Feed aggregator

“First and foremost, we are local.” That’s the promise of Compass Media in the Cayman Islands, a company owned by lawyer and native Caymanian James Bergstrom. 

“As the proprietor of the Cayman Compass [newspaper] and four radio stations, it is important to James and his wife Laura Aull that the Cayman Islands has a responsible and respected news and entertainment programming at the heart of the community,” its website states.

Those FM stations are Z99.9, Rooster 101.9, Gold Cayman 94.9 and Island FM – The Rhythm of Cayman 98.9.

In the 1990s “Z99” was the first commercial FM station to be built on the island. Its signal was later combined with that of “Rooster” into a single Shively antenna. 

“Gold” and “Island” were added even later using a separate combined system, but the coverage didn’t prove satisfactory, so Compass decided to combine all four of its signals into one new antenna.

The design work began in March 2022 and was completed in May 2023.

The job features a Shively 6828-4-CF four-bay antenna with two 2640-04(4)-1/1 FB balanced combiner modules used in conjunction with Shively modules from the prior station combiner. 

“The Shively 6828 antenna array was used for its robust design and anti-corrosion properties,” said Chris Steckino of Shively Labs.

“The balanced combiner module was chosen to handle the necessary power for the TPO. The 2604 four-pole is a proven design to fulfill its ‘plug-and-play’ ease of installation with excellent insertion losses, isolation and frequency response.”

The new antenna is fed by two new Nautel VS2.5-EIA transmitters.

Crew members head up the tower.

Mark Lee was Compass Media’s technical liaison. Bob Smith of RM Smith Associates of Austin, Texas, developed the concept and installed the system. Steve Vanni of Technet Systems Group assisted with design and supplied the Shively hardware, Nautel transmitters and all materials. Smith and Vanni have a long history of work for Compass and even helped write the procedures and forms used by the government to grant approval for broadcast licenses. 

Steckino did the technical verification and testing of the antenna and combiner system on site.

“The logistics of working outside the continental United Sates always presents challenges,” said Vanni. 

“In this case, delivery of the components was through Miami by boat to Cayman.” The process was made tricker by the need to obtain government approval to work in the country for even for a short period, then getting seven pallets of antenna and combiner components through customs.

Shively combiner modules.

Also, the original design called for the transmitters to remain in their present locations, two in one building and two in another.

“During the structural analysis it was discovered that the tower no longer met current standards, requiring modification of the tower foundation,” Vanni said. “Unfortunately the foundation work would require removal of the existing Z99 and Rooster transmitter building.”

So those two stations were moved into the building that housed the Island and Gold equipment. Limited space mandated a minimal footprint for the four-station combiner; the installation of the transmitters to replace larger older units created additional floorspace to accommodate the combiner.

Another twist was that during the installation of the antenna, the team discovered a problem with the existing Z99/Gold transmission line, necessitating its replacement. 

“I was on-site in Grand Cayman and was available to deal with the problem,” Vanni said. “I arranged for the immediate procurement of new cable and the logistics of expedited delivery to the island.”

Once the Gold and Island transmitters were pulled, time was of the essence. “All went well with the combiner installation, which Bob Smith accomplished prior to the arrival of Chris Stekino from Shively to tweak the combiner and antenna.”

The four-bay Shively antenna is shown installed.

[Discover more interesting RF installs in Radio World’s free ebook on that topic]

The post Cayman’s Compass Media Combines Its Four FMs appeared first on Radio World.

The recent introduction of DTS AutoStage listener heat maps by Xperi made an impression on me. It got me wondering what other tools are available to today’s radio managers to provide insight into listener behavior, sales opportunities in local markets and radio’s own internal business processes.

For this article, which originally appeared in a Radio World ebook, I asked several experts about tools that provide what I call actionable business intelligence. It’s an area rich with options to help programmers and salespeople.

“There are a million numbers out there, though revenue is still the most important one in commercial radio,” said digital strategist Seth Resler.

But when it comes to analytics, Resler encourages broadcasters to gather data themselves as much as possible — a person’s name, email address and Zip code are valuable pieces of information. “Ideally, it also includes behavioral data — for example, did they click on a link to an article about the Foo Fighters? Do they open emails about concert announcements?”

