Industry News

The author is membership program director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. NFCB commentaries are featured regularly at www.radioworld.com.

Reflecting on the year as it winds down, 2020 has been a year of many challenges. It has also been a time to appreciate our medium of radio as a uniter, when so much seems deeply divided. It’s also a time to rally to community media’s aid.

In August, Pew Research identified many trust gaps in media. No more than half of respondents have confidence in journalists act in the best interests of the public. An equal number think that other Americans have no confidence in the institution either. However, fully 75% still believe it is possible to improve Americans’ relationship with the media.

Surely more than a bit of distrust is driven by the commercial television news cycle. Columbia Journalism Review is among many media watchers to decry cable TV networks’ obsession with outgoing Pres. Donald Trump. Negative coverage, or stories that seem calculated to spark anger, fear or other emotions aimed at keeping people tuned in are central to the charge. Former MSNBC producer Ariana Pekary wrote of how one TV executive called their field a cancer. “As it is, this cancer stokes national division, even in the middle of a civil rights crisis,” Pekary reflected over the summer. “The model blocks diversity of thought and content because the networks have incentive to amplify fringe voices and events, at the expense of others … all because it pumps up the ratings.”

[Read: Community Broadcaster: Taking Chances]

While radio is not immune to toxic ratings-first leaders, we also have community-minded institutions that want to contribute to their cities and towns. Radio as a medium has long enjoyed more trust than other platforms. Community media, especially community radio, remains a steadfast part of this movement for a better, more trustworthy medium.

Tune across community radio and you will find a fascinating look into local subcultures, community news, area arts that fight to survive in spite of COVID-19, and an ideal of media access that can’t be extinguished, even decades into community media’s run. While commercial media organizations crater under the weight of layoffs and a loss of trust, they scramble for new engagement models, nonprofit status and ways of listening and integrating the audience into their daily work. But guess what? Community media and radio in particular has been doing that for generations. As one astute media observer told me, “community media are the hipsters of this engaged journalism trend today.” And that’s not too far off base.

Where community media struggles at times is around scaling this important outreach and storytelling. But with the year-end period upon us, that is where you come in.

From now until Dec. 31 is where nonprofits traditionally see the most generosity from their communities. These large and small gifts help nonprofits pay staff, sustain their initiatives, and dream big as they plan bold new efforts. In the case of community media, a gift’s impact is as easy to observe as turning to your television, radio or internet browser. Your gifts have immediate results by supporting broadcasting, and chipping through the walls of distrust we see in many towns.

Those giving back have many options. Whether it’s donating to a local community radio station or lifting up nonprofits helping our medium, such as OpenNews or the Maynard Institute, or even contributing to an admired nonprofit media outlet, your year-end donation can really help radio to thrive.

Repairing trust and bridging divides will be an ongoing process. If you are one of those good souls who gives back to your communities during the holiday season, do not forget community radio. This year more than most, stations have made a difference, but need your help to do much more.

The post Community Broadcaster: Difference Makers appeared first on Radio World.

An Alabama licensee is facing a forfeiture of $6,000 for failing to file renewal applications on time.

Jimmy Dale Media LLC was required to file a renewal application for its two stations — WFMH(AM) and WMCJ(AM) — on Dec. 2, 2019. That date meets the Federal Communications Commission requirement that a license renewal should be filed no later than the first day of the fourth calendar month prior to expiration of the license.

In this case, the Media Bureau said the applications were filed on March 30, 2020. Initially, the bureau said, Jimmy Dale Media gave no explanation for the late filing. But in an amendment to the application filed on July 16, 2020, the licensee said that it was struggling financially and working days and many nights to keep the station on air. The licensee also stated that he was not advised by legal counsel as to the FCC rules for the license renewal process. The licensee has since joined the Alabama Broadcasters Association in an effort to stay up to date on filing deadlines and other requirements and indicated that the company “will sincerely endeavor to comply with all FCC rules and regulations” in the future.

[Read: Failure to File a Renewal Application Trips Up Two Licensees in Louisiana]

In response, the Media Bureau applauded the licensee’s efforts to ensure compliance with the commission’s rules going forward. But these efforts do not excuse or mitigate the violations. FCC rules and the commission’s own Forfeiture Policy Statement establishes a base forfeiture amount of $3,000 for failing to file a required form in a timely manner. The bureau may also adjust that amount based on the gravity of the violation and the degree of culpability.

