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re: Applications Accepted for Filing

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The Bureau enters into a Consent Decree with Randall W. Sliger

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Petitioner has requested the substitution of UHF channel 32 for VHF channel 11 at Cape Girardeau in the DTV Table of Allotments

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Beasley Media Group is headquartered in Southwest Florida, and its stations serving the region stretching from Fort Myers south to Marco Island has just made a flurry of staff promotions.

This includes the naming of a new Program Director at “96 K-Rock,” the venerable personality-based station.

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As the Cinco de Mayo Closing Bell rang on Wall Street, Fox Corporation released its fiscal third quarter financial results.

With comparable data to fiscal Q3 2020 difficult, as Fox today isn’t the same company as it was at the start of last year, net income attributable to shareholders came in at $567 million ($0.96 per share). This is up from $78 million ($0.13 per share).

On an adjusted basis, net income dipped to $523 million ($0.88), from $568 million ($0.93), namely due to the absence of a Super Bowl telecast.

What was the contribution of the Fox Television Stations to the mix?

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U.S. broadband providers are carrying considerable momentum out of the pandemic despite increased competition and impending service maturity with penetrations nearing 90% of occupied households.

That’s according to the updated forecast from Kagan, the research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence staging the Kagan Media Summit on June 17 as a virtually delivered affair.

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The author is editor in chief of Radio World.

The consent decree announcements involving online political files keep rolling out from the Federal Communications Commission. Radio World has learned that more than 2,100 radio stations in the United States now are covered by these agreements, which require station owners to put compliance plans in place.

The latest examples include Major Broadcasting Corp. for WYGO(FM) in Madisonville, Tenn.; Custer County Community Broadcasting for KMTA(AM) and KYUS(FM) in Miles City, Mont.; and San Luis Valley Broadcasting for stations KSLV(FM) in Del Norte, Colo., and KYDN(FM) in Monte Vista, Colo.

But these broadcasters are in good company. Many similar announcements have been coming out since last July, as we’ve reported, and have involved radio licensees of all shapes and sizes.

I’ve been curious about this project from the start. I reached out to the FCC staff for an update this week.

To start with, a commission spokesperson tells me that to date, the Audio Division of the Media Bureau has adopted approximately 130 consent decrees that cover approximately 250 stations. The stations had their license renewal applications put on hold pending FCC investigations; those holds were later lifted under the consent agreements.

But this doesn’t don’t tell the whole tale, because those numbers exclude the “Big Six” broadcast groups that first entered into consent decree agreements with the FCC last year. Those agreements were brokered with the help of the National Association of Broadcasters, and the FCC’s announcement about them last summer put this overall effort into the public eye.

The six broadcasters — iHeart Media, Alpha Media, Beasley, Cumulus, Entercom Radio and Salem Broadcasting — entered into consent decrees that require compliance reporting for all of the stations they own.

So if we include them, the number of consent decrees is about 136 but the number of stations covered by them is 2,135, including some that had not yet filed their own renewal applications.

It’s hard to give an exact number because in some cases, other owners also entered agreements that included not only stations with pending license renewals but some that had not yet filed. But it’s evident that the program has touched many broadcasters.

The consent decrees generally are all similar. A broadcaster acknowledges failure to comply with the rules for maintaining online political files, and it commits to a compliance plan and to report back later. The broadcaster avoids a financial fine. The FCC ends its investigation and removes the “hold” on the license renewal; it also acknowledges that the pandemic created exceptional circumstances for many broadcasters. (The FCC is not aware of any stations that were denied renewal for other reasons after a hold was lifted.)

To my eye, this program should be considered a success for both the FCC Media Bureau and the National Association of Broadcasters.

The regulator effectively gets the message out that it is serious about enforcing this particular set of rules and laws, with the clear implication that at some point in the future, more costly outcomes can be expected. Broadcasters avoid financial penalties and agree to follow rules they were supposed to be following all along. Meanwhile the industry’s largest broadcast association helps its members (and non-members) come into compliance and avoid fines.

I strongly suspect that failure to maintain political files properly (“derelictions” in the FCC’s language) have been the norm for a long time. So if we accept the premise that the political file rules are justified in the first place (a separate discussion), this outcome is also a win for the folks who developed the FCC’s program to put files online — though I’m sure plenty of broadcasters may have preferred not to have the commission looking directly into their paperwork all the time!

And I’d say that, in our current political climate, anything that tends to make our nation’s political process more transparent is a good thing.

The commission adopted rules requiring broadcasters to maintain public files about requests for political ad time more than 80 years ago. Political file obligations have been part of Section 315(e) of the Telecom Act since 2002. A full-power station’s political file is part of its public inspection file.

[Read more on this topic, “The FCC Can See Your Public File”]

Radio licensees must maintain information about requests to buy broadcast time from or on behalf of candidates for public office, or by an issue advertiser whose ad communicates a message relating to “a political matter of national importance,” and it must make that information available for public inspection.

Stations must place info about requests into their political files “as soon as possible.” Stations must maintain and make available information about all requests for broadcast time made by or on behalf of candidates for public office. And stations must upload the information to their online political files “as soon as possible,” meaning “immediately absent unusual circumstances.”

The commission has written that “It is crucial that stations maintain political files that are complete and up to date because the information in them directly affects, among other things, the statutory rights of opposing candidates to request equal opportunities.”

The post FCC Political File Consent Decrees Proliferate appeared first on Radio World.

In Northwest Pennsylvania and along Florida’s Suncoast region, the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine has become known as a purveyor of commercial-free Oldies radio.

Now, it is bolstering up its on-air offerings in the Keystone State.

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Known to Radio World readers for his  broadcast engineering work at Greater Media and Burk Technology, and his presentations at numerous engineering conferences, Paul Shulins has struck out on his own.

Naturally he’s taking advantage of his past broadcast experience in this endeavor; and the result is Shulins Solutions, a broadcast technical consultancy.

Radio World: What is Shulins Solutions?

Paul Shulins: It has three pillars: the Stellar Eclipse platform which provides unique monitor, control and protection solutions for transmission sites; drone-based tower inspections; and a full range of consulting services based on years’ of practical experience on the ground building and operating broadcast facilities.

Stellar Eclipse broadcast site monitoring platform provides a systems approach to monitoring and protection of RF systems from simple to complex featuring exclusive VSWR Sentinel protection technology.

[Read: “Stellar Eclipse in Space City”]

sUAS Drone-based tower structure visual and infrared surveys provide an indispensable tool to diagnose the health of RF systems and tower structures without the risk of climbing the towers.

Broadcast Technology Consulting meets the demands of broadcasters, specializing in remote control solutions, studio design and construction, antenna protection systems and ratings metrics.

We pride ourselves on solving problems with an attention to detail that only comes from firsthand experience in the field. All of our products and services come from the point of view of the user, and are crafted with the passion of a lifelong broadcaster.

RW: I assume it’s mostly you doing the work. Do you contract out when you need others? Do you have employees?

Shulins: We were a virtual organization before working virtually was cool.

While I wear many hats, including having the technical vision and architecture for our offerings, I have a group of talented people who provide important skills like cloud-based software, hardware layout and fabrication, installations, marketing and so forth, all needed to bring world class products and services to market.

As a longtime licensed pilot and of course a career broadcast engineer I have a pretty unique skillset to fly our drones.

Even with the help I am typically the guy who answers the phone. I like being directly in touch with customers.

RW: Many readers will know you from your tenure at Greater Media and Burk, and your work and presentations at NAB conferences. What prompted you to become an entrepreneur?

Shulins: With the amazing support of longtime DOE Milford Smith of Greater Media, I was able to think outside the box, and provide exciting new technical solutions to problems that materialized due to the growing industry and technology.

Many of these solutions came in the form of digital playout systems, multi-site remote controls, and Part 101 studio-to-transmitter links before they were popular.

I decided that thinking in this way often led to solutions that others can benefit from too. My drive to share my passion for innovation presented the perfect opportunity to start this business.

RW: How do recent trends in how broadcast companies manage engineering affect the marketplace for the services you offer?

Shulins: For sure the market is changing. We are all balancing more projects at the same time, and resources are stretched thin.

During my long tenure at Greater Media, I was fortunate to have the time and flexibility to be able to creates a number of custom software systems that really helped improve the operating efficiency of the stations, and are the foundation of many of the products and services I offer today. That being said, many very capable broadcast engineers simply don’t have the time to be able to take on these types of projects themselves.

The solutions we offer can really help engineers manage their transmission sites, and provide a level of protections and monitoring that simplifies their operation. Our drone tower inspections using thermal imagery can help find issues quickly before they cause serious down time. We strive to provide tools that help engineers make the most of their time and help simplify with an approach that is based on my experience waking in their shoes for many years.

RW: How widely are drones being used now in broadcast inspection work?

Shulins: We see it growing more and more each day. I think the TV spectrum repack really put a lot of pressure on the tower climbing resources and brought focused, alternative ways to inspect towers beyond simply climbing them. While nothing can fully replace a physical inspection, sUAS inspections bring new technology and capabilities, allowing for inspections that can be made more frequently, less expensively, and in many cases with more detail than a physical inspection often finding problems not obvious from the ground.

RW: Give an example of a project you’re working on or recently did.

Shulins: I recently had the honor of working with some very talented engineers on a 10-station FM combiner system that had very complex switching and safety requirements. The type of software and hardware solutions I deploy happened to be a perfect fit for this operation. Features like automatic power reduction in the event of line pressure loss, and integrated mode switching using multiple motorized coaxial switches. It was a lot of fun to design and deploy.

I have also recently been able to pinpoint transmission line problems with the sUAS using thermal imagery when more conventional resources like spectrum analyzers and ground based TDRs were unable to localize the issue.

RW: What else should we know?

Shulins: My strength is my experience and my passion. The old cliche holds true that if you love what you do for work, then it really isn’t work. My entire career has been about innovation and technology, but the most important part is the people. I have had the good fortune of working with some of the very best in the world, and learning from all of them. I enjoy making people’s lives easier by providing exciting ideas and solutions to help them save money and compete effectively. I approach each day with excitement and can’t wait to see what opportunities are around the corner.

The post Shulins Opens Up His Own Shop appeared first on Radio World.

Getty Images/Carol Yepes

Wearing its “world’s largest podcast publisher” hat, iHeartMedia has launched something it describes as unique. It’s a “Private Marketplace” to offer advertisers a programmatic buying way to reach listeners to podcasts in the iHeartPodcast Network.

The system was developed through Voxnest, which iHeart acquired last fall.

Brian Kaminsky, chief data officer and president of revenue strategies, said the goal of that purchase was to let iHeart give podcast advertisers “additional targetable inventory at scale.” The company said in its announcement that the iHeartPodcast Network offers “30 million US monthly uniques and 257 million global downloads and streams.”

The technology will let advertisers create their own “marketplaces” consisting of specific audience targets and pricing, “to dial up and down across each year as their marketing needs require.”

Those advertisers will have on three targeting options: Category, Geolocation and Psychographic.

“Categories” include business and finance, TV and film, music, true crime and so on, while “Geolocation” promises to deliver relevant messaging to a specific region.

“Psychographic” lets an advertiser buy into shows that “speak to specific consumer behaviors like the conqueror, explorer, legend, cultivator, decider, thriver, rising star, advocate, backer and intrepid.”

Buyers will be able to choose multiple deal types including Programmatic Guaranteed (PG), Preferred Deal (PD), Private Auction (PA) and Open Marketplace (OMP).

In 2016 iHeart launched a “programmatic private marketplace for digital radio” in an announcement with AdsWizz.

The post iHeart Launches “Private Marketplace” for Podcasts appeared first on Radio World.

Taboo until a 2018 Supreme Court verdict, online sports betting isn’t technically a new ad category. But with just over two years of a track record, few would challenge its advertising status as a golden goose, especially within the local TV industry, Nielsen notes in a newly released study on how online gaming ads are boosting free-to-air television revenues.

Currently a $154 million market in the local spot space, online gambling advertising spend has skyrocketed from a mere $10.7 million at the start of 2019.

According to BIA Advisory Services, online gambling has the potential to drive more than $587 million into the local spot TV market by 2024. The company maintains this as a likely forecast, given current trends and the expected addition of sports betting in a handful of states where legislation is pending. This is good news for the local TV market, which accounts for just under 80% of online gambling ads, Nielsen finds.

Forecasts aside, the increase in online gambling ads has been a boon for local TV stations, particularly as many traditional advertisers pulled back or paused in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Nielsen Ad Intel data released in the March Nielsen Total Audience report, U.S. TV advertising dropped to just over $76 billion last year from just over $84 billion in 2019, with the retail (-22%), auto (-17%) and restaurant (-8%) categories pulling back notably.

“Given the sports betting focus of the top advertisers, sports programming is a key way to reach sports bettors,” Nielsen says. “Surprisingly, the largest share of online sports betting ads is currently allocated to news programming. One reason attributable to this fact is that local news stations have much more control over their total ad inventory (versus sports programming which typically occurs in primetime), and as a result, there is more flexibility to place ads in news. It’s also worth noting that the share of these ads in news programming has increased to almost 40% over the past year. The increase isn’t without its merits, as news offers significant reach and an opportunity to engage new spenders, growing the consumer base.”

While sports programming still has the biggest reach (77%) of the country’s sports bettors, local news currently reaches just over half (53%) and growing. Other categories representing possible opportunities for brands seeking greater targeted audience reach for sports bettors include movies and comedy programming, with reach of 76% and 74%, respectively.