Resler has blogged on the value of first-party data; access that here.

Broad market understanding

Pierre Bouvard, chief insights officer for Cumulus Media and Westwood One, says any manager will of course start with the Nielsen Audio ratings to understand the audience for terrestrial, streaming and podcasting.

“But if you want to know how America is consuming audio more broadly, there is a syndicated measurement service that comes out quarterly called ‘Share of Ear.’”

Published by Edison Research, Share of Ear is an audio listening diary survey that measures all audio that the respondents listen to during a 24-hour period and reports on what they’re listening to, how much they listen and when, where they listen and what devices they use. 

“I don’t think there’s a database out there that can do more to tell you about the state of audio, especially on the ad-supported platforms,” Bouvard said.

“For many years, our industry thought that our biggest competitors were Pandora and Spotify; but what you realize when you look at Share of Ear is that they’re not,” he continued.

“Pandora’s audience is collapsing; it used to be a 12 share but now it’s a 6 share. And you realize that Spotify is not a competitor to radio. Their ad-supported service has about a 4 share while radio’s ad-supported share is a 69 share. We dwarf them.”

What Spotify excels at, he said, is building a subscription ad-free service, and that audience has exploded. But it’s not an advertising competitor to commercial radio.

“What Share of Ear has done is slay mythological dragons about where the audience is really going. It’s not to Spotify. It’s not to Pandora. It’s to podcasting — and that’s exciting because we in radio know how to do it. It’s personalities. It’s spoken word, it’s entertaining conversations. It’s interviews,” Bouvard said.

But this does mean radio stations need a podcasting strategy. “When you see that the 25–54 share for podcasting has gone from a 5 to a 25? Whoa, then you know.”

For learning about the behavior of listeners to your own station, Bouvard has evangelized about the data provided by Xperi’s new DTS AutoStage hybrid radio platform.

“For many years programmers and sales managers have been able to do Zip code runs with Nielsen data to learn where the audience is. That approach uses home Zip codes, which is useful,” he said.

“But what makes the DTS tool unique is that two-thirds of American radio listening occurs out of the home — roaming around town, going to work, doing errands. With the DTS data, you know where the car is and you know what people have been listening to. Well, if I’m a retailer north of town and your station’s audience tends to hang out on the north side of town, that’s really helpful to know.” 

The DTS tool can also help overcome a client’s misperceptions about your station’s lack of reach into communities other than your city of license. “In more rural or local markets, many people buy on perception.” 

What about figuring our who’s listening online?

“For the vast majority of the industry, Triton Digital is the ad tech company of record for streaming,” Bouvard said. The company offers a range of services related to digital and online content, including ad insertion, sales of ads to national advertisers and audience measurement.

‘They can monitor the streams and look at the hour-by-hour pattern. One of the things you learn through Triton is that streaming listenership is 9 to 5, tracking the workday. People use the stream while they work, a different pattern than in the car, where we see surges in the morning when people are driving,” he said.

“The beauty of this tool is that it’s not based on a sample but on all of the internet connections that were streaming your station.” Even if you’re in a very small market, you can still get data about your station, about who your listeners are and whether you are attracting some of them from outside your market.

“Triton will tell you that a lot of sports stations attract people who used to live in a market and now are somewhere else but still have an affinity for the local teams and like to listen to the sports talk about their favorite team.” A streaming services provider like Triton can also tell you what percentage of your station audience is listening on smart speakers or on your app.

Boosting sales

Many of the analytics tools available in radio focus on the needs of its salespeople.

One that Bouvard recommends is Scarborough from Nielsen, which captures national and local consumer insights across various leisure activities, shopping behaviors, purchasing patterns and media consumption.

“It can show you in a local market what people buy and where they shop in that town — for instance, car dealers or furniture dealers in Cincinnati. Most people in radio view it as a sales tool, but Scarborough also does multimedia measurement. It measures tuning to cable channels in your market, local TV station viewership and the use of digital platforms.”

