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Clear Water Brands, Inc. enters into Consent Decree to Resolve Political File Investigation

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Emergency alerts will be showing up on more digital billboards in the United States through a partnership of FEMA and Lamar Advertising.

“The alerts are transmitted over FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) on select Lamar digital billboards throughout the country,” the agency wrote in a press release.

[Read: COVID-19 and Emergency Alerting Best Practices]

The announcement was made by Administrator Pete Gaynor, who called 2020 an “unprecedented” year for public alerts thanks to the pandemic and “a record number” of hurricanes.

IPAWS alerts have appeared on Lamar digital billboards in 17 states “and are available to run in all 43 states that Lamar covers,” FEMA said.

“Alerts will be displayed for 30 minutes at a time. Not all alerts sent through FEMA will appear on a Lamar billboard.”

FEMA said that since 2011 IPAWS has carried more than 81,000 alerts and warnings, and of those, 11,000 have been delivered in 2020 alone.

The post FEMA Expands Use of Billboards for Alerts appeared first on Radio World.

The Telos Alliance has released a “soft” console through its Axia Audio badge.

The iQs AES67 mixing console software is an HMTL5 software-based console designed to provide remote operation powers via Windows and Mac computers along with mobile devices. It works with the company’s AE-1000 server or Docker.

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

Telos Alliance Executive VP of Sales, Support, and Marketing Marty Sacks said, “IQs software runs on roads built by industries much larger than our own and gives broadcasters flexible options for deployment, including our new AE-1000 server and Docker container. … All while giving you total control with a simple web browser, allowing broadcast engineers to ‘Studio Anywhere.’”

According to a release iQs is scalable and allows multiple iterations at the same time. It is compatible with off-the-shelf hardware and has easy upgrade paths. Multiple subscription levels are available. It also allows for customization.

The company also points to the advantage of cloud-based systems such as trimming cap-ex costs and also eliminating or keeping physical plant costs under control.

Info: www.telosalliance.com

 

The post Telos Alliance Releases Axia iQs Soft Console appeared first on Radio World.

An image from the FCC’s “5G FAST Plan” web page

The Federal Communications Commission has begun its largest auction of mid-band 5G spectrum.

With legacy occupants now in the process of clearing out, the commission is making “280 megahertz of prime mid-band spectrum in the 3.7–3.98 GHz band” available.

Chairman Ajit Pai said the FCC “is paving the way for Americans to receive fast 5G wireless services. Together with the recent success of our 3.5 GHz band auction, our work to auction the 2.5 GHz and 3.45 GHz bands in 2021, and the other groundbreaking spectrum auctions we’ve held since 2017, our 5G FAST Plan is in full swing.”

Satellite companies, including the ones that serve the radio broadcast industry, are moving their services to different frequencies, a process that has involved broadcasters having to adjust their own infrastructure. The commission said the first phase of the repack of satellite operators will be done by this time next year, and the second will conclude by December of 2023.

Pai highlighted the pace of the process, saying the mid-band spectrum “will be available to deliver next-generation connectivity to American consumers and businesses years ahead of schedule.”

“This spectrum holds the potential to be prime spectrum for 5G services given its combination of geographic coverage and capacity, and the FCC’s auction procedures will ensure the assignment to auction winners of contiguous spectrum blocks allowing wide channel bandwidths that support 5G deployment,” the FCC stated.

The post C-Band 5G Spectrum Auction Begins appeared first on Radio World.

Several major U.S. media groups believe “front-line” journalists should be among those who get early access to vaccines.

The organizations sent a letter to a committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They say journalists who provide “critical and essential functions in their communities” should be included in the early phases. They emphasize the work of journalists as “a lifeline of important health information” and an important part of public education about  the value of vaccines and the logistics involved.

The National Association of Broadcasters is one of the signatories.

“While highlighting the risk to journalists who are in the field reporting about health care workers and patients, meeting with people in essential businesses and covering rallies, protests and public events, the letter clearly specifies that the most at-risk populations should come first,” NAB wrote in a press release about it.

“The news media organizations support prioritizing vaccines for front-line health care workers, first responders and others providing critical support, as well as the most at-risk populations. However, the letter urges the committee to consider the essential role of journalists and the risks they encounter as it develops subsequent phases of vaccine deployment.”

Among organizations signing it are PBS, the Radio Television Digital News Association, the National Newspaper Association and numerous other journalism groups.

 

 

The post Should Front-Line Reporters Get Early Vaccines? appeared first on Radio World.

Mark Persons is shown receiving the SBE Lifetime Achievement Award virtually

Prior to this autumn, only nine people had received a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Broadcast Engineers.

Mark Persons is the 10th. The award was presented to Persons during an SBE online membership meeting and award ceremony. Radio World is proud that Mark is a longtime contributor and valued member of the RW family.

We asked him to share thoughts and memories of his career.

This story starts in the mid-1920s when my father, Charles B. Persons, became a radio broadcast engineer at age seventeen at WEBC Radio in Duluth, Minn. — the only station in town. It grew to become part of a seven-station network before he left to build our own WELY in Ely, Minnesota, in 1954.

It was a great time for me to learn electronics and Ohm’s Law, turn knobs on the 250-watt AM transmitter and build Heathkit equipment at age seven. That station was later owned by well-known CBS journalist Charles Kuralt.

I became a radio amateur in 1963, the year before our family built and owned KVBR Radio in Brainerd, Minn. At age 17, it was a natural for me to wire the transmitter and studios with the latest innovation: cartridge tape decks.

There was never a question about my future. Broadcast engineering was not just a job, it was a lifestyle.

Three years later, I found little interest in college, which taught nothing about electronics. I enlisted in the U.S. Army and taught electronic repair at Fort Monmouth, N.J. Then it was off to Vietnam to do high-tech electronic repair. The plan was to fulfill the obligation to our country so I could go back to broadcast engineering in 1969.

Work ramped up in the 1970s, when engineers were let go from radio stations because the FCC no longer required them. Soon I was a full-time independent radio broadcast engineer, building 12 new stations and repairing countless others. Good test equipment helped solve the problem of a noticeable hearing loss from my service in Vietnam.

Treat it like your own

Coming from a family ownership situation, I treated each station as if it were my own. The attachment was personal because the work was mostly for clients who believed in engineering. A message on our telephone recorder said, “I am out working on one of America’s great radio stations.”

My wife Paula came into the business full-time after working as a legal secretary. She has a keen sense of character and it paid off. Her job was to run the office, freeing me to go out in the field 60 hours a week at 40 or more clients.

Once I was almost hit head-on by a drunk driver at 2 a.m. but went in a ditch instead.

I never wanted to own a station. The challenge of installing, troubleshooting and repairing equipment was more than enough. It is a great feeling to get all electrons flowing in the same direction, so to speak.

Along the way, two engineers tried to get into our “territory” by promising lower prices. (They never asked; we might have given them a few stations.) In the end, the clients came back to us for dependable results.

We lost less than $4,000 to bad debts over the years. I remember two times when a customer was slow to pay and then called looking to send me to a transmitter right away. Paula’s response in one case was, “You are no longer a customer!” That day I drove right by his downed transmitter while coming back from another project and did not stop.

That dented our reputation a bit, but we stuck by our principles. As Paula said, “We are not a bank that loans money.”

The author working at KLOH(AM) in 1988.

My first AM directional was a five-tower array in 1982 at Hibbing, Minn. It was built from parts, including a custom phasor controller. The phasor was, and still is, a room in a building with an eight-foot-high aluminum wall with inductors, capacitors and contactors on the backside. Coupling units were built open-panel style at each tower.

The client liked this so much that he had me build a three-tower array in Cape Coral, Fla., and a three-tower in Carmel Valley, Calif. All 10KW stations. He gave me the freedom to design and build what I thought was best for each job.

Then there were more than 40 C-Quam AM stereo installations. One of them was at the Cape Coral station, which introduced the “oldies” format in 1986. It placed second in the Arbitron after being on the air only six weeks.

Sharing knowledge

Never satisfied, I modified equipment, then designed and built many electronic gadgets used in stations. That evolved into designing products for manufacture such as the Programmer 3A Live Assist Program Controller and the Max-Tel Remote Broadcast Telephone, later updated to be the Max-Z and ZII.

I have always enjoyed telling stories. Approximately 188 of my articles have been published, mostly in Radio World. Then there is the popular Tech Tips section on my http://mwpersons.com website, where free answers are given to radio broadcast engineering problems.

[Read recent Radio World columns by Mark Persons.]

We retired when I was 70 and mentored two engineers to take over the territory. There was no charge except for a few hours of classroom training to bring them up to speed on measuring AM impedance etc. Then the SBE mentor program added two mentees in other parts of the country. I also became a member of the National Radio Systems Committee’s AM Improvement Working Group.

It is volunteer work, and it feels good to continue to be a part of the broadcast industry that I grew up and prospered in.

The plan is to keep writing articles for Radio World in the quest of spreading knowledge to broadcast engineers everywhere. Radio has a great future and needs good engineers to keep it going.

Regarding the SBE Lifetime Achievement Award: I had no intention of seeking that or any other accolade. Life just worked out that way while keeping the “families” of stations the best they can be. Paula says she will bury me next to a transmitter when the time comes.

Comment on this or any article. Write to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The SBE John H. Battison Award for Lifetime Achievement recognizes and pays tribute to individuals for their dedication, lifelong achievement and outstanding contribution to broadcast engineering, according to the society. Prior recipients are Benjamin Wolfe and James Wulliman (1995), Philo and Elma Farnsworth (1997), Morris Blum (1998), Richard Rudman (2002), Richard Burden (2005), John Battison (2006) and Terry Baun (2010). You can watch the replay of the membership meeting and awards ceremonies on the SBE YouTube channel.

The post Mark Persons: “I Never Had a Plan B” appeared first on Radio World.

Radioplayer said it gave the first public demonstration of a three-way or “tri-platform” hybrid radio app in the Android Automotive Operating System.

The app combines DAB+ and FM over-the-air radio with online streams. The organization said the demo was for an online audience of major carmakers using automotive-grade tuner hardware.

Managing Director Michael Hill said, “Our aim is to make hybrid radio the standard experience in Android Automotive; this is the first step towards that.”

Radioplayer is a not-for-profit that started in 2011 in the U.K. as a partnership of the BBC and commercial radio. It now operates in numerous European countries and Canada, with France and Sweden pending.

[Read: “Radioplayer Expands in Europe”]

The three-way app was developed in partnership with Tier 1 technology supplier Panasonic Automotive Systems Europe, or PASEU.

“The hybrid app has a single, multi-platform station list that hides the platform from the user and allows them to select a radio station from the strongest available signal, prioritizing DAB+, then FM, followed by streaming, and automatically switching between platforms if the car moves out of coverage,” Radioplayer stated.

“The unique Radioplayer User Interface is powered by official broadcaster metadata from the Worldwide Radioplayer API and is fully compliant with Google’s Android Automotive Design Guidelines and the WorldDAB User Experience Design Guidelines.”

Radioplayer said its hybrid app is now available to car manufacturers to use in Android Automotive cars and that the UI can be customized.

“Radioplayer is also seeking to partner with Google to ensure hybrid capability for all radio apps and help improve the current standard radio experience in Android Automotive,” it stated.

“Further development of the app will see on-demand and podcast content, enhanced now-playing visuals such as artist images, as well as station recommendations, added early next year.”

 

The post Radioplayer Demos 3-Way Hybrid App appeared first on Radio World.

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Media Bureau grants Comcast Cable Communications, LLC and CoxCom, LLC d/b/a Cox Communications LEC Effective Competition Petitions for Massachusetts Franchise Areas

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MB dismisses in part and otherwise denies Petition for Reconsideration filed by Levine/Schwab Partnership

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Kaylee Good is one of the hosts and student management leaders at WLTL Radio.

Illinois’ WLTL Radio has been named Best High School Radio Station in a program that recognizes excellence in high school radio broadcasting.

The John Drury High School Radio Awards are named in honor of ABC-Chicago news anchor John Drury. They are presented by North Central College and WONC Radio in Naperville, Ill.

WLTL Radio at Lyons Township High School in La Grange, Ill., has won numerous awards in this program in the past, and in 2020 it was named to the top award during an online ceremony. It also won in individual categories for news feature story, specialty music program, on-air promotion, social media campaign and best website.

WLTL Radio is a student-run volunteer station that launched in 1968. It celebrates its history and its alumni at www.wltl.net.

Chris Thomas is faculty advisor and general manager. “Despite everything that 2020 has thrown at our students, they still did their best to produce quality content and entertaining programming for our community listening on 88.1 FM and streaming around the globe on WLTL.net, and today’s honors recognize their hard work and dedication. I am immensely proud of them,” Thomas said in a press release.

Read the list of nominees.

 

The post WLTL Is Named Best High School Station appeared first on Radio World.

The 2021 National Religious Broadcasters convention will be postponed after all.

Planners of NRB 2021 had been optimistic that they could have a physical event in March in Grapevine, Texas, and had reconfirmed that intention to Radio World in late November.

But today CEO Troy Miller wrote in an email to potential attendees that “our team came to the conclusion that while we could host an in-person event safely in March, many of you would be limited in your plans to attend or hold meetings during the event.”

NRB has moved the event to June 21 to 24.

“These additional three months will enable more opportunities to network and fellowship without as many of the current restrictions and limitations. With the additional time, increased effectiveness of treatments and widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines, June will be much closer to a full return to normal,” he wrote.

Any hotel reservations at the Gaylord Texan will automatically be updated.

 

The post NRB Postpones March Convention After All appeared first on Radio World.

iHeart announced a partnership to provide holiday music stations to viewers of the Roku Channel.

“America’s most popular iHeartRadio holiday music stations will be easily accessible to all users of The Roku Channel, available on Roku players and TVs, The Roku Channel mobile app, web, Samsung Smart TVs and Amazon Fire TVs,” according to iHeartRadio blog.

[Read: iHeart Lists Top 10 Overall Songs of 2020]

That includes iHeart Christmas, iHeartChristmas Classics, iHeartChristmas Country, iHeartChristmas R&B and iHeartChristmas Rock.

The company said the integration is free to Roku viewers “and marks the first time iHeartRadio’s hit music stations can be enjoyed in a video-focused experience.”

iHeartRadio’s content catalog remains available on the iHeartRadio channel on Roku devices.

The post iHeart Holiday Stations Are on Roku Channel appeared first on Radio World.

Ben Poor

The author is project manager, radio, on the Technology and Innovation team of the European Broadcasting Union, an alliance of public service media with 115 member organizations in 56 countries. 

For almost as long as radio and television services have existed, a large amount of effort has been expended on measuring the audiences that listen to them.

Largely driven by the boom in U.S. commercial broadcasting in the 1930s, measurements were necessary to define the advertising models that were to sustain these new services.

Although audience measurement on television would come to dominate what is understood to be “listening figures,” audience measurement is still a vital part of radio both for commercial and public service broadcasters.

In Europe, methods of audience measurement for radio vary between countries, but three methods have been generally adopted across industry: diaries, interviews and electronic measurement.

These give periodic snapshots of listening (e.g. ranging from daily to twice yearly), which does not give a clear picture of individual usage, either being driven purely from device usage, or being more based off brand recall, as such providing a broader picture of performance.

More detailed information about real engagement with specific programs, special events, segments and topics is lost in the aggregation. An experienced manager will know that a good radio station is the sum of all these parts yet relies on “craft” that can sometimes be hard to justify to those who control budgets.

An alternative arrived in the 1990s with the rise of online measurement. This introduced a number of new metrics but also provided analytic data that could be available instantly.

Thus, those publishing on the web could have a live view of how audiences were reacting to their content. For newspaper publishers, this has fundamentally changed their business; and although this has led to a rise in “clickbait,” it is notable that audiences still place value in “trusted sources.”

Audience measurement for radio services has been changing in similar ways with the rise of internet streaming and connected devices. Being able to measure how many people are listening to a stream, during what times and for how long can, in theory, give us the analogy to traditional measurement, with the benefit of being near-instantaneous.

Broadcasters have been trying this for the best part of two decades, although currently largely only for internal use. The reason is that much of this data relies on inference from server logs, by using proprietary methods from the broadcaster’s own applications or through third-party applications. A lack of shared technical standards and methodologies has limited development.

By contrast, traditional methods may not be sophisticated or granular but they have the advantage that they have been accepted as valid and largely transparent. Additionally, the different actors that sit between a broadcaster and their listeners can obfuscate the situation, resulting in the broadcaster not getting the full picture.

With a distribution chain that now includes increasing number of layers, each with opportunities for aggregation and caching, numbers are harder to rely on. For newer connected platforms like smart speakers, acquiring comparable figures can be challenging both for live and on-demand listening and again reliant on the platform (e.g. Amazon, Google) granting access. Importantly, the only party with access to the whole picture is the platform provider itself.

While internet streaming for radio has previously been a minority proportion of overall listening, dwarfed by use of broadcast, this will perhaps change as audiences consume more on-demand and personalized content, as well as with the further rollout of connected cars.

A clearer view of consumption across all platforms will become more and more important. Having a standardized method that can directly carry analytics for both broadcast and broadband, live and on-demand — the full spectrum of hybrid radio — is needed.

Such an effort has started as a collaboration among several organizations, led by the RadioDNS Technical Group, which I chair. The body is responsible for developing and maintaining open standards for hybrid radio, involving representatives from broadcasters and associations across three continents (including the National Association of Broadcasters and the European Broadcasting Union) as well as device manufacturers and service providers.

The goal of the project is to develop a free and open standard for the gathering of analytic data from the connected devices themselves, as well as the definition of a basic set of data to be gathered. By optionally using RadioDNS Hybrid Lookup, the broadcaster can define and control where the data is sent regardless of whether the listening is happening over broadcast or broadband.

Having the ability to determine how a listener moves between platforms (e.g. FM and IP), the broadcaster’s own radio services and live/on-demand during a session, in an anonymized way, is key to revealing the real value of hybrid radio services.

This can act as proof to broadcasters of their value, in a way that supports future investment. This benefits device manufacturers, increasing the coverage and quality of hybrid radio services that can be offered free-to-access for their own customers.

Ultimately, the winner will be the listener. Regardless of the means and mode of listening, enabling measurability for the connected era can improve radio, keeping it vibrant and exciting in an increasingly competitive space.

 

The post Collaboration Seeks a Radio Analytics Standard appeared first on Radio World.