Given the ramp-up in spending since 2019, online gambling now ranks 11th among 1,200 product categories for spot TV advertising dollars, accounting for 2.1% share. Comparatively, legal services, the top category for dollars spent, accounts for 7%.

As with any marketing effort, especially when the goal is brand building, extensive messaging across mass mediums amplifies top-of-mind awareness. And to that effect, the top seven advertisers in the online gambling space account for 96% of the spot TV ads in the category. What’s more, the top three are the most prolific spenders, accounting for 82%.

Among the top three spenders, FanDuel and DraftKings focus exclusively on sports betting. “Their ad campaigns are prolific and produced to specifically appeal to the country’s rabid sports bettors,” Nielsen says. “The targeting is spot on, as the 7.3 million daily fantasy bettors in the U.S. have an aggregate income of more than $780 billion, according to data from Nielsen Scarborough. Additionally, the new online sports bettor is younger than other bettors (live sports bettors at casinos, cash bettors at sporting events, organized fantasy league players) and is mostly male (77%).”

In addition to revised federal regulations allowing advertised sports betting on TV, professional sports leagues themselves have increasingly warmed up to the idea as well. Today, NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell says sports betting creates more engagement with fans. That is notably different perspective from back in 2012 when he expressed concerns about possible collusion and fixed games. Some sports teams, such as the New York Giants and Washington Wizards, have physical sports books inside their stadiums.

When it comes to TV, sports broadcasts no longer hedge when it comes to talking about game odds and spreads. In fact, some programming even features on-screen tickers detailing point spreads as the action unfolds.

“The overwhelming sea change across the sports and media industries with respect to betting ads highlights a significant growth opportunity for both local and national television,” Nielsen concludes. “In 2020, online/digital sports betting-related ad spend increased across 180 of the 208 designated market areas (DMAs) that Nielsen monitors. Additionally, online/digital sports betting spend in 185 DMAs exceeded $300,000, up from less than $50,000 across those same DMAs in 2017. So even though gambling activities are limited to select states, advertising in this category, where legal, is increasing across the overwhelming majority of the country’s 208 DMAs. That spells opportunity for local news organizations and advertising agencies alike.”

Convergent TV advertising platform Beachfront has completed a national addressable TV ad execution with VIZIO that it says adheres to the technical specifications of Open Addressable Ready (OAR), the consortium founded by VIZIO to establish an open standard for addressable advertising on connected TVs.

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The nation’s largest owner of broadcast radio stations has flipped the switch on a “first-of-its-kind” Private Marketplace designed to provide advertisers with programmatic buying access to distribute their marketing to audiences across programs found on its podcast network.

The iHeartPodcast Network, which considers itself to be “the No. 1 podcast publisher globally,” will now be accessible to CMOs, media buyers and brand managers that seek their “own unique, tailored marketplaces” composed of specific audience targets and pricing.

The advancement is thanks to new technology developed through iHeartMedia’s recently acquired Voxnest.

The iHeartPodcast Network includes such offerings as “Stuff You Should Know,” the Will Ferrell-hosted “The Ron Burgundy Podcast” and the “Atlanta Monster.” On-air talent from iHeartMedia-owned radio stations can also be found, including “The Breakfast Club” on-demand podcasts.

Brian Kaminsky, Chief Data Officer and President of Revenue Strategies for iHeartMedia, commented, “We acquired Voxnest last Fall with the plan to be able to provide podcast advertisers with additional targetable inventory at scale by allowing the effective and efficient monetization across an entire range of podcast inventory. Voxnest connects all of the fragmented platforms that exist in podcasting – the launch of this Private Marketplace is a huge milestone in the podcast industry and advances these capabilities to buyers. Our podcasts attract some of the most engaged and passionate podcast listeners in the world and now advertisers will have massive scale and highly specific targeting at their fingertips, to reach these hundreds of millions of listeners who are now consuming podcasts.”

With the new Private Marketplace, advertisers will have the ability to reach their specific audience based on three specialized targeting options: Category, Geolocation, and Psychographic.

The company also notes that iHeartMedia’s Private Marketplace will offer advertisers multiple deal types including Programmatic Guaranteed (PG), Preferred Deal (PD), Private Auction (PA) and Open Marketplace (OMP).

Buyers interested can email ProgrammaticAdOps@iHeartMedia.com.

“Results for the quarter were much better.”

