Industry News

WATX-AM 1220 is hardly a legendary radio station. Serving New Haven, Conn., and its surrounding communities, the Class B with 1kw of daytime power was all but left for dead by Quinnipiac University in May 2019. Some 17 months later, a veteran New England radio programming figure stepped in and rescued WATX — a facility he worked at in 1967 under its original WDEE calls.

Today, Clark Smidt is selling spots, playing the hits of yesteryear and just launched a direct mail campaign to 7 “hot ZIPs” within the WATX listening area. Is it a hobby, or an incubator designed to demonstrate why a licensee should never give up, and avoid turning in the license of a forlorn AM property?

We get the answer in this fresh InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM.

Listen to “Clark Smidt and WATX” on Spreaker.

For a generation of local TV news viewers across the National Capital Region, Doug Hill was a household name — a trusted source of local weather reports and a friendly face to those tuned to WJLA-7, the ABC station once owned by the Allbritton family that’s been owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group since 2014.

Now, thousands of viewers, as well as media industry figures across Washington, are stopping to remember Hill, who has died.

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Drive Time Metrics is celebrating the expansion of its patent portfolio with the issuance on November 9 of its fifth patent.

The company is now in possession of US Patent Number 11,171,792: METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MEDIA, ADVERTISING AND/OR IN VEHICLE CONTENT MONITORING — covering what consumers are listening to or viewing in their vehicles.

DTM’s patent family allows for data collection of the media (audio, video, etc.) actually being consumed in a vehicle for the duration of a trip, analyzed and reported on.

Today there are over 70 million “connected” vehicles in the U.S. (25% penetration), and this is anticipated to more than double by 2030. Almost all new vehicles now sold are “connected” with an embedded cellular modem. In 2021, 60.3% of licensed drivers in the US (total 229 million licensed drivers in U.S.) will drive a connected vehicle, expanding to 70.1% by 2025, according to eMarketer.

More audio is consumed in vehicles than any other listening location. The sheer scale of this data is of critical importance to the audio industry, especially for broadcasting which still represents the majority of in car listening. “The resulting large-scale census data, rather than small-scale audio panels or meters, represents the future of audio measurement,” stated Bob Maccini, one of DTM’s founders. “This is similar to what’s happening with video measurement moving to data from set top boxes and smart TVs.”

With the progression towards autonomous vehicles, measuring video in the vehicle, and time spent on other applications of any sort, becomes critical.

The DTM patent family allows for the collection and analysis of near real time data from a vehicle relating to data elements important to creating audio and video analytics. Some of these include; unique ID, time stamp, key on/off, channel, volume, location, etc. Whether a consumer is listening to AM/FM, SiriusXM Satellite Radio, Spotify, Pandora, iHeart or other streaming services, including video, anything going through the vehicles infotainment system can be measured, analyzed and reported. The applications for this cross channel data are numerous and include; audience measurement (AQH, Cume, TSL, etc.), ad impressions, ad verification (confirming ad play), ad attribution (consumer heard an ad and drove to advertisers store or went to website), ad/song/video engagement (tune in/tune out) as well as outcome based metrics. Macro content consumption trends can also be analyzed, e.g. Terrestrial audio listening share, peak listening time, shared audio channels, etc.

Today there exists the technical ability to capture audio/video data from vehicles, as well as the infrastructure to collect and manage the data from millions of vehicles, in the USA and other major global markets.

— From news distribution services

WASHINGTON, D.C. — “It’s Thanksgiving week, and the FCC is heading into the holidays on a high note,” says acting Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

Come December 14, Rosenworcel hopes to hit a high note with a proposal intended to improve the clarity and accessibility of Emergency Alert System visual messages and tests, especially for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing or are otherwise unable to access the audio message.

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Who Are Radio and Television’s IT and engineering leaders? It’s Your Decision

 

From Chief Technology Officers to Chief Information Officers, these broadcast media leaders are more essential than ever.

 

From cybersecurity to essential systems operations and tech innovations, these individuals are often overlooked for their triumphs and accomplishments. RBR+TVBR now recognizes these leaders for the first time, with input from you — industry leaders and peers who fully understand the leadership these tech-savvy executives bring to the entire organization. Please take a moment to select the first-ever honor roll saluting Broadcast Media’s Top Tech Leaders. You may select from among our honorees, or offer your own nominee. This is a reader-generated ranked honor roll — the voting is in your hands. Broadcast Media’s Top Tech Leaders will be honored for their achievements and overall contributions to the U.S. broadcast media business. Who’s made the list, and where they rank, will be revealed in RBR+TVBR’s Winter 2021/2022 Special Edition. It’s an all-new technology-focused report, distributed January 24, 2022. Make your nomination today for Broadcast Media’s Top Tech Leaders! To make your nomination, please follow RBR+TVBR’s guidelines: 1. The persons you nominate must be presently active in the areas of broadcast radio or TV station IT, technology, or engineering serving the U.S. marketplace.
2. DON’T WAIT! You may make up to three nominations by our deadline of Friday, December 10, 2021, at 5pm Eastern Time Please fill out only one ballot. Duplicate ballots associated with the same individual will be disqualified.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Copyright Royalty Judges have made a cost of living adjustment to the royalty rate that non-NPR Member noncommercial radio stations “at certain colleges, universities, and other educational institutions” must pay for the use in 2022 of published nondramatic musical compositions in the SESAC repertory — pursuant to the statutory license under the Copyright Act for noncommercial broadcasting.

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For nearly seven years, she served as GM of WXIX-19, the FOX affiliate in Cincinnati owned by Gray Television. On December 1, she will return to Arizona, where she once headed KOLD-13 in Tucson under Raycom Media, to serve as the new GM of KPHO-5, the CBS affiliate, and “Arizona’s Family,” KTVK-3 in Phoenix once Gray closes on its acquisition of Meredith Corporation.

With Debbie Bush leaving “FOX 19,” a need for a replacement arose. Gray has now stated who will succeed Bush when she starts her new role in Arizona on or about December 1.

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IBC has announced its decision to cancel the in-person event for 2021.

In a statement, the show’s organizers said the move follows growing concerns about the Covid-19 situation in the Netherlands, which has deteriorated over the past week, along with feedback from the IBC exhibitor and visitor community.

“The IBC Partnership Board made the decision today in order to prevent exhibitors and visitors from travelling to the Netherlands,” added the statement.

The event will still take place digitally via IBC digital.

IBC 2021 was due to take place Dec. 3–6 in Amsterdam. However, earlier this month the Dutch government announced it was instigating a three-week partial lockdown, which is due to be revisited on Dec. 3.

However, the Dutch government reported 153,957 new cases of coronavirus were registered during the week from Nov. 17–23, a new record and a rise of 39 percent over last week.

A version of this article originally appeared on our sister website TVBEurope.

The post IBC Cancels In-Person Event appeared first on Radio World.

With the goal of reuniting injured service members with their families for the holidays, San Diego radio stations helped a local fundraising organization raise more than $1.4 million.

iHeartMedia San Diego station 760 KGB(AM) helped raise $1,455,471 (and counting) alongside sister station NewsRadio 600 KOGO(AM).

The annual Give-a-Thon supports the Warrior Foundation Freedom Station, which first joined forces with KGO in 2004. Back then KGO asked its listeners to donate shaving razors for holiday gift bags being distributed to soldiers recovering at Naval Medical Center San Diego. Since then, it has grown into an annual fundraiser supported by local radio and TV stations. In addition to flying service members home for the holidays, the organization helps sailors and soldiers as they face the challenges of recovery, rehabilitation and transition from military service to civilian life.

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The amount the stations were able to help raise this year is a testament to the power of San Diego radio and its listeners, as well as the reach of Armstrong & Getty, the station’s morning show personalities, said Melissa Forrest, president and market manager for iHeart San Diego.

The support the foundation provides is a gift that troops will remember, said Sandy Lehmkuhler, CEO and founder of the Warrior Foundation Freedom Station. Lehmkuhler founded the organization after volunteering at the naval hospital where she saw how injured troops often lacked many basic items.

“By shining a spotlight on our warriors, and their brave struggles with the visible and invisible wounds of war, [these San Diego stations] rallied the support of thousands of people to fly our heroes home for the holidays,” she said. “It’s a gift our troops will remember forever.”

Submit news about your event to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post San Diego AMs Help Raise $1.4 Million for Troops appeared first on Radio World.

With the number of high-profile companies withdrawing from in-person expo booth experiences at IBC2021 in Amsterdam, set for December 3-6, Digital Nirvana had confirmed that it is staying the course and will move ahead with a display highlighting its broadcast captioning and metadata generation products.

At IBC2021, Digital Nirvana was to be present at Stand 7.A08. There, the company planned to show off its Trance cloud-based transcription, captioning, and translation workflow; highlight the newest updates to MetadataIQ, its SaaS-based metadata-generation platform; and MonitorIQ, an AI-driven compliance logging and monitoring tool.

Now, Digital Nirvana will be using alternative methods for sharing news on its products.

MonitorIQ 8.0 is the newest version of Digital Nirvana’s AI-driven compliance logging and monitoring tool, which integrates with its Media Services Portal. MonitorIQ allows operators to record, store, monitor, analyze, and repurpose content. “Users can view live or recorded content across hundreds of channels from desktop and mobile devices in any remote location worldwide for instant recall of proof of performance, compliance, or ad placement,” Digital Nirvana says.

Natively recording content from any point in the video delivery chain, from distribution (SDI) to consumption (OTT and STB), MonitorIQ enables broadcasters to collect and use knowledge about their broadcast content to meet a wide range of regulatory and compliance requirements.