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The CEO of AMC Entertainment, the owner of cinemas across the U.S., posted its strongest quarterly results in two years. And, its CEO, Adam Aron, can thank Spider Man for besting analyst estimates.

Aron can also perhaps be thanked for propelling Paramount Global‘s shares on Wednesday. Why? The owner of CBS News and Stations could be poised for boffo box office results from its Paramount Pictures arm, after all.

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There is clarity when it comes to how much money is available to pay FM radio broadcasters for expenses incurred due to the TV spectrum repack in the United States.

The FCC now says it will cover 100% of verified estimates — instead of 92.5% — because allocations are concluding and there is still money left in a $2.75 billion relocation fund created by Congress to cover broadcasters’ expenses.

The FCC in a recent public notice explained the final reimbursement procedures for owners of FM broadcasters who share tower space with full power or Class A TV stations that participated in the incentive auction and repacking. The TV repack process, intended to create additional spectrum for wireless services, resulted in some FM broadcasters incurring costs in order to facilitate the repack stations’ construction projects.

Radio stations affected have been filing reimbursement claims but now have until Sept. 6, 2022, to submit all remaining requests for expenses.

[See Our Business and Law Page]

The FCC says invoices totaling more than $1.67 billion have already been sent to the U.S. Treasury Department for processing and payment with some $34 million in invoices on hand still under review. The FCC said it took care to spend down the reimbursement fund in phases to prevent running out of money, acknowledging that estimates and expenditures were refined and changed over time as broadcasters moved forward with projects.

The Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau said their cautious payment allocation approach throughout the 39-month transition period “reduced the likelihood of over-allocating funds that would then have to be reduced or issuing payments that would have to be clawed back.”

In a previous public notice released in December 2019, the FCC indicated the owners of approximately 90 FM radio stations — all co-located with TV facilities — had been assisted with projects such as building auxiliary facilities in order to remain on air throughout repack work. The FCC at the time estimated that fewer than 500 radio stations in all would be affected by the TV spectrum repack.

Congress had designated $50 million of the reimbursement fund to be set aside for FM broadcasters. The FCC previously reported that as of late 2019, just over $17 million had been allocated for FM stations.

Radio broadcasters submitting their remaining reimbursement claims should be careful to have documentation to back up any reimbursement claims. The FCC says it will begin site visits to facilities of some fund recipients to validate the existence and operational status of post-transition equipment for which entities received reimbursement. Site visits, to be conducted by a third-party contractor, are expected to begin in March 2022 and continue throughout 2022, according to the FCC notice.

The TV repack resulted in new channel assignments for 987 full power and Class A stations. The reassignments cleared approximately 60 MHz of spectrum for use by wireless licensees.

[See Radio World’s 2017 eBook “Hey Radio, Here Comes the TV Repack”]

The post FM Stations Will be Fully Reimbursed for Expenses Tied to TV Repack appeared first on Radio World.

While the media lifestyles of Gen Z, a generation that has never known a world without internet, are dominated by social media and music streaming, this diverse audience of streamers view long-form TV content with as much frequency as short-form video content.

That’s the big reveal from a new “State of Gen Z 2021” from Horowitz Research.

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The process of renewing a station’s license depends on several factors, including honesty in communications and proof the station is serving the public interest. In cases where these requirements are not met — and before outright denying to renew a station’s license — the commission must start proceedings for a hearing to evaluate the factors in question.

That’s where an Ohio low-power FM licensee now finds itself — on the cusp of hearing proceedings regarding alleged rules violations related to its license renewal.

A hearing designation order has been put in effect for the Marion Education Exchange (MEE) regarding WWGH-LP in Marion, Ohio. The hearing will determine if MEE violated the Communications Act and FCC rules, determine if the commission should renew the station’s license and decide if a forfeiture should be imposed.

A key issue in question: whether MEE misrepresented the composition of its board of directors, including whether it listed a dead woman as one of those members.

The hearing will also determine if MEE made misrepresentations to the commission and whether or not it failed to properly notify the FCC that a transfer of control occurred.

