Industry News

From its corporate headquarters in Central Florida, a family-owned radio broadcasting company with roots in Providence, R.I., operates AMs and FMs across six markets, including Lancaster, Pa.

That market, until now, has involved the operation of two FMs and an AM that combine to serve the area as an ESPN Radio affiliate. The other property is an Adult Contemporary FM with a “Fun” disposition.

That latter FM is about to get a lot of Love, thanks to a deal brokered by Kalil & Co.

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The nation’s No. 1 owner of broadcast TV stations has responded to a Petition for Declaratory Ruling submitted to the FCC on July 1 by Comcast that argues the company is in violation of the national broadcast cap for what it believes is its de facto control of WPIX-11 in New York.

Nexstar Media Group didn’t offer a retort in a Commission filing, however. Instead, it has filed a complaint in New York State Court that the companies believes goes straight to the heart of the real issue at hand: retransmission consent agreements.

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The Federal Communications Commission has released the latest broadcast station totals for the United States.

Notably, the number of licensed FM translators and boosters continues to grow; that category added more than 300 just in the past year.

Though the commission doesn’t separate translators and boosters in this report, the growth is understood to be mostly in translators. A Radio World analysis of FCC data shows that the number of translators and boosters has grown 40% over 10 years. That growth is due in part to the use of translators in rebroadcasting HD Radio multicast channels as well as the use of translators in AM “revitalization.”

The number of licensed stations in each broadcast category as of June 30 is shown below. The data in parentheses are one year earlier, for comparison.

AM stations — 4,533 (4,570)

FM commercial — 6,681 (6,706)

FM educational — 4,214 (4,197)

Total — 15,428 (15,473)

FM translators & boosters — 8,614 (8,303)

LPFM — 2,093 (2,146)

[See how these categories have changed compared to 20 years ago.]

The post FM Translators Continue to Proliferate appeared first on Radio World.

RBR+TVBR OBSERVATION

When it comes to nostalgia, there’s no bigger industry than Radio that likes to recall those golden days of yesteryear, when “Boss Radio” ruled the airwaves and big, booming voices including Dan Ingram, The Real Don Steele, Dr. Don Rose and Joey Reynolds dominated the Hooper surveys.

Thanks to the 2019 film Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, 93 KHJ enjoyed a renaissance in remembrance. For many today, the Top 40 station born in May 1965 that switched to Country in November 1980 is the epitome of how “great” radio was.

It’s funny how fuzzy memories can create illusions. At high noon on July 24, 1970, with Charlie Tuna at the mic, KHJ offered a perfect example of how awful radio had become. It’s a learning lesson today’s radio industry leaders should absorb, as long spot sets and commercial clutter remains a big topic no one wants to debate and resolve.

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Services that help a radio station manage its visual appearance in dashboards are becoming more and more important. An example is this announcement from Quu Inc. and Bonneville International.

Bonneville says it will use Quu software to publish synced programming and advertiser messages on vehicle dashboards in all of its markets. Those include Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, Sacramento and San Francisco

[Read: vCreative Can Now Publish to Quu]

“These messages, called Visual Quus, boost station and advertiser branding, recall and retention,” the software provider said in the announcement. “Paired with on-air content, Visual Quus offer a better user experience and generate immediate incremental revenue by adding text, logos and images to on-air advertisements.”

The announcement was made by Darrell Brown, president of Bonneville International and Steve Newberry, CEO of Quu.

Quu was founded by Joe Harb in 2007. Beasley Media Group is among the company’s investors.

The post Bonneville Signs on With Quu for Visual Messages appeared first on Radio World.

LG Ads, which offers cross-screen media and measurement products for convergent TV, has given the CEO reins to its co-founder — the man who has served as Chief Product Officer since 2013 and gave the entity its original name, Alphonso.

Meanwhile, a new President has been selected at LG Ads. He spent more than 15 years at Comscore.

KEEP TRACK OF ALL OF THE DAYS NEWS BY FOLLOWING RBR+TVBR ON TWITTER!

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has proposed establishing Raleigh and Boston as innovation zones to allow for advanced wireless communications and network innovation and research.

These designations would, among other positive impacts, help spur the development and integration of 5G network technologies and open radio access networks, or Open RAN.

Innovation zones are FCC-designated, city-scale test beds managed by the National Science Foundation’s Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research. If approved by a vote of the full Commission at its August 5 Open Meeting, this proposal will allow Raleigh and Boston to join New York City and Salt Lake City at the forefront of wireless technology innovation.

“These Innovation Zones will support cutting-edge research and development that is crucial for advancing our wireless leadership,” Rosenworcel said. “Moreover, by bringing together operators, vendors, vertical interests, and other government agencies, we are helping to spur a market for more secure and open 5G technologies. I am grateful to city and research facility leaders, and our partners at the National Science Foundation, for working with us to deliver these opportunities.”

The Innovation Zones initiative was first proposed by NSF’s Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research and, in September 2019, the FCC designated New York City and Salt Lake City as the first designated zones. These wireless technology test beds extend the geographic areas in which already licensed experimental program licensees can conduct tests. Parties have flexibility to conduct multiple non-related experiments in the zone, and the designation allows experimental program license holders, which are licensed to operate elsewhere, to also use the Innovation Zones.

In keeping with the FCC’s effort to explore the potential of Open RAN technology, each test bed is equipped for Open RAN research and testing. The FCC is in the process of taking public comment on the current status of Open RAN development and deployment, whether and how the FCC might foster its success, and how to support competitiveness and new entrant access to this emerging market. The Acting Chairwoman made the announcement of her proposed designations at today’s FCC-hosted Open RAN Solutions Showcase.

The Boston Innovation Zone, at Northeastern University, will support the transition of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Colosseum network emulator to a shared platform, usable by the research community. Colosseum, the world’s largest wireless network emulator, was originally designed to support DARPA’s Spectrum Collaboration Challenge. With the conclusion of that challenge, the larger research community will now be able to take advantage of Colosseum’s unique capabilities, including the ability to emulate full-stack communications, to support artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and hardware in the loop. This project is expected to bring academia, government, and industry researchers together to accelerate advancements in wireless networked systems and Open RAN.

The Raleigh Innovation Zone, in collaboration with North Carolina State University, will house Aerial Experimentation and Research Platform for Advanced Wireless (AERPAW), which will focus on new use cases involving wireless communications and unmanned aerial systems. AERPAW will focus on how cellular networks and advanced wireless technologies can enable beyond visual line-of-sight unmanned aerial systems to accelerate development, verification, and testing of transformative advances and breakthroughs in telecommunications, transportation, infrastructure monitoring, agriculture, and public safety. The AERPAW testbed will be the first platform to allow testing at scale of open 5G-and-beyond solutions in unmanned aerial system verticals.

The proposed Public Notice to be shared by Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel today with her fellow Commissioners would also, if adopted, modify the New York City Innovation Zone (known as COSMOS) to cover the three Columbia University and City College of New York campus areas. COSMOS is a city-scale outdoor testbed with a technical focus on ultra-high-bandwidth and low-latency wireless communications, with tightly coupled edge computing, a type of cloud computing enabling data processing at the edge of the network. COSMOS also was a host facility for the 2019 and 2020 O-RAN Alliance worldwide plugfests.

— RBR+TVBR Washington Bureau

It is an FM translator serving the Tennessee city of Chattanooga at 104.3 MHz.

Soon, it will be licensed to Immanuel Broadcasting Network.

Will “The Message” be altered for this operation?

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NATE has a new face in Washington.

The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association — also known as NATE, from its former name the National Association of Tower Erectors — announced Todd Washam as director of government relations and wireless industry network, a staff position.

The organization’s veteran lobbyist Jim Goldwater is nearing retirement; he has signed a short-term extension through February and will assist in the transition.

[Read: Kathy Stieler Joins NATE]

“Todd Washam comes to NATE with an extensive background that includes serving as a congressional staffer for approximately 10 years, working in the executive branch at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and working for the Air Conditioning Contractors of America Association,” the organization said in the announcement.

“Washam, an Ohio native, possesses a deep network of contacts on Capitol Hill, has a keen understanding of issues important to small business contractors and has considerable experience advocating for workforce development issues and the important role that the skilled trades play in our communities and economy.”

In the announcement, Washam was quoted saying, “Our country is investing in communications infrastructure projects at historic levels, and we need to ensure we have the skilled workforce available to see these projects come to completion.”

The post NATE Names Its New Head Lobbyist appeared first on Radio World.

A new study from Australia has found that not only is adoption of smart speaker devices on the rise, but that the devices are extending access to radio to more places and demonstrating that consumers in that country are open to the increasing possibilities of voice technology.

These were some of the findings from the latest Smart Audio Report Australia 2021, which found that a growing number of households are investing in smart speakers, are planning to purchase another speaker within the immediate future and place a high value on audio programming.

All in all, the report found that smart speakers are encouraging owners to listen to more music and news from online audio and AM/FM/DAB+ radio.

[Read: Is the Smart Speaker Like a New Age Home Radio?]

Ownership of smart speaker devices is on the rise across the board in Australia. The survey found that more than one quarter of Australians aged 12 or older — which comes to 5.6 million people — now own a smart speaker, a 53% jump from 2020 when only 17% owned smart speaker devices.

Among those Australians that currently own a smart speaker, 24% of those households own three or more of those devices, up from 13% in 2020.

The survey also found that both smart speaker user satisfaction and the intention to purchase is high, with the report predicting that as many as 8.7 million devices will be added to Australian households.

Usage is also on the rise. Of those in Australia who already own a smart speaker, 67% use them on a daily basis while 88% use them at least once during the week. Among owners, 61% plan to purchase another device in the near future while 38% of non-speaker-owning households say they plan to purchase one in the next six months.

These figures are on par with American smart speaker ownership in 2021. In 2018, only 5% of Australians owned a smart speaker, compared to 18% in the United States. That gap narrowed in 2021 with 33% of Americans owning a smart speaker compared with 26% ownership in Australia.

The study also revealed how listeners were engaging with their smart speaker devices.

Forty-nine percent of Australians have used a voice assistant to interact with a brand or service. Sixty-seven percent of smart speaker owners listen to the device while multitasking, such as while cooking, doing chores or entertaining. Users are also reporting that smart speakers are changing the way that people interact with other technology — 49% say they’ve begun using their voice-operated assistant on their smartphone more frequently since purchasing a smart speaker device, with 40% saying they spend less time with other technology once they began using their smart speaker.

The report also touched on parental use of smart speakers. Fifty-one percent with children in the household said reducing screen time was a reason they purchased a smart speaker with 69% agreeing that the devices have made it easier to entertain children.

Among smart speaker brands, Google continues to dominate the smart speaker market in Australia with 24% owning a Google smart speaker, 3% owning an Amazon device and 1% owning an Apple HomePod.

“Smart speakers have fundamentally changed the way people interact with media,” said Megan Lazovick, vice president at Edison Research, who presented the results in a webinar. The report was conducted by Edison Research and was commissioned by Commercial Radio Australia, the Australian commercial radio broadcasting group, along with TalkVia, an Australian technology company.

“It is a good bet that the Australian population will continue to grow more comfortable with this technology and opportunities will grow for those in audio and advertising if they embrace smart audio, too,” Lazovick said.

The Smart Audio Report Australia study was conducted via a national online survey of 5,000 adults aged 18 and older in Australia in April and May 2021. Additional data was taken from the Infinite Dial Australia from Commercial Radio Australia, Southern Cross Austereo/LiSTNR, Triton Digital and Edison Research.

The post Smart Speaker Usage on the Rise Down Under appeared first on Radio World.