Industry News

At Spot TV, GEICO is most certainly one of the stalwarts with respect to ad activity by commercial count.

Indeed, it is No. 2 for the week ending December 27. But, there’s a big new No. 1, and it is a germ-fighting brand.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

RBR+TVBR EXCLUSIVE

Gene Loving has enjoyed a remarkable career in radio broadcasting. In the 1960s, his syndicated interviews with The Beatles could be heard on stations across the U.S., as he attracted big audiences for his daily radio program at WGH-AM 1310 in Norfolk.

In 1991, he co-founded the original Max Media Properties, and its current incarnation dates to 2001, when Loving teamed with local TV sales veteran John Trinder and the late Chuck McFadden — a former GM of WTVZ-TV in Norfolk — to build a company that today includes radio stations in the Tidewater region, including WGH.

Now, the ownership partners are shifting at Max, with Loving gaining a greater stake in the company.

It’s thanks, in part, to the departure of a key institutional investor.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

It was a largely expected deal. Still, the Media Bureau of the FCC used the time-honored tactic of burying big news before a major holiday to tell the world of its decision.

It has given its OK to a transaction that will see a global private investment firm and a related media-focused operating and investment company take majority ownership interest in the biggest multimedia company targeting U.S. Hispanics.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

A radio industry notable has moved forward in forming a “SPAC” focused on sports media. It is an effort sparked by the man who once owned the Seattle Mariners Baseball Club.

But, it also involves the man who serves as President/COO of the company this industry leader founded in 1979, and three board members.

Among those board members: the former head of ESPN Audio, Traug Keller.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

For those who were raised in Upstate New York, SPAC is shorthand for a popular outdoor concert venue in Saratoga Springs. On Wall Street, a “SPAC” is shorthand for a “Special Purpose Acquisition Company” — like the one Cumulus Media co-founder Lew Dickey Jr. created for an early 2019 merger with international digital music streaming platform Akazoo.

Now, another radio industry notable of the last 25 years has moved forward in forming a “SPAC” focused on sports media. It is an effort sparked by the man who once owned the Seattle Mariners Baseball Club.

BE SURE TO ‘LIKE’ RBR+TVBR ON FACEBOOK!

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

For years, it was safe to say that GEICO was the biggest user of broadcast and cable to reach consumers, given their dominance at spot radio, spot cable and spot TV according to Media Monitors. That’s not true today, as one of its auto insurance competitors has surged to the top of the latest Spot Radio report.

As shown below, State Farm is the big leader at Spot Radio, and accounts for a stunning 94,230 spot plays.

By comparison, GEICO is ranked No. 8 for the week ending December 27, with some 45,757 spot plays detected. That puts GEICO slightly below Progressive in an ever-competitive brand category.

While State Farm is firmly ensconced at the top, Bank of America and Merrill are again major users of spot radio, as is Pfizer — the maker of one of two approved COVID-19 vaccines.

An AM/FM combo serving Minot, N.D., has been involuntary placed into an estate administered by Virginia-based attorney Todd Steiner, following the recent death of the stations’ licensee.

The estate is being led by the deceased owner’s son, who continues to manage business affairs of the properties.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

A Class B AM licensed to Salt Lake City, and an unbuilt FM translator at 94.5 MHz in Draper, Utah, are among the assets that have been licensed to Vic Michael. He’s been trading translators across Hawaii and the Southwestern U.S. over the last several months, and Michael is at it again.

This time, it sees his Utah LMA partner converting its operation to a purchase.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

The idea of a broadcast engineer totally retiring does not seem to be working out for me.

I tell everyone I am semi-retired. The theory is to be able to find a few small side jobs to just make a little “mad money” using the skills acquired through a decades-long career. 

But the last few months have demonstrated how this theory never seems to quite work out. 

I live in rural Colorado, about 15 minutes from a four-station FM transmitter site. For them, the nearest unretired engineer is over an hour away.

I’ve just finished installing two transmitters there for K-LOVE/Air1. In the process I learned that fluid-cooled transmitters are not just for huge markets and installed on skyscrapers. This was one of the most complex installs that I have worked on, and the finished project seems like a new level of quality — 35 kW and 10 kW, so clean and quiet they seem unreal.

Just as I was completing the transmitter project and thinking of relaxing again, I got a text from the manager of a college radio station where I have a support contract. Turns out they got funding and had taken delivery of two Wheatstone control surfaces, blades and Cisco switches.

My experience is with small stations that owned good control boards, but nothing IP-based. So it looks like have some learning to do, as this next project gets underway.

