Industry News

Radio engineer Tony Abfalter is about to take a break from his normal work to head out on an unusual assignment.

Leighton Broadcasting, where Abfalter is director of engineering, said he is beginning a hiatus this week to join the U.S. Antarctic Program, part of the National Science Foundation team, as senior communications technician.

[Related: “Engineer Tony Abfalter Is an MVP”]

“In this role Tony will be supporting a variety of communications systems, as well as assisting National Science Foundation staff with ongoing upgrades as needed,” Leighton said in an announcement.

This means he’s headed for the famous McMurdo Station on Ross Island, Antarctica, the southernmost point accessible by ship during local summer.

Abfalter will start with quarantines in Seattle and New Zealand. At McMurdo, he’ll work for nine months.

“While on location Tony will be responsible to troubleshoot and maintain all aspects of wired and wireless communications,” it said. “Tony will be using his deep knowledge of microwave, UHF and VHF technologies. He will be programming and maintaining radio gear, which connects researchers and technicians in the field to the main base as well as holding responsibility for station communications outward to the rest of the world.”

[Check out webcams at McMurdo Station.]

In addition to his technical experience Abfalter can draw on familiarity with work in temperature extremes. He’s a Minnesota native with cold weather survival experience and EMR/SAR training with the Holdingford Fire Department.

Temperatures during his stay are expected to go as low as –20 degrees Fahrenheit.

His employer plans to keep track of his adventures on its website. Leighton added that Abfalter is excited to work with an international community of researchers and maintenance personnel requiring him to draw on his communication skills “and possibly heretofore unused pantomime abilities.”

Send your people news to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Tony Abfalter Heads to McMurdo appeared first on Radio World.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — She’s served as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the Department of Commerce. She’s also served as a Senior Legal Advisor to former FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, and in May 2017 rose from Deputy Chief to Chief of the Commission’s Media Bureau.

Now, Michelle Carey is moving on from the FCC’s legislative hub for all things involving broadcast media regulatory policy.

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Things are continuing to look up for Townsquare Media.

A top Wall Street market intelligence firm has upgraded the local media and digital solutions company’s outlook.

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The newest member to the company’s leadership team is being asked to lead Audacy Corp.’s audience growth initiatives across brand strategy, creative, messaging, media planning and attribution, while also managing the company’s Alchemy function, “focused on the strategic integration of exclusive content and programming to Audacy’s listeners.”

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Some 75% of Americans who identify themselves as Black say that seeing characters and communities representative of their race, portrayed in positive ways — as well as having a Black actor in a leading role — positively impacts their decision to watch a television program or feature film.

That’s a key finding from Horowitz Research‘s recently released FOCUS Black: Consumer Engagement report.

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The nation’s largest broadcast television station company’s board of directors wants it. Now, it is being put in the hands of its shareholders.

Two classes of Nexstar Media Group common stock face extintion.

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Across 2021, there have been some significant transactions involving television stations, with many deals involving Gray Television. That said, one entrepreneur known for its investment in programming catering to South Asians has emerged as a LPTV collector, buying up properties across the U.S.

Ravi Kapur, once a member of the KGO-7 in San Francisco news team, now has a formidable group of LPTVs through his Major Market Broadcasting. Now, he’s adding two more LPTVs to his stable in a transaction that sees Bob Heymann of the Chicago office of Media Services Group serve as the seller’s broker.

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Addressable advertising has been a vexing matter for many radio broadcasting company leaders, with the technology of bringing audio content to many via AM and FM in juxtaposition to the current marketing mantra that individual messaging — the dream that digital media is built on — matters more.

Has SiriusXM just taken one important step toward bringing personalized ads and promos to audio content consumers?

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While the Spot Ten Radio report for the week ending January 30, 2022, points to a potential slowdown for brands, the latest Spot Ten TV offers a stark contrast as to how diverse the paid ad mix is at broadcast television.

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The latest peek at the play counts of advertising by campaign at Spot Radio once again shows that promotional announcements from iHeartRadio outnumber everything except one key paid user of AM and FM stations tracked by iHeart-owned Media Monitors: job search portal Indeed.

The newest Spot Ten Radio report also suggests that podcast promotion is taking up slots that more paid users of AM and FM radio could harbor.

As shown below, language learning and translation software Babbel is the No. 2 paid user of radio for the week ending January 30, with Progressive, Lowe’s and Wendy’s, which is ramping up its multimedia efforts to promote breakfast menu offerings, the lone other paid users of Radio last week.

Here’s a full look at the latest Spot Ten Radio report: