Aggregator

Nielsen Audio issued data this week indicating that U.S. weekly radio listening is at its highest levels since the pandemic began, though not yet to pre-COVID-19 levels.

“The April 2021 PPM survey revealed new gains in radio listening across the aggregate of markets for the second month in a row,” it said in a press release. “As America continues to reopen, consumers are returning to radio in numbers not seen in over half a year.”

[Read: Nielsen Reports “Big Gains” for Radio Listening]

“Radio’s weekly reach is now at its highest levels, 121 million weekly consumers, since March 2020 when COVID-19’s impact began to take hold. Since the beginning of 2021, radio has added more than 5 million new weekly listeners.”

The company issued this graphic that shows the monthly trends, including a rise last summer and fall, followed by a decline around the holidays and “surges,” as well as a recent “rebound.”

It also said U.S. radio’s Average Quarter-Hour audience in April was back to where it was in November, though again not yet back to pre-COVID levels. “AQH audience levels have jumped 10% in the past two months as vaccinations and a gradual return to pre-pandemic routines have proliferated.”

Nielsen said that from a weekly reach perspective, the radio audience in April is 14% larger than the same month from a year ago, while for AQH the audience is 31% larger. The April listening gains were spread across times of day.

The research company also issued some observations about trends in formats.

It noted that the urban adult contemporary/R&B format recorded its highest share of listening in several years in April. It attributed this to national interest in the social justice movement including a verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin. It said April gains “may have been driven by what was happening between the songs, as much as the music cycle itself during such a milestone moment.”

Some other formats are showing expected seasonal changes. “Country radio is reporting higher shares of audience heading into the summer, following its usual seasonal pattern. Classic hits is also gaining ground, another annual occurrence. Meanwhile, the return of Major League Baseball along with other live sports is boosting the all-sports format near its fall football season levels.”

The post Nielsen Highlights Encouraging Radio Trends appeared first on Radio World.

For 18 years and change, she’s been the head of sales for Fox Television Stations’ owned-and-operated station serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, adding SVP/Market Manager duties in December 2014.

Now, this 35-year TV industry veteran is heading to the Pacific Northwest’s largest market to head up Fox’s O&O.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — She’s been at the FCC since 1997, and in her time at the Commission oversaw two-thirds of the Commission’s auctions. She served under nine FCC Chairs.

Now, she’s set to retire, and an Acting Deputy Chief in the Office of Economics and Analytics has been named to succeed her.

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MIAMI —NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises’ Telemundo Global Studios has promoted the person in charge of Production Operations and Production Design at Argentina-based Underground Producciónes to the role of SVP/GM for the recently launched Telemundo Streaming Studios operation.

BE SURE TO FOLLOW RBR+TVBR ON TWITTER!

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In the northern half of California’s San Joaquin Valley, pastor Juan Montes has established a Spanish-language broadcast ministry that uses a Class A FM station licensed to Chowchilla, and an FM translator in Hughson, to reach the Modesto and Merced markets, respectively.

Now, Montes’ operation is adding two additional FMs in the region.

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Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was, in the view of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), designed to promote a competitive online ecosystem that maximizes user control while guarding against illegal activities.

“The law is credited with empowering unprecedented innovation, but it is also blamed for allowing Big Tech to suppress speech and avoid liability for seemingly unchecked misinformation,” the Trump-era FCC influencer notes today.

This sets the stage for a panel discussion hosted by AEI visiting scholar Mark Jamison on proposals to reform Section 230 — and on whether the law has fulfilled its original promise.

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In a potential boost to African American-centric media company Urban One and the nation’s Hispanic and Asian-targeted radio and TV communities, McDonald’s is moving forward with what it calls “bold new investments to further reflect its diverse customers, crew members and communities in its marketing.”

It’s a four-year effort, and women-owned and LGBTQ+ platforms are also poised to benefit.

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With the merger of Tribune Broadcasting and Nexstar Media Group, ownership of one of the nation’s largest affiliates of The CW Network — KTLA-5 in Los Angeles — came to be.

Now, Nexstar and the network have inked a new deal ensuring that KTLA, and every other affiliate of The CW, keeps the relationship in place for the next several years.