In this case, the licensee did not dispute that the renewal applications were filed late. And the commission does not give do-overs to those who violate the rules because they were unaware of the guidelines. In addition, even though the licensee said the stations were struggling financially, it provided no documentation that would allow the commission to evaluate the licensee’s ability to pay.

“The commission has repeatedly held that corrective action taken to come into compliance with the rules is expected, and does not nullify or mitigate any prior forfeitures or violations,” the bureau said.

Based on those factors, the commission proposed the full $3,000 forfeiture amount for each late-filed application for a total of $6,000. The commission said it would grant the renewal applications after the forfeiture had been paid — assuming that no other issues arise.

The FCC’s action is a notice of apparent liability for forfeiture. The broadcaster has 30 days to pay or file an argument on why the penalty should be reduced or cancelled.

The post AM Stations Face Forfeiture for Late License Renewals appeared first on Radio World.

We don’t usually delve too deeply into radio programming or format specifics, because music is a specialized world of its own within radio. But December is the time of year for “top song” lists, and here’s another fun one.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers released its list of the top 25 ASCAP Holiday Songs, highlighting the work of its member artists.

“Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” takes the #1 spot as the most-played holiday hit, according to an ASCAP analysis of streaming and terrestrial radio data,” the organization stated.

The song was written by Carey and Walter Afanasieff and published by Universal Music Group Publishing, Sony/ATV, Kobalt Music and Tamal Vista Music. ASCAP noted that Carey posted a holiday message to fans including a shoutout to radio.

The organization also noted that Johnny Marks has three entries on this list, “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

So below are the year’s top 25 most played ASCAP holiday songs, meaning they were written or co-written by ASCAP songwriters and composers. The ranking is based on an analysis of ASCAP streaming and terrestrial radio data.

1. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff (1994)
2. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Meredith Willson (1951)
3. “A Holly Jolly Christmas” by Johnny Marks (1962)
4. “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson and Mitchell Parish (1948)
5. “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne (1945)
6. “Jingle Bell Rock” by Joseph Carleton Beal and James Ross Boothe (1958)
7. “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Johnny Marks (1958)
8. “Last Christmas” by George Michael (1984)
9. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Edward Pola and George Wyle (1963)
10. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin (1944)
11. “Winter Wonderland” by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith (1934)
12. “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” by Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie (1934)
13. “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin (1941)
14. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Johnny Marks (1949)
15. “The Christmas Song” by Mel Tormé and Robert Wells (1946)
16. “Here Comes Santa Claus (Down Santa Claus Lane)” by Oakley Haldeman and Gene Autry (1947)
17. “Home for the Holidays” by Robert Allen and Al Stillman (1954)
18. “Feliz Navidad” by Jose Feliciano (1970)
19. “Happy Holiday/The Holiday Season” by Kay Tompson and Irving Berlin (1942)
20. “Santa Baby” by Joan Javits, Anthony Springer and Philip Springer (1953)
21. “Frosty the Snowman” by Steve Nelson and Walter E. Rollins (1950)
22. “Jingle Bells” by James Lord Pierpont; Frank Sinatra version arranged by Gordon Jenkins (ASCAP, 1958)
23. “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson and Greg Kurstin (2013)
24. “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” by Dr. Seuss and Albert Hague (1966)
25. “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande and Savan Kotecha (2013)

The post ASCAP Lists Its Top 25 Holiday Songs appeared first on Radio World.

Codec manufacturer Tieline is now shipping its Gateway Multichannel IP audio codec, and it announced that the new unit supersedes the Merlin Plus and Genie Distribution models.

Tieline highlights the DSP power of the 1RU IP codec; it says the Gateway enables transport of multiple channels of mono or stereo audio across the internet or any QoS-enabled IP network, including T1 and T3 connections and private WANs with MPLS.

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

The Gateway streams up to 16 IP audio channels with support for AES67, ST 2110-30, AES3 and analog I/O as standard. It comes in two versions; one supports eight channels in/out (eight mono or four stereo) and the other supports 16 channels in/out (16 mono or eight stereo). An upgrade path allows a buyer to start with eight and expand later.

The company posted a video about the codec and its features.

Production of Merlin Plus and Genie Distribution has ceased. Tieline will continue to provide support and software updates for them.

