Industry News

Paid audio services have become a way of life for many Americans. Will more radio companies participate in the boom?

New data this week from Edison Research indicates that almost half — 47% — of us now subscribe to at least one such service. “This number is just over double what it was in 2015, when 23% had a paid subscription,” the company stated. It found that growth includes services like Spotify Premium, Apple Music, Pandora Premium or Plus, SiriusXM Satellite Radio and Audible.

[Read: Survey Says Full Speed Ahead for Mobile Devices and Apps]

Edison President Larry Rosin expects to see more such offerings, “particularly from radio companies.”

“While much of this doubling of the numbers is the redirection of money that was going to physical music formats to music streaming subscriptions, there is also the trend of more people paying to avoid commercials,” he said.

He noted that the U.K.’s Bauer Media launched a subscription radio service that offers commercial-free versions of their radio brands. “I would think such efforts are likely to be launched in the U.S. as well.”

The post Paid Audio Services Boom in U.S. appeared first on Radio World.

For 39 years, Kagan has offered an up-close look at where broadcast radio and TV is heading, with respect to revenues and station valuations.

This continued on Thursday (6/17) in virtual fashion, as the 2021 Kagan Media Summit kicked off with a spotlight on the U.S. broadcast station industry from Senior Research Analyst Justin Nielson.

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The Federal Communications Commission has adopted several changes to its rules for emergency alerting in the United States.

This order makes the changes we described in our recent story “Changes Coming in National Alerting.”

On the mobile phone side of things, the FCC doesn’t want people to opt out of receiving critical information, so it has combined the existing “Presidential Alerts” category, which is non-optional on devices that receive Wireless Emergency Alerts, with alerts from the FEMA administrator to create a new non-optional alert class called “National Alerts.”

On the EAS front, the commission is requiring State Emergency Communications Committees to meet at least annually and submit plans for FCC approval. Also it is encouraging states to review the composition and governance of their SECCs (or to form a committee one, if one doesn’t exist).

The FCC also plans to provide a checklist of information that should be included in annual state Emergency Alert System plans, and will tighten up its process for reviewing those plans. (We’ll report on that when the full order text is available but you can read the draft order that was released ahead of the meeting.)

The order also specifies that government agencies may report false emergency alerts to the FCC’s 24/7 Operations Center. And it clarifies how alert originators can repeat their alert transmissions.

Congress had instructed the FCC to work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to adopt such rules.

“When alerts work well, we get the facts we require in an emergency,” said Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement. “But when they fail, they can cause fear and confusion and even panic.” She cited the 2018 incident when people in Hawaii got an emergency alert warning of a ballistic missile threat and were told “This is not a drill.”

Rosenworcel said the Hawaii incident led her to call for a system for reporting false alerts “so we can learn from our errors going forward,” and to urge the use of state emergency communications plans to promote best practices.

“This is progress. But there is still more to do,” she continued. “So today we are kicking off a rulemaking to discuss additional ways we can improve alerting, based on recommendations from our colleagues at FEMA.”

She also made note of the nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts that is scheduled for August.

The post Emergency Alert Changes Pass FCC appeared first on Radio World.

In March and April 2020, the revenue picture looked rather bleak for Sinclair Broadcast Group. Today, things couldn’t be more different — and more positive.

Even with chip shortages hampering new auto inventory, squelching advertising dollars, Sinclair is hitting all cylinders. With mid-term political dollars on the horizon and sports betting revenue projected to be significant, Sinclair’s chief executive is excited about the “big uplift” that’s already underway.

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This week, one of the nation’s key advocacy groups for African American broadcasters  called on Members of Congress to support the Local Radio Freedom Act, a resolution that would “protect” AM and FM radio stations from “being forced to pay significant additional new performance royalties.”

The call to back the LRFA came from National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters President Jim Winston, on a day when the U.S. House of Representatives voted 415-14 to make Juneteenth, or June 19, the nation’s twelfth federal holiday.

With President Joe Biden’s signature set to affirm Congress’ vote, and renewed attention to the African American community, we are pleased to share this encore RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, featuring Adam R Jacobson’s interview with Winston.

Listen to “RBR+TVBR INFOCUS: Jim Winston” on Spreaker.

A global designer and manufacturer of broadcast infrastructure has successfully collaborated with a PBS Member in the extension of its transmission reach by investing in a “future-proofed infrastructure” tied to an “Alternative Method of Education” initiative.

It’s just one more way educational, noncommercial television is serving the community, in particular across Arkansas.

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Software platform MadHive has attracted broadcast media companies such as FOX, TEGNA and The E.W. Scripps Co., which have elected to go with the tech company to power their linear reach extension offerings.

Now, MadHive has announced it will be the first partner to license “the only cross-screen and cross-walled garden dataset” in the U.S.

It’s the result of a pact between MadHive and HyphaMetrics, and allows MadHive to license HyphaMetrics’ panel data. This, MadHive says, gives its customers exclusive access to “robust cross-screen insights, allowing them to seamlessly prove the value of their campaigns.”