Multi-year agreements have been signed that see the renewal of The CW affiliations in 37 markets. The accord includes not only 28 Nexstar-owned stations but also nine owned by companies Nexstar enjoys a shared services agreement with.

Among the latter group: WPIX-11 in New York.

Other key Nexstar affiliates of The CW Network include WDCW-50 in Washington, D.C., seen as an in-flight offering on Southwest Airlines; KDAF-TV in Dallas; and KIAH-TV in Houston.

The 37 DMAs where Nexstar owns affiliates of The CW represents 31% of the U.S. audience.

“As the nation’s largest CW affiliate group, Nexstar is very pleased to extend its longstanding relationship with the network,” said Nexstar COO/CFO Tom Carter. “The CW’s line-up of prime-time entertainment shows, coupled with Nexstar’s highly-rated local news and other market-centric programming
enables us to deliver great content to millions of viewers and exceptional value to our advertisers.”

Betty Ellen Berlamino, The CW’s EVP of Distribution, added, “We are pleased to extend our valued partnership, through a multi-year agreement, with our largest station group, Nexstar. The linear broadcast model remains the backbone of our business model and vitally important as it gives us the scale and local reach that distinguishes us in today’s marketplace as the original multiplatform network.”

It’s time again for the U.K. audio industry’s annual tech and engineering event — in a new interactive, virtual format.

Aimed at broadcast engineers, technologists, managers and program creators, Radio TechCon 2021 is set to take place Monday Nov. 29. Through a series of speakers and masterclasses, the one-day conference will dive into the technical challenges and opportunities facing the U.K. radio and audio industry.

“Radio TechCon is vital for ensuring that the technical industry in radio and audio is able to come together to share ideas, learn and celebrate successes during these complex times,” says Aradhna Tayal, director of TBC Media Ltd., a radio and audio event company and organizer of Radio TechCon.

This year’s conference will be a virtual one due to ongoing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, she said.

In preparation for this year’s event, the Radio TechCon team has released videos from previous TechCon events on their website, including sessions on audio acoustics, wireless technology, voice control and radio wattage power issues.

The post Radio TechCon to Host Virtual Convention appeared first on Radio World.

LOS ANGELES — Ten free ad-supported streaming television, or “FAST,” channels have been added to the Local Now platform recently unveiled by the Byron Allen-controlled Allen Media Group.

The FAST offerings come courtesy of a new agreement with The E.W. Scripps Co.

It sees the expansion of local news by adding to the Local Now streaming platform the following Scripps O&Os:

• KNXV-15 (ABC) in Phoenix, Ariz.
• WFTS-28 (ABC) in Tampa
• WXYZ-7 (ABC) in Detroit
• KMGH-7 (ABC) in Denver
• WEWS-5 (ABC) in Cleveland
• WTVF-5 (CBS) in Nashville
• KGTV-10 (ABC) in San Diego
• KSTU-13 (Fox) in Salt Lake City
• KSHB-41 (NBC) in Kansas City
• WPTV-5 (NBC) in West Palm Beach

The partnership is not inclusive of all non-Ion properties owned by Scripps. For instance, WKBW-7 in Buffalo is not included in the Local Now arrangement.

Local Now SVP/GM Michael Senzon noted, “Scripps’ focus on growing audiences and revenue in the free streaming space is smart and we’re happy to be in business with them.”

As Scripps Local Media President Brian Lawlor sees it, “Scripps is committed to serving its audiences with the essential news and information they need, whenever and wherever they consume it. With more consumers turning to streaming platforms to access the local content that helps inform their day-to-day lives, we’re looking forward to expanding our commitment to them by adding Scripps local TV stations to Local Now’s growing roster of news and entertainment.”

On Friday (5/14), the Board of Directors of Audacy approved a restatement of three specific company plans and/or policies.

An SEC filing made following Wednesday’s Closing Bell on Wall Street explains what transpired.

Amendments to the three documents were needed in order to formally recognize the change of the company’s name from Entercom Communications Corp. to Audacy, Inc..

