelines: 1. The persons you nominate must be presently active in the areas of broadcast radio or TV station IT, technology, or engineering serving the U.S. marketplace.
2. DON’T WAIT! You may make up to three nominations by our deadline of Friday, December 10, 2021, at 5pm Eastern Time Please fill out only one ballot. Duplicate ballots associated with the same individual will be disqualified.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Copyright Royalty Judges have made a cost of living adjustment to the royalty rate that non-NPR Member noncommercial radio stations “at certain colleges, universities, and other educational institutions” must pay for the use in 2022 of published nondramatic musical compositions in the SESAC repertory — pursuant to the statutory license under the Copyright Act for noncommercial broadcasting.

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For nearly seven years, she served as GM of WXIX-19, the FOX affiliate in Cincinnati owned by Gray Television. On December 1, she will return to Arizona, where she once headed KOLD-13 in Tucson under Raycom Media, to serve as the new GM of KPHO-5, the CBS affiliate, and “Arizona’s Family,” KTVK-3 in Phoenix once Gray closes on its acquisition of Meredith Corporation.

With Debbie Bush leaving “FOX 19,” a need for a replacement arose. Gray has now stated who will succeed Bush when she starts her new role in Arizona on or about December 1.

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IBC has announced its decision to cancel the in-person event for 2021.

In a statement, the show’s organizers said the move follows growing concerns about the Covid-19 situation in the Netherlands, which has deteriorated over the past week, along with feedback from the IBC exhibitor and visitor community.

“The IBC Partnership Board made the decision today in order to prevent exhibitors and visitors from travelling to the Netherlands,” added the statement.

The event will still take place digitally via IBC digital.

IBC 2021 was due to take place Dec. 3–6 in Amsterdam. However, earlier this month the Dutch government announced it was instigating a three-week partial lockdown, which is due to be revisited on Dec. 3.

However, the Dutch government reported 153,957 new cases of coronavirus were registered during the week from Nov. 17–23, a new record and a rise of 39 percent over last week.

A version of this article originally appeared on our sister website TVBEurope.

The post IBC Cancels In-Person Event appeared first on Radio World.

With the goal of reuniting injured service members with their families for the holidays, San Diego radio stations helped a local fundraising organization raise more than $1.4 million.

iHeartMedia San Diego station 760 KGB(AM) helped raise $1,455,471 (and counting) alongside sister station NewsRadio 600 KOGO(AM).

The annual Give-a-Thon supports the Warrior Foundation Freedom Station, which first joined forces with KGO in 2004. Back then KGO asked its listeners to donate shaving razors for holiday gift bags being distributed to soldiers recovering at Naval Medical Center San Diego. Since then, it has grown into an annual fundraiser supported by local radio and TV stations. In addition to flying service members home for the holidays, the organization helps sailors and soldiers as they face the challenges of recovery, rehabilitation and transition from military service to civilian life.

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The amount the stations were able to help raise this year is a testament to the power of San Diego radio and its listeners, as well as the reach of Armstrong & Getty, the station’s morning show personalities, said Melissa Forrest, president and market manager for iHeart San Diego.

The support the foundation provides is a gift that troops will remember, said Sandy Lehmkuhler, CEO and founder of the Warrior Foundation Freedom Station. Lehmkuhler founded the organization after volunteering at the naval hospital where she saw how injured troops often lacked many basic items.

“By shining a spotlight on our warriors, and their brave struggles with the visible and invisible wounds of war, [these San Diego stations] rallied the support of thousands of people to fly our heroes home for the holidays,” she said. “It’s a gift our troops will remember forever.”

Submit news about your event to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post San Diego AMs Help Raise $1.4 Million for Troops appeared first on Radio World.

With the number of high-profile companies withdrawing from in-person expo booth experiences at IBC2021 in Amsterdam, set for December 3-6, Digital Nirvana had confirmed that it is staying the course and will move ahead with a display highlighting its broadcast captioning and metadata generation products.

