A longtime public radio leader who served as President and GM of North Carolina Public Radio has passed away.
She had been on medical leave since February. However, details about the cause of death were not shared by the family.
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The Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance is hosting a virtual summit next week that will bring together broadcasters and other private sector players with the nation’s largest alerting authorities to discuss next generation emergency messaging.
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It seems the creditors to the regional sports networks owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group that recently took on the Bally Sports brand through a wide-ranging integrated partnership with the gaming company are in the process of signing non-disclosure agreements to start talks on lowering the RSN’s $8 billion debt load.
That’s according to “people with knowledge of the matter” who spoke with two Bloomberg reporters on Friday.
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The 415 radio stations owned by Cumulus Media, one of the biggest U.S. commercial ownership groups, are now integrated into the DTS AutoStage connected car platform.
DTS AutoStage is a hybrid radio system that Xperi Corp. is positioning as a global platform, supporting operations in 60 countries so far. As we’ve reported, the system is coming to market in the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
[Read: Xperi Has Big Ambitions for DTS AutoStage]
Other U.S. groups participating include Audacy, Beasley and Cox. International broadcasters onboard so far include BBC, Bauer, Global Radio, NPO, Commercial Radio Australia, radiko, FM World and SWR.
The Cumulus agreement was announced by Xperi Senior Vice President, Business Development, Broadcast Joe D’Angelo and Cumulus SVP, Technology Conrad Trautmann.
Trautmann was quoted saying that the user interface provides listeners with “the most cutting-edge features in the dashboard of any automobile.” He highlighted the service-following feature of hybrid radio that “essentially makes the coverage area of our radio station’s signals limitless,” with streamed content serving listeners who move out of a station’s signal coverage.
Broadcasters can participate in the program at no cost. Station metadata is represented to the listener through artwork, artist and album info, songs, playlists, station logos and other features. The system also provides discovery and personalization features.
The post Cumulus Stations Support DTS AutoStage appeared first on Radio World.
Esteemed GroupM Global President of Business Intelligence Brian Wieser has singled out three key areas that have been transformed the most for his firms clients over the past months.
While e-commerce and “responsible investing” are two of these areas, it is the third — linear and Connected TV — that deserve the industry’s attention.
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Avantone Pro is launching Gauss 7, an active full-range, two-way reference monitor that aims to evoke a vintage sound with the addition of modern technologies. Cetex Gauss, based out of Sun Valley, Calif., was best-known for its tape duplication equipment, but its short-lived speaker brand of the early 1970s is being used as a jumping-off point for the new line.
The Gauss 7 features a 2.5-inch (65 mm) GAU-AMT aluminum-etched PET (polyethylene terephthalate) film-folded membrane high-frequency driver that offers a response up to 22 kHz. The assembly is mounted in its own enclosure to avoid back wave pressure from the woofer.
[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]
Woofer-wise, the Gauss 7 includes a 7-inch (178 mm) ferrite motor GAU-7MLF low-frequency driver. It draws from Avantone Pro’s AV10-MLF “white cone” construction. The woofer cone is a pressed design, fabricated from the same proprietary blend of wood pulp and glass fiber found in the AV10-MLF woofer, but with increased materials providing extended low end. The woofer’s motor structure is made of low-carbon 1008 steel.
The rear-firing passive bass port gives the Gauss 7 a “controlled yet punchy low end with a tight response,” the company.
On the power front, there is a 120 W power amplifier for the low-frequency driver and 60 W high-frequency driver amplifier power. Specs include 103 dB (peak) SPL; and 0.5% THL delivered from an enclosure measuring 381 mm (15 inches) H x 235 mm (9.25 inches) W x 212 mm (8.35 inches) D. Weight is 18 pounds.
It also includes balanced XLR and 1/4-inch TRS inputs, plus a three-position “acoustic placement” switch, a three-position high trim switch and a gain control.
Gauss 7 will be shipping in early June for $799 per pair.
Info: www.avantonepro.com
The post Avantone Pro Introduces Gauss 7 Studio Monitors appeared first on Radio World.
Occasionally we query Workbench readers as to the most useful piece of test equipment; the cellphone camera usually wins out.
Dan Gunter is the owner and principal broadcast engineer of Alabama Broadcast Services LLC. He shares photographic proof of the immense value of a phone camera, not only for documentation purposes but as a tool in troubleshooting.
One of Dan’s client stations recently experience a mysterious trip of the 100 amp AC circuit breaker that fed the high-voltage power supply (HVPS) on a Harris HT25FM transmitter. Unfortunately Dan was out of town that day, as was his backup colleague Terry Harper.
Thus it was the station’s chief operator/assistant GM who wound up running over to the site. With instructions from Dan he reset the tripped breaker, which got the transmitter back on the air without a breaker re-trip.
