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The Radio World Best of 2021 Award has had a final extension until Tuesday Dec. 7.

The awards provide an opportunity for manufacturers to receive exposure for their outstanding products and solutions from the last 15 months.

This final extension is to allow those who were entering the Best of Show at IBC, which has now been cancelled, proper consideration for their entries.

The program website has information about the awards, categories and how to register.

 

The post Best of 2021 Award Deadline Extended to Dec. 7 appeared first on Radio World.

WFWL’s Original Studios in the Former Lockhart Motel Village (left); The Current WRJB–WFWL Facility

After 65 years on air serving Benton County from Camden, Tenn., WFWL(AM) is signing off the air for good on Dec. 1.

Community Broadcasting Services Inc., owner of the station, plans to focus its energies on WFWL sister station, WRJB(FM). “It’s purely a business decision. … It just makes sense for us,” said Dylan Powley, program/music director for the organization and host of the WRJB morning show.

“The studio will be converted into a multimedia space. We plan on being able to offer more in the way of interviews and digital content, as well as hosting musicians for live performances. This ties back into us putting our efforts into 95.9 WRJB,” Powley said.

Station Manager Ron Lane (left) conducts an interview during the station’s annual broadcast from the Benton County Fair, a tradition that started in the 1960s.

He also noted that plans for the station’s towers and transmission equipment, had yet to be finalized. Community Broadcasting is looking to repurpose W259BN, WFWL’s FM translator on 99.7 MHz.

WFWL has been a fixture in Camden since it went on air on September 18, 1956. “It was the only radio station in Camden for 20 years,” said Powley. “It was instrumental in covering news and offering entertainment to every corner of the county.”

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Originally owned by Camden Broadcasting Co., the station was sold to WRJB in the mid-1980s. John Latham, one of the original partners in Camden Broadcasting, had launched the FM station in 1976. With the ownership change, the two stations’ studios were consolidated on Vicksburg Avenue in Camden.

Over the years, the station operations changed, but Powley said WFWL remained a presence on 1200 kHz. “WFWL has maintained a presence, albeit much smaller, in the more recent history, playing modern country and gospel on Saturday mornings,” he said.

“While it’s always sad to see a station like WFWL go off-air, this doesn’t mean that local radio is going anywhere in Camden,” said Powley. “We have made a commitment to get off satellite programming, which is rare in rural radio, at least here. We’ve already been able to build an improved listener base with a new, unique format, and the exit of WFWL will allow for the entrance of a more modern operation that can better service our listening area.”

WRJB WFWL Staff at Their 2019 Holiday Party

Powley noted that WFWL going dark will not affect any of CBS’s four full-time employees and the “handful of part-timers that help out.”

To mark the end of the WFWL era, the station will spend its last day on air celebrating the station’s history. Station Manager Ron Lane, who has worked at the station since he was a high school senior in 1959, told The Camden Chronicle that the station’s last day of programming would include comments from current and former WFWL personalities.

“We have such tremendous memories surrounding this station. It has been a pleasure to be part of it,” Lane told The Chronicle.

Send your station news and updates to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post WFWL Readies for Its Last Day on Air appeared first on Radio World.

Due dates have now been published to comment on the FCC’s proposed rule change regarding directional FM antenna patterns.

We reported earlier that the commission has opened a notice of proposed rulemaking to update its rules for applicants proposing directional antenna facilities for FM and low-power FM stations. The commission wants input on rule revisions allowing an applicant to verify a directional antenna pattern through the use of computer modeling.

The proposal was made in a joint petition by Dielectric, Jampro, Radio Frequency Systems, Shively Labs and Educational Media Foundation.

The NPRM asks specifically for help from “engineers, broadcasters, antenna manufacturers, and other interested parties” to help clarify some issues raised by the proposed rule.

[Read the full NPRM text.]

Now that the NPRM has appeared in the Federal Register, the FCC can set the comment deadlines. So comments are due by Dec. 30, and reply comments by Jan. 14.

Use the FCC online comment system, and type 21-422 in the “Specify Proceeding” field.

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

The post Comment Deadlines Set for FM Antenna Computer Modeling appeared first on Radio World.