MadHive CEO Adam Helfgott explains, “Advertisers today are struggling to understand the impact of their omnichannel campaigns. In order to be effective, device graphs need a powerful, privacy-friendly source of truth to validate their assumptions. Madhive sanity checks our device graph of 100 million households against Hypha’s validated truth set of media consumers daily in order to provide the most accurate campaign planning and performance insights across channels, devices, and individuals.”

The HyphaMetrics panel covers connected devices universally used among consumers.

As MadHive sees it, the partnership will give its advertiser and broadcaster clients access to real time data about who is watching what content and in what format they’ve chosen to view it in — live, time-shifted, or streaming.

Individual viewing data across every network, program, advertisement, product placement, streaming app, gaming environment for every device in the household will also come from the partnership, as will granular data identifying time spent in apps, simultaneous app usage, multitasking metrics, and more across mobile media environments.

HyphaMetrics CEO Joanna Drews notes, “Panels play an integral role in the media ecosystem, but legacy measurement approaches were not built to solve for the fragmentation and technical complexities that come with modern viewing behaviors. HyphaMetric’s patented approach to cross-platform, person-level measurement was built from the ground up to provide a holistic understanding of who is watching what, when and how – covering all aspects of the modern viewing environment including video gaming, secondary device usage, and walled gardens.”

BOCA RATON, FLA. — On May 12, 2020, Nielsen Audio released its Miami-Fort Lauderdale April 2020 ratings report, along with station cume data, to radio industry trade publications including AllAccess.com.

The numbers were ugly. Between February and April, as measured by Nielsen through the Portable People Meter (PPM), Cox Media Group‘s top-rated WFEZ “Easy 93.1” saw its cume slide from 1.038 million to 536,100. That station wasn’t alone: Huge cume dips were seen for every station in the Top 10 by cume. And, Miami wasn’t the only market experiencing this pandemic-fueled slide in broadcast radio consumption.

Today, Nielsen Audio data suggest radio’s return to pre-pandemic audience levels in nearly complete. The remaining challenge? Recouping lost advertising dollars.

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The VAB, the broadcast television industry’s sales advocacy organization, has released a White Paper that finds that, based on the input from more than 200 marketers, 92% of these ad budget decisionmakers are adopting audience-based buying — at least to some degree.

BE SURE TO FOLLOW RBR+TVBR ON LINKED IN!

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This is one in a series of interviews with people who work in and around radio about the kinds of mics they love and why.

Rob Bertrand is senior director of technology for WAMU 88.5 in Washington.

Radio World: What is your personal favorite for radio on-air work, and what sets it apart for you? 

Rob Bertrand: The Shure SM7B is one of the most versatile microphones out there that is hard to make sound bad. Its low-level output corrects for so many room distortions and background noise issues and it has a great balance of simultaneously sounding warm and crisp.

We use the Neumann BCM 104 in our host positions when we’re in the studio because it sounds consistent alongside the higher-end condensers found throughout NPR programming.

There is no presence effect so it is very forgiving of hosts who tend to operate from quite a distance of the microphone, however, it does require a very quiet studio to sound clean.

RW: What about remote work or other specialty applications?

Bertrand: We’re using a lot of SM7Bs in home setups right now, sometimes with external mic pres, because they are so forgiving of their environment. The SM58 is always a solid go-to for on-air and live usage.

My interview favorite will always be the Shure SM63LB.

RW: For someone making a microphone decision, any tips to share or common misconceptions to dispel?

Bertrand: Start simple. Use your ears. Be clear for yourself about what you’re trying to achieve, then go out and get different opinions.

In trying to find a new standard field reporter microphone for WCBS in the mid-2000s, I ordered about a dozen different handheld mics. I went out to different environments throughout New York City and recorded with them, wanting to find a nice presence for the subject but sensitive enough to provide reasonable nat sound.

We eventually landed on the SM63LB, which despite being omnidirectional, sounds great when used up close in an interview, with little-to-no handling noise. It gave WCBS a nice kick to its long-time field sound, enabled us to roll out a consistent mic, and gave the reporters an easy tool for recording better audio in the field.

As we deployed digital recorders and laptops, this enabled the station to provide a whole new level of rich audio to its listeners — whether listening on AM, HD, or streaming.

In my public radio life today, we have the time and ability to use more resources and a wider variety of microphones to deliver that polish, but I’ll always remember working with a team of reporters and news management to make that decision about the singular SM63LB for our reporters. I think it’s what they are still using today and it was a team decision based entirely on listening tests.

I think you want something that’s easy to use, holds up to the abuse of daily life, and is versatile in different situations. Marketing materials can help set you in the right direction, but you’ve really got to do the work of testing and listening to know for sure what sound you are crafting.

Read more of Radio World’s coverage of microphones.

The post My Favorite Mics: Rob Bertrand appeared first on Radio World.