At IBC2021, Digital Nirvana was to be present at Stand 7.A08. There, the company planned to show off its Trance cloud-based transcription, captioning, and translation workflow; highlight the newest updates to MetadataIQ, its SaaS-based metadata-generation platform; and MonitorIQ, an AI-driven compliance logging and monitoring tool.

Now, Digital Nirvana will be using alternative methods for sharing news on its products.

MonitorIQ 8.0 is the newest version of Digital Nirvana’s AI-driven compliance logging and monitoring tool, which integrates with its Media Services Portal. MonitorIQ allows operators to record, store, monitor, analyze, and repurpose content. “Users can view live or recorded content across hundreds of channels from desktop and mobile devices in any remote location worldwide for instant recall of proof of performance, compliance, or ad placement,” Digital Nirvana says.

Natively recording content from any point in the video delivery chain, from distribution (SDI) to consumption (OTT and STB), MonitorIQ enables broadcasters to collect and use knowledge about their broadcast content to meet a wide range of regulatory and compliance requirements.

NEW YORK — With vendors saying no to Amsterdam in two weeks, others are saying yes to the Big Apple, as TE1 and TE2 DSP engines and remote production products from Solid State Logic (SSL) will be among the wares on display at the Sports Video Group (SVG) Summit.

The event is scheduled for December 12-13 and will be held at the New York Hilton. And, SSL’s presence there coincides with its decision to rejoin the Sports Video Group, an industry organization supporting the sports broadcast community since 2006.

Nigel Beaumont, Managing Director of Solid State Logic, commented, “SSL thought it was the right time to return to SVG, both in terms of our new product and technology offerings and in light of the very encouraging state of the sports broadcast industry at large. We look forward to seeing everyone in New York.”

Unlike other locales, the City of New York strictly enforces COVID-19 vaccination in nearly all large indoor areas, from Midtown Manhattan pubs to the Harvard Club, site of last week’s highly successful Forecast conference staged by Radio + Television Business Report and Radio Ink.

During the SVG Summit, SSL will be showcasing its AoIP based broadcast production solutions, including new System T V3.1 software, which introduces pay-as-you-go DSP licensing via new TE1 and TE2 Tempest Engines.

This, SSL says, allows broadcasters to flexibly scale processing capabilities according to broadcast production requirements. In addition to the new Tempest Engines, attendees will get the opportunity to learn how System T users “are taking advantage of ahead-of-the-curve decentralized production capabilities, large-scale remote production solutions and multi-operator workflows, all the way to easily managing ‘at home’ requirements.”

To find out more or book a consultation at SVG Summit, please visit the SSL Events Page. To learn more about SSL’s broadcast solutions, including its new DSP Tempest Engines, please visit the company’s broadcast audio page.

VIDAA and Intertrust ExpressPlay have confirmed the availability of VIDAA SMART OS-powered Hisense smart TVs preloaded with Intertrust’s ExpressPlay XCATM content security for broadcast TV protection.

This, the companies says, brings secure direct-to-TV broadcasting using a cloud-based content protection product that meets the requirements of premium content owners without requiring additional consumer devices such as set-top boxes (STB) or conditional access modules (CAM).

Based on the open-standard Marlin DRM technology, ExpressPlay XCA is a cloud-based broadcast security product that pre-integrates the XCA client into Hisense smart TVs that support the security requirements for all types of broadcast TV delivery.

Importantly, it meets the Enhanced Content Protection requirements from MovieLabs including Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) and Secure Video Path (SVP).

And, the companies say, it enables satellite, cable, and IPTV operators to adopt a converged security strategy to deliver premium/UHD content directly to smart TVs without the need for additional consumer premise equipment.

VIDAA SMART OS is a Linux-based operating system that provides consumers with a full suite of smart TV features as well as linear and streaming content options with more than 200 fully integrated apps.

By transitioning content protection functionality from external devices to smart TVs, ExpressPlay XCA plugs the HDMI security vulnerability exploited by so-called HDMI strippers. These devices, which illegally circumvent the content protection between a receiver and TV set, are now useless since the content remains encrypted until it reaches the SoC built into the smart TV where it is safely decrypted in a controlled environment. This protects revenue for both rights holders and video service providers.