If there’s one early hallmark of the FCC under acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, it is the Media Bureau’s seemingly aggressive approach to enforcing the Commission’s rules on the timely filing of a broadcast station’s TV issues/programs lists.

Over 2021, forfeiture notices in the thousands of dollars have been issued right and left by the Bureau. Now, two have been issued to a Mississippi licensee who may have to fork over a total of $38,000 in fines.

The stations involved aren’t even full-power facilities.

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International Sales Team named Anil Bhardwaj as its specialist in transmission, antennas and associated RF components.

IST Sales Force Manager Roland Schaller said Bhardwaj has experience in engineering, sales and law, including a law degree.

Bhardwaj has worked as a sales manager and sales director, with global relationships particularly in South Asia and the Middle East. His background includes stints at Jampro and GatesAir.

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“Anil is particularly known for his work in the RF field working with high-power broadcast transmission systems including the antenna arrays, however he has also successfully delivered numerous turnkey studio, CTI, server, storage, and broadcast automation platforms and systems,” according to the announcement.

International Sales Team is a network of broadcast and media industry sales professionals for hire and deployment.

Send announcements for People News coverage to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Bhardwaj Joins International Sales Team appeared first on Radio World.

David Andrews is one of four shareholders in Hometown Communications LLC, the licensee of 1,000-watt Class C WIRY-AM, or “wiry,” in Plattsburgh, N.Y.

He’s also the station’s General Manager and News Director, and on the latest InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, Andrews shares with the world what it’s like to crank out tunes like “In the Year 2525” with a live, local host and community-focused advertising on a chilly autumn morning in late 2021.

Andrews also shares how the pandemic has proven to be a challenge as a new owner, as the Canadian dollar — until March 2020 — was a key retail driver in Clinton County, N.Y., just 20 minutes to the south of the New York/Québec border.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: David Andrews” on Spreaker.

Near the town of Oak Ridge, Tenn., is an AM radio station with a FM translator that until now has been licensed to Blount Broadcasting Corp.

That entity has just agreed to a sale of the facilities.

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NEW YORK — The shareholders of Meredith Corporation are one step closer to seeing the company’s stock, traded on the New York Stock Exchange, disappear forever.

That’s because they’ve approved the Des Moines-based multimedia company’s $2.825 billion acquisition by Gray Television.

The required shareholder approval came Tuesday morning a special shareholder meeting. Now, Meredith on Wednesday will likely move ahead with filing a Form 8-K with the SEC disclosing the full voting results of the special meeting.

Immediately prior to the Gray acquisition close, Meredith will spin its digital, magazine, MNI, PEOPLE TV, and corporate operations out to its shareholders as a new company, Meredith Holdings Corp. This is the entity that the Barry Diller-led IAC-owned Dotdash has agreed to acquire for $2.7 billion.

Gray will retain all of the local television holdings, and the transactions are now on track to close as expected by the close of business Wednesday (12/1).

As of 12:45pm Eastern, MDP was trading at $59.10, up 6 cents from Monday; Meredith shares are at their highest level since April 2019.

Gray Television, like other companies in the broadcast media sector, is lower on COVID-19 Omicron variant fears. GTN was trading at $20.45, off 3%, and is now back to where shares were in late April 2021.

When it comes to the top leadership at Townsquare Media, drumming up interest from institutional investors has been seen since the days of Steven Price and Dhruv Prasad, who each held the role of CEO prior to Bill Wilson.

Next week, Wilson will be presenting alongside Townsquare’s CFO at another key investor affair.

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The author is founder and CEO of Radio Free Entertainment Network Ltd.

Christavus Dominic at work with StreamGuys’ SaaS tools. (Photo by Thomas Mendenhall)

Radio Free Entertainment Network Ltd. is a broadcast and internet streaming radio network playing the music of renowned and independent artists as well as local talk shows. We are dedicated to empowering our communities to promote educational, civic and cultural development by amplifying the voices of the traditionally underrepresented.

Its origins date to my tenure as general manager of grassroots radio station WMVU(FM), Radio Free Akron. When we decided to start broadcasting WMVU online in 2019, we chose StreamGuys as our streaming service provider at the recommendation of our engineer Blake Thompson.

With our success in streaming WMVU and my desire to bring more community to the world through music, I wanted to expand our efforts into a full-service radio network to help more people get their content out. I approached the principals at WMVU with my idea, and launched RFEN in March 2021 with co-founders Warner Mendenhall and Shuaib Meacham.

RFEN now hosts and aggregates live content from a growing roster of stations beyond the Akron area including Youth Artist Network Radio from Waterloo, Iowa; hip-hop station WJJN(FM) in Dothan, Ala.; and urban gospel station WINW(AM) in Canton, Ohio.

We use a broad range of StreamGuys solutions. In addition to delivering streams over its CDN, we use the SGplayer HTML5-based multimedia player and rely on analytics tools such as SGreports and SGmon to monitor and measure our operations and audience traffic. StreamGuys created an Alexa skill for WMVU to allow the station to be accessed easily on smart speakers.

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We also used StreamGuys partner SoCast to create our website and mobile app, and products such as encoders from StreamGuys partners including Videon and Telos.

While at first we focused on live streaming, we added podcast hosting and distribution at the request of our clients, starting with a podcast series for Ted “The Man with the Golden Voice” Williams. StreamGuys once again made it easy for us to expand our offerings, and we use SGrecast for podcast management and publishing.

In addition to audio, we are starting to use StreamGuys services for video. We are using SGrecast to manage video podcasts and delivering them over StreamGuys’ CDN, and we plan to add live video streaming from our recently renovated studio soon.

I love the reliability, great sound and functionality that we get from StreamGuys’ streaming tools and SGrecast, but the number one thing I like about StreamGuys is its customer service. I can call them at any time, and they treat me like I’m a multimillion-dollar client.

I am not an engineer, so having StreamGuys provide managed services is worth every penny in taking the technical load off me and my team. They’re also proactive in sending out information about industry and technology updates. StreamGuys gives us a platform we can grow on, and is a great partner in helping us achieve our goals.

Info: Contact Jason Osburn at StreamGuys at 1-707-667-9479 or visit www.streamguys.com.

Radio World User Reports are testimonial articles intended to help readers understand why a colleague chose a particular product to solve a technical situation.

The post User Report: StreamGuys Provides Growth Platform for RFEN appeared first on Radio World.

(Photo courtesy Public Knowledge)

In advance of the Senate hearing scheduled for Dec. 1 on the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) president and CEO Gordon Smith has expressed “serious concerns” about her previous involvement as a director in the streaming service Locast.

After lengthy litigation, the Locast service, which streamed local broadcast signals in more than 30 markets, was forced to shut down in September when a judge in the Southern District of New York ruled it was illegally streaming the signals.

“NAB strongly supports Congress’s desire to have a fully seated Federal Communications Commission as soon as possible,” Gordon said in a statement. “Although NAB does not currently oppose the nomination of Gigi Sohn, we have serious concerns about her involvement as one of three directors of the illegal streaming service Locast.”

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“NAB is confident that these concerns can be resolved,” stated Gordon. “However, the ethics agreement that Ms. Sohn submitted to the Senate currently does not adequately address the inherent conflict presented by her recent leadership position at Locast and her potential role as an FCC commissioner. NAB is actively working with members of the Senate Commerce Committee and the White House to address this conflict and requests that Ms. Sohn submit an amended ethics agreement that meaningfully and effectively addresses this clear and troubling conflict.”

Sohn is one of three leaders at the company, along with one other director and former Dish executive and Locast founder David Goodfriend. Two days after her nomination as commissioner, Sohn entered into a settlement with the plaintiffs in the case that enjoined her from operating Locast in the future or any other service seeking to exploit Congress’s nonprofit exemption to the copyright laws. The company also agreed to pay the broadcaster plaintiffs $32 million as a result of its ongoing illegal activity.

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

The post NAB Expresses ‘Serious Concerns’ About Sohn FCC Nomination appeared first on Radio World.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Executive VP for Newsgathering at CBS News has been selected, and it is a woman who will have editorial oversight for network newsgathering worldwide, including all domestic and international bureaus.

Taking the role is the the current EVP and CBS News Washington bureau chief, in the post since July 2020.