These documents are the Audacy Nonemployee Director Compensation Policy; the Audacy Equity Compensation Plan; the Audacy Employee Stock Purchase Plan; and the Audacy Acquisition Equity Compensation Plan (formerly the QLGG 2017 Stock Incentive Plan).

The amendments coincide with the 2021 annual Audacy shareholders meeting, which saw the ratification of the selection of Grant Thornton LLP as the company’s independent registered public accounting firm for the 2021 calendar year.

The meeting also saw the election of David Levy as a Class A Director, in Board Class I, for a three-year term; Weezie Kramer and Susan Neely were each elected as a Director, in Board Class I, for a three year-term.

That’s not the only news Audacy shared with the SEC.

On Wednesday (5/19), it filed Articles of Amendment with Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State to amend and restate Audacy’s Articles of Incorporation. They consolidate all prior amendments, and in particular removes references to multiple series of preferred stock which are no longer outstanding: Series A Cumulative Convertible Preferred Stock; Series A Junior Participating Convertible Preferred Stock; and Series B Junior Participating Convertible Preferred Stock.

There’s a list of “the good, the bad and the ugly” when the Federal Emergency Management Agency migrated the nation’s IPAWS system to the cloud this past April.

According to IPAWS Engineering Chief Mark Lucero during a webinar on the transition, there were many reasons to move the IPAWS system from the legacy, on-premises data center into the Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud environment. The cloud offers new levels of redundancy and native tools that will help IPAWS function faster, better, stronger and cheaper, he said.

But like any migration from a standalone on-premises system to the cloud, there were bumps along the way. There were also several smart moves that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security made. For one, Lucero said, FEMA successfully handled upfront planning, architecture design and in-depth planning with stakeholders. The cloud also gives the agency more rigorous redundancy. “We have redundancy on top of redundancy on top of redundancy,” Lucero said. “If a server goes down in flames, there are two more buildings within 100 miles that can pick up the slack and continue working as if nothing has happened.”

[Read: FEMA Dials up IPAWS Playbook]

The cloud environment also offers a faster turnaround time for adding new features and functions. “In the past it would take us several months to implement a change,” Lucero said. The cloud also offers the agency a new, centralized control system. “One of the great things that we’ve done by pushing into cloud is that we’ve centralized control,” he said. “Now we have more control over more aspects of it. There’s still a lot of oversight and security requirements that DHS puts on us; however, we have [fewer physical assets] to go to if we need to fix something.”

That’s the good. But speed bumps were in there too. Lucero said the agency struggled with deadlines, with removing bugs, with network connectivity and with coordination with broadcasters when it came to testing code. “When trying to swing over 11 systems operated by cell carriers that had their own priorities, we made a projection as to how long this would take and we were way off,” Lucero said.

He said that FEMA could also do a better job of anticipating how a delay here might affect a deadline over there. That led FEMA to reschedule its go-date a few times. “The original plan was to get this done in calendar year 2020,” he said.

Then there was the ugly, Lucero said. He said there was scant guidance from FEMA on cloud implementation when the cloud conversations first began back in 2018. Another issue: at the same time that FEMA was working on its cloud transition, it was also trying to make updates to the legacy IPAWS environment. “That was kind of tough because we had some delays … and those delays directly affected our cloud migration timeline and made things difficult,” he said.

Lucero said that paperwork requirements, approvals and security evaluations put the project somewhat behind. And the transition team struggled with retooling its testing procedures. “On the government and contractor side, we need to do a better job of defining how that process is going to take place,” he said.

Lucero was speaking as part of a cloud transition webinar set up by the IPAWS Program Management Office. Information on upcoming changes — including URL upgrades, information on when the older system will be decommissioned and what broadcasters need to know next — is contained within the nearly hour-long webinar.

The post IPAWS Transitions to the Cloud appeared first on Radio World.

It’s always nice when a broadcast media company enjoys a big day on Wall Street as general indices decline.

On Wednesday, Urban One — the company founded as Radio One by Cathy Hughes and today led by her son, Alfred Liggins III — saw double-digit growth.

A late buying surge fueled UONE.

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The team at Fletcher Heald & Hildreth has put together an update on the important broadcast media FCC regulatory deadlines operators will need to take note of in the next several weeks.

Here’s a look at what should go on the calendar today.

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