Adjacent to the broadcast tower for Nexstar Media Group’s WKRN-2 in Nashville is the transmitter for a FM translator serving Brentwood, Forest Hills and tony Belle Meade, on the south side of Music City USA.
Until now, it’s been used for Middle Tennessee State University‘s MTSU Jazz Network. That’s about to change, as the facility has been sold.
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Thursday is shaping up to be one of the busiest in ages for media industry analysts and investors, with a half-dozen Q1 2021 earnings calls competing with Estrella Media’s Upfront presentation and a webinar showcasing Edison Research’s Moms and Media Study.
In the middle of all of these noteworthy events is Jacobs Media‘s presentation of its Techsurvey 2021 results. We’ve got a smidge of the details prior to this May 6 online affair.
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Wednesday is a day to appreciate the folks who work on your tower.
NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association has declared May 5 to be Tower Technician Appreciation Day “to pay tribute to the important work that communications infrastructure technicians conduct on a daily basis to enable a connected world.”
The proclamation highlights tower technicians for their skill sets, big responsibilities and demanding work environments.
[Read: NATE Shares Warning About a Honeywell Harness]
For example, it states: “Communications tower technicians have been designated by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) as essential critical infrastructure workforce and are currently playing a heroic role on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic building, installing and maintaining America’s broadband infrastructure to accommodate the explosive demand for data and wireless services, thereby ensuring or enhancing reliable, high-speed networks.”
In the tower biz, a lot of attention is paid to work supporting 5G, broadband infrastructure and emergency alerting. But of course tower techs serve broadcasters as well.
Gordon Smith, the president/CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, joined in the appreciation.
“NAB salutes America’s tower technicians whose work is critical to the operation of broadcast radio and television stations. The particular skill set required, including working under dangerous conditions, is vitally important in preserving broadcasting’s uniquely local and resilient platform on which consumers and communities rely,” he said in a statement released by NATE.
The social media hashtag to use is #TowerTechAppreciationDay.
The post May 5 Is Tower Technician Appreciation Day appeared first on Radio World.
LOS ANGELES — The National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) has four new board members, following their election to the organization that hosts the annual NATPE Miami conference each January in Miami Beach.
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Now on the board are the following individuals:
The new appointees will serve a term of three years.
The NATPE is comprised of 41 members from all areas of the content industry.
A wider net loss. Lower station operating income. Those are the key takeaways for Beasley Media Group, which released its Q1 2021 earnings results on Tuesday morning.
Investors reacted by shedding shares in BBGI. Within the first hour of trading, Beasley’s stock price was down by nearly 9%.
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Audacity, the long-running open source, cross-platform audio editor, has been acquired by Muse Group. Founded in 1999, the free software program has been downloaded more than 100 million times to date.
In partnership with Audacity’s online open-source community, the new owners will be looking to expand the software’s feature set and update its ease of use. Dedicated designers and developers will be tasked to work on the software, but Audacity will remain free and open source, the new owner says.
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Shepherding Audacity will be Martin Keary, recruited based on his efforts running MuseScore, an open-source music notation software that is also owned by Muse Group; Keary will oversee both brands. In a wide-ranging YouTube video detailing the history of Audacity, Keary noted that he will be interviewing users and creating online spaces to interact with those users in an effort to determine priorities and approaches to the program’s development going forward. Keary noted that the company will prepublish designs and updates so users can comment before widespread implementation, taking advantage of open source’s transparency.
Some early priorities as Audacity moves forward will be the addition of nondestructive, stackable VST effects, as well as user-experience updates with the aim of making features easier to find and use. In the video, other, more experimental ideas are suggested and teased, such as a 3D spectral editing prototype that, if developed, could possibly offer haptic spectral editing via a haptic glove. With these and other additions in mind, Muse Group will be looking to hire a number of senior developers and designers with experience in audio and music technology.
Audacity’s new parent company, Muse Group, is relatively new itself, having only opened its doors last week on April 26. Muse Group owns the brands Ultimate Guitar, MuseClass, ToneBridge and MuseScore, which together reach more than 350 million users in more than 60 countries. The company is led by chairman Eugeny Naidenov and CEO Michael Trutnev; Naidenov founded Ultimate Guitar in 1998. In total, Muse Group has more than 100 employees in a fully remote-working oriented workforce; the company is privately held with no investors or external shareholders.
The post Audacity Acquired by Muse Group appeared first on Radio World.
Many high-power broadcast stations have few options for staying on the air while replacing a transmitter. Acrodyne Services, focused on transmitter installation and service, has developed the Mobile Acrodyne Transmitter (MAT) — a self-contained UHF transmitter housed in an enclosed trailer.
As an external system, MAT maintains broadcasting without interfering with the removal of the old transmission system, room prep, electrical modifications, and new transmitter installation inside the facility. MAT can broadcast ATSC 1.0 or ATSC 3.0 signals.
“Stations and TV groups are continuing to upgrade their broadcast infrastructures by replacing old transmitters,” Acrodyne GM Andy Whiteside said. “There are low-power solutions and other workarounds, but none of them are ideal, especially for stations that have limited space or run into unexpected delays because of logistic and structural issues. MAT provides a clean, external, and high-power solution that allows broadcasters to conduct business as usual.”
Whiteside added that the UHF version has been deployed successfully several times, and a VHF version is currently being prepared for deployment later in 2021.
Dale Scherbring, Director of Engineering for RF transmission at Sinclair Broadcast Group, described MAT as a “full-power transmitter on wheels that was designed by Acrodyne engineers who get their hands dirty.”