[See Our Business and Law Page]

According to the Media Bureau, MEE was registered with the state of Ohio as a non-profit corporation in May 2, 2019, with Shawn Craft as the registered agent. Seven days later, MEE and the station’s former licensee, Marion Midget Football (MMF), filed an application requesting the station’s license be transferred from MMF to MEE. At the time, MEE indicated no changes to the makeup of its board members, only the name of the licensee. The commission granted the reassignment application.

But during the license renewal process, the commission learned that one of the board members of MEE — Betty Compton of Marion — passed away on Nov. 7, 2016, more than two years before MEE filed the application listing her as one of five continuing members of MEE’s board.

In June 2020, an objection was filed by Spencer Phelps, the station manager of another LPFM station in Marion, alleging that MEE had misrepresented its board composition in its application because board members were “completely different people” than those listed on MEE’s application.

Phelps submitted copies of corporate materials filed by MEE with the state of Ohio, and the bureau saw that the five individuals listed on MEE’s initial application were removed. Instead, four different individuals were listed as board members.

After no response from MEE to Phelps’ objection, the bureau sent the first of three letters of inquiry requesting information regarding MEE’s board. The bureau gave MEE until Jan. 7, 2021, to submit copies of corporate materials listing its board composition. MEE did not meet this deadline, the bureau said.

As a result, on Feb. 12, 2021, the bureau dismissed the licensee’s renewal application, cancelled WWGH’s license and informed MEE that its authority to operate the station had been terminated.

Four days later MEE responded and asked the bureau to reconsider. The Media Bureau agreed to reinstate the license and the renewal application while it awaited additional information.

In MEE’s response, the Media Bureau said, the licensee appeared to explain away any inconsistencies between the board members listed in its assignment application and the ones identified in its response to the commission. MEE said that several of the board members that left MMF in 2019 became ill and had since passed away and that these board positions were filled with “members who knew the radio station and have had its best interests … at heart.” MEE also maintained that the station is fulfilling an important role as an LPFM in the community and is currently serving as the last station in Marion to provide hourly local news and weather.

Phelps responded again to say that MEE was untruthful in saying its station is the last hourly news and weather station in Marion and that MEE was in violation of FCC rules because it continued to operate the station for several days in February after the commission rescinded the station’s license.

When the bureau followed up with a second letter of inquiry to MEE directing it to provide information and documentation about its board composition, MEE revealed that the organization was incorporated in 2019 by the second group of board members — not those individuals listed as board members when the assignment application was filed in May 2019. (MEE did not allude to the death of Compton, who was listed on that original assignment application in May, the bureau said.)

In a third letter of inquiry sent by the Media Bureau (“because the second letter … raised more questions than it answered,” the bureau said) the bureau directed MEE to clarify statements it made in its last response.

MEE responded with a list of all current and former MEE board members and their dates of services and said that board changes happened when some members could not attend meetings on a regular basis. MEE stated that did not file a transfer of control application “because we had hoped that some of the original board members might have been able to return.”

As far as the questions surrounding why the late Betty Compton was listed as a board member, MEE said that “her successor had not been chosen.”

Phelps weighed in again, accusing MEE of lying to the commission about Compton and being untruthful about the existence of certain corporate documents like bylaws and meeting minutes.

In its current hearing designation order, the bureau reminded MEE of several key factors the commission must consider before a station’s license can be renewed, including that the licensee has not committed any serious violations of the Communications Act and FCC rules and that there is nothing to indicate a pattern of abuse by the licensee.

When a licensee does not meet these requirements, the commission can deny the licensee’s application to renew its station’s license but not before giving the licensee the opportunity to have a hearing with an FCC administrative law judge.

The bureau said that misrepresentation and lack of candor “raise serious concerns as to the likelihood that the commission can rely on an applicant … to be truthful” and the sort of serious violation that could be grounds for denying a license renewal.

In this case, the bureau said MEE repeatedly failed to fully respond to commission questions, failed to notify the commission of a transfer of control, misrepresented its board composition and was less than candid in its responses to the bureau’s letters of inquiry.

