Industry News

He’s the head of Forever Communications and once was known for his role leading Keymarket Communications.

Now, he’s giving a sizable sum to a Pennsylvania private university for the creation of a state-of-the-art media center for students aspiring to achieve success in the fields of radio, video, podcasts, live streaming, and other forms of broadcasting.

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In a deal that’s just been consummated and filed for approval with the Commission, Salem Media Group is adding to its properties in Tampa-St. Petersburg by agreeing to acquire a Class B AM radio station in the market.

The facility, licensed to Brandon, Fla., will help Salem bring a third radio brand to the second-largest market in the Sunshine State. It comes with an FM translator.

And, if these call letters sound familiar, it is because Salem spun the AM and FM translator to this party just two years ago.

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A Class A digital TV station serving the Nation’s Capital, owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, has deployed NEXTGEN broadcast transmissions, making it the first facility in the market that’s home to the FCC.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — As previously reported, the filing window for applications for new noncommercial educational FM new station construction permits closed on November 9.

Some 1,282 applications were received; all were reviewed to identify singletons — applications that are not mutually exclusive with any other application filed in the window and can be accepted for filing. Some had defects, the Media Bureau says. And, those defective singleton applications have been dismissed.

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“The reality is: It’s hard out there for broadcasters.”

So said FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington, speaking to a meeting of the Ohio Association of Broadcasters.

For the second time in a month, the Republican commissioner made public remarks that were notably sympathetic to radio and TV companies and their struggles when competing with big tech.

“Consider, you know, the smaller broadcasters. The folks who have one, two, or half a dozen stations. Consider how difficult it is for them to achieve efficiencies of scale — consider what their margins look like because they’re smaller operators. Now, is there a single online video platform that is a mom-and-pop operation? Of course not! Every single one is either backed by a massive tech platform, deep-pocketed venture capitalists, or a major network. If not, it’s out of business in a year. …

“Those platforms are competing with mom and pop broadcasters — or, shoot, even established station groups — with operating efficiencies, margins and capital markets backing of which broadcasters dare not dream,” Simington continued.

“Can we seriously think, at this moment, with the arrows pointing in the directions that they are, that we should be making it harder for these small, regulated entities to operate? You are all already burdened by a raft of regulations designed for a bygone era while your insurgent online competitors have functionally none of the same constraints. Should we now turn the screw?”

[See more of our coverage of the FCC.]

Simington noted that the FCC will soon again consider media regulation in a quadrennial proceeding. Echoing frequent arguments made by the NAB about how the commission defines broadcasters’ marketplace, Simingon said that the commission needs to recognize that online media platforms are growing rapidly “and threaten dominance over traditional media platforms,” and that “broadcast advertising revenue has flatlined, having been siphoned off from higher margin online platforms.”

The commissioner said he is “not necessarily” arguing for more regulation of big tech — “Not everything is a regulatory problem. Maybe this one is. I don’t know” — but he said regulators need to be “clear-eyed about where the power has shifted. It is away from broadcasters. Away from networks. Even away from traditional MVPDs. And toward online platforms. And if we are going to talk about serving as a check against uncontrolled concentration of media power that is presumably antithetical to consumer welfare — well. The conversation need not end at online platforms, but it must at least start with them.”

His full text is posted.

Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Simington: Don’t Turn the Screw on Broadcasters appeared first on Radio World.

In August, the NAB; Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC); and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging a FCC order mandating disclosures for foreign government-sponsored programming.

On Wednesday (12/8) the FCC’s Media Bureau, led by Michelle Carey, issued an Order denying a stay petition filed by the three groups — a move that only furthers growing tension between the nation’s largest broadcast media advocacy group and the agency now officially led by Jessica Rosenworcel.

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Read about all the products nominated for our awards program, including the Radio World winners announced in the fall of 2021.

This is the award program that normally is held at the spring NAB Show, which was postponed to this fall and later cancelled.

The guide is a great way to catch up on the new products of 2022 across radio and related industries.

The post Best in Market 2021 Program Guide appeared first on Radio World.

In what some may call a direct admonition of Elliot Evers‘ “CXR Radio Station Trust” and its lobbying efforts to the FCC conducted by respected communications attorney David Oxenford, the Chief of the Media Bureau has ordered the divestment of two FM radio stations in Florida to transpire no more than 60 days past the current deadline date of December 17.