The company says typical applications of Gateway will include large-scale audio distribution and management of multiple incoming remotes at the studio.

Features include hitless packet switching using SmartStream Plus redundant streaming, plus bandwidth aggregation using Fuse-IP technologies over internet connections. It supports 16 bidirectional mono or eight bidirectional stereo streams of IP audio in 1RU.

It is interoperable with other Tieline IP codecs and compatible over SIP with EBU N/ACIP Tech 3326 and 3368 compliant codecs and devices. The Gateway interfaces with analog and AES/EBU sources, as well as newer broadcast plants with AES67 and ST 2110-30 IP audio infrastructure. An optional WheatNet-IP card will be available.

Gateway is configurable through an embedded HTML5 Toolbox Web-GUI interface and is controllable using Tieline’s Cloud Codec Controller.

The post Tieline Rolls Out Gateway Codec appeared first on Radio World.

As The Walt Disney Co. continues to emphasize streaming video, it is shutting down its Radio Disney and Radio Disney Country operations, effective the first quarter of 2021.

The move comes at a time when the media business is changing, giving kids more personalized music choices and the pandemic prevents Radio Disney from holding in-person events that attract sponsors.

Disney has been restructuring to focus on its direct-to-consumer business. Combined with the pandemic, which has devastated the company’s theme parks and movie business, the company reported a $710 million loss for its fiscal fourth quarter and has eliminated thousands of employees to reduce costs.

Launched in 1996, Radio Disney helped launch young Disney music stars including the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, as well as Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, and One Direction. In 2013, it began producing the Radio Disney Music Awards, which were televised on Disney Channel and showcased stars like Ariana Grande, Gwen Stefani, Meghan Trainor and Zendaya.

Radio Disney’s 36 staffers were informed of plans to cease operations Thursday morning via a teleconference with Gary Marsh, president and chief creative officer, Disney Branded Television.

“I want to thank Phil Guerini [Radio Disney’s general manager] and the entire Radio Disney team for their work over the years to cultivate and amplify the careers of music artists that became the definitive voices of their generation,” Marsh said. “The innovation and creativity of this team helped to deliver unforgettable experiences. Radio Disney has made an indelible impact on my family — and on millions of others.”

The Radio Disney staffers will lose their jobs early next year and receive an enhanced severance package.

The decision to close follows Disney’s exit from the radio station business, which began in 2007 and concluded with the sale of five Radio Disney stations to Salem Media Group for $2.225 million in 2015. Radio Disney kept one local station, KRDC(AM), Los Angeles, to originate its national programming feed. Disney will sell that station in 2021.

Sirius XM started carrying Radio Disney in 2002 and its current deal expired at the end of the year.

The shutdown process will take a few months, and the Radio Disney signal will be turned off in the first quarter.

In 2005, Radio Disney was available in 97% of the U.S. through more than 50 radio stations and SiriusXM and had offshoots in the U.K., Japan and Latin America.

The radio network became part of the Disney Channels business in 2006, consolidating the company’s kids business. Radio Disney showcased Disney Channel music and Disney Channel aired music videos. The strategy drove demand for soundtracks released by Walt Disney Records, including High School Musical, the top selling album that year.

In 2008, Radio Disney’s Next Big Thing (NBT), a multiplatform feature to showcase emerging recording artists, launched, boosting Shawn Mendes, Becky G, Fifth Harmony and others.

Radio Disney Country launched in 2015 as a digital only platform and expanded it in 2017 with the launch of two Los Angeles terrestrial stations and increased digital streaming.

Radio Disney opened a state-of-the-art studio in Burbank in 2009. Artists and celebrities would visit the studio for interviews and acoustic performances that became a big part of Radio Disney’s programming.

Radio Disney in Latin America is a separate operation and is not impacted by the U.S. shutdown announcement.

The post Radio Disney Shutting Down in First Quarter appeared first on Radio World.

The author is technology director at Australia Radio Network/ARN.

MELBOURNE, Victoria — ARN (Australian Radio Network) is one of the country’s leading broadcast and on-demand audio companies, “Defining Audio” with ownership or investments in 12 radio stations nationwide plus digital entertainment platform iHeartRadio and Australia’s number one podcast publisher, the iHeartPodcast Network.

