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A new study from Australia has found that not only is adoption of smart speaker devices on the rise, but that the devices are extending access to radio to more places and demonstrating that consumers in that country are open to the increasing possibilities of voice technology.

These were some of the findings from the latest Smart Audio Report Australia 2021, which found that a growing number of households are investing in smart speakers, are planning to purchase another speaker within the immediate future and place a high value on audio programming.

All in all, the report found that smart speakers are encouraging owners to listen to more music and news from online audio and AM/FM/DAB+ radio.

[Read: Is the Smart Speaker Like a New Age Home Radio?]

Ownership of smart speaker devices is on the rise across the board in Australia. The survey found that more than one quarter of Australians aged 12 or older — which comes to 5.6 million people — now own a smart speaker, a 53% jump from 2020 when only 17% owned smart speaker devices.

Among those Australians that currently own a smart speaker, 24% of those households own three or more of those devices, up from 13% in 2020.

The survey also found that both smart speaker user satisfaction and the intention to purchase is high, with the report predicting that as many as 8.7 million devices will be added to Australian households.

Usage is also on the rise. Of those in Australia who already own a smart speaker, 67% use them on a daily basis while 88% use them at least once during the week. Among owners, 61% plan to purchase another device in the near future while 38% of non-speaker-owning households say they plan to purchase one in the next six months.

These figures are on par with American smart speaker ownership in 2021. In 2018, only 5% of Australians owned a smart speaker, compared to 18% in the United States. That gap narrowed in 2021 with 33% of Americans owning a smart speaker compared with 26% ownership in Australia.

The study also revealed how listeners were engaging with their smart speaker devices.

Forty-nine percent of Australians have used a voice assistant to interact with a brand or service. Sixty-seven percent of smart speaker owners listen to the device while multitasking, such as while cooking, doing chores or entertaining. Users are also reporting that smart speakers are changing the way that people interact with other technology — 49% say they’ve begun using their voice-operated assistant on their smartphone more frequently since purchasing a smart speaker device, with 40% saying they spend less time with other technology once they began using their smart speaker.

The report also touched on parental use of smart speakers. Fifty-one percent with children in the household said reducing screen time was a reason they purchased a smart speaker with 69% agreeing that the devices have made it easier to entertain children.

Among smart speaker brands, Google continues to dominate the smart speaker market in Australia with 24% owning a Google smart speaker, 3% owning an Amazon device and 1% owning an Apple HomePod.

“Smart speakers have fundamentally changed the way people interact with media,” said Megan Lazovick, vice president at Edison Research, who presented the results in a webinar. The report was conducted by Edison Research and was commissioned by Commercial Radio Australia, the Australian commercial radio broadcasting group, along with TalkVia, an Australian technology company.

“It is a good bet that the Australian population will continue to grow more comfortable with this technology and opportunities will grow for those in audio and advertising if they embrace smart audio, too,” Lazovick said.

The Smart Audio Report Australia study was conducted via a national online survey of 5,000 adults aged 18 and older in Australia in April and May 2021. Additional data was taken from the Infinite Dial Australia from Commercial Radio Australia, Southern Cross Austereo/LiSTNR, Triton Digital and Edison Research.

The post Smart Speaker Usage on the Rise Down Under appeared first on Radio World.

Radio program provider American Public Media Group has named Heather Riddle as its new senior vice president and chief development officer.

She previously was vice president of institutional advancement and alumni relations at Augsburg University in Minneapolis. She starts on July 22.

Riddle succeeds Randi Yoder, who has retired.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

A release said Riddle will be responsible for “leading the vision and developing the strategy for APMG’s philanthropic support. She will direct the fundraising teams, cultivate lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with donors, oversee major campaigns, and implement innovative plans to inspire and secure essential contributions.”

In addition, “As a member of the executive team reporting to APMG’s CEO, Riddle will help to accelerate APMG’s ‘Audiences First 2025’ strategic plan, prioritizing the changing needs of the people and communities APMG serves while elevating the role of philanthropy in the organization’s future growth.”

She said, “I’m thrilled to join the APMG community of exceptional staff, loyal listeners, and members who believe in the mission of public media.”

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

The post APM Picks Riddle appeared first on Radio World.

Despite an effort by the company’s founder to stop it, the Audio Division of the FCC’s Media Bureau has moved forward with the approval of Alpha Media‘s voluntary debtor-in-possession status.

As such, an emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection appears imminent.

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Sinclair Broadcast Group has created a position that will see an individual lead the company’s information security program across all business functions, charged with creating and executing Sinclair’s security vision, strategy and operating model across its entire portfolio.

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Crossings TV can be found over the air on low-power TV station KBTV-8 in Sacramento; on Comcast Xfinity systems in Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Francisco and Seattle-Tacoma; and on Charter Spectrum systems in Los Angeles in New York — some of the nation’s biggest Asian American population centers.

