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The author is director of engineering, Leighton Broadcasting.

I’ll be the first in line for new audio processing if I think it can give us an edge, but only if it’s truly a step up and not just the same old tech in new packaging.

We serve a predominantly young population here in the college town of St. Cloud, Minn. With 70 other stations competing for those ears, our six stations will take every advantage we can get.

I’d heard about the Wheatstone MP-532 AM/FM/HD multipurpose processor before it was officially released. The inside scoop was that Wheatstone’s Jeff Keith had designed into it a new five-band “windowed” AGC, which he called Windy.

As different program material comes in, it adapts to make sure that the multiband section and the five-band limiter later on are always fed consistent audio. This, I was told, was one of the reasons why the MP-532 could deliver those “airy” highs and deeper lows we’re all hoping for in the business.

It was worth a listen.

I got one of the first MP-532s and put it on our classic rock station, KZPK, K277BS/ZRock (HD2) 103.3 MHz. The installation experience was typical Wheatstone. Super intuitive, with presets that immediately gave us a much-improved sound right out of the box.

Friendly install

I’ll get to the sound in a minute, but first I’d like to pause for a moment and give you a busy engineer’s perspective on audio processing.

Yes, most of us like to tweak processing. But we also have a huge appreciation for a smooth installation experience. I need to get it on the air, make minor adjustments and move on in life. That’s one very strong suit of this processor, its ease of installation.

To be fair, I know my way around Wheatstone processors, having owned X1s, AM-55s, FM-55s, X3s and X5s.

As easy as the setup was, this alone is not a good enough reason to invest in an audio processor. It has to sound good; that’s the core mission for processing, and for radio.

[“Engineer Tony Abfalter Is an MVP”]

So how did the MP-532 do? Impressive. Very impressive.

They weren’t kidding when they said the highs would be airy and detailed and the lows would be deep. The MP-532 has the most articulation and clarity of any audio processor I’ve ever heard. It effectively kicked its predecessor, the FM-55, into the prehistoric dinosaur age and can hold its own next to Wheatstone’s flagship processor, the X5 FM/HD processor, but with a few less features and a lot less dollars.

One nice bonus is that it is a multipurpose processor (that’s what the MP is for), which means it would make an excellent backup for both my AM as well as FM stations. But, it’s really too good to be a backup processor, so I have it running continuous programming on ZRock.

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

For information contact Jay Tyler at Wheatstone in North Carolina at 1-252-638-7000 or visit www.wheatstone.com.

The post User Report: Wheatstone MP-532 Opens Eyes at Leighton appeared first on Radio World.

Cheryl McHenry, the veteran anchor and reporter at Cox Media Group’s CBS affiliate serving Ohio’s Miami Valley, WHIO-7 in Dayton, will soon celebrate 40 years at the dominant TV station.

She first covered the courts, and in June 1991 moved to the anchor desk. In the last two years, McHenry has covered COVID-19, social justice protests, devastating tornadoes and a mass shooting in the Oregon District of Dayton.

In this exclusive interview, McHenry shares her thoughts on longevity, the necessity of local news and what it means to be a journalist in 2021 in the latest RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Cheryl McHenry” on Spreaker.

TORONTO — It’s known for such stations as CHBM “Boom 97.3” in Canada’s largest market.

Now, Stingray Radio is moving forward with a podcast strategy. And, it has selected the Omny Studio platform from iHeartMedia-owned Triton Digital to support it.

Through the partnership, Stingray Radio will use the tools within Omny Studio to create, publish and promote their portfolio of podcast content to audiences across a range of devices and platforms, including smart speakers, social media networks and smart phones.

“We are thrilled to expand our relationship with Triton, and to be leveraging the Omny Studio platform to support our podcast strategy,” said Steve Jones, SVP of Brands & Content at Stingray Radio. “Triton’s commitment to innovation and receptiveness to the podcast industry’s needs make the Omny Studio platform a force. We are confident that Omny will provide us with an unparalleled workflow and efficiency that will enable us to create more content, grow our audience, and meaningfully increase our revenue.”

John Rosso, President of Market Development at Triton Digital, added. “Stingray is a meaningful contributor to the rapidly growing podcast landscape in Canada, and we are proud to provide them with a flexible, enterprise-level tool that will grow and scale with them.”