Hubbard Broadcasting researcher Mike Bustell recently pointed out that Scarborough data often shows radio stations beating OTA television in audience, contrary to longstanding conventional thinking about the power of TV.

Bouvard said, “So you can go into Scarborough and ask, ‘Okay, what’s the reach of TV versus radio? Oh my gosh, radio beats TV? What about radio versus cable?’ There’s a lot of insight there.”

He says stations might also consider using “top of mind” awareness studies that ask consumers in a market to name the local car dealerships or roofing companies that come to their mind. 

“The most important answer is ‘I don’t know.’ If 50% of people don’t know, your salesperson can show that to a client and point out an opportunity,” he said.

“Local retailers often think ‘My competitor is Steve’s Pest Control,’ not realizing that when half of the people in their town can’t name a pest control company at all. That’s a client’s opportunity to get famous. You can do a TOMA study easily yourself or hire a local community college or statistics group.”

Or for a sense of how your organization’s revenue is pacing or whether your sales team is pricing ads efficiently, you might turn to a company like Revenue Analytics that specializes in pricing software and streamlining a station’s sales workflow. Or to understand the state of advertising in a local market, you might look at Miller Kaplan’s revenue reports, which look at top-line market share and revenue growth.

“Miller Kaplan can tell you the state of advertising in your local market, based on data coming from you and all of your competitors,” Bouvard said. “It’ll also tell you your share of the market. It won’t tell you what your competitors’ shares are; but if your revenue is up 5% while the market was up 15%, you know someone else is getting that growth.” Miller Kaplan also offers X-Ray reports that give insights about individual advertisers or ad categories.

If you want even broader information about your local market, Bouvard said, the firm Borrell offers data and insights on how local businesses spend their marketing budgets. 

“It can tell you what businesses are spending on all forms of media advertising as well as other marketing, and configure it for any geography down to the county level. They can tell you how much total advertising is being spent in your local market, including on Google and Facebook and online video; and they do this for even the smallest markets in America.”

Such a tool can be very useful when radio companies find themselves behaving more and more like mini advertising agencies. 

“A salesperson will come to a retailer and say, ‘I’m not just here selling radio. Tell me your marketing challenge. I’ll put together a campaign that might have online video, it might have connected TV or radio or email.’”

Borrell also conducts advertiser agency surveys, asking advertisers which media do the best job of needs analysis or of integrated marketing. “They can give radio a report card of how our salespeople collectively are doing versus cable or newspaper sellers, for instance,” Bouvard said.

Competitive insights

Mike McVay, president of consulting firm McVay Media, notes the dominance of Mediabase, a reporting service that provides airplay information and insights about consumer listening trends. It monitors music airplay of approximately 1,800 media outlets in 160 markets. 

“It does more than only tracking music. It will show you where stations are breaking, which gives insight into what

the competition is doing,” he said.

Meanwhile Media Monitors, using broadcast monitoring technology, lets a user see which commercials are running and where. 

“Click the market, specify a date range, and generate a list of accounts that ran on the respective stations,” the Media Monitors website explains. “Generate reports that show occurrences and expenditure data for each account in near real-time. … See exact dates and air time, parent company, category affiliation, pod position and spot duration. Clicking on the speaker icon will allow you to listen to the spot, and download it.” 

McVay also likes a tool called SpotGPS, developed by Ralph Cipolla and distributed by Benztown. It uses airplay data to produce station spot analyses, letting the user assess and compare any hour, quarter-hour, daypart, day or multi-day totals and averages, as well as spots, songs or other on-air events. By confirming placement and quantity of breaks and sweeps, the company says, the tool helps a manager adjust and counter-program. 

McVay used it in the past while working for Cumulus. “You could look at an hour and see if your competitor was playing a better song than you, or if they were in commercials, or if you were playing a better song than them. I always felt that was one of our secret weapons.”

New on McVay’s radar is Barometer, a tool that supports “brand safety and suitability.” The company promises AI-powered insights to optimize digital audio advertising.

“Right now they’re just using it for podcasting,” McVay said. “But their approach is to go to advertisers and say, ‘Okay, you’re buying bulk, but you may be political-averse or controversy-averse. This tool looks at a wide field of podcasts and analyzes if the content of the podcast is a fit for the advertiser.

