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The Media Bureau affirms decision finding that the license of Omni Broadcasting, LLC, for Station WTKP(AM), Port St. Joe, Florida expired under section 312(g) of the Communications Act.

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Salem Media Group, which trades on the Nasdaq exchange, has closed a new revolving facility with an entity that refinanced its previous revolving facility with Wells Fargo Bank.

The new $26.0 million 3-year asset-based revolving credit facility is with Siena Lending Group.

According to Salem, obligations under the New Revolving Facility are secured by two liens.

There is a first-priority lien on Salem’s (and its subsidiaries’) accounts receivable, inventory, deposit and securities accounts, certain real estate and related assets.

A second-priority lien is on “substantially all other assets of the company and its subsidiaries.”

Salem shares rose by 4.5% on the news, to $0.5560 as of 12:16pm Eastern.

There’ll be no “Great Affiliation Switch” coming for any of Gray Television‘s television stations that are home to such programming as Saturday Night Live or TODAY.

The Atlanta-based broadcasting company has reached an agreement in principle with the NBC network that extends and renews all of Gray’s NBC network affiliations, which otherwise would have expired at year-end 2023.

Among Gray’s NBC affiliates are WWVA-12 in Richmond; and KPLC-7 in Lake Charles, La.

Your free 2024 Source Book & Directory is now available, with contact information for key suppliers across the radio broadcast and pro audio tech industries.

It features new companies, updated listings for familiar suppliers, lists by product type, and other important vendor information.

Read it in digital edition form here.

The post Radio World’s 2024 Source Book & Directory appeared first on Radio World.

The FCC’s two Republican Commissioners are bitterly disappointed. The NAB and broadcast TV station owners are likely angered. With the 3-2 approval by Democrats of the 2018 Quadrennial Order, the “Top Four” rule for broadcast TV was tightened, not loosened. One cable TV advocacy group is pleased — suggesting retrans wars possibly influenced the Chairwoman.

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FOX News Media staff are celebrating the lives of two individuals who played key roles in the entity’s operations. One served as the Director of Chicago Bureau Operations and passed away following a long illness. The other is a 33-year-old FOX News Audio update anchor and reporter who died after a short illness.

Adam Petlin, the Chicago-based FOX News Media staffer, was 58. He had been in Chicago since August 1996, when FOX News Media was created and was one of six original field photographers hired. He was promoted to supervisor, and covered the 9/11 terrorist attacks in lower Manhattan for FOX News.

FOX News Media CEO Suzanne Scott, in a staff memo, noted that former boss Sharri Berg and colleague Scott Wilder visited him in the hospital last week. At the time, Petlin proudly shared photos of his career at Fox with them, Scott shared.

Petlin is survived by his wife Lauren, whom he met while working for FOX News in New York; daughter Ava, aged 18; and and 14-year-old son Luca.

Concurrently, Scott issued a second memo notifying team members of the passing of Matt Napolitano. 

“Matt did everything from anchoring to writing and producing for our audio platforms and loved being able to work in the journalism field that he trained for his entire life,” she remarked.

Napolitano first joined FOX in 2015 as a writer for the SiriusXM 24/7 dedicated FOX News Headlines channel. After a brief departure, Napolitano returned to FOX as an update anchor/reporter. He has also appeared on FOX Business Networks’ Cavuto Coast to Coast.

Outside of his work, Napolitano appeared on Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune as a contestant.

Napolitano is survived by his husband Ricky, whom he married in May 2023.

 

TORONTO — The co-founders of Renfrew, Ont.-based My Broadcasting Corp. have received approval from the FCC to obtain the 80% interest in the licensee of a Cape Vincent, N.Y., radio station held by three shareholders — a decision that will make this Upstate New York FM serving Kingston, Ont., wholly owned by a Canadian broadcasting company.

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The end of the fourth quarter, and 2023, may be just days away, but Urban One — following the December 22 Closing Bell on Wall Street — released its tardy third quarter 2023 fiscal results.

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Of the two dissenting Republicans on the FCC taking Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Democrats Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gómez to task for their approval of the 2018 Quadrennial Rule Order, which largely keeps current broadcast ownership rules in place, Nate Simington swore he would pick up the baton of Mike O’Rielly following the latter’s departure from the FCC.

That was beyond a doubt true on Tuesday, as Simington issued a scathing statement slamming the Commission for an act that he believes is even illegal.