Among the bureau’s specific complaints: that a deceased person was listed as a board member, that other individuals were listed as board members when it appears that they were not, that MEE showed a lack of transparency in listing its board members past and present, that MEE failed to notify the commission of a transfer of control from MMF to MEE, and that MEE may have tried to convince the bureau to renew its license by claiming that WWGH was the last station providing local news and weather every hour in Marion. (Phelps stated that three other full-power FM stations and two low-power FM in Marion do the same.)

“[Different and inconsistent explanations] reinforced our initial concern that MEE knowingly submitted false information in the assignment application and engendered additional concerns that, in an attempt to cover up its original misrepresentation, MEE made additional misrepresentations to … the commission.”

When it comes to the issue of unauthorized operation, however, MEE is not in violation of the rules as a station retains its authority to operate while an administrative or judicial hearing is pending, the bureau said.

The decision on the renewal of WWGH’s license is now set to be reviewed by the FCC administrative law judge. The hearing will also determine whether a forfeiture should be issued against MEE of up to $55,052 for each violation of each commission rule.

MEE has 20 days to file a written document stating its intention to appear and present evidence. If MEE fails to file that document, the pending application will be dismissed.

The post Ohio LPFM Heading to Hearing Over Alleged Violations appeared first on Radio World.

It was once a FOX O&O serving Alabama’s biggest market. Today, it is a Gray Television-owned property, thanks to its merger with Raycom.

Now, this TV property, which in July celebrates its 73rd birthday, is getting a low-power sibling in another key city within the big Birmingham DMA — marking another move by Gray to ensure over-the-air reception, market-wide, of its broadcast TV properties.

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The individual who tops RBR+TVBR‘s first-ever ranking of Broadcast Media’s Top Tech Leaders, announced in the Winter 2022 RBR+TVBR Special Report distributed this week at MWC 2022 Barcelona and in January to subscribers, has just been promoted to President to Technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group.

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Fresh off of her excursion to Barcelona to deliver a short keynote address at the GSMA’s MWC 2022, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has made an addition to the Office of Legislative Affairs.

She’s welcoming a Director to the office.

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DigitalBridge Group has named Jonathan Adelstein as its managing director and head of global policy and public investment.

Adelstein has been president/CEO of the Wireless Infrastructure Association since 2012 but is more familiar to broadcast readers as a former Federal Communications Commissioner (2002–2009).

Marc Ganzi, president/CEO of DigitalBridge, called Adelstein “a nationally recognized leader in digital infrastructure policy.”

After serving on the FCC, Adelstein headed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service.

He’ll start in his new role in June.

Send news of engineering and executive personnel changes to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Adelstein Joins DigitalBridge appeared first on Radio World.

Cumulus Media promoted Keith Liesmann to the newly created position of regional vice president for Arkansas, where the company has 16 radio stations.

“Liesmann will continue to serve the company as market manager for Cumulus Little Rock, a position he has held since 2015,” it said in the announcement, “and will add responsibility for the oversight of Cumulus radio stations in Fayetteville and Fort Smith, with the vice president/market manager of those markets reporting to him.”

He is former market president for iHeartMedia-Springfield, Mo., and was vice president/market manager for Cumulus Topeka, Kan.

The announcement was made by Bob Walker, president, Cumulus Operations at Cumulus Media; he called Liesmann said a strategic and focused leader who has done a wonderful job in Little Rock, especially given the challenges all of us have had to overcome in the last two years.”

Send engineering and executive job announcements to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Cumulus Promotes Liesmann in Arkansas appeared first on Radio World.

Burk Technology has launched its “Arcadia24 Hosted Subscription Service,” making secure web-based remote control accessible to small groups and individual stations.

Based on Burk’s Arcadia system, Arcadia24 delivers remote facility control to station engineers and managers via their mobile devices. Hosted by Burk Technology on AWS, each customer’s Arcadia24 service is installed, configured, managed and maintained by Burk remote control experts.

Web links from mobile devices to the Arcadia24 server are locked down and encrypted using the latest generation of Transport Layer Security (TLS), ensuring that only authorized users can access and control each remote facility, the company said. Encrypted VPN tunnels and firewall protection guard communications between Arcadia24 and each remote site.