“They showed me an example of a podcast that had the ‘F word’ mentioned 17 times. With this tool, someone buying through a digital company like Townsquare’s Ignite would be able to say ‘Don’t buy these specific podcasts.’”

And McVay is impressed by a platform called Spintel that caters to the music industry. It’s a suite of analytical and management tools that help users “visualize and decipher terrestrial radio airplay data” to help find growth opportunities for records.

“I see applications for it to radio,” McVay said, “because it aggregates information about songs that are played … not just on reporting radio stations, but on streaming channels, satellite syndication and other platforms.”

Focus on first-party

A related topic of note in this discussion is the move away from third-party cookies that track a user’s browsing history and activities.

“The digital advertising industry is moving away from third-party cookies based on changing user expectations and global regulations,” wrote NAB PILOT in a report earlier this year.

“This could create a $2.1 billion loss in annual digital revenue for the broadcast industry. Without question, this is the highest priority for digital leaders at broadcast companies.”

PILOT, with support from the Google News Initiative, created an accelerator program focused on direct-to-consumer strategies to “help broadcasters leverage audiences that have largely remained anonymous, while also ensuring privacy protections.” Media companies like Beasley Media Group, Hubbard Radio, Salem Media Group and Graham Media Group participated. 

The report found that broadcasters should be focused on assessing, implementing and leveraging first-party data in light of the loss of third-party data revenue. They also should be cultivating an ongoing, direct relationship with viewers, listeners and users.

“In addition to ensuring appropriate privacy protections and helping to shield against revenue losses, first-party data is far more reliable and usable than third-party data,” it states. “The recommendation for those who have not yet begun this work is to prioritize it immediately.” The authors also wrote that media companies should consider “empowering … a cross-functional data analyst whose sole focus is to create and implement a cohesive, enterprise-level data strategy.” You can read that report here in PDF form.

A full quiver

Consultant Mike McVay says tools like the ones we described above are crucial in today’s media environment.

“The competition is greater today than at any time prior, and it will only become greater,” he said.

“Radio feels ubiquitous because it’s available on a phone, on a smart speaker, on a laptop, in your car and over the air. But it doesn’t mean that we’re only competing with radio. And it’s not just streaming that radio competes with. I can pick up Netflix on my phone. I have YouTube, which gives me everything I want and it gives me the NFL, with pictures,” McVay said.

“So you have to know where your audience is, what they do with their lives and how much discretionary time they have to listen to what it is you have to present to them.”

There are countless more sources of data-rich information available to radio managers, whether it’s Media Access Pro from BIA Advisory Services, with its 2,300 fields of data covering 30,000+ broadcast and newspaper organizations; or Bridge Ratings, which offers on-demand music streaming data as well as tools like TeenTrends and Podcastalytics; or Wedel Software and its MediaSales Analytics tool; or Veritonic and its Brand Lift solution, used by organizations like NPR to measure the impact of their client and sponsor audio campaigns.

Seth Resler said the tools you choose will depend in part on the size and needs of your organization. 

“A company with 800 stations has different priorities than one with 17 stations. A large broadcasting company may be focused on delivering a large audience to advertisers. Smaller companies may need to be more nimble and focus on really solving specific problems for a local client, such as driving foot traffic to a physical location or selling tickets to a particular event,” he said.

“This is where the first-party data becomes really important. If a broadcasting company is capturing Zip codes, it can target people around the physical location. If a broadcaster knows which listeners in its database are Foo Fighters fans, it can target them when a Foo Fighters concert comes to town. In other words, smaller broadcasters are less about delivering at scale and more about solving specific problems for local clients. The more data you have about your listeners, the better you can craft a solution.

“But at the end of the day,” Resler said, “all broadcasting companies will benefit from gathering more first-party data.”

And Mike McVay reminds us that even though radio people like to gripe about ratings, Nielsen still rules when it comes to crucial radio data tools.

“The ones who complain about ratings the loudest are the ones who don’t have any audience,” he said. “I’ve never had anybody who has great ratings and a big cume complain to me about Nielsen.”

