Industry News

Global advertising spend is on course for 12.6% growth this year.

That’s an upgrade from the 6.7% initially projected, as the global ad market rebounds strongly from the COVID-19 downturn of last year.

It is a conclusion from business intelligence firm WARC.

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On July 1, an individual whose resume includes stints as EVP/Ad Sales and Marketing for TV One and, before that, as VP of Client Strategy for Viacom Media Networks officially took the reins as CEO of the owner of two New York City radio stations and Fairway Outdoor. 

The company’s stock price actually dipped slightly, while remaining steadily in a range seen across 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic proving to be a non-issue.

On Monday, July 12, MediaCo Holding stock exploded like a West Coast wildfire. A day later, a bit of profiteering was taking shape.

Is this the latest example of Wall Street investors taking diversity commitments from Fortune 100 companies to the bank?

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The average audience for the three major cable news channels, as well as for the network and local TV news sectors, increased in 2020. That’s according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of the state of the U.S. news media.

Financially speaking, the cable and local TV news sectors saw an increase in revenue, while advertiser expenditures for the news programs of the three major networks remained steady.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday recommended $20 million for public broadcasting’s Next Generation Warning System within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the Fiscal Year 2022 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill.

This funding would help support public broadcasting’s work in alert and warning and public safety communications.

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He’s most recently served as the VP/GM of the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned FOX affiliate serving Omaha and The CW Network affiliate it runs via a local marketing agreement with Mitts Telecasting Co.

Now, after nearly 11 years in Mid-America, this 30-year local TV veteran is heading to the Rio Grande Valley for a new role with Nexstar Media Group.

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How does one pull the trigger and launch a podcast? Where should that podcast be launched? What’s the best way to increase the listener base?

These are the questions Podcasting Hall of Famer and School of Podcasting CEO Dave Jackson deals with daily. He addressed them, among others, in a lively session conducted live Tuesday during Streamline Publishing’s How to Make REAL MONEY Podcasting virtual conference.

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For the independent podcast, getting good distribution without the tech headaches is just as important as attracting sponsors. So, what’s the best route to take?

That was the focal point of a conversation between Podcast Business Journal and Radio Ink Editor Ed Ryan and two podcasting business leaders that served as a strong kickoff to the three-day How to Make REAL MONEY Podcasting virtual conference.

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As the clock strikes Midnight, low-power TV stations that haven’t been built yet and haven’t secured extensions from the FCC will disappear into the ether, with their respective licensees forfeiting the right to create them.

For some, the race against the clock meant engaging in deals before time expires. These fresh transactions involve such companies as HC2 Holdings and Gray Television, and noted brokerage Kalil & Co.

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In a rare move, the Federal Communications Commission cancelled a liability that it had levied against an FM translator, despite the fact that the licensee failed to file its license renewal application on time.

The Media Bureau sent out a Notice of Apparent Liability to Gerard Media LLC, licensee of FM translator station W294CY in Valparaiso, Ind., because the licensee failed to file a renewal application on time. FCC Rules state that these type of applications must be received on the fourth calendar month prior to the expiration of the station’s license, which for W294CY would have been on April 1, 2020, four months prior to an Aug. 1, 2020, license expiration date.

[Read: LPFM Facing $3,500 Forfeiture]

Instead, the licensee didn’t formally file the application until July 23, 2020. At the time, the bureau proposed a forfeiture of $1,500 and gave the licensee 30 days to either pay the full amount or submit a statement seeking cancelation of the forfeiture.

On March 10, 2021, the licensee responded, saying that it had been unable to file its application on time due to a technical issue with the commission’s Licensing and Management System (LMS), the commission’s filing database. The licensee said that when the station was initially licensed on Oct. 28, 2019, LMS listed the wrong expiration date, saying the deadline was July 9, 2021, instead of the correct date, which was April 1, 2020.

In February 2020, the station’s engineer reached out to Media Bureau staff to apprise them of the error, noting that despite his efforts, LMS would not accept a license renewal application for the station. The staff informed the licensee’s engineer, Larry Langford, that the error was corrected.

All was not resolved, however. Langford reached out again in July 2020 saying the dates had not been corrected. The problem was finally resolved on July 23, with Langford filing the renewal application that same day.

While the FCC was to blame for the initial mix up, the Media Bureau still had admonishments to hand out to the licensee.

The bureau chastised the licensee for waiting too long to retry filing the renewal application again. The station’s engineer did not attempt to file the application until July 2020, even though he reached out to bureau staff back in February 2020. “Therefore, the failure to timely file the renewal application was due to licensee’s own lack of diligence,” the bureau said in its notice, formally admonishing the licensee for its violation of FCC Rules.

However, given the fact that bureau staff did not adequately correct the LMS issue in February 2020, the bureau made the rare decision to cancel the Notice of Apparent Liability, absolving the licensee from having to pay the $1,500 penalty.

The post FCC Nixes $1,500 Liability Against FM Translator appeared first on Radio World.

The Federal Communications Commission has officially opened an NPRM aimed at changing certain technical rules covering broadcast radio.

This was expected; as we reported earlier, a draft notice of proposed rulemaking had been released. The commissioners have now approved it, which means the FCC will take public comment on the proposed changes for final action later. Comment deadlines are not yet set.

Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has said the changes are intended to fix rules that are “redundant, outdated or in conflict with other rules.”

The commission wants to change section 73.1665(b) to remove the maximum rated transmitter power limit for AM stations.

It also wants to change two rule sections that were adopted in 1997 to “harmonize” with the NCE FM community coverage standard in another section, which was adopted later.

A third change would eliminate section 73.316(d), “which we tentatively conclude is an unnecessary burden on applicants.” This involves FM transmitter interference to nearby antennas.

Also, the FCC wants to change a section that sets out signal strength contour overlap requirements for NCE FM Class D stations, “to harmonize the requirements with the more permissive standard applied to all other NCE-FM stations.” It said it wants to be consistent across different NCE FM station classes.

It also wants to delete a requirement that radio stations in the 76–100 MHz band protect common carrier services in Alaska. It said there are no such services remaining. Earlier, existing common carrier operations had been grandfathered in with the understanding that they would gradually move to other parts of the spectrum

The FCC also wants to tweak the definition of “AM fill-in area” in one part of the rules to conform to the requirement in another part. The goal is consistency across the rules for fill-in translator transmitter siting.

Last, the commission wants to amend the allocation and power limitations for broadcast stations within 320 kilometers of the Mexican and Canadian borders to comply with current treaty provisions.

The full proposal is posted on the Radio World website.

The post Changes to Radio Technical Rules Advance appeared first on Radio World.