Why did Frank Washington, founder and CEO of the Sacramento-based channel, and COO Daniel Sakaya, each decide to focus their careers and attention to the build-out of a television channel that offers a variety of programming targeting all of these different groups?

They share this, and more, in this encore RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast from January 12, 2021, presented by DOT.FM.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Frank Washington” on Spreaker.

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.

Steve Kirsch is president of Silver Lake Audio, which produces multi-station radio remotes including renting the equipment and providing tech support. This interview is from the 2021 Radio World ebook “Remote Radio Phase II: What We’ve Learned During a Pandemic.”

RW: How did the pandemic change workflow for you and your clients? 

Steve Kirsch: A lot of my smaller clients called in March 2020 as they were beginning to figure out how to have their morning show do their thing from their house. “Look, I’d like to rent a Comrex. We’re going to feed the audio back to the studio, but they’re not going to be there.” 

At the beginning they’d say, “Well, we need this for two weeks.” You remember? It seems crazy now to think about, but in the beginning we thought all this would be over. In March last year, you had [events] on the books for June that you knew were still going to happen. “By then, we’ll have this all sorted out.” 

A year later I had some clients who still have the equipment. I said, “Look, just keep this stuff until the pandemic’s over.” We shut the meter off, they’re not renting it any longer. They’re just borrowing it at this point. 

We were supposed to do a job in April 2020 for the Academy of Country Music Awards. They kicked that down the road from April to September, and they moved the venue from Las Vegas to Nashville; but they still wanted to do this radio multi-station broadcast. 

Now in a typical year, we would build a booth for each radio station on the floor of the convention center or wherever they were basing the show. We would set up the equipment in every booth, and the DJs would just show up and sit in the booth. We’d have a small crew. We’d show the guys how to use the equipment that we put out there; and then the artists, Luke Bryan, Lady Antebellum, would move through from one booth to another.

So keeping that format in mind, [the ACM] decided that they were going to go ahead and do this virtually last fall. They decided that as opposed to having the talent from the radio stations fly in, they would set up video monitors in each booth. The artists would move through the booth, but they would look at a video screen, and they would see the DJ back in their home studio. So they came to us and said, “How are we going to do this?”

By September, everybody was familiar with doing Zoom calls and Microsoft meetings. Whatever platform the radio station was accustomed to, we adapted that booth for their format, for their platform. 

We brought in computer monitors and put Focusrite Scarlet sound cards on those things, so you didn’t sound like those CNN interviews where the guy sounds like he’s in a garbage can, using the microphone that’s built into the computer. The Focusrite Scarlet is pro level in and USB out, and they interface with the computer. 

Then we used our regular setup, Mackie 1202s and headphone amps, and interfaced everything into the Zoom call. 

I would say half the stations still wanted Comrex or Tieline audio going back. The Zoom audio is pretty good. We never expected to use the Zoom audio, because most of the things that you’ve seen on TV have sounded so bad. We were surprised with these sound cards and how good the audio with the Zoom call actually was. 

RW: Did it work out well?

Kirsch: It worked great. 

We always provide Sony 7506 headphones as studio monitors for those events; the artist comes in and put the headphones on, they can listen to questions from the studio or whatever. [But] the academy didn’t want that look. 

They knew that the DJs in the studio were going to see the artists. They didn’t want the artists wearing headphones; and they were worried that the women wouldn’t put them on because it would mess up their hair. These are some of the things that we had to deal with. 

We debated going to IFB type earpieces like they use on TV. But then we just ended up looking for the least obtrusive earbuds that we could find, and they really loved those. I don’t know that we’re ever going back to the headphones because even though it’s radio, there’s so much of this stuff gets put on the social media platform now, with video streaming. 

RW: What about hygienic considerations, where you’ve got talent going from booth to booth.

Kirsch: We threw out all of our windscreens. We were using WindTech, they’re like six bucks a windscreen instead of 50 cents that you could get at B&H Photo if you buy 20 of them. We took all our WindTech windscreens off and bought new windscreens with the idea of throwing them out. 

We also bought those earbuds, and used alcohol wipes and put new tips on for the next event. 

We washed down the mics, we put new windscreens on; and we have a Seal-a-Meal heat sealer for bags. We heat sealed these mics, these windscreens and these earbuds in a bag; and we put a label on the outside. We knew the artist lineup so we’d write the artist’s name on the outside of the bag; and when they checked in to do the interviews, we handed them this bag.

Also my guys, in addition to being tested every day, they had to wear a plastic shield as well as a mask to sit in the booth and do the engineering.

The post Lessons of Radio Row at the ACM Awards appeared first on Radio World.