Industry News

“CES will be in person in Las Vegas in January 2022, and we will require all attendees to be fully vaccinated.”

That’s according to Gary Shapiro, president/CEO of the Consumer Technology Association.

“We have seen a spike in cases due to the Delta variant, which is severely hurting the unvaccinated population,” Shapiro wrote in a blog post today.

“Yes, there are breakthrough cases for the vaccinated, but many of those have few or no symptoms at all. And of the vaccinated getting the Delta variant, only a tiny percentage are hospitalized.”

“We prioritize the safety and security of CES participants.” Shapiro called it a “major decision” to require vaccinations.

“We are also assessing proof of a positive antibody test as a requirement and will share more details on this later. Importantly, we will continue to follow state and local guidelines and recommendations by the CDC and will announce additional protocols as we get closer to the show.”

Shapiro said that the past 18 months have been “a roller coaster of emotion” for him as a CEO “as I work to lead by example and make decisions that will have positive effects.” He described the difficult decision not to do last year’s event in person and the need to lay off employees last year because of the pandemic.

“We all play a role in stopping the spread — requiring proof of vaccination for CES 2022 is one way we can take responsibility on our part.” He said those who choose not to attend will be able to experience the show online.

In a separate email to the show community, Veronica A. Lancaster, vice president, Standards Programs, said the requirement to provide proof of vaccination will affect all attendees, support staff and exhibitors’ staff.

“CTA decided this based on today’s science which shows that vaccines offer us the best hope for stopping the spread of this pandemic. … While we are still more than five months from CES 2022, we want to communicate this decision early to give you time to plan. CTA is also assessing the acceptance of proof of a positive antibody test as an alternative requirement and will share more details on this later.”

CES has a page with info about health protocols.

The post CES Show Will Require Vaccinations appeared first on Radio World.

The company formerly known as Entercom is also the owner of a digital streaming app formerly known as Radio.com, and both now use the Audacy name.

While Audacy’s radio stations dominate the Audacy app found on smartphones and other devices, companies including Cox Media Group and Seven Mountains Media have partnered with Audacy to help bring their audio streams to the widest audience possible.

The nation’s leading media company focused on Black consumers has followed their lead.

Audacy has signed a content distribution partnership with Urban One, bringing their radio stations audio streams and on-demand content to the Audacy digital platform. Already, one can stream such stations as WKYS-FM in Washington from the Audacy app; localized advertising is heard pre-roll, based on information provided to Audacy from the user’s app.

The partnership is non-exclusive, as Urban One’s radio stations are also accessible via the TuneIn app and the iHeartRadio app.

This makes Urban One’s radio properties universally accessible across the three primary radio streaming apps found in the U.S.

Some 57 radio stations across 13 Urban One markets are now on the Audacy platform.

“This partnership underscores our unwavering commitment to amplifying diverse voices and delivering premier audio content to the communities in which we serve,” said Corey Podolsky, Vice President of Business Development at Audacy. “We’re delighted to unite with a power player in the audio space to expand and enhace our content offering and add dozens of dynamic brands to our library.”

Alec Drake, the Director of Sales for Cumulus Media’s radio stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, is retiring.

The company revealed August 17 that he will depart the stations at the end of August. This puts the wheels in motion on a series of promotions, with a VP/Sales named as two other individuals take key posts.

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There’s a new Vice President and GM for Nexstar Media Group‘s FOX affiliate in DMA No. 139.

He’ll also oversee the operational agreements Nexstar holds with the Mission Broadcasting-owned ABC affiliate serving this market.

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Independent Out of Home (OOH) media specialist Talon is rolling out a new connected video offering that unifies over-the-top (OTT) and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising.

As such, Talon is joining forces with MadHive to connect digital audiences across two of the fastest growing advertising channels in the U.S. — OTT and DOOH.

Madhive joins Hivestack as a strategic partner to enhance its services and solutions to serve their current and prospective clients.

Talon will utilize MadHive’s proprietary platform to connect advertisers to premium connected TV (CTV) inventory and its end-to-end campaign planning tools for audience targeting, measurement, and attribution. “Combining OTT and DOOH makes perfect sense,” said Adam Helfgott, CEO of MadHive. “It allows buyers to plan, activate, and measure two rapidly expanding media channels that represent an even larger percentage of marketers spend. The cross-channel platform will deliver a more holistic picture of the customer journey by creating new currencies and insights on a single audience — all while simplifying brand workflow.”

DOOH domestic advertising spend is projected to reach $3.84 billion by the end of 2023, according to Statista. Further, eMarketer notes that U.S. programmatic DOOH ad spend doubled last year and is projected to reach $533.8 million by 2022.

“The growth of digital video is fueling the movement from in-home to out-of-home and we’re empowering advertisers to activate their cross-channel video strategy of reaching high-value audiences at scale, whether it’s a traditional managed service or a self-service approach,” said Jim Wilson, CEO of Talon America. “As marketers look for measurable incremental reach and the ability to tie campaign spending to business results, we’re enabling advertisers to start an OOH journey in-home. By bringing to market new solutions with MadHive and Hivestack, we’re connecting audience data across OTT and DOOH to deliver outcome-based campaigns as advertiser demand on each channel reaches new heights.”