[Sign Up for Radio World’s SmartBrief Newsletter]

The post A Look at Business Intelligence Tools for Radio appeared first on Radio World.

The poet in me (and our illustrious editor knows I am a poet at heart) cries out that I first tell you that in ancient times, folks believed that quartz crystals were eternal ice sent by the heavenly gods. 

In the late 1500s, the cognoscenti dismissed the poets and stated that these stones were actually fossilized ice. Score one for the poets. First with the most imaginative. 

In present-day parlance, etymologists believe that quartz comes to us from the German, as much of the early work was done in central Europe, and crystal from the Greek for ice. Okay, both the poets and the cognoscenti got that part of it right.

Quartz crystal is a mineral, one of the most abundant in the earth’s continental crust, composed of silicon and oxygen (SiO2).

Putting the poetry and the beauty of these gems aside, quartz crystals have a unique quality useful to engineers and especially communications engineers: the piezoelectric effect. 

The Curie brothers were an extraordinary pair who through their love and knowledge of math and physics were first to recognize in about 1880 that when pressure was applied to a body, in this case quartz, electricity was generated. The piezo portion of piezoelectric is a western bastardization of piezein, from the Greek for “squeeze.”

Crystal packaging formats through the years. The FT-243, lower left, was a favorite of the military; it became a ham standard thanks to a mounting scheme that allowed the crystal blank to be removed easily for “etching,” while the pin spacing matched the cost-effective octal tube socket, allowing convenient two-crystal pairing.

Shortly thereafter, a contemporary mathematician, Gabriel Lippman, postulated that there should be a converse piezoelectric effect, whereby applying an electric field to a crystal should cause that material to deform in response. Stimulated by this inverse phenomenon concept, the Curies quickly confirmed that Gabriel was correct.

With the emergence of the electronic era, we had better test and analysis gear to investigate, and in the 1920s, we are able to identify that certain crystal sections have a resonant aspect, electrically mimicking a series LC (inductor–capacitor) combination.

In the 1930s, broadcasting, communications in general and especially the military really got going on crystals. The problem this substance could solve … getting things exactly on-frequency … was real and the solution critical if radio was to advance and expand.

A breakdown of the FT-243 holder. The actual crystal is the opaque square at lower left.

In a crystal, this action is a combination physical and electrical event. Reviewing the early, purist form of this technology, to optimize the effect, the first step was to select the coarse material in its natural form (basically a rock, which is where the vernacular slang of “rock” for a crystal comes from). 

Next would come the mechanical preparation where the rock would be cut along the appropriate and/or ideal axis, sliced into “blanks,” the surface roughly prepared (tapering the delicate blank edges is a technology in itself), and finally a check of its resonant frequency. 

From a lower frequency, the crystal is ground down (gross error) or acid etched (fine error) until the desired frequency of operation is reached. 

As this resonant phenomenon is repeatable and stable over time, a properly utilized crystal can be the basis of a frequency standard. 

Working within the limitations of the industrial mechanical tools available during the first half of the 1900s, the crystal blanks started out to be physically quite large, placing a practical limit on the highest frequency that would be stable. The top of the AM dial (1500 kHz in1930) was well within reach, and in 1926, AT&T’s WEAF in New York City became the first radio station in the United States to control its frequency with a quartz crystal unit. 

The crystal that helped win the war. A 1000 kHz crystal standard was used to confirm the accuracy of wartime receiver dials and transmitter operating frequencies such that rendezvous on special channels could be made with confidence.

This pseudo resonant effect finds many uses and solves many problems including bandpass filters, etc., but our industry’s greatest use is in oscillators.

An oscillator is basically an amplifier with sufficient feedback to find and settle at its resonant (maximum gain) point, hopefully developing a single frequency output. The crystal is introduced into that feedback path as the controlling element, and with proper attention to current flow, temperature, loading, stray capacitance etc., that crystal will begin to physically vibrate, and when it achieves its natural resonance will be passing the maximum current, bringing the oscillator to the intended frequency … reliably, stably, continuously. 

By their very nature, crystals are brittle and can be damaged by physical impact or destructive impressed current. Early broadcast crystals for that reason were well supported, quite often in glass enclosures that were expensive and hence needed a little showoff presentation. 

During the AM domination period when the ±20 Hz frequency tolerance standard came in, the crystal also had to be maintained in a temperature-controlled, heated environment to enhance its stability even more to keep it inside that ±20 Hz window. 

Time marches on. For a few dollars these DIP IC from sources such as CTS and Cardinal contains a high stability frequency standard, a divider chain, quadrant multipliers, voltage regulator and buffer output (square wave). They can be computer cut from 1 MHz to just about any one specific programmed frequency even beyond 50 MHz.

Technology has moved forward, and modern-day crystals are mass-produced, using all sorts of breeding techniques to avoid the cutting and grinding of yesteryear. Modern devices such as computer-cut oscillators and synthesized frequency generators using VCOs and divider schemes have given us advanced, accurate and cost-effective design tools never imagined by the earliest of our broadcast technocrats. 

Do not be fooled and accept no substitutes, as almost all of these derivative concepts start out with a crystal in the device providing the base frequency.

The loaded 1900s ships arriving from Brazil, where most of the classic quartz crystals came from, are long gone replaced by artificially produced, high performance, very exact, stable at all temperature “rocks.”

However, the crystal and the piezoelectric effect, found in that eternal ice, remains an important building block tool after all these years.

The Brothers Curie (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Brothers Jacques and Pierre Curie (pictured) were research colleagues in their nascent days as renaissance-style scientists. 

Like the Varian brothers, co-inventors of the klystron, the Curies bounced off one another intellectually. With Pierre leading the way and after considering several other materials, they firmly identified the piezoelectric effect in quartz around 1880 while still in their 20s.

Putting pragmatics before theory, we again come upon one of Buc Fitch’s universal mantras: It’s not what you’ve got but what you do with it that counts. Using their new knowledge, they did do something with it, and shortly invented the piezovoltmeter and a derivative, the piezoelectrometer, which later became the basic instrument used by Pierre and his wife Marie Curie in their second-act work, which led to the discovery of radium.

[Sign Up for Radio World’s SmartBrief Newsletter]

The post Crystals: What’s Going On in There appeared first on Radio World.

Radio World’s longtime supporter Mark Durenberger wrote to me to express concern about national publications that reportedly are using generative artificial intelligence tools to create articles — with or without transparency to readers. What about Radio World, he wondered?

Radio World’s policy, set by me and stated briefly in a past column, is not to use language-based artificial intelligence to create our stories. 

If this were to change for a reason that I currently can’t imagine, I would explain it to readers. 

(I exclude from this discussion widely available AI-based tools that we all use on our phones such as search engines that are part of daily American life, but it’s worth noting that AI in one form or another is all around us already.)

Our freelancers and columnists have been told of our policy and reminded to conform to it in their own work.  

The only AI-based language tools that I’m conscious of using in our editorial workflow are those that create transcriptions of audio or video interviews we do. A human person reviews such content for accuracy before using it in reported material. 

Generative AI of course can also be used in creating graphics and photos. In Radio World we do not use such images that aren’t labeled as such, and to date they have been used only in stories about AI itself. 

I would not have a concern about using AI tools to create “concept images” or other graphics that merely create visual interest; I don’t feel we’d need to tell you, the reader, that AI was used in such cases, given that graphics tools have existed for decades to let us create or modify such images. 

But an original image in a news or information context should not be manipulated to change meaning or mislead the viewer. And if a created image might be misinterpreted or misunderstood by a reader as being “real” when it fact it is not, we should identify it.

Our parent company, like many media organizations, is still trying to figure all this out; and the ground shifts around us as the tools become more capable, creating gray areas even as we try to stake out boundaries. But so far, it has been easy for me to tell where the “line” is, based on my gut and commonsense. 

I would not for instance publish a photo in RW where we had taken the head of a person from one snapshot and cropped it into a different group photo to make her look better. However this is an example where someone else might have a different opinion about what constitutes acceptable modification, whether AI was involved or not.

I suspect Mark Durenberger’s main concern is with language-based content, and the short answer is that my personal intention overall for Radio World is to take the conservative course in applying any of these tools. If Future as a company decides tomorrow that it could replace your friendly editors with RW-GPT5, all bets are off; but I don’t see any signs of that to date.

[Read More Radio World Stories About Artificial Intelligence]

The post With AI, Transparency Is Crucial appeared first on Radio World.

.

Audio Division, Media Bureau, issues letter decision designating modification applications as mutually exclusive

Issued a Memorandum Opinion and Order and Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture to Roseland Broadcasting, Inc., in the amount of $9,500 for violations of Commission rules.

.

The Media Bureau grants the license renewal application for Station KJMU(AM) Sand Springs, Oklahoma for a one-year term and warns Birach Broadcasting Corporation it must restore the Station to full operations.

.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Democratic House Members Anna Eshoo of California and Don Beyer of Virginia, who serve as Co-Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, of the Congressional Artificial Intelligence Caucus, on Friday introduced the AI Foundation Model Transparency Act.

The politicians describe the bill as “ambitious legislation to promote transparency in artificial intelligence foundation models.”

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The FCC has moved ahead with the issuance of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would require notification to the Commission when a “blackout” of a broadcast television station, or stations, occurs on a video programming service offered by a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) for 24 hours or more due to a breakdown in retransmission consent negotiations between broadcasters and MVPDs.

The NPRM got a “yes” vote from one Republican Commissioner. But, his vote comes with reservations.

 

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

The license renewal of a low-powered television station serving the Bryan-College Station, Tex., market will proceed, but not without a small, proposed fine for engaging in unauthorized operation of the station after its Construction Permit had expired.

 

 

A $3,500 fine was handed to Castelli Media LLC, led by Vince Castelli, because he failed to file a license to cover prior to the expiration date of K35PH-D‘s original construction permit — granted on August 4, 2020, with a three-year construction period.

As such, the CP was forfeited, with the LPTV’s call sign deleted. This ended all authority to construct K35PH-D.

On October 12, more than two months after the CP was forfeited and nearly seven months after Castelli shared that construction of K35PH-D’s facilities was completed (in March 2023), Castelli sought reconsideration of the cancellation, reinstatement of the station’s expired CP, and permission to file an application for license to cover. Furthermore, Castelli said K35PH-D has been operating.

What happened, Castelli argues, is that it failed to file a timely application for license to cover due to an administrative error. Indeed, the consulting engineer included a statement that she overlooked filing the station’s license to cover. Plus, Castelli has initiated steps to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

While that’s great, Castelli is still responsible for all filings, even as the consulting engineer took the blame — hence the proposed fine.

The good news: Castelli’s reinstated construction permit allows it to file an application to cover.

 

 

A licensee that has seen Julie Huang and Matt Davidge amass a collection of low-power TV stations over the last several years could be on the hook for a financial penalty for failing to adhere to two big FCC rules.

The matter involves KXCC-LD 16 in Corpus Christi, Tex., which on January 4 was granted a Construction Permit to make minor changes to its facilities. A modification construction permit (Mod CP) was assigned an expiration date of January 4, 2026.

On February 6 of this year, Roseland filed with the Commission a resumption of operations notice stating it had “resumed regular operations” as of February 1 — “pursuant to the
parameters of its license.”

There’s just one problem: Roseland failed to promptly submit an application for license, which the FCC requires. Almost five months after construction was complete, Roseland submitted that filing, explaining it “overlooked” the filing at the time.

While the FCC doesn’t give that reason any credence, Roseland nevertheless wanted it retroactively applied to KXCC, as it then stated that after the license to cover is granted, it would file immediately a Special Temporary Authority authorization to operate KXCC-LD at reduced power (one-half of its licensed wattage) while the station’s transmitter was repaired.

But, Roseland didn’t wait: KXCC was operating at reduced power between June 27 and September 25, before it received the STA.

How does Davidge, the CFO of Roseland, explain what happened?

The FCC notes that, according to Davidge, “After the station commenced broadcasting from the new site, a transmitter repair became necessary. Power was reduced accordingly and an STA was not sought due to the pendency of the license to cover.” He went on to explain that Roseland did not immediately seek an STA for reduced power operation because his attorney “was concerned that the LMS database would associate the requested STA with the former site and create confusion.” Further, Davidge argues, since the Commission had been alerted through the filing of license application that the LPTV station intended to reduce power, Rosemary assumed that “once the license to cover was granted, should it be necessary [it] would have filed the Request for STA.”

The lesson here regarding the assumption? A Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture in the amount of $9,500.

While the normal base fine is $26,000, it was reduced due to its LPTV status. However, Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman explained that the proposed fine is higher than proposed forfeitures the FCC has issued for similar violations. Why? Roseland was previously admonished by the Commission for another instance of unauthorized operations and “apparent pattern of rule violations.”

While putting the No. 1 song this week in 1965 — Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” — in heavy rotation may alienate audience, true silence will attract the attention of the FCC. That’s the case in the matter of an AM radio station in Oklahoma licensed to Michigan-based Sima Birach. 

Birach’s station was dark for extended periods of time during its prior license period. Now, the FCC has spoken: It is granting a license renewal, but for a much-curtailed time-frame.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Earlier this fall, Eastern Washington University revealed that it would conclude broadcasts on its Class C1 noncommercial Jazz station serving the Spokane market on December 31. Now, the institution says it is extending that deadline. But, a death date for KEWU is certain.

A “phase-out” plan associated with the FM at 89.5 MHz that has been on the air since November 1963 was informally shared in August 2023. At the time, a year-end goodbye was expected for the station.

Now, EWU shares that extending that deadline into 2024 will allow it more time “to deal with the many complexities surrounding licensing and equipment.” It will also minimize disruptions to EWU and students, the school says.

During the transition period, KEWU will continue to maintain programming with an automated jazz music presentation. This means that as of January 1 student air personalities will work about two hours each weekday morning.

EWU administrators have said that with the national media landscape changing dramatically, the university must look to explore other media opportunities and involving students with other creative forms of communication. The radio station has been managed and operated by a mixture of Eastern faculty, students and broadcast communications professionals.

The Assistant News Director for Graham Media Group‘s flagship television station, known to locals in Detroit as “LOCAL 4,” has been promoted to News Director just ahead of the Christmas holiday.

Jennifer Wallace Canine has earned the new role for WDIV-TV, the NBC affiliate led by Bob Ellis, the VP/GM who ranks at No. 1 among RBR+TVBR’s Top Local TV Leaders  rankings for 2023.

Canine made the announcement via her LinkedIn profile.

In a press release, Ellis said, “Jennifer’s impact on this newsroom has been profound. She’s an enormous reason why we are who we are today. What makes her special is her intense desire to foster the culture of a newsroom that doesn’t try to be like anyone or anything else. With the changes we’ve made to our product just getting started, Jenn is also the right person to lead us in our evolving storytelling approach and help every news employee find ways to serve our viewers on all platforms every day. I have the utmost faith that she will lead, communicate with transparency, and move us forward.”

Canine added, “I’m incredibly proud and thankful to lead a newsroom of amazing people that doesn’t look to anyone else for what it wants to be.  We know what we want to deliver to our community which is impactful and important news – and we want to be the best at it on every single platform.”

Travel between Pittsburgh and Chambersburg, Pa., and you’ll traverse Bedford County, home to two AMs, a pair of FMs and two FM translators offering News/Talk, Hot Adult Contemporary, Adult Standards and “B-Rock” to local listeners.

The stations are family owned and operated. Now, one brother is relinquishing his shares in the company.

 

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

On August 7, paperwork was filed for FCC regulatory approval that would result in only the third owner for an AM/FM combo serving an Ohio city due east of Columbus.

The transaction has now closed, putting the stations’ President/GM in the owner’s seat.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

At age 83, Gene Loving has experienced a lot across more than six decades in the radio industry. Now, he’s decided to focus on his company’s radio stations east of the Rocky Mountains by selling a pair of rimshot FMs with boosters allowing them to cover the Denver market.

 

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)