ExpressPlay XCA is a key component of the ExpressPlay Media Security Suite, which also includes a cloud-based and studio-trusted multi-DRM service, comprehensive anti-piracy services, and an offline multi-DRM platform.

Deployed in both IP and SDI broadcast workflows, Imagine Communications’ Selenio Network Processor (SNP) has added new software features that the company believes “enhance customers’ existing investments, driving further efficiencies in production, playout and distribution architectures.”

Imagine’s SNP video and audio processor platform boasts a software-based architecture, allowing it to deliver “all the functionality of a traditional modular processor chassis, but in an infinitely flexible, instantly reconfigurable form,” the company notes.

The latest major software releases add several important new software capabilities, Imagine adds. This includes JPEG XS encoding and decoding; an automated changeover switch (ACO); an advanced keyer (DSK); and additional audio management capabilities.

“These new personalities can be enabled on any SNP in the field, and all take advantage of the core processing of the SNP, including the ability to easily combine HD and UHD, SDR and HDR, and SDI and IP connectivity,” the company notes.

JPEG XS is a transformational codec, offering typical compression ratios between 5:1 and 20:1. It can also be used as an on-ramp and off-ramp to cloud-based production. The JPEG XS codec will be available as an SNP software personality at resolutions up to UHD/4K (and HDR). The user can tailor the bits-per-pixel (coding rate) for the specifics of the application; Imagine is also working with leading cloud providers to create ground-to-cloud connections.

Available in the latest SNP release is an automatic changeover switch (ACO), which uses content-aware metrics to determine the health of each feed.

A downstream keyer (DSK) is also being added to SNP’s capabilities. This offers four layers of keying and supports UHD/4K and HDR, using external and internal keys. The feature supports graphics sequencing and animations, and it uses SNP core functionality to allow mixed IP and SDI inputs and outputs.

The latest SNP release adds support for up to 16 audio channels within each audio stream (across all personalities). Imagine has also upgraded the SNP’s audio shuffling and remapping capabilities to allow more complex audio channel mapping amongst the MADI, embedded, and IP inputs and outputs.

In addition, the latest release brings significant enhancements to the SNP-MV production multiviewer personality, including caption/subtitle rendering and a large set of new on-screen indicators and alarms.

The first of these new SNP personalities and features are now available for ordering, and upcoming features will roll out in phases over the upcoming months.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Leadership changes have been announced for two key working groups of the National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC), a technical standards-setting body co-sponsored by National Association of Broadcasters and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).

Alan Jurison, Senior Operations Engineer for Engineering and Systems Integration at iHeartMedia, will chair the NRSC’s IBOC Standards Development Working Group (ISDWG).

ISDWG is a sub-group of the Digital Radio Broadcasting (DRB) Subcommittee, which is co-chaired by E. Glynn Walden, consultant to Audacy, and Jackson Wang, President of e-Radio Inc.

Jurison is vacating his current position as chair of the NRSC’s Metadata Usage Working Group (MUWG) where he has served since 2012. Current activities of the ISDWG include development of an NRSC Guideline for all-digital AM radio stations and updating the NRSC-5 digital radio standard – the technical standards expression of Xperi’s HD Radio digital radio system – a task undertaken by the group every five years.

“Having Alan as the new ISDWG chair is a great development,” Walden said. “Alan has been a major contributor to NRSC technical documents and done an outstanding job at the helm of the MUWG. With the NRSC-5 review upcoming, Alan and his group have their work cut out for them.”

David Bialik, a systems engineering consultant, will be the new chair of the MUWG, a sub-group of the Data Services and Metadata (DSM) Subcommittee which is chaired by New York Public Radio Chief Technology Officer Steve Shultis. David’s initial project as group chair is to lead the development of NRSC-G304, Metadata for Streaming Audio Guideline.

“David’s expertise in the area of streaming for broadcast audio will be put to good use as the new chair of the MUWG,” commented DSM Subcommittee chair Shultis. “Radio broadcasters rely increasingly upon their audio streams and the NRSC is eager to help develop better standards in this area.”