Dan had experienced a similar off-air trip with another of that client’s transmitters, a problem that kept occurring sporadically. This was resolved by giving the arc gap in the HVPS some much needed attention — cleaning and re-spacing the gap per the manufacturer’s specifications.
Because that had worked earlier, Dan decided to do a “wee hours of the morning” shutdown on the trouble transmitter and check the arc gap. He found that it was at 0.3745 inches, nearly twice the recommended setting of 0.1875.
Only the camera knows what’s hiding behind these power supply components.As pictured above, Dan noticed that the HVPS had a considerable amount of dust and debris, so he decided it was time for a thorough inspection and good vacuuming. After turning off all AC breakers and discharging the components, Dan set out to work.
Unfortunately, there are some places you simply can’t see without spending another half hour or more to remove the rear cover from the power supply, such as behind the transformer, choke and filter capacitor. Dan’s solution was to use his phone’s camera to shoot photos in the hidden crannies.
And that’s when he found the little problem seen here:
In case it isn’t clear what’s amiss, the image below offers a closer view behind the capacitor.
Dan says he doubts this was a factory-installed part.
Apparently, this rat snake had managed to crawl into the power supply through a gap at the lower left corner of an ill-fitting front cover on the cabinet. Dan suspects the critter managed to slither across a couple of wrong points in the HVPS and had a really bad day, also tripping the breaker.
Rat snake or not, Nautel’s Jeff Welton calls them all “rattle-headed copper moccasins.” And they don’t belong in transmitters.
Dan sent the assistant GM photos of his findings and work; he also put the dearly departed critter in a box, labeled it and placed it on the desk in the transmitter building, where the manager could inspect the evidence first-hand and dispose of it as he wished. (Let it not be said that Dan takes things from client sites without their approval.)
Dan visited the site a few weeks later and the box was still sitting on the desk, unopened. Imagine that!
As an engineer, you see a lot of strange things. Take pictures of these encounters to help management understand your value.
At one station where I was chief, I put a small bulletin board in the station lunchroom, and posted a “Picture of the Week.” from my site visits. Try it and see the reaction.
Shine a light on itLike many engineers, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve required more “light” to see details like the numbers on a chip or a resistor color code.
Here is a flexible LED garage light, a replacement “bulb” that actually consists of three adjustable panels and screws into a standard light socket above my garage workbench, throwing off 6,000 Lumens!
Fig. 5 shows some of the possible configurations.
Find it at Amazon, it’s the best $36 you’ll spend.
John Bisset has spent over 50 years in broadcasting and is in his 31st year of Workbench. He handles western U.S. radio sales for the Telos Alliance. He is a past recipient of the SBE’s Educator of the Year Award.
Workbench thrives on your snake stories and tech tips, which count toward SBE recertification. Email johnpbisset@gmail.com.
The post Workbench: How to Get a Peek Into Hard-to-See Places appeared first on Radio World.
If timing is everything, then Byron Allen — the media mogul behind Local Now, Allen Media Group and Entertainment Studios — just made the biggest statement yet that the Golden Arches have been nothing more than a rusty bucket with respect to the level of advertising commitment it’s given to his broadcast and cable properties.
With McDonald’s getting much attention for moving forward with “bold new investments to further reflect its diverse customers” and putting 2%-5% more dollars into Black-owned properties over the next five years, Allen Media Group has filed a whopping $10 billion lawsuit against the quick-service restaurant giant for racial discrimination.
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Urban One may have had an explosive day on Wall Street, but other broadcast media companies also found themselves seeing strong gains on Thursday.
Among them: Salem Media Group, and The Walt Disney Company.
Here’s a glance at today’s activity on Wall Street.
For a live look across each trading session, please visit the homepage of RBR.com.
He’s a New Hampshire native and rose through the ranks at Hearst Television, where he was News Director of its flagship property in Boston. For the past five years, he has been VP of News.
Now, this pro has been selected to succeed the retiring Jeff Bartlett in his home state.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of Republican Members of the House of Representatives on Thursday (5/20) introduced legislation that they believe help closes the digital divide in the U.S.
How so? The plan, led by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s top Republican, is designed to ensure broadband infrastructure “reaches all Americans and is not used to fund duplicative and wasteful overbuilding.”
Democrats immediately responded by pointing to support for their own bill.
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Colin Benedict, the Vice President of News for radio and TV station owner Morgan Murphy Media, played an integral role in the planning and execution of an effort across all of the multimedia company’s markets to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations.
How did the initial idea for a “Vaccine Day” effort originate, and then pollinate? What does this effort say about the role that local TV stations, in particular, play in their respective markets?
Learn more in this InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, with host Adam R Jacobson, who candidly shares his own qualms about getting vaccinated.
Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Colin Benedict, Morgan Murphy Media” on Spreaker.
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