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The Bureau cancels the Notice of Apparent Liability issued to Billy R. Autry

MB seeks comment on the effectiveness of the Commission's commercial loudness rules and whether any updates are needed

The Bureau cancels the Notice of Apparent Liability issued to School District, Bay City

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Global Security Systems has acquired a license to participate in the ShakeAlert earthquake notification system through its Alert FM disaster warning system. Alert FM provides tornado, hurricane, fire and other possibly life-threatening emergency notifications across the United States.

The earthquake information is from the United States Geological Survey’s ShakeAlert earthquake detection and warning system.

[Read: Changes Coming in National Alerting]

Matthew Straeb, EVP/CTO of Global Security Systems, developer and operator of Alert FM, said, “As a long-time provider of emergency notifications for tornadoes, fires, hurricanes, evacuations, and tsunamis, adding early earthquake warning notifications is a tremendous benefit for increasing public safety in all of our communities.”

The ShakeAlert system is active on the West Coast and GSS is implementing AlertFM/ShakeAlert for customers in in California, Oregon and Washington state.

In addition in the following months, according to a release, “Alert FM will integrate automated actions to accompany earthquake early warnings for sirens, accessible devices such as bed-shakers and other consumer electronic devices. … GSS will also pursue partnerships with accessible, hospital, transportation and public utility systems.”

Straeb explained, “We will be seeking partners to integrate our low-cost FM technology to control emergency generators, door openers, production machinery, and other sensitive equipment in concert with alert messages. The benefits are nearly endless in earthquake situations.”

 

The post FM Alert to Add Earthquake Warnings appeared first on Radio World.

The National Association of Broadcasters is unhappy about a planned change to FCC rules involving sponsorship identification of content that came from foreign governments.

General Counsel Rick Kaplan wrote about it on an NAB blog. He said the Federal Communications Commission had good intentions of helping the public better understand when they are watching or listening to content sponsored by a foreign government, and he said NAB agrees with the goal even though there are few broadcast cases compared to pay TV providers and social media.

[“Pai Calls for Transparency on Government Sponsored Broadcast Content”]

But Kaplan and the NAB oppose a provision that broadcasters entering into lease agreements with any programmers must take a series of steps to determine whether they are dealing with a foreign government in the first place.

“You might be wondering if there is an exception for the station leasing time to a long-standing trusted business partner, right? Nope,” Kaplan wrote.

“What if you are leasing time to a local church for services on Sunday mornings? Nope. Surely, it can’t involve leases for the 3:30 a.m. long-form Snuggie infomercial? Sorry, it does, says the FCC.”

Kaplan said “hundreds if not thousands” of stations “are now on the verge of being mandated to undertake steps to prove in advance they are not dealing with foreign governments, even when they each know with certainty they are not.” He called it “old-world regulation at its worst.”

He said there’s no evidence of a “groundswell of foreign propaganda” on the U.S. airwaves or that stations are confused about the origins of what they air.

“The FCC should not simply saddle broadcasters with this needless obligation — or rather, multiple needless obligations — because it can regulate broadcasters but not social media companies,” he argued.

And he said that “with each added regulation, the FCC makes broadcasting a less attractive investment, including for new entrants and historically underrepresented groups.”

He urged the FCC to “fix its proposal before approving it later this week.”

Read the proposed order (PDF).

Read Kaplan’s blog post “Let’s Not Overregulate Broadcasters Yet Again Because We’re Upset With Facebook”

 

 

 

The post NAB Unhappy With Lease Agreement Proposal appeared first on Radio World.

The owl ran afoul of the comatose coxswain.

You’ve most likely heard that line a lot of late, thanks to a new Progressive audio campaign.

But, when it comes to spot TV, a competitor has risen to the top in the latest look at brand activity by play count, courtesy of Media Monitors.

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For a generation of Spanish-language radio listeners in Central Florida, the 98.1 MHz frequency licensed to Deltona, Fla., has served as a home for salsa and Tropical programming.

Now, after 21 years, programming has shifted back to English fare, as RBR+TVBR has confirmed its sale. In doing so, it has ignited a war among Christian radio operators in the Orlando DMA.

The bigger news: this radio station’s owner, Entravision Communications, is set to say goodbye to the I-4 corridor.

Learn all about the power of the Hispanic audio content consumer at the Hispanic Radio Conference. For full details on this autumn 2021 event, click here!

 

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RBR+TVBR, the publication dedicated to the business of broadcast media, is proud to unveil the third annual Broadcast’s Best Financial Leaders list.

