Industry News

KING FM has joined VuHaus Group.

The classical music station in Seattle “will curate a new local Seattle Classical page on the NPR Live Sessions website with their unique, local and engaging music video content,” VuHaus announced.

Nonprofit VuHaus Group is a network of public radio and TV stations and national radio shows that support emerging and local artists. The announcement was made by Chris Kirchner, COO of VuHaus Group, and Brenda Barnes, CEO of Classical KING FM.

[Read: Tiny Desk Series Works From “Home”]

VuHaus and its video platform “NPR Live Sessions” encourage music discovery through video, station collaborations and partnerships with NPR Music and other organizations. The network is supported by funding and grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is operated by Public Media Company.

VuHaus Group also includes WFUV in New York City; KCRW in Los Angeles; Vocalo Radio/Chicago Public Media in Chicago; KXT in Dallas/Ft. Worth; WXPN and WRTI in Philadelphia; GBH in Boston; Indie 102.3/Colorado Public Radio in Denver; Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland, Ore.; KUTX in Austin; KTBG The Bridge in Kansas City; WUNC Music in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C.; WMOT and WNXP in Nashville; 88Nine Radio Milwaukee/WYMS in Milwaukee; “Live From Cain’s” in Tulsa, Okla.; “Mountain Stage” in West Virginia; and “Colorado Sound” in Fort Collins, Colo.

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Can a non-sales person lead a sales team? Of course, says sales training expert Barrett Riddleberger. Many companies have leaders over sales teams that have never made a sales call in their life. In fact, many small business owners are the sales managers of their sales teams and have never been a sales rep, either.

In this column, Riddleberger shares three reasons why, in his view, experience matters.Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Media companies were largely on the decline in Monday’s trading, as Audacy was down 32 cents and Cumulus Media shed 30 cents.

For two of broadcast TV’s biggest players, Wall Street green was seen.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has a MOU with Bally’s Corp. for non-play by play content collaboration in place, saw its shares rise 12 cents to $29.96.

Meanwhile, Nexstar Media Group had another positive session on Wall Street. Its shares ended the day at $151.50.

LOS ANGELES — With Jeff Fife as its morning anchor and modern rock music across the rest of the daily schedule, a station once known as “Star 98.7” and for the presence of Ryan Seacrest as its afternoon co-host found new life as “ALT 98.7.”

Today, this incarnation of KYSR is Southern California’s leading Alternative station, winning a head-to-head battle with Audacy’s KROQ. Fife, known to listeners as “Woody,” is part of ALT’s winning recipe.

The executives at iHeartMedia are acknowledging this by keeping him under contract for six more years.

Fife and iHeart agreed to a long-term contract extension, one that keeps The Woody Show “solidly headquartered” at ALT 98.7 and in national syndication through iHeart-owned Premiere Networks until 2028.

As “Woody,” Fife and his wake-up troupe arrived at KYSR in April 2014.

Today, iHeart reports, it is ranked No. 1 among persons 18-49 and 25-54.

Before arriving in Los Angeles, The Woody Show could be heard at KPNT-FM in St. Louis, WKQX “Q101” in Chicago and KITS-FM “Live 105” in San Francisco. The program also has roots in Portland, Ore., where it today airs on an FM translator branded as “ALT 102.3.”

Even iHeartMedia Chairman/CEO acknowledges the strength that The Woody Show has brought to its Alternative station, and Premiere’s affiliates. “Woody is one-of-a-kind — and it shows in his ratings success, in L.A., across the country on the iHeartRadio digital service, locally in key markets and on our other iHeart platforms,” Pittman said. “His unique talent, combined with his unbelievable work ethic, are key to his success and we are delighted to continue this journey with him.”

Also commenting: former KROQ Music Director and current iHeartMedia VP of Rock and Alternative Lisa Worden, who serves as KYSR’s day-to-day Program Director.

“Woody is a true morning show savage,” Worden said.  “There is no one better to anchor mornings on our flagship ALT 98.7, and his commitment to excellence is bar none.”

Fife said he’s thrilled “to stay ‘work married’ to iHeartMedia. This has been, and will continue to be, one of my longest and healthiest relationships. I wouldn’t be able to do what I’ve done to this point without the incredible support of people like Bob Pittman, Kevin LeGrett, Tom Poleman, Greg Ashlock and Lisa Worden. There isn’t another company better positioned, with a clearer vision for the future than iHeartMedia, and I’m beyond grateful to be a part of that.”

— RBR+TVBR West Coast Bureau. Editing by Adam Jacobson, in Boca Raton, Fla.

The company formerly known as Entercom “is possibly approaching a major achievement in its business.”

That’s the positive declaration on Audacy from influential financial watchdog Simply Wall St., which put a spotlight on the podcast purveyor and linear and digital audio entity.

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In year’s past, April was the month where the media industry gathered in Las Vegas for the NAB Show. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that last happened in 2019.

While a NAB Show is planned for October 2021, a digitally delivered “NAB Show Premiere” kicked off Monday as a forum for innovation and discussion hub for radio and TV station owners in continuous transition as local digital nibbles away at ad dollars and localism’s balance with budget realities continues to create challenges for some broadcast companies.

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Spring is here, and with the housing market on fire in locales as diverse as Ulster County, N.Y. and Palm Beach County, Fla., the need for new furniture is growing.

One retailer is using spot television to court these potential customers.

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It boasts 6,000 watts of power, and provides “Today’s Best Music” to communities due west of Midland, Mich.

Now, it is trading hands, and Norm McKee and Michael Chires are the two individuals tied to the buyer.

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Bill Bowin, CSRE/CBNT, chief engineer at North American Broadcasting, writes that we’ve “beaten to death’” the topic of condensate drains over the last six months, but Bill has one more trick that he has used on rooftop units that he wanted to share.

Rooftop units may be located far from the roof drains and require a very long piece of PVC drain pipe.

Sometimes, installers don’t use glue so the PVC junctions can be disassembled and cleaned later. But Bill finds that this is not a good idea. Wind on the roof may move the long horizontal runs of PVC around, and, if the fittings are not glued, joints can pull apart.

An alternative to glue is to use pipe unions, so the drains can be taken apart, cleaned and reassembled. Bill provided a closeup of the junctions at one of his sites; note each section can be easily removed.

You’ll also find a number of online videos on this subject from manufacturers like Flexible PVC.

Consulting engineer and frequent Workbench contributor Frank Hertel of Newman-Kees RF Measurements & Engineering spotted this interesting device.

The SensiML is a sensor tile that can be affixed to a fan or motor. It’s a predictive maintenance device that gives a condition readout on a smartphone.

Watch a very interesting demo of it at https://youtu.be/qad5dFzqdI8.

Using the sensors in the battery-powered STMicro SensorTile, which is mounted atop the fan, SensiML shows how its AutoML software can produce autonomous predictive fault models. The device’s sensing algorithms can be built by developers with little to no data science expertise using the SensiML Analytics Toolkit.

Remember the failed blower fan on the BE transmitter that was causing overheating, discussed in the Feb. 17 issue? A sensor such as this, mounted on each fan, would alert the engineer of failure, loose mounting or blade obstruction.

Visit https://sensiml.com/products for more information. A headline on that page gives a sense of their purpose: “Transform your IoT device from merely connected to truly intelligent.”

Louis Judson was the first of many to respond to our question about a flaw in the Seekers’ Abbey Road video discussed in the Feb. 17 issue.

Louis, who works as an audio engineer for Intuitive Audio in the Bay Area, notes that the percussion is not in the room and apparently not on the multi-track either.

He also noted the interesting mic position on Judith Durham. “Assuming it is side address, why have the mic below her and pointing up? That would invite ‘plosives’ — better above the singer, pointing slightly down.”

But what was the “flaw” I referred to? Louis spotted it as well. Watch when the engineer starts the Ampex recorder. He presses what appears to be the “stop” pushbutton and doesn’t depress the “record” pushbutton.

Okay, picky-picky! Still a fun video to watch.

John Bisset has spent over 50 years in the broadcasting industry and is still learning. He handles western U.S. radio sales for the Telos Alliance, holds SBE CPBE certification is a past recipient of the SBE’s Educator of the Year Award. Workbench submissions are encouraged and qualify for SBE recertification. Email johnpbisset@gmail.com.

The post Pipe Unions Can Solve PVC Problems appeared first on Radio World.

PSAs and podcast promotion, along with iHeartRadio content plugs, permeate the latest Spot Ten Radio report from iHeart-owned Media Monitors.

What brands stick about in-between all of those efforts? Indeed, there’s a big return for the nation’s largest do-it-yourself home improvement chain.

That’s The Home Depot, which storms back into the Spot Ten this week thanks to nearly 41,000 spot plays, as detected by Media Monitors.

Otherwise, job search site Indeed is in power mode, with nearly 56,500 spot plays seen as the employment market is heating up, based on RBR+TVBR monitors.

Also of note: Progressive trumps GEICO in the auto insurance category once again.