The climate-controlled trailer features a one-rack, liquid-cooled Rohde & Schwarz THU9evo UHF19kW transmitter with 12 amplifiers, Dielectric tunable mask filter, patch-panel, test load plus pumps, and separate heat exchangers for the transmitter and test load. Stations only need to provide AC power and an input signal from master control. Acrodyne provides a run of coaxial flex line to connect MAT’s output to the antenna to maintain regular broadcasting.
Sinclair Broadcast Group Manager of TV Transmission Engineering Rusty Mooney was part of MAT’s initial deployment in June 2020 at the company’s two stations serving Raleigh: WLFL-TV and WRDC-TV. Both transmitters were in the same room and both needed to be replaced. Plus, a new filter for WRDC needed to be installed. “There just wasn’t enough room for all of that work,” Mooney recalled. “You’d run out of wall space trying to keep one transmitter running while trying to build a new transmitter.”
With MAT parked outside the facility and transmitting, the old WRDC transmitter was removed – and when the new WRDC transmitter was commissioned, MAT was quickly reconfigured to broadcast for WLFL while its transmitter was replaced. “MAT allows you to offload your signal to the trailer,” Mooney said. “Then you can gut the room and start with a clean slate for the new install.”
MAT’s next stop was KDNL-TV, a Sinclair station serving St. Louis, in early January 2021. According to Mooney, the small RF facility required extensive renovations in addition to a new transmitter. The station stayed on the air until late March with MAT while it replaced its two-cabinet IOT transmitter.
Acrodyne’s “transmitter on wheels” concept was first developed during the recent FCC Repack, when hundreds of UHF stations across the country transitioned to new channels. Last September, WHKY, an independent station owned by Long Communications that serves part of the Charlotte market, rented an earlier version of MAT while renovating its facility and replacing its old transmitter.
Between the four-cabinet transmitter and two very large filters for the channel 14 UHF station, the building did not have room to accommodate a second transmitter. “I had to get the old transmitter out of the building,” said Tom Long, one of the station owners. “MAT makes it a lot easier. It got everything out of my way and it’s self-contained.”
Once all its Repack projects are complete, Sinclair is expected to replace the remaining IOT transmitters in about 20 of its stations with solid-state transmitters. Scherbring expects to use MAT at those locations and at the VHF-to-UHF conversions currently being considered. However, he said MAT can also be deployed for emergency or disaster situations, and the system can be operational within a day. Both VHF and UHF versions of MAT will be available for use by all broadcasters, subject to demand.
At first glance, the 2021 first quarter results for the nation’s largest owner of broadcast TV stations seems super: Net income rose by 26.3%. Adjusted EBITDA improved by 2.4% against tough comps tied to roughly $50 million fewer political ad dollars.
But, the big reveal for Nexstar Media Group is that its “Distribution Fee Revenue,” a.k.a. retransmission consent dollars, are far and away the greatest revenue driver — significantly surpassing core ad revenue, which slipped in Q1.
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Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned broadcast antenna and RF system subsidiary Dielectric has selected the individual who will succeed Steven Moreen.
He’s retiring, and will soon conclude a 52-year career in the broadcast industry.
Taking the job of Western Region Sales Manager is Dan Glavin.
He now has responsibility for all U.S. TV and FM sales and customer service west of the Mississippi River and reports to Jay Martin, Dielectric’s Vice President of Sales.
Glavin joined Dielectric in 2018 as an Electrical Engineer, with an emphasis on system
design, data analysis and antenna testing. He has since led technical development
initiatives and field installations for RFHAWKEYE, the broadcast industry’s first IP-based
RF monitoring system.
“The ability to identify product requirements and respond in a technical capacity is key to
this position, and Dan’s level of problem-solving expertise is rare among field sales,”
Martin said. “Dan is an extrovert and extremely technical, and will be a strong mediator who can communicate complex technical requirements between our customers and internal
Dielectric engineers. His fluency in Spanish will benefit the Hispanic communities we serve,
and his experience across site logistics, off-air challenges and other common over-the-air
issues will benefit all customers.”
Glavin added, “The expansion and integration of ATSC 3.0 broadcast systems, single-frequency networks, and investment in public television and radio all represent exciting opportunities for business development throughout the western U.S. region. Steve has set the bar high, but I look forward to building on his example in working closely with customers to help them solve problems, and explore the next-generation of over-the-air opportunities. Every opportunity comes down to helping broadcasters achieve their goals through cost-effective and efficient implementation, while delivering robust designs and products that offer long-term value.”
PromoSuite has revealed who its new VP of Product Design & Development is. It is someone who joined PromoSuite in 2018 to lead the design and development of the new PromoSuitePlus platform.
That would be Rey Mena, who PromoSuite says will ontinue fulfilling his current role, in addition to new responsibilities including strategic oversight to PromoSuite’s entire product line.
Mena’s media career spans over three decades and includes key leadership roles including LSM, NSM, GSM and Marketing Director at Emmis Communications’ former Chicago properties and as Co-President of Emmis Interactive.
Mena left the radio industry in 2014 to launch branding and consulting firm Menagery Inc.
“There’s no one more qualified, capable and forward thinking in the media technology space to propel PromoSuite to the next level than Rey,” said PromoSuite CEO Rocco Macri. “I’ve known him for over 20 years and have watched in awe of the advancements he’s made for brands, radio stations and in technology. He’s an innovator that dreams big and knows how to execute. We are proud to have him on our team.”
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