That’s perhaps an understatement from Sinclair Broadcast Group President/CEO Chris Ripley, who spoke at length during the company’s Q1 2021 earnings call on Wednesday morning about just how strong Sinclair’s performance was during the first three months of the year.

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“Positivity always wins.” It’s a mantra often repeated by social media guru and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, and one the Radio industry may wish to adopt as first quarter 2021 financial results roll out for the owners of AM and FM stations across the U.S.

Mary Berner, President/CEO of Cumulus Media, appears to have gotten the memo. In her remarks about the audio media company’s Q1, she struck a largely positive tone, noting “enhanced operating leverage” and “continued year-over-year sequential growth.”

The upbeat words couldn’t mask the financial realities Cumulus faced in Q1: tough comps and continued pandemic-related ad dollar dips led to a bumpy start to 2021 for the company.

It could have been worse, and that’s the key takeaway.

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Al Kenyon

Al Kenyon has a couple of suggestions of his own for the Federal Communications Commission regarding the Emergency Alert System — specifically involving EAS Originator and Event Codes.

He is intimately familiar with the topic as chief of FEMA’s IPAWS Customer Support Branch; but he emphasized that he was making his suggestions as an individual, not speaking for FEMA. He thinks the suggestions will improve public-facing EAS messaging without significant additional costs to industry or the alerting community.

[“FCC Releases Details of EAS Proposal”]

Kenyon filed comments in the FCC’s notice of public rulemaking regarding changes to the nation’s alerting systems.

He says originator codes need to make clear who or what organization originated the message. He also would like to see the addition of a Domestic Terrorism Event code.

First, he noted that two of the four currently authorized EAS originator codes convey descriptive information regarding who originated the alert.

“WXR and CIV indicate that the message originator was the National Weather Service or a Civil Authority, respectively. The third originator code, EAS, was commonly and interchangeably used with CIV when broadcast stations were always manned during operation and key local primary stations were expected to originate EAS messages at the request of local officials.” But he said that is no longer the case. “Use of the ‘EAS’ ORG code is now limited to use in conjunction with EAS Participant-originated RWT and RMT test messages.

“The fourth originator code was not based on the originating office or official but rather on the name of the top-level national EAS dissemination system, the Primary Entry Point system, ‘PEP.’ This collection of stations and facilities is now referred to by FEMA as the National Public Warning System or NPWS.”

But Kenyon noted that the PEP is not an originator, it is a message dissemination system.

“An EAS message scroll that begins with ‘The Primary Entry Point System has issued an …’ has little or no meaning to the general public and can only contribute to general confusion,” he said. “For the benefit of the public, originator codes should reflect who or what organization originated the message, not what collection of technical facilities were enlisted for top level dissemination of the message.”

Kenyon recommended that the FCC consider a replacement organization code such as FEO, for Federal Executive Official, or a similar alternative. He said this would be compatible the idea of renaming the current WEA Presidential Alert to allow for common use of that category by the president or by the FEMA administrator, as laid out by Congress in the legislation that prompted the current NPRM.

Second, “Regarding possible additions to EAS Event Codes, I ask the commission to consider authorizing a new Event Code for use in urgent instant action situations such as a radiation hazard caused by detonation of a ‘dirty’ bomb or improvised nuclear device,” Kenyon continued.

“While discussion of such hopefully unlikely events may be both unpopular and unpleasant, should such an event occur, it will be essential to the public health and welfare that people take shelter immediately. (That means Mommy should not get in a car and drive to little Timmy’s school. Little Timmy will be sheltering in place in school. Both Mommy and Timmy will be much better off if Mommy does not risk exposure during the period of greatest hazard immediately following the event.)”

For such a case Kenyon proposes adding a Domestic Terrorism Event, DTE, or similar event code. “Ideally a DTE Event Code would be a must-carry event similar in required retransmission status to an Emergency Action Notification. Presumably, such status could be granted through presidential delegation of authority to an appropriate fast response agency or organization.”

He closed his filing by saying that he doesn’t realistically expect the FCC to act on the proposed additional Event Code in the current proceeding. “But I would be remiss if I did not get this recommendation on the record now before the ebb and flow of international relations and splinter factions reaches a point where this becomes an imminent concern.”

Kenyon is a former engineering executive or chief engineer with broadcast companies Clear Channel, Jacor and Taft. He also has done significant volunteer work with EBS and EAS committees at various levels from local to national. He also worked for Denny & Associates, ManTech and Five Rivers Services before joining FEMA in 2010. In 2017 he was named IPAWS Customer Support Branch Chief.

The post Kenyon Says Make EAS Originator Codes Clearer appeared first on Radio World.