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Colleagues are remembering Texas-based radio engineer Gary Wachter, who died in November. He was 65.

According to his friend and fellow engineer Melissa Hussel, Wachter had carcinoma cancer and died at home. He is survived by his son, Matt, of South Carolina.

Wachter was chief engineer of Service Broadcasting in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and a familiar face at SBE Chapter 67 meetings.

Hussel said Wachter, whose mother was a German citizen, was born in Waco but spent part of his childhood in Germany. He remembered hanging around the projector booth of the movie theater on a military base, fascinated by the carbon arc projectors; late in life he would find enough parts to make his own at home.

Back in the United States Wachter entered the radio business in high school and was on the air in Corpus Christi using the name Wires Wachter; he worked at KEYS(AM) and KRYS(AM) as well as the local PBS station.

Discovering he enjoyed technical work more, he took an engineering job at KTSA(AM) in San Antonio around 1976, working there until 1984 as chief engineer, a stint that included a full studio buildout and installation of a Kahn AM stereo system. Subsequently he worked as chief at KFYI(AM) and KKFR(FM) in Phoenix, where he built out studios in a former TV station.

Around 2000 he came to Dallas and started as chief at Service Broadcasting, which owns KKDA(AM/FM) and KRNB(FM) nearby. Wachter led a facility move from Grand Prairie to Arlington, Texas, that involved another studio buildout, and handled an FM antenna upgrade for KRNB.

“He was very driven,” she said. “A fellow engineer once said that his transmitter suite was ‘so clean, you could eat off the floor,’ and he wasn’t wrong. Gary had a high work ethic, and always went above and beyond.”

Colleague and longtime friend Mike Chittenden said Wachter also wrote a software program for a Gentner VRC transmitter remote control and a screener program for Telos phone systems.

Messages to his family can be posted at the website of Rolling Oaks Funeral Home.

The post Gary Wachter Dies, Engineer in Southwest U.S. appeared first on Radio World.

All those forms — long and short, pre- and post-auction — must be filed on time when applying for a new construction permit with the Federal Communications Commission.

That’s the situation a licensee finds itself in after applying for a new FM broadcast construction permit in Hugo, Colo.

ScarboroughRadio LLC took part in the July auction (known as Auction 109) and was deemed to be a winning bidder of the Hugo permit. Winning bidders were required to file a post-auction long-form application — specifically FCC Form 2100, Schedule 301. And bidders were reminded through a Public Notice that if a winning bidder fails to submit the required application before the deadline — and also fails to establish a good reason for the delay — their application will be dismissed and they will be subject to a forfeiture payment.

In Scarborough’s case, it submitted its long-form application more than two weeks past the deadline, according to the FCC. It also did not request any sort of waiver to explain the late filing.

As a result, the Media Bureau sent a notice of apparent liability for forfeiture to Scarborough after finding that the licensee violated the FCC rules by failing to file the post-auction Form 2100 application on time.

[See more of our coverage of FCC actions.]

Ordinarily, as the Media Bureau has said, a winning bidder that fails to file the required long-form application on time is deemed to be in default. That typically means that the application is dismissed and the licensee is subject to payments laid out in the commission’s rules.

But sometimes special circumstances might lead the bureau to determine that a late-filed application can still be accepted. In this case, the bureau noted that Scarborough complied with all previous Auction 109 requirements. The bureau also noted that the licensee made a late payment on the balance of its auction bid just before filing its long-form application. And it said that the FM licensing process was not significantly delayed by Scarborough’s late filing.

“We find it in the public interest to avoid a delay in implementing new service to Hugo, Colo., by having to re-auction the FM construction permit, and therefore on our own motion grant a waiver as discussed below,” the bureau said in the order it released.

However, even though the commission agreed to accept the late-filed long-form application, the bureau still found that Scarborough failed to comply with the rules and said it would grant the construction application on the premise that Scarborough will submit a $3,000 forfeiture.

The licensee has 30 days to either pay or file a written statement seeking reduction or cancellation.

Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Late Form Leads to $3,000 Forfeiture for Auction Winner appeared first on Radio World.