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

As a cloud-based service, Arcadia24 communicates with each remote site at its optimum rate, accommodating variations in communications speed and performance. The most current data from all sites is then made available for instant display on authorized mobile devices.

Arcadia24 users are authenticated via Microsoft AD LDS, with each user’s access restricted to specified channels, sites, and station groups. Control of critical site functions can be strictly limited to key personnel while overall site performance may be made visible to a wider group of authorized users.

Burk provides customized graphical control screens for each site connected to Arcadia24, giving station personnel instant access to critical site information. Sites can be grouped based on regional hierarchy, engineering responsibility or other criteria, with easy drill-down to display performance summaries. The Arcadia24 user interface seamlessly supports smartphones, tablets and PCs, the company said.

“Burk’s original Arcadia remote access system brings flexible, secure mobile site control to large radio and television groups operating tens to hundreds of stations,” stated Burk Director of Sales Matt Leland. “The new Arcadia24 is hosted and managed by Burk, making it easy for smaller organizations and even individual stations to realize this same level of secure mobile remote access.”

Arcadia24 manages remote sites equipped with Burk Technology v5 ARC Plus or ARC Solo remote control systems.

Send your new equipment news to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Burk Launches Secure Web-Based Remote Control Subscription appeared first on Radio World.

For nearly three years, she has served as VP/GM of ABC Audio.

Starting today, she’ll serve in the newly created New York-based position of Executive Editor and Senior VP of ABC News.

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The Out-of-Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) has released an analysis of the cost efficiency of any “major” advertising media — including broadcast and cable TV, traditional radio and the hot arena of Podcasting.

What’s the CPM assessment for these media compared to others?

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Dan Slentz gets funky with Adafruit. Fred Jacobs reflects on the recent Consumer Electronics Show.

Paul McLane plays with smartphone apps. Lance Coon builds an EAS antenna.

And Frank Foti explains his new audio initiative called DejaVu.

Read it here.

The post Inside the March 2, 2022 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World.

“Real-time TV measurement” company iSpot has announced it is expanding its cross-platform viewing verification capabilities by agreeing to purchase a TV-viewing data analytics company known for its measurement of consumer viewing in public locations across the U.S.

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Since 2015, he has held the role of Market Manager for Cumulus Media‘s radio stations serving Little Rock.

As of today, he is now Regional VP of all of the company’s Arkansas properties.

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Expect to hear a lot more from Audacy about selling to “addressable” audiences.

The company has launched the Audacy Digital Audience Network, describing it as “an addressable aggregate of over 60 million listeners that other audio platforms and streaming platforms do not reach.”

Audacy local and national salespeople can use it when working with agencies and clients.

Chief Revenue Officer Brian Benedik said in the announcement, “The marketplace has moved to audience-based investment and our new ADAN offering is highly scaled with unduplicated digital listeners. We can target these audiences with precision and optimize campaign performance for better marketer outcomes.”

Audacy believes it reaches 200 million people every month and that 30% of them can be found on ADAN through streaming, on the Audacy app and on its podcasts. It says these audiences are more affluent, more likely to be college educated and more diverse than others.

“Through this high-performing audience solution, ADAN can target precise audiences at scale and deliver high-performing digital audio media strategies for Audacy’s advertising partners.”

The post Audacy Launches Addressable Audience Platform appeared first on Radio World.

Planning for the 2022 NAB Show is ramping up, and Radio World is asking exhibitors about their plans and expectations.

Gary Luhrman is sales & marketing manager at Inovonics Inc., which will be found in the new West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Radio World: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trend for radio professionals at the show?

Gary Luhrman: There is a great deal of movement in AoIP applications for broadcast radio. I have spoken with many audio engineers who seem to be very happy with the audio quality and impressed with the ease of setting up AoIP connections, provided of course the cabling and switches are solid.

Inovonics has been incorporating Dante-based AoIP ports in all our latest models. This enables a simple connection with other Dante-equipped devices and gives AES67 AoIP interoperability among a wide range of pro-AV products. Dante is generally also compatible with proprietary systems from independent manufacturers of AoIP-enabled products.

