Industry News

A partnership that enables “a new way” to measure TV marketing has been brought to market.

And, it is being billed as a “first-of-its-kind solution” that combines MarketCast‘s data science expertise and Kinetiq‘s ad detection platform to measure competitive benchmarking for tune-in TV attribution.

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SAVANNAH, GA. — Just how much did Gray Television‘s broadcast TV stations and digital platforms attracted in the form of political advertising in 2020?

It’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the twin U.S. Senate runoff races in Georgia are the icing on the cake.

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Gray’s total tally for political advertising since Jan. 1, 2020, is now upward of $400 million, net of commissions and agency fees.

There’s more: Since Election Day, Gray’s local television stations and digital platforms in the Peach State have run approximately $20 million net in political campaign and political issue advertisements related to the two run-off election races for U.S. Senate seats.

With the special elections scheduled for Jan. 5, 2021, and President-Elect Biden campaigning for the Democratic candidates in Atlanta on Tuesday, Gray expects political advertisements in Georgia to continue well past New Year’s Eve and into the first days of 2021.

Gray has a presence in Augusta, Albany, Columbus and tiny Thomasville, Georgia, where WCTV-6 also serves Tallahassee, Fla. Most notably, Gray owns long-dominant CBS affiliate WTOC-11 in Savannah, Ga.

ATSC 3.0-powered next generation television signals have been launched in the biggest DMA to date: the home of Russell Wilson, and the setting for the cinematic classic “10 Things I Hate About You.”

Seven Seattle TV stations are now broadcasting with NEXTGEN TV, the new digital broadcast standard.

It makes the Seattle-Tacoma DMA the largest market where NEXTGEN signals are available, following the recent launch of Tampa-St. Petersburg.

The stations offering ATSC 3.0-powered signals are Sinclair Broadcast Group‘s ABC and Univision affiliates, KOMO-4 and KUNS-51; Cox Media Group‘s CBS affiliated KIRO-7; FOX O&Os KZJO-22 “Joe TV” and KCPQ-13; and TEGNA‘s NBC and unaffiliated KING-5 and KONG-16.

BitPath led the planning process and coordinated efforts across Seattle’s seven local television stations.

In a major about-face that signals a fresh retransmission consent deal — perhaps under pressure from key Massachusetts legislators on Capitol Hill — Comcast‘s Xfinity cable TV service will no longer be pulling the plug on stations from “neighboring DMAs” that would have seen all Hearst Television stations not bound by must-carry rules removed from its channel lineups.

It’s also signals a big victory for some small communities near Brunswick, Ga.

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Media ad sales platform Matrix has formed a group of thought leaders from across the industry, including some of its own executives, to identify outcomes and workflows that will advance how television will be bought and sold within the next three years.

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A graduate of the University of Georgia and Vanderbilt University School of Law, he’s served as an artist manager and has been a professional drummer with The Chris McCarty Band. 

Since August 2008, he’s been in the Atlanta office of legal giant Greenberg Traurig LLP.

Now, he’s leaving, as the music and entertainment industries has come calling … sort of.

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Former Senior VP and Head of Corporate Communications and PR Esther-Mireya Tejeda exited in September, later resurfacing as SoundExchange‘s Chief Marketing & Communications Officer.

Soon afterward, Jennifer Morales Mathews exited as VP/Corporate Communications and PR and shortly thereafter took the role of Public Relations Manager at Amazon Music.

The exits left a big hole at Entercom Communications. Now, it has filled it with Tejeda’s successor.

Now SVP/Head of Corporate Communication and PR at the audio media company that owns Radio.com and podcasting platforms Pineapple Street and Cadence13 is Ashok Sinha.

He will serve as a member of Entercom’s executive leadership team, reporting to Chief Marketing Officer Paul Suchman.

Who is Sinha? He has been VP of Corporate Communications at WarnerMedia since October 2016, and in that role most recently headed internal and external communications strategy for WarnerMedia’s technology organization, as well as employee communications across the company’s direct-to-consumer, sales and distribution divisions.

Before joining WarnerMedia, Ashok was SVP/Corporate Communications at Publicis Media from March 2013, VP/Corporate Communications for Current TV for 11 months, Director of Communications for Oxygen Media for 15 months, and Chief of Staff at (RED) for 20 months.

From May 2005-September 2008, he was Manager of Communications and Public Affairs for MTV Networks’ Logo, at the time a LGBTQ-focused cable TV offering.

“As a lifelong consumer of music and the spoken word, I believe in the power of audio and its ability to engage, entertain and inform the world,” Sinha said. “I’m delighted for this opportunity to join Entercom and its award-winning corporate communications team, and lead the charge as we tell the story of audio in this dynamic time for media.”

Flash back to fall 2019 at a community station abuzz with activity. A DJ is in the studio, spinning records, while volunteers socialize, work in production studios and assemble donor gift packages. Training is underway for new recruits and anticipation is high for a co-promoted concert at a nearby venue. Hugs are exchanged along with “hellos” and “goodbyes.”

For much of 2020 most of these activities were just a memory, as stations adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic.

What does community radio look like when the community isn’t necessarily allowed inside the station? How are stations that pride themselves on 24/7 live in-studio DJs doing radio when they must restrict access to their buildings? And how are volunteer-reliant stations adjusting to socially distanced engagement?

The Grassroots Radio Conference confronted these questions in October. Held virtually, the event was hosted by ARTxFM, otherwise known as WXOX(LP) in Louisville, Ky.

Dr. MarkAlain Dery has a unique perspective on studio safety, as an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist as well as founder of community station WHIV(LP) in New Orleans. He spoke as part of the online conference.

For much of this year, only one person at a time has been allowed at WHIV. Masks are required and a clean sock is placed over the studio microphone for each shift.

Importance is placed on handwashing and disinfection of surfaces, and the production booth is closed. Flyers implore, “Spread Love, Not Germs.” WHIV supplies washable masks, which show hosts drop into a container marked “dirty” upon exit. Dery emphasizes the aerosolized nature of coronavirus, pointing out that masks and ventilation are both critical.

Because of the challenges in keeping studios clean and safe for volunteers, many community stations have opted to limit access drastically, with some shutting down in-person activities entirely.

In the early days of the coronavirus, WXOX shifted to a staggered studio schedule so that on-air hosts were not running into each other during program transitions. The initial plan was to have one volunteer do a show in the studio, followed by a remote broadcast.

Even with that precaution in place, WXOX General Manager Sharon Scott grew increasingly worried about everyone’s health.

“Literally, I wasn’t sleeping at night,” she reflected. When the outbreak worsened, she closed the studio. By that point most hosts were already broadcasting from home.

While each community station approaches broadcasting amid a pandemic differently, many used archived programs and automation to fill schedules when live DJs cannot be in the studio.

This was the initial approach at WFMU(FM) in East Orange, N.J., near New York City, where only a skeleton crew of staffers is allowed at the station.

Looking back on the early rerun-filled days, Station Manager Ken Freedman said that “It was awful.” He described the awkwardness of airing pre-virus shows that felt out of step while listeners in New York and New Jersey were going through the crisis.

Quickly, priorities shifted to setting up home studios for WFMU’s sheltering DJs. Freedman described how “sobering” it was to be at an epicenter of the pandemic, knowing people who died and having DJs come down with the virus.

Although WFMU has been doing remote broadcasts over IP for over 20 years, Freedman said that in some ways it’s more difficult today because there are “so many more options.” With around 100 different studios in DJ homes, it can be “very challenging” to help orchestrate myriad options and troubleshoot all the permutations of breakdowns in the broadcast chain.

It’s a similar situation at WXOX, where live broadcasts are originating from home studios across Louisville.

One vintage record-loving DJ has taken over a dining room table with their turntable setup; another broadcasts from a front porch, with bands playing in his front yard; and some keep it super simple using just a laptop.

To facilitate live remote broadcasting, WXOX created a secondary stream that only the on-air hosts can access. Hosts broadcast live to this stream, which the station picks up to transmit over FM and online. Scott recommends that for this behind-the-scenes stream, stations obtain a plan with the highest bit rate and lowest cap on the number of listeners to save on costs.

Under current circumstances, stations also have been more tolerant of variations in sound quality to allow community radio hosts to work remotely. Even the voice memo app on a smartphone can be used to record audio, from interviews to public service announcements.

At cash-strapped community stations, home setups for DJs can be Spartan; but low-cost or free software platforms help. Minimal requirements are a computer, internet connection, and headphones.

Sharon Scott encourages DJs to connect with an Ethernet cable to help mitigate troublesome WiFi connections. USB microphones are also recommended, although not every DJ has one.

Software used by DJs to stream live at WXOX and WFMU includes AudioHijack, Rocket Broadcaster, LadioCast and BUTT (“broadcast using this tool”).

Pacifica Network has posted a discussion of software and strategies for remote broadcasting that includes Zoom, Squadcast, Riverside.fm, Ringr, Zencastr, phone interviews, Cleanfeed, split-tracking, Dropbox, Splashtop, VPN, Rocket Broadcaster and Radio Hijack.

ARTxFM also has a remote tutorial at www.artxfm.com/remotestations/. And additional tips can be found in the archived conference sessions at www.youtube.com/VirtualGRC.

In Ames, Iowa, KHOI(FM) show hosts have been doing live radio and interviews using Zoom video meetings. Station Manager Ursula Ruedenberg calls it the “simplest solution” for programs with co-hosts and guests, despite some audio sacrifices.

Listeners have been understanding. “It’s a COVID-19 sound … people freezing up or sound getting a little bit wonky just has become part of the way things sound now,” she articulated.

Beyond technical glitches, the “COVID-19 sound” has unintended benefits.

In Albany, N.Y., Paul Smart of WCAA(LP) has led audio production workshops that eschew “professional gloss.” For him, providing access and building community are more important.

Hearing tidbits of extraneous sounds on the airwaves, like background noises from dogs barking and phones ringing, has sparked listener interest in making radio at WCAA. That has led to an uptick in home-produced shows, allowing the station to expand local programming.

Community building is at the core of these efforts. Scott said, “In the midst of political turmoil, civil unrest and a range of local disasters, community broadcasting is more important than ever. Meanwhile, the global coronavirus pandemic makes accessing our studios a formidable danger of its very own. Yet, as FM broadcasters, we have committed ourselves to being there for our local community in times of emergency. We must also be there for each other.”

The post Community Stations Share COVID Stories appeared first on Radio World.

Subscription video on demand (SVOD) consumers between the ages 13 and 49 have become more culturally literate, primarily due to Netflix, YouTube creators and social media featuring increasingly diverse and global content.

In fact, more than half of Gen Zers and parents have watched a show in a language they do not speak, with Hispanics over indexing on this trend.

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RWEE’s format allows us to dig more deeply into specialized topics of interest to radio engineers.

In this issue, David Maxson describes a situation in which an FM station was accused of causing 8th harmonic interference to a cellular carrier, which complained to the FCC.

Also: John Kean on loudness; Tom Vernon on RadioDNS; Cris Alexander on project planning; and Bob Orban and Greg Ogonowski on protecting your digital audio quality.

Read it here.

The post Inside the Dec. 16 Issue of Radio World Engineering Extra appeared first on Radio World.