The Top 15 finance leaders in radio and television will be revealed, based on your vote, in RBR+TVBR’s June 2021 Special Edition, distributed at the virtual Kagan Media Summit electronically as part of the official Kagan conference app and via e-mail to all RBR+TVBR Members.

Make your nomination today for the RBR+TVBR Broadcast Best Finance Leaders list. Nominations will be accepted until Friday, April 23.

To make your nomination, please click here!

Those making nominations are asked to follow RBR+TVBR’s guidelines:

1. The persons you nominate must be active in radio and television media finance today and have a minimum of five years’ experience in broadcast media.
2. Nominations can come from any department of your radio or television station or parent company.

 

HURRY! You may make up to three nominations by our deadline of Friday, April 23 at 5pm Eastern/2pm Pacific. Please fill out only one ballot.

The latest Media Monitors Spot Ten Radio report is out, and it’s very clear who wins the home improvement retailer battle when it comes to spot count.

Lowe’s has been practically silent with its radio advertising, while Menards continues to use radio where it has stores. Nationally, there’s no competition.

And, that Home Depot domination continued in the week ending April 18, Media Monitors data show.

The latest report also shows that Indeed, the job search website, is the lone other campaign to register more than 50,000 play counts in the last week.

 

Vandalia Media Partners is inching closer to receiving an answer on its whether its license renewal application will be granted or denied.

The Media Bureau at the Federal Communications Commissioned announced that a status conference will be held virtually on April 28, at 10 a.m. as part of a hearing on renewing Vandalia’s license. Earlier this month the Media Bureau announced that an administrative law judge will work to determine whether or not to renew the license of AM radio station WJEH in Gallipolis, Ohio.

[Read: AM Station’s Spotty Operational Schedule Puts License at Risk]

The move is in light of the station’s minimal record of operation, the bureau said. Vandalia began broadcasting with the WJEH license on Dec. 31, 2019, and during its tenure as licensee (from December 2019 through 2020), the station was silent for 364 days and operated for two days at an authorized reduced power level of 100 W.

The Communications Act states that if a broadcasting station fails to transmit broadcast signals for any consecutive 12-month period, then the station license expires at the end of that period. This was set up by Congress to relieve the burden of conducting a drawn-out license renewal or revocation proceedings for stations that remain silent for extended periods of time.

The commission subsequently found that some licensees of silent stations respond by resuming operation for a short period of time — in some cases as short as a day — before the one-year-limit hits to prevent automatically license expiration. Others alternate between periods of silence and operations with minimal power levels that only cover a small portion of their service areas.

In cases such as these, the commission cautioned that “a licensee will face a very heavy burden in demonstrating that it has served the public interest where it has remained silent for most or all of the prior license term.”

The method for renewing an application is fairly straightforward. According to the FCC Rules, a renewal is granted if the bureau finds that the station met three key requirements: the station served the public interest, convenience and necessity; there have been no serious violations of the Communications Act of 1934 or FCC Rules; and there are no major violations that would constitute a pattern of abuse.

When these three tenets cannot be met, the renewal application is designated for a hearing. Because of the WJEH’s extended periods of silence and operation at significantly reduced power during its license term, the bureau was unable to find that grant of the renewal application is in the public interest.

A proposed schedule with next steps will be laid out during the virtual conference. The commission said that interested parties can share relevant documents and comments about this case through April 26 via the commission’s Electronic Comment Filing System.

 

The post Hearing Set to Determine Ohio AM License appeared first on Radio World.

The TM-250U from TASCAM is a USB condenser microphone with a supercardioid pattern.

The company says that it is aimed at direct connection computer audio for podcasting, dialog and vocal recording, music recording, conferencing, and other forms of online audio.

[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]

The digital audio output is 16-bit/48 kHz. It has mic gain and a headphone output volume control along with a mute switch.

It also ships with a 6-foot USB C-A mic cable, mic holder and a desktop mic tripod.

Info: www.tascam.com

 

The post TASCAM Releases USB Microphone appeared first on Radio World.

Spanish-language content was in focus last week with the blockbuster news that Univision Communications would be merging with Mexico-based Televisa, combining the struggling operator’s content operations with Univision — a key recipient of its programming.

GroupM’s Global President of Business Intelligence, Brian Wieser, was compelled to take a close look at the deal.

His assessment? “With a similar scale among Spain’s dominant media owners and significant investment in related content from Netflix, ViacomCBS, Disney and others, significantly increased investment will likely be required to accomplish stated goals.”

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