If I really wanted to enjoy being semi-retired I guess I should have just gone back and taken a part-time job where I worked in college. Too bad there aren’t many RadioShacks left; that would have been the retirement job for me. 

Radio World welcomes letters to the editor at radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Letter: This Is Retirement? appeared first on Radio World.

The author is Colorado field engineer for Educational Media Foundation.

PUEBLO, Colo. — Educational Media Foundation is most often identified with its growing K-LOVE and Air1 brands, which today represent the largest contemporary Christian music radio networks in the United States.

EMF has provided a presence for both networks in Colorado through the acquisitions of KLCX(FM) and KWRY(FM), serving the Pueblo market and surrounding regions.

The acquisitions happened at different times, but both stations have long been combined into a common antenna. That antenna originally was designed to accommodate 104.9 and 107.9 MHz. KLCX broadcasts K-LOVE on 106.9 MHz, and KWRY carries the Air1 format on 104.9. Unfortunately, 106.9 MHz was not in the frequency range of the original design.

There were other concerns with the existing antenna, including its lack of protection against icing and other weather. The transmitter site is about 30 miles southwest of Pueblo in a mountainous area, so ice would often detune the antenna and raise VSWR levels, reducing coverage.

Following a severe system failure, we reached out to Dielectric for help, which led to the purchase and installation of a Dielectric DCR-M antenna and two-station combiner. In the months since installation of the antenna, combiner and two new transmitters, the new RF systems have eliminated all existing problems while strengthening our signal coverage.

The DCR-M model is a center-fed, eight-bay antenna with an omnidirectional pattern. The antenna design has unique attributes to meet the weight and wind load limitations of our tower. A typical two-station antenna uses half-wavelength bay spacing, which would have required 16 bays to produce the appropriate antenna gain and 100 kW ERP with a 30 kW transmitter. The 16-bay antenna loading would not have been a solution for the current tower without significant tower modifications.

Dielectric solved this problem by spacing the antenna bays at an approximate 0.92 wavelength, which allows the 100 kW ERP to be produced with a lighter eight-bay design.

Dielectric’s “funky elbow” design maintains the full-wavelength electrical spacing between the antenna bays while allowing the physical spacing to be reduced, resulting in near full-wavelength bay spacing antenna gain. It also simultaneously reduces the RF radiation on the ground, which was a concern given the tower’s proximity to walking trails, campsites and wildlife.

The antenna also includes a “fine matcher,” which allowed for easy adjustments of the antenna system’s input impedance upon installation on the tower.

Galvanized Endeavors of Colorado Springs handled the DCR-M installation, as well as removal of the old antenna and damaged transmission line. The new antenna mount and transmission line were put into place, and the antenna was installed on the tower with its center of radiation positioned at 163 feet above ground level.

Given that the site elevation is at 8,350 feet above sea level, the antenna is prone to very heavy winds (often above 100 mph) and a consistent 20-to-30-inch snowpack in the colder months.

These weather conditions truly require antenna protection, and Dielectric’s antenna radome design has already delivered. We experienced a hefty snowstorm in October, which left several inches of ice and snow on all surrounding structures. The antenna was white from top to bottom, yet the radomes offered full protection from the wintry conditions. The antenna remained in tune, and with no change to VWSR levels, which remained steady between 1:05 and 1:08 across both station frequencies.

Inside the transmitter building, the Dielectric two-station combiner is properly matched to both the transmission frequencies and the transmitter power output. This means the combined signals are sent to the antenna with the right amount of power with minimal loss and a proper safety margin — all while meeting the mask requirements. The combiner properly prevents intermodulation issues from the two signals mixing along the path.

Even though the transmitter site’s mountain elevation required the RF components to be derated for altitude, Dielectric’s modern combiner design is compact, and the new system opens up a great deal of interior building space.

As this is a shared space, floor space is at a premium. The new combiner fits comfortably in the building, which allows us to make the most efficient rigid transmission line run possible — a perfect convergence point with the antenna feedline coming into the building. The location of the combiner means I can access the rear of my transmitters and audio racks comfortably to perform maintenance.

Two months in, the new Dielectric system has exceeded our expectations performance-wise, while providing a robust and reliable solution which has simplified our lives in engineering.

Radio World User Reports are testimonial articles intended to help readers understand why a colleague chose a particular product to solve a technical situation.

For information about this product, contact Jay Martin (United States) at +1-207-655-8138 or John Macdonald (international) at Dielectric at 1-239-272-5962 or visit www.dielectric.com.

The post User Report: Dielectric Innovates for EMF Colorado appeared first on Radio World.