Industry News

ATLANTA — The broadcast television station licensee that is on target to complete its merger with Meredith Local Media within the next eight weeks has completed its offering of $1.3 billion in aggregate principal amount of 5.375% senior notes due 2031.

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TORONTO — It’s been likened to the plotline of HBO comedy-drama Succession, focused on a highly dysfunctional dynasty at one of the world’s largest media and entertainment conglomerate.

The family drama behind the future of Rogers Communications, one of North America’s biggest media entities, has dominated the headlines of the Sun tabloid and Financial Post. Now, it appears that the son of the company’s late founder, Ted Rogers, has been empowered to constitute a new board — something his siblings fought to stop.

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Of some 1,060 recent and prospective car buyers surveyed in the U.S., some 89% say a broadcast radio tuner should be standard equipment every car.

That’s according to new research released earlier today in London by Edison Research — a trend that is consistent across age groups.

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The author is with WHYU(LP), licensed to the American Militia Association, in Meyersdale, Pa.

Regarding the stories “LP-250 FM Petition Draws Lots of Interest” and “NAB Renews Objections to LP-250.”

The NAB has a single goal: looking out for the financial interests of incumbent, commercial, full-power stations.

It is well-known that many struggling LPFM stations are not only facing financial burdens keeping their stations on the air, but also to be heard by the people in the communities they serve.

In most rural areas, LPFM signals at 100 Watts ERP at 30m HAAT are simply not strong enough to overcome terrain and spacing of homes to be adequately tuned in for reliable listening. While this may be quite different for flat terrain metro areas, that is not the norm for the majority of LPFM stations.

The NAB and its members are quite pleased that LPFMs thus far have not had any significant negative impact on the number of listeners they receive for their full-power stations. They know that the LPFM signals are not strong enough or large enough to cause their listeners to seek out noncommercial local alternatives to their ad-bloated and nationally mirrored nonlocal content.

How do they wish to sway the FCC against any expansion in service for LPFMs? They allege that LPFMs do not and will not comply with FCC regulations.

This is just another ruse, as many LPFMs have been fined for breaking the rules, and when an LPFM causes actual interference, full-power stations retain their protected status and can force LPFMs off the air.

What they want is even greater protection and monopoly of the dial and to snuff out what they know is a potential problem for them — a potential reduction in listeners and advertiser dollars that have the tiniest potential of being redirected to LPFM underwriting.

The NAB has rejected every LPFM-related proposal for this reason alone. The opposition comments attempt to vilify all LPFMs as rule-breakers and toss out technical jargon to somehow convince regulators that an LPFM being able to be heard by their communities will flood the airwaves with interference.

The truth is that the NAB thinks it is unfair that a nonprofit station doesn’t pay as much as they do for listener acquisition, although full-power commercial stations can pay their fees without nearly as much financial concern as the low-power, weak-signaled LPFM station that can hardly be heard by any significant audience.

Two hundred and fifty watts is not anywhere close to the average full power of such stations, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.

Congress passed legislation authorizing such local community stations, surely with an intent that they could be heard by the communities they serve. Increasing that ability while continuing to limit interference and protecting the very stations the NAB supports would meet the needs of the legislative mandate.

The FCC should consider the NAB objections for what they are: nonsensical bias to further protect their financial interests.

RW welcomes comments on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject field.

The post Commentary: Skip the Nonsensical Bias About LPFM appeared first on Radio World.

Audacy will have a new CRO as of Dec. 1. Brian Benedik will become chief revenue officer at that time.

“As a key member of the executive team, Benedik will lead all aspects of revenue generation across corporate, national, regional and local levels and develop fully integrated, multiplatform sales solutions and breakthrough strategies to attract new revenue streams,” the company announced. Benedik succeeds Bob Philips.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

Chief Operating Officer cited Benedik’s “key roles” in the past for audio publishers like Spotify, iHeart Radio, Audible and Katz Media.

Benedik most recently was VP/global head of revenue for Niantic, an AR developer platform and gaming publisher.

“For seven formative years at Spotify, Benedik was a key member of the senior leadership team as SVP/global head of sales and operations leading a team of over 550 people in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific regions,” Audacy stated. “As the leader of the Spotify Global Advertising Business, Benedik oversaw the direct, programmatic, podcast, re-seller and self-serve platform teams as well as ad and sales operations, trading, global agency and accounts and training groups.”