In our world of radio broadcast, for example, this could mean incorporating our SOFIA 568 HD Radio SiteStreamer+ in a broadcaster’s Axia Livewire Network. We have a white paper explaining the setup procedure on our website.

RW: What will be your most important news or exhibit theme?

Luhrman: We’re very excited to introduce our new 551 and 552 HD Radio Modulation Monitors to this year´s NAB. We’ve been working on these in the background for a good two years now and we are extremely proud of the finished products. We believe these mod monitors are truly compelling products for our industry.

Actually, we were going to present the 551 and 552 for the first time last year when the show was cancelled. The big advantage of presenting them now is that both are already in production and shipping. It has also given us more time to work with a valuable group of beta testers, who have provided excellent feedback to enhance the reliability of the firmware and functionality of the products.

So, interested customers can be confident that what they see on the show room floor at NAB is what they will get when they place their orders. And like most Inovonics products, we typically have product in stock for fast processing of customers’ orders.

RW: How is it different from what’s available on the market?

Luhrman: The 551 HD Radio Modulation Monitor is unique to the market with a high-resolution 7-inch TFT Touch Screen that displays all the essential FM and HD Radio modulation data for accurate readings in a graphic format. The touch screen also displays HD Radio album artwork, station logos and similar visuals.

The Inovonics 551 HD Radio Modulation Monitor

In addition, all the essential information is remotely accessible from any web-enabled device through an interactive web interface. The 551 and 552 include a built-in BandScanner, a real-time clock and full SNMP functionality.

Full-time off-air program audio is available simultaneously as L/R-analog, AES3-digital and Dante-based AES67 AoIP streaming, all with adjustable levels, plus a multi-listener Internet IP stream and front-panel headphone jack.

RW: How has the lack of physical trade shows affected your clients or your own business?

Luhrman: The lack of physical trade shows and inability to safely meet in person with customers has required major adjustments for everyone. While we’re fortunate to have communications tools like Zoom, it is just not the same as shaking a hand and having a face-to-face conversation with a radio professional.

But we were all in the same boat and collectively have made business happen under the circumstances. I think Inovonics has managed pretty well by sticking to its core values and by anticipating some of the supply issues that have plagued many manufacturers. That is to say, we’ve managed to keep product on the shelf and broadcasters have responded to our fast deliveries, quality of our products, and excellent tech support.

Inovonics Booth: W4622

The post Exhibitor Preview: Inovonics at NAB Show appeared first on Radio World.

The author is co-founder of Telos Alliance and Syndicate of Sounds.

A number of years ago, 2003 or so, Steve Church and I had an idea to enhance HD Radio for FM. To our ears, the HD system for FM lacked a “wow” factor, as the conventional HD signal sounded very similar to the FM-Stereo counterpart.

Just as HDTV offered an incredible advance in visual resolution, we felt the listener needed to experience something similar, with HD broadcast audio. Basically, provide a significant reason why HD Radio was the next step beyond FM-Stereo.

At that time, the record label/audio industry was in the midst of promoting a couple of newer audiophile formats: SACD (Super Audio CD) and DVD-A (DVD Audio). Both of them allowed higher sampling rates, as well as offering discrete, linear 5.1 surround sound.

Record labels began reissuing older catalog material in newly produced 5.1 surround sound. Most were of the rock and classical genre, along with some box sets of complete album catalogs of well-known artists.

We found this exciting for a few reasons, as we were able to hear incredible recordings, by favorite artists, in a whole new light. Also, we got an idea of how to enable this on FM radio.

The new HD Radio platform was still fairly new, and looking for a means to attract consumers of the new tech. As mentioned we felt there was not a significant sonic reason why a consumer would be drawn to this — until we heard music in surround.

We’ve been very fortunate to have maintained a strong business and collegial relationship with the crew at the Frauhofer Institute (FhG), in Germany. On account of this, we learned they had recently developed a new method to transport 5.1 surround within a coded audio environment. This is known as MPEG-Surround.