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Don’t tell this crowd that there aren’t young people out there who are interested in broadcast technology.

The Society of Broadcast Engineers announced that the Ennes Educational Foundation Trust has awarded five scholarships for 2021.

They are given to individuals interested in continuing or beginning an education in broadcast engineering and technology. Each recipient this year receives $2,500. The choices were announced by SBE President Andrea Cummis.

From left: Ismail Otu, Michael Cassara, Zachary Cameron, Christopher Gamelin and Meredith Frank

The Harold E. Ennes Scholarship recipient is Ismail Otu, CRO, CTO, a graduate of the Broadcasting Production Technology Program at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C. SBE said he plans to attend the Cleveland Institute of Electronics and major in broadcast engineering/wireless communication electronics.

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The Robert D. Greenberg Scholarship recipient is Michael Cassara, who is in his sophomore year of studying computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

The John H. Battison SBE Founder’s Scholarship is awarded to Zachary Cameron, who is attending Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., studying telecommunications.

The Gino Ricciardelli Scholarship goes to Christopher Gamelin, who has worked at iHeartMedia and Entercom Communications and now is a maintenance technician with WFSB(TV), where he has worked on remote broadcasts and continues to expand his electronics knowledge.

And the Youth Scholarship goes to Meredith Frank, who will pursue her interest in live TV production at Hofstra University, working on a degree in television production and studies.

The Harold Ennes Scholarship Fund Trust was started by Indianapolis Chapter 25 in 1980 in memory of Harold E. Ennes. Administration was taken over by the national SBE in 1981, and the name of the trust was changed in 1995 to the Harold Ennes Educational Foundation Trust.

Send your people news to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post SBE Announces Ennes Scholarship Recipients appeared first on Radio World.

SAVANNAH, GA. — For television viewers in Georgia’s Coastal Empire, local news choices have become more competitive than ever. While Gray Television’s WTOC-11 remains the leader and most top-of-mind local TV station in this region, Hearst-owned WJCL-22 has developed an incubator for its other local news organizations across the nation. Sinclair Broadcast Group’s FOX affiliate, WTGS-28, has also gained a sizable audience.

Then there is the local NBC affiliate, owned by Nexstar Media Group thanks to its merger in 2016 with Media General. It was a property that Raycom Media, at its founding, declined to own, choosing instead WTOC.

Today, that Nexstar station, WSAV-3, is on a growth spurt, making Savannah-Beaufort-Hilton Head a thriving market for broadcast TV. Now, WSAV has a new leader.

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WASHINGON, D.C. — The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has released a new Request for Proposals (RFP) for Broadcast Core Network technologies to enhance the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard.

The project is on a fast track, the group says, with initial responses of interest due by December 31.

“ATSC members are the stewards of the ATSC 3.0 Platform, evolving and expanding the system’s capabilities over time,” said ATSC President Madeleine Noland. “This new development will move the technology forward and unlock innovative business scenarios for the broadcast ecosystem.”

ATSC is in the process of specifying Standards for a Broadcast Core Network. ATSC envisions that the addition of core networking capabilities can be an integral part of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast system architecture. The aim, ATSC says, is to facilitate efficient interconnect between broadcast towers to form one or more service networks, enabling new business opportunities that require efficient regional or national data delivery options. Sourcing content from multiple data networks, a Broadcast Core Network holds potential to broaden the range of addressable use cases beyond those defined for linear television program delivery and extend the utility of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast facilities to untapped market areas, such as Broadcast (Virtual) Network Operator (BNO, BVNO), Regional or National Datacasting, enhanced Interactivity, and Data/Content Offload.

“We are excited to expand ATSC 3.0 options to include Core Networking,” said Luke Fay, Chair of ATSC Technology Group 3 and Sr. Manager Technical Standards at Sony Electronics. “This valuable addition to the ATSC 3.0 standard will enable broadcasters to coordinate data and content delivery across multiple markets. We look forward to specifying a state-of-the-art ATSC 3.0 extension with experts in the industry.”

Interested organizations may submit an intent-to-respond by December 31. Details of the response requirements and schedule can be found in the RFP.