Radio+Television Business Report

WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the first time since 1992, reauthorization of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) could be at hand.

A bill introduced Wednesday by the Senate Commerce Committee’s Ranking Member and the top Republican on the House Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband would do so. And, the legislation would also reform NTIA’s role in a way.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Russell Senate Office Building is just a one-mile walk from the FCC’s new headquarters. Yet, the path for Gigi Sohn in earning the role of a Democratic Commissioner at the agency may be as wide as the Anacostia River.

With vocal support from some and vehement opposition from others, Sohn’s selection by President Biden to fill out the FCC has become one of the most controversial in modern times. On Wednesday, Senate Commerce Committee Members scrutinized Sohn, along with three other nominees for governmental agencies.

While there were some fireworks, the midday session was as emblematic of a Capitol Hill nomination hearing.

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NEW YORK — The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), in conjunction with Project X Institute’s Jon Watts and Alan Wolk of TVREV, have announced the development of a “Guide to Converged TV Measurement Providers.”

Upon completion in early 2022, the guide seeks to provide a landscape of the entire Converged TV measurement ecosystem in the U.S, as well as a comparative analysis of the companies who are conducting converged TV audience measurement.

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It uses a 250-watt FM translator covering much of the Huntsville, Ala., metropolitan area, even parts of Decatur.

Soon, it will no longer be the home of an iHeartMedia “ALT”-branded modern rock presentation relaying broadcasts found on the HD3 signal of Class C2 WQRT-FM “100.3 The River.”

That’s because the FM translator’s licensee is selling the facility to Educational Media Foundation.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Outside, the weather couldn’t be more perfect for the first day of December, with bright sun and temperatures in the mid 50s.

Inside the Russell Senate Office Building on the north side of Capitol Hill, things couldn’t be sunnier for acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who is one step closer to having the “acting” title removed from her business cards.

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He was a husband, a father, and a “Poppy.” And, he was the founder and President of the Daystar Television Network, a faith-based operation seen on owned-and-operated stations across the U.S. and a channel nationally distributed on Comcast, DirecTV and Dish Network. In Canada, it is available on Bell TV.

Marcus Lamb has passed away at the age of 64.

The cause of death: COVID-19.

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In May, an African American media mogul whose holdings include The Weather Channel, Entertainment Studios and a collection of broadcast television stations including Hawaii’s ABC affiliate sued one of the world’s biggest quick-service restaurant companies for racial discrimination.

It was a whopping $10 billion lawsuit, filed in response to what was perceived as an unacceptable level of advertising commitment the QSR giant has given to his broadcast and cable properties.

On Tuesday (11/30), U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin, who is based in Los Angeles, ruled on the matter. And, it’s a big win for McDonald’s.

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Kantar’s BVS solution, the ad verification business of the global data-driven analytics and brand consulting company, has been sold.

The buyer is a data platform known for connecting and powering cross-screen advertising.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

With the addition, Advocado says it now has “a completely integrated ad verification, attribution and campaign coordination platform, allowing advertisers, media organizations and publishers to more efficiently track and measure and amplify the impact of their ads.”

It’s a notable move for Advocado, which recently purchased a portfolio of 47 patents that includes the advanced watermarking technology from VEIL. Kantar licenses this for its BVS ad verification business.

Advocado and Kantar plan to work together to explore new offerings based on the data
and analytical capabilities both bring to the table.

As such, Advocado will be integrating Kantar’s BVS employees onto its team.

“We have been innovating in the ad tech space since 2017 and this consolidation gives us the scale and ability to challenge ‘big tech,’ which has been unrightfully claiming ownership over advertiser and consumer data,” said Brian Handrigan, Advocado’s co-founder and CEO. “By combining our next-gen attribution algorithm with the BVS ad detection data, first-party web tracking tag and other sources, our customers will benefit from an accurate, independent assessment of performance across broadcast TV, radio and digital platforms like Connected TV and streaming audio.”

With the arrangement, Advocado says it is now empowered to verify the quality of broadcast ad detection data directly to the source in real-time for use in cross-media attribution, instant campaign coordination, and other use cases.

The consolidation, says Advocado, allows it to expand its broadcast TV and radio monitoring network footprint and to integrate Connected TV/OTT and audio ad verification. This, it says, allows advertisers “to get unified video and audio ad verification and integrated universal attribution from a trusted source without giving their valuable customer journey data away to big tech.”

BVS VP Rich Radzik, who will be joining the Advocado team as part of the acquisition, added, “I have never been more excited about the future of BVS and the synergistic opportunities with Advocado. With Advocado’s digital and technical expertise we will be able to launch new innovations that will further drive growth for our client partners.”

If there’s one early hallmark of the FCC under acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, it is the Media Bureau’s seemingly aggressive approach to enforcing the Commission’s rules on the timely filing of a broadcast station’s TV issues/programs lists.

Over 2021, forfeiture notices in the thousands of dollars have been issued right and left by the Bureau. Now, two have been issued to a Mississippi licensee who may have to fork over a total of $38,000 in fines.

The stations involved aren’t even full-power facilities.

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David Andrews is one of four shareholders in Hometown Communications LLC, the licensee of 1,000-watt Class C WIRY-AM, or “wiry,” in Plattsburgh, N.Y.

He’s also the station’s General Manager and News Director, and on the latest InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, Andrews shares with the world what it’s like to crank out tunes like “In the Year 2525” with a live, local host and community-focused advertising on a chilly autumn morning in late 2021.

Andrews also shares how the pandemic has proven to be a challenge as a new owner, as the Canadian dollar — until March 2020 — was a key retail driver in Clinton County, N.Y., just 20 minutes to the south of the New York/Québec border.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: David Andrews” on Spreaker.

Near the town of Oak Ridge, Tenn., is an AM radio station with a FM translator that until now has been licensed to Blount Broadcasting Corp.

That entity has just agreed to a sale of the facilities.

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NEW YORK — The shareholders of Meredith Corporation are one step closer to seeing the company’s stock, traded on the New York Stock Exchange, disappear forever.

That’s because they’ve approved the Des Moines-based multimedia company’s $2.825 billion acquisition by Gray Television.

The required shareholder approval came Tuesday morning a special shareholder meeting. Now, Meredith on Wednesday will likely move ahead with filing a Form 8-K with the SEC disclosing the full voting results of the special meeting.

Immediately prior to the Gray acquisition close, Meredith will spin its digital, magazine, MNI, PEOPLE TV, and corporate operations out to its shareholders as a new company, Meredith Holdings Corp. This is the entity that the Barry Diller-led IAC-owned Dotdash has agreed to acquire for $2.7 billion.

Gray will retain all of the local television holdings, and the transactions are now on track to close as expected by the close of business Wednesday (12/1).

As of 12:45pm Eastern, MDP was trading at $59.10, up 6 cents from Monday; Meredith shares are at their highest level since April 2019.

Gray Television, like other companies in the broadcast media sector, is lower on COVID-19 Omicron variant fears. GTN was trading at $20.45, off 3%, and is now back to where shares were in late April 2021.

When it comes to the top leadership at Townsquare Media, drumming up interest from institutional investors has been seen since the days of Steven Price