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The author is president of StreamS/Modulation Index LLC.

More than 20 years ago, delivery of media content on the internet was well on its way. Initially, audio was much easier to deliver than video because of its lower bandwidth requirements and the slow internet of the time. Yet video received most of the attention and technology investment, becoming a streaming power and feeding the cord-cutting that we know today.

Meanwhile, terrestrial radio audio streaming was viewed at first as a giveaway perk on station websites; it simply was not taken very seriously. Consequently the streams were based on amateur streaming audio protocols and were plagued with poor reliability, poor metadata, poor ad insertion, limited features and security issues.

Greg Ogonowski

This was not a professional approach. Unfortunately such streams remain the majority of what is available today, delivering a user experience that generates very low expectations. 

It doesn’t need to be this way.

While all this was happening, huge advancements in mobile devices made delivery of reliable, feature-rich, high-quality audio streams possible. 

Automobiles now take these mobile connections to their digital dashboards for an audio experience with unprecedented audio quality that tops any terrestrial or satellite broadcast, analog or digital, since there is no narrow audio bandwidth AM, pre-emphasis/de-emphasis FM, or poor audio codecs for digital and satellite radio to contend with. 

Unlimited data plans are now the norm, so mobile streaming cost is no longer a consideration. Furthermore, these mobile devices are carried with everyone, everywhere they go. It is the new transistor radio — this time with billions of transistors!

Moving forward

Things have now really changed. Terrestrial audiences are shifting from over-the-air delivery to mobile devices and computer media delivery. A growing portion of your revenue now depends upon internet streaming. Listeners are purchasing expensive mobile devices, and they expect features and performance from them. 

In order to reach these new devices and give this audience what they expect, new streaming methods and protocols are used. Old legacy MP3 streams no longer cut it. Just as video streaming has moved to segmented streaming to survive, audio can benefit from the same change, but it must be done correctly. HLS is just that protocol to deliver.

HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) is an advanced streaming protocol that works very differently than traditional legacy streaming. It uses segments or file chunks instead of a constant data stream, which ultimately causes reliability issues. Streaming using segments works like the internet works. Contrary to popular belief, the internet was never designed for persistent, constant data connections. So HLS leverages the way website content is delivered for a highly reliable streaming experience.  This is the same tech that has fueled the unquestionable success of video cord-cutting.

HLS has much more to offer, and it solves all the shortcomings of legacy streaming:

• More professional features
• Lower deployment cost
• Lower operating cost
• Higher performance
• Higher availability
• Higher scalability
• Higher reliability
• Higher security
• Higher quality

However, since HLS is a broad specification, many details need to be right to get the best performance. Unfortunately, there are already a few content providers and distribution networks offering poor implementations of HLS delivery. These usually include some sort of transcoding of ICY streams, asynchronous metadata with embarrassing timing issues and no support of newer HLS fragmented MP4 (fMP4), which supports lossless and new xHE-AAC/USAC streams. Multi-channel surround streams are another consideration. So vet your CDNs and partners carefully to get the most value for you and your audience.

To make matters worse, most terrestrial radio stations do not have the technical resources or interest to support streaming properly. This new tech change paradigm is vital for the continued success of radio delivery. Instead, many have outsourced streaming to developers that have little to no media experience, with outdated technical skills and little creative understanding, including lack of professional audio processing techniques. This pretty much defines the great “Digital Divide” and must be overcome if terrestrial broadcast is to succeed in streaming. Often, sales and marketing have become involved in technical decisions, resulting in severe compromise of stream performance and quality. Targeted ads and pre-rolls are classic examples that ruin the streaming experience due to technical limitations, some of which cannot be overcome, and over-sold by content distribution networks. Just because this is sort of possible doesn’t mean it should be. It usually ends up as another embarrassment.

To achieve the best possible HLS, it is important avoid using legacy streaming encoders, and choose a true segmented streaming encoder. This outputs encoded segments with assembled synchronous metadata, which is always on time, and uploads and manages files and directories on the server with optional multiple synchronous bitrates.

An Apple CarPlay dashboard screen with advanced “now playing” metadata with extra fields and extended characters.

This provides on-time, now-playing metadata, precise commercial/content insertion and optional control commands for external software and hardware. A simple web server or cloud storage can be used to deliver live and file (on-demand/podcast) HLS. Special, expensive dedicated streaming servers are no longer required or even desired. This ultimately lowers streaming costs, increases reliability and quality, and allows static content to be delivered by the same server, if needed. 