We have a long history of providing our audience with the latest in streaming technology and were the first broadcaster in Australia to offer clients and listeners dynamic addressable content and interactive inventory.

To accommodate evolving technology, we have worked with several major streaming and cloud vendors. While we learned a lot in the process, the most obvious lesson was the challenge of managing a public-facing production platform. It’s not as simple as “set it and forget it.” The server farm required constant maintenance, which is time-consuming — particularly when dealing with multiple vendors.

Two years ago, we made the strategic decision to migrate our services to a hybrid hosting environment. We considered moving our streaming infrastructure to our private cloud, but we wanted to explore using a managed service that had experience with dynamic audio.

Our first goal for the transition was to simplify our streaming infrastructure to prepare for the future. We had multiple vendors and legacy systems supporting our live streams, making the existing infrastructure complicated and too difficult to scale. We also needed to increase our streaming capacity to accommodate an expanding number of audio channels and ensure suitable headroom for forecasted streaming listener growth.

Finally, we wanted to improve our reporting and analytics, as our management, commercial and content teams had no visibility of real-time or historical data.

NZME, our iHeartRadio partners in New Zealand, had transitioned to a managed service a year before us and selected StreamGuys as their provider. After speaking with multiple potential vendors, it was obvious there was a certain “peace of mind” and assurance that StreamGuys’ leadership brought to the conversation.

StreamGuys also works closely with the AdsWizz platform that we use for ad replacement and monetization, and their proposal provided the headroom we wanted for growth and a clear migration plan.

We commenced the migration of our streams to StreamGuys in March 2020. Their team was professional throughout the onboarding and user migration process. It is honestly the first time I’ve migrated so many streaming services with no noise. The “lift-and-shift” was seamless — and this was during the early months of COVID-19 when everything else was difficult.

StreamGuys now manage live streaming with midstream ad replacement for ARN’s iconic Australian brands KIIS, Pure Gold and The Edge, which are all integrated into the iHeartRadio Platform. StreamGuys handles our full audio payload, including radio simulcasts, DAB+ simulcasts, iHeartRadio stations and our expanding array of audio partnerships. StreamGuys hosts our audio streams through their Australian data center and is giving 100% uptime to our listeners.

StreamGuys’ SaaS suite provides flexible tools to help us monitor our operations. SGmetadata monitors what we are encoding from the studio complex to ensure that ad break replacement is being properly triggered. StreamGuys also created custom alerts in their SGalerts monitoring system that notify us of changes to our load balancing or other outages in our systems.

Our migration turned out to be perfect timing. During the pandemic, we have seen a significant increase in streaming traffic across all ARN and iHeartRadio audiences. In a relatively short time, StreamGuys have delivered multiple significant benefits — doubling our streaming capacity, adding new commercial inventory opportunities and overcoming our data visualization issues.

The operational stress of managing the server farms and day-to-day operation ourselves is not missed, and StreamGuys have proven to be a valuable technology partner. In many ways it’s like they have joined the ARN technology team.

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 StreamGuys in California at 1-707-667-9479 or visit www.streamguys.com.

The post User Report: StreamGuys Assures Streaming Uptime for ARN appeared first on Radio World.

Digital Radio Mondiale expressed satisfaction with its progress in Pakistan.

Pakistan Broadcasting Corp. requested that the government include a policy mandating that all new cars in Pakistan have DRM receivers, a policy already supported by the Ministry of Broadcasting.

The plan will be discussed for inclusion in an Automotive Industry Development and Export Plan for the coming five-year period, created by the Ministry of Industries and Production. DRM said PBC representatives will be part of the consultative body that will issue the new automotive policy.

PBC has a three-stage plan with cost estimates, for the rollout of DRM across Pakistan.

“This represents yet another major step in the already significant progress made by PBC towards the rollout of the DRM digital radio standard in both the AM as well as VHF bands in their country,” DRM wrote in an announcement.

“This policy will be a key driver for all major automobile brands and OEMs to prepare and produce line-fit DRM radios in their new cars and also to provide solutions for the after-market vehicles in Pakistan.”

The post DRM Pleased With Progress in Pakistan appeared first on Radio World.

The commercial radio business may be challenged in the United States right now; but it will still be in the top five media platforms in terms of local ad revenue next year, and it should hold onto its share of the overall local ad market.

That is the projection of BIA Advisory Services, which released its U.S. Local Advertising Forecast.

It believes total local advertising revenue across all media in the U.S. will reach $137.5 billion in 2021. “This estimate represents a 2.5 percent year-over-year growth from the firm’s final post-COVID estimate for 2020 of $134.1 billion, as businesses start to adapt and rebound from the pandemic lows,” it stated.

“As the expected presence of vaccines will help with the continuing rebound in the economy, we expect this increase will occur throughout 2021 even without the presence of significant political advertising.”

Radio, the company projects, will bring in $12.6 billion in ad revenue. (This includes all spot revenue from OTA radio, from national, regional and local advertisers, as well as radio online advertising.)

That performance would be up 1.4% from BIA’s latest estimates for 2020, the company told Radio World, and it would keep radio at about 9.2% of the local ad pie, “pretty flat” with this year’s 9%.

The graphic shows the top five categories with dollar totals and percentages provided by BIA.

Overall the company thinks traditional media revenue will see a slight decline from this year, while digital media will grow a few percentage points and reach 44.7 percent of total local media revenue.

“Although we are estimating an overall increase in total local advertising next year, we do not expect spending to recover to pre-COVID (2019) levels until 2022,” said Mark Fratrik, chief economist and SVP at BIA Advisory Services.

“The availability of a vaccine early in the new year will be a key factor to a much stronger year for almost all vertical advertising as the economy rebounds and consumers start moving around more freely and even going back into the office.”

“This year saw a very strong shift into digital media for its lower costs, accountability and flexibility,” Fratrik said in a press release. “However, it also included substantially improved targeting, attribution and ROI tools from broadcast TV, broadcast radio and MVPDs that cannot be ignored.”

Speaking of TV and radio, the company wrote: “Even with the onslaught of new digital competitors, these traditional media still retain sizable audiences that many national and local advertisers want to reach.”

But it said local mobile and online will account for more than one-third of all local advertising, and that OTT advertising will continue to grow; it described OTT TV and the connected TV segment as “game changers for the broadcast industry” because of how easy it is to purchase fragmented inventory and do audience targeting.

The post U.S. Local Ad Revenue to Grow in ’21, BIA Predicts appeared first on Radio World.

It’s an SBE special! We talk with Society of Broadcast Engineers President Wayne Pecena about the organization’s pending projects, its pandemic response and its new executive director. Geary Morrill previews the Technical Professional Training Program that launches in January. And Mark Persons reflects on his career after receiving the SBE’s prestigious John H. Battison Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Read it online here.

Prefer to do your reading offline? No problem! Simply click on the digital edition, go to the left corner and choose the download button to get a PDF version.

Buyer’s Guide

Streaming, Podcasting and Online Content Delivery

Customers of Comrex, Telos and StreamGuys explain why they chose the products they did. Also learn about new offerings from Tieline, Inovonics, StreamS, Wheatstone, RME and BroadcastPix.

Processing

Making PPM Encoding Easier

Mike Pappas writes about how an Orban AM processor came to have the Nielsen encoding built in.

Also in this issue:

• A Lineman’s Tips to Ground an STL Pole
• Belizaire Reflects on Race, Success
• HD Radio: A History of Innovation, a Future of Growth

The post Inside the Nov. 25, 2020 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World.

Programmatic ad platform AdTonos says a campaign for Audi in London marked the first time interactive audio ads have been launched across commercial radio on smart speakers.

The U.K.-based company has a technology called YoursTruly that was used in a campaign in which listeners could react to the Audi ad with a voice command to book test drives for Audi cars or find a dealer.

“The innovative technology allows advertisers to reach listeners via smart speakers with engaging two-way, voice-based communications, delivered across Octave’s vast portfolio of commercial radio stations,” AdTonos wrote in a press release.

It said YoursTruly was developed to exploit “the significant and fast-growing potential of native audio ad experiences.”

To make it work, the ad features an “interaction trigger” that is inserted into an ad break; listeners can react to the ad with a voice command to engage the voice assistant and complete a desired action before being returned to the live station.

This campaign was in partnership with Octave and Omnicom Media Group’s agency, PHD. It was planned by PHD and targeted commercial stations including Absolute Radio, Kiss Radio and Magic Radio.

The post AdTonos Promotes Interactive Audio Ads appeared first on Radio World.