A simple description explains the usage of the left/right stereo channels for audio transport coding, and at the same time data reducing the surround cues, which are transported alongside the main stereo audio. Then, during the decoding process, the surround cues will properly assign and derive each of the surround channels accordingly. This method provides discrete 5.1 surround and operates within a coded environment platform. The surround cues require very little data, normally around 5 kbps.

Given the data rate of the HD Radio system, MPEG-Surround was the perfect fit for FM broadcast. Automotive listening is the perfect experience for this, and it would surely add the needed “wow” factor to HD Radio, or so we thought.

Telos, along with FhG, built an operating prototype of this system, complete with demonstrations inside a BMW automobile at a couple of NAB Shows in Las Vegas. Anyone who heard the demo was blown away.

So, what happened?
Two mitigating circumstances negatively impacted this innovative idea: the record labels were too quick to pull the plug on producing more surround content, and broadcasters were reluctant to invest in the infrastructure changed needed to add this transmission method to their facilities — even though the Telos Alliance made this all easy and affordable via their AoIP tech, which allows 5.1 surround to easily coexist with stereo signals.

The lack of content was quite possibly the biggest challenge. It would have been very confusing to consumers as to whether their reception was stereo of surround.

Given all that has been expressed here, there has always been a concept that intrigued me. Would it be possible to render discrete 5.1 surround from existing stereo material?

Relevance to radio
This idea is not new, and there have been various upmixing applications available, which will output a “surround” signal.

Most, if not all, of these render surround using some form of simulation, or trickery to generate the added sound field. Most of them employ time delay, phase manipulation, reverb or switching to derive surround.

My goal was to develop an upmixer algorithm that operates in real time, without any of the aforementioned gimmicks — find a linear method that preserves original production integrity and creates discrete surround.

After much research into managing sound fields, I was able to develop a method that creates discrete surround, as it expands the original stereo stage into discrete Left, Right, Center, Left-Surround, Right-Surround, and LFE (Low Frequency Enhancement) or sub-woofer for short.

[Read More Guest Commentaries Here]

This method is now known as Déjà Vu and is marketed through Syndicate of Sounds. The accompanying image is a basic illustration.

The system has been vetted out by some of the biggest names in the recording industry: Gary Katz, Hugh Padgham, Frank Filipetti, Giles Martin and Jean-Michel Jarre to name a few. Each of them has provided the proverbial “thumbs up” to the tech.

So, how does this apply for streaming? Well, after all that background information provided here, it’s really very simple. All of the work done for the HD Radio application ports over 100% to streaming! After all, HD Radio is basically another streaming platform, except we’re not dealing with transmitters and receivers.

Instead of the need to rely on discrete produced 5.1 material, all we need is a great-sounding discrete upmixer for 5.1, and a transport mechanism, like MPEG-Surround, and we are good to go! For the consumer, just about any player app will automatically provide 5.1 surround if an MPEG-Surround signal is present. The players default to this now.

For the streaming installation, all that is needed is a transport codec that both employs the Déjà Vu upmixer and contains MPEG-Surround as a streaming selection. Basically, a stereo audio connection in, and the output is both stereo and surround, all neatly packaged in a standard streaming format.

For broadcasters who stream, this is an excellent way to add a truly amazing wow factor to your online signal, and it does not require any change to your existing infrastructure. Now all content can be presented in true discrete 5.1 surround.

As of early February, the Telos Alliance is finalizing a software update that will enable their streaming product to offer both the Déjà Vu upmixing function, coupled with MPEG-Surround for the transport stream.

Find out more about this topic at syndicateofsounds.com.

The post Déjà Vu: The Streaming “Wow” Factor appeared first on Radio World.

On March 22, 2021, the Media Bureau, Video Division (Bureau) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in response to a petition for rulemaking filed by Dominion Broadcasting, Inc. (Petitioner), the licensee of WLMB, channel 5, Toledo, Ohio, requesting the substitution of channel 35 for channel 5 at Toledo in the Table of Allotments. For the reasons set forth in the Report and Order referenced below, the Bureau amends Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) regulations to substitute channel 35 for channel 5 at Toledo.

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