StreamS HLSdirect Live and File Encoders and Systems support all of this.  They are enterprise, commercial-grade and based on open standards to reach the largest possible audiences.

In summary:

• Today’s audiences consume content on a plethora of devices, both fixed and mobile. They experience video streams that “just work” and they expect the same from audio streams. They have no patience for dropouts, disconnections, poor audio quality and error-ridden, mistimed “now playing” metadata.
• Yet many current audio streams still have these problems, along with sparse audiences. They have blown their “one chance to make a first impression.” It’s time to reinvent using better tools.
• The simplicity of old-school streaming is a trap. Without professional audio processing to provide broadcast-quality audio and direct HLS streaming to ensure uninterrupted reliability and rich metadata, audio streaming is a second-rate product destined to fail. Audiences expect better for their expensive, feature-rich capable devices and have an abundance of other entertainment choices.
• Adapt or die! There is no better audio entertainment return on investment than well-processed, modern HLS streaming. And, unlike terrestrial broadcasting, netcasting covers the world in hi-fi!

This article is excerpted from the Radio World ebook “The Ecosystem of Streaming.”

The post Make the Move to HLS appeared first on Radio World.

It’s a south-of-Boston FM translator no longer linked to an AM being used to bring “Mega”-sized Spanish-language programming to the growing Hispanic population of the Back Bay. As such, Gois Broadcasting is agreeing to part ways with the facility.

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The President/CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has responded to Sen. Ted Cruz‘s questions and opinions regarding the group’s Community Service Grant program and CPB’s commitment to diversity, objectivity and balance.

As the leading Republican sees it, CPB has a “mandate” that broadcast stations “must engage in affirmative action to qualify for grant funding.”

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It was perhaps best-known as the publishing house responsible for such Dinesh D’Souza tomes as the 2020 election-focused “2000 Mules” and has been offering “conservative books for independent thinkers” for some 76 years.

Within days it will no longer be owned by Salem Media Group, which has moved to further reduce its debt with the sale of Regnery Publishing.

The announcement from Irving, Tex.-headquartered Salem came on Tuesday (12/26), and it sees the company sell Regnery for an undisclosed price. The buyer is Skyhorse Publishing, described by Publisher’s Weekly as “the fastest-growing small publisher in America.” It is based in Brattleboro, Vt., and is distributed by Simon & Schuster.

In particular, Skyhorse is known for distribution of children’s books under the Sky Pony Press name; regional sports books from Sports Publishing; “practical books for creative professionals” from Allworth Press, and literary fiction and nonfiction from Arcade Publishing. It is owned by “Free Speech advocate” Tony Lyons.

Salem expects to close the transaction by the end of the year.

David Evans, Chief Operating Officer of Salem Media Group, said, “We are thrilled to pass the torch of the oldest and most respected conservative publishing company in America to Lyons and his incredibly successful Skyhorse Publishing. Salem is committed to the dissemination of conservative ideas and is excited that Skyhorse will both be a powerful steward of this important brand and an engine for its future growth.”

Lyons, who serves as President and Publisher of Skyhorse Publishing, added, “We are so pleased to acquire this legendary publishing company, founded over 75 years ago, and are committed to building on the strong foundation that the Regnery staff has developed. We see a lot of synergies and opportunities for growth and will work hard to promote, market, and sell the books we have acquired and those that are pending, as well as to develop and pursue exciting new projects. Regnery will be an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing and will maintain its own identity.”

Some 1,500 Regnery titles will be absorbed into the Skyhorse Publishing catalogue, including “Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America” by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)

Regnery was formerly based in Washington D.C. Salem purchased Regnery in 2014 with the purchase of Eagle Publishing.

This is Salem’s second major division divestment, following the $30 million sale of Salem Church Products to Gloo LLC in October.

Salem’s publishing division in Q3 2023 included Regnery and the self-publishing Salem Author Services. It experienced a challenging quarter, with sales declining 17.5% to $4.6 million, from $5.5 million in Q3 2022. Regnery revenue declined by 19.2% in Q3.

— With reporting by Cameron Coats

Media Bureau grants Petition for Declaratory Ruling filed on behalf of Border International Broadcasting, Inc.

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Commission adopts Report and Order completing the 2018 quadrennial review of the Commission's broadcast ownership rules.