Hivestack’s Supply Side Platform (SSP) will programmatically feed DOOH screen inventory to MadHive, that will serve as the demand-side platform (DSP) for activation across OTT and DOOH leveraging Talon’s Ada audience segments.

Believe it or not, students in Palm Beach County, Fla., are in their second week of school while neighboring Broward County welcomes students back on Wednesday.

In other parts of the nation, there’s still plenty of time to plan for the start of the school year. And, that led Walmart to bump up its spot plays at the TV stations tracked by Media Monitors.

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It’s a rarity these days — a Director of Engineering for a licensee of AM and FM radio stations.

Yet, a media company known for experiential marketing opportunities across the Empire State and its collection of radio stations has one. And, he’s celebrating 20 years on the job.

Tim Backer, who holds the Director of Engineering title at Galaxy Media Partners, joined the company on August 11, 1981.

He’s still with the company today.

“Many — if not most — broadcast stations don’t have engineers on site anymore,” said Ed Levine, President and CEO of Galaxy Media.  “Galaxy not only has an engineer on site, but we have also had the same engineer for 20 years. Tim has and continues to be a huge part of the Galaxy Media Team.  We appreciate all his hard work and dedication to our local company.”

In recognition of his two decades of service, Backer will receive a brand-new engineering vehicle of his choice for his 2am drives to remote engineering sites during the Central New York winters, Levine says.

Galaxy owns 13 radio stations, all located in New York.

Dear RW,

Cris Alexander’s delightful reminiscing on changes in audio processing (“Air Chains Then and Now” ) brought back memories of when I was hired by GAF Corp. in 1976 to rebuild and manage New York’s Classical WNCN, 104.3 FM.

We started with a blank sheet, and the first thing GAF’s chairman did was to retain the services of the legendary Dick Sequerra to handle all aspects of the audio chain. 

The chairman was an audiophile, and had one of the amazing Sequerra FM1 tuners in his home. Of course, we had one in our main studio as an off-air monitor, too.

As our studios and offices were located in a building on Sixth Avenue, and the building’s foundation went straight down to the Sixth Avenue subway, the studios were built as rooms within rooms, with the inner rooms mounted on rubber dampers that resembled hockey pucks.

Sequerra hired WFMT Chicago CE Al Antlitz to design and fabricate the boards used in each studio. Their performance was far superior to anything available in the marketplace and greatly added to the very clean sound that he wanted to achieve.  

Sequerra hoped to broadcast the way that the BBC did with its Classical channel, requiring the announcers (presenters) to ride gain, with no processing. AFTRA, the announcers’ union, mandated that wasn’t about to happen, so we ended up with the then-new Orban processors, which really were superior to anything else on the market. 

As part of his passion for excellence, Sequerra went into the bowels of Manhattan and rebuilt the telco amplifiers going from our studios to the Empire State Building, unknown to New York Telephone, of course.

After the new Gates transmitter was delivered to our space in the Empire State Building, Sequerra spent three days tearing the transmitter apart and rebuilding it to his specs. The performance was just spectacular! My memory is not absolutely perfect here, but as I recall, with the Orban bypassed, the lines were clean to something in the –90 dB area. 

There is no doubt that Dick Sequerra’s passion and expertise made WNCN the best-engineered FM station in the country. The programming team was led by a Julliard graduate, and the combination made WNCN a leader in the country’s Classical music FM stations.

Thanks for the memories.

The post Letter to the Editor: Air Chain by Dick Sequerra appeared first on Radio World.

There’s a new leader on the latest Spot Ten Radio report from Media Monitors.

And, it demonstrates that one auto insurance brand isn’t trimming its ad commitment to broadcast radio.

As shown below, Progressive is the top paid advertiser using spot radio to reach consumers for the week ending August 15. It’s thanks to just shy of 50,000 spots.

By comparison, Babbel saw a play count of 48,806 as Indeed accounted for 46,368 spot plays.

Nautel’s “Transmission Talk Tuesday” series continues this month with discussions on MPX over AES, Building with Raspberry Pi, and a special session on “Best Practices – Dashboard Presence.”

The sessions are designed to be interactive, with attendees contributing their thoughts and questions throughout each session.

Getting the sound from here to there, over AES or IP, will be the topic on Tuesday (8/17).

The Telos Alliance’s Kirk Harnack will join Nautel’s Jeff Welton to talk about the various forms of MPX delivery and will include practical examples of implementation in the field. microMPX will also be discussed.

An August 24 session will delve into Raspberry Pi. Welton will bring in Nautel’s Alex
Hartman, who will show some of the designs he has done using Raspberry Pi and Arduino
technology.

The last session of the month, taking place on August 31, covers a topic that is not normally discussed in technical sessions: how to configure your RDS for optimal presence on the car dashboard.

“In this session, we’ll discuss how what you put on your RDS can make a big difference in the appearance on the dashboard – and going forward, it will make a significant impact on your stations’ ability to work with hybrid radio,” said Welton.

Joining him is NAB VP of Advanced Engineering David Layer, and Lawrence Galkoff, General Manager of Radioplayer Worldwide Ltd.

All Transmission Talk Tuesday sessions begin at noon Eastern; pre-registration is required.

For more information and to register, visit Nautel.com/webinars/. Sessions are also posted online for those who are unable to join the live chats.

As with traditional Nautel Webinars, ½ SBE recertification credit is available for attending each session.