He also was founder and president of Katz Digital; president of Christal Radio within the Katz Media Group; and general sales manager for WHTZ(FM) New York at iHeartMedia. He has held advisory roles for Audible and Targetspot.

Send People News announcements to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Brian Benedik Joins Audacy in Revenue Role appeared first on Radio World.

In one week, on November 16, American Urban Radio Networks CEO Chesley Maddox-Dorsey will appear as the Moderator of a highly anticipated Forecast 2022 roundtable discussion with two individuals who are highly instrumental decision-makers when it comes to media budgets, advertising expenditures, and determining just how all consumers — in particular multicultural consumers — are included in the media buy.

GM Global CMO Deborah Wahl and dentsu Chief Product Officer for Global Media Doug Ray will be chatting with Maddox-Dorsey on a variety of topics — including the promise by Fortune 500 companies of increased advertising investment in Black and multicultural media. That’s just one topic of discussion Maddox-Dorsey shares in this exclusive RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Chesley Maddox-Dorsey” on Spreaker.

NEW YORK — FreeWheel has integrated a key set of technologies into its platform to enable its clients to programmatically acquire incremental inventory and extend audience reach in a single workflow.

By integrating Beeswax bidding capabilities into its supply technology, FreeWheel says it is investing in the future of programmatic trading as a cornerstone of the television marketplace.

The new integration, the Comcast-owned entity says, will provide a way for media owners and sellers who use FreeWheel’s publisher technology for management and optimization of their own inventory to access additional premium TV and video inventory directly through FreeWheel.

By automating campaign extension using advanced bidding algorithms, publishers will be able to fulfill advertising campaigns across available pools of inventory throughout the media ecosystem, FreeWheel adds.

“When we acquired Beeswax earlier this year, we recognized that its leading bidding technology could be used to improve the value that our platform provides to our customers,” said FreeWheel GM Dave Clark. “Now, with our recently completed integration, this value proposition is real – a unified inventory view, unified optimization, and unified measurement across inventory sources and screens, within a single system. This advancement will bring immediate, meaningful change to our customers and the industry.”

As such, FreeWheel’s publisher customers are now able to deliver against both their own inventory and third-party inventory with the same creatives, workflow, frequency capping,
budgeting, and pacing.

“With bidding technology built right into the platform, users will have a unified view of all their inventory sources and optimize campaigns for performance and profitability,” FreeWheel says.

FreeWheel is currently piloting the product with select customers with plans for a full rollout in early 2022. The pilot is part of a multi-staged initiative as FreeWheel aims to bring enhanced programmatic technology to premium advertisers and publishers to connect multiple parts of the TV and video advertising ecosystem.

In late July, Bob Philips relinquished his role as Chief Revenue Officer for Audacy Inc., thanks to his appointment by the company as President of Audacy Networks and Multi-Market Sales.

Subsequently, a search for his successor began, with Audacy seeking an individual who could “drive this growth and expansion, especially in the digital arena.”

In the end, Audacy selected the founder and former President of Katz Digital — an individual who also served as President of Christal Radio within the Katz Media Group and General Sales Manager for iHeartMedia‘s East Coast Top 40 flagship, “Z100.”

That would be Brian Benedik, who excelled as the head of sales for WHTZ-FM in New York for iHeartMedia, among other key highlights across a nearly 30-year career in radio. He begins his new role as Audacy’s Chief Revenue Officer on December 1.

“As a key member of the executive team, Benedik will lead all aspects of revenue generation across corporate, national, regional and local levels and develop fully integrated, multiplatform sales solutions and breakthrough strategies to attract new revenue streams,” Audacy says.

He reports to Chief Operating Officer Susan Larkin, who was thrilled to be welcoming Benedik to the C-Suite. “His resume speaks for itself, with key roles at audio publishers like Spotify, iHeart Radio, Audible and Katz Media, where his strategic vision enabled the former to quickly elevate from a newcomer in our industry to a multi-billion dollar leader in the audio streaming space. Brian’s considerable expertise and experience will amplify our revenue generation efforts as Audacy continues its upward trajectory.”

Benedik added, “The audio industry is booming with innovation and consumers are enjoying wonderful content experiences across a number of platforms. The Audacy re-imagination efforts are beyond impressive and the portfolio of assets across radio, streaming, podcast, live events, sports play-by-play and sports betting are best in class. I’m looking forward to working with David Field, Susan Larkin and the Audacy executive team to drive value to marketers and our loyal users.”

Benedik joins Audacy from Niantic, an Augmented Reality (AR) developer platform and real world gaming publisher, where he served as VP/Global Head of Revenue.

Before that, he spent seven years at Spotify. There, he was SVP/Global Head of Sales and Operations, leading a team of over 550 people in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific regions. As the leader of the Spotify Global Advertising Business, Benedik oversaw the direct, programmatic, podcast, re-seller and self serve platform teams as well as ad and sales operations, trading, global agency and accounts and training groups.

Audacy requires all incoming employees to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. As such, Benedik is required to provide proof of vaccination, which will be kept confidential.

How much will Benedik earn?

When Philips was CRO, his salary was $715,993 — the fourth-highest salary by job title in the telecommunications industry as measured by Salary.com for FY 2020.

Of Philips’ total earnings in 2020, $555,900 was received as a salary, $138,986 was awarded as stock and $21,107 came from other types of compensation, SEC filings confirm.

RELATED NEWS:

A Big EPS Miss For Audacy in Q3 While more categories have invested more in advertising with Audacy’s on-demand audio offerings and its broadcast radio stations, the struggle is real for the radio station owner and parent of podcast entities Cadence13 and Pineapple Street. The company still registered a net loss in Q3, although a smaller one than one year ago. The problem? Analysts expected earnings per share of $0.09.

Viasat Inc. will acquire mobile satellite communications supplier Inmarsat in a transaction valued at $7.3 billion, the companies announced.

The transaction includes $850 million in cash, approximately 46.36 million shares of Viasat common stock valued at $3.1 billion and the assumption of $3.4 billion of debt.

Viasat Executive Chairman Mark Dankberg described the deal as a “transformative combination.”

Inmarsat logo

“The combination will create a leading global communications innovator with enhanced scale and scope to affordably, securely and reliably connect the world,” the companies stated in the announcement.

“The complementary assets and resources of the new organization will enable the availability of advanced new services in mobile and fixed segments, driving greater customer choice in broadband communications and narrowband services (including the Internet of Things or ‘IoT’).”

They said Viasat intends to integrate the spectrum, satellite and terrestrial assets of the two entities into “a global high-capacity hybrid space and terrestrial network, capable of delivering superior services in fast-growing commercial and government sectors.”

“This advanced architecture will create a framework incorporating the most favorable characteristics of multi-band, multi-orbit satellites and terrestrial air-to-ground systems that can deliver higher speeds, more bandwidth, greater density of bandwidth at high demand locations like airport and shipping hubs and lower latency at lower cost than either company could provide alone.”

Assets of the combined companies will include spectrum licenses across the Ka-, L- and S-bands, a fleet of 19 satellites and 10 more planned for launch in the next three years. They cite a global Ka-band footprint including planned polar coverage, “to support bandwidth-intensive applications, augmented by L-band assets that support all-weather resilience and highly reliable, narrowband and IoT connectivity.”

They also expect to get more value out of Inmarsat’s L-band spectrum and space assets by incorporating Viasat’s beamforming, end-user terminal and payload technologies and its hybrid multi-orbit space-terrestrial networking capabilities.

Inmarsat is based in the United Kingdom while Viasat is headquartered in California.

Viasat said it plans to build on Inmarsat’s presence there and “is committed to preserving and growing the investment of the combined company in U.K. space communications, as well as supporting the recently published National Space Strategy.” It plans to keep Inmarsat’s London headquarters “as well as its footprint in Australia and Canada and across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.”

 

The post Viasat Will Acquire Inmarsat appeared first on Radio World.

“While many ad categories remain highly impacted as a result of the pandemic, it is great to see an increasing number of categories back above 2019 spending levels,” said David Field, President/CEO of Audacy Inc., the audio content creation and distribution company founded as Entercom by his father, Joseph Field.

Alas, while more categories have invested more in advertising with Audacy’s on-demand audio offerings and its broadcast radio stations, the struggle is real for the Philadelphia-based company.

The company still registered a net loss in Q3, although a smaller one than one year ago. The problem? Analysts expected earnings per share of $0.09. Audacy missed the mark by 13 cents per share.

Bob Philips’ Successor As Audacy CRO Selected Audacy selected as its new Chief Revenue Officer the founder and former President of Katz Digital — an individual who also served as President of Christal Radio within the Katz Media Group and General Sales Manager for iHeartMedia’s East Coast Top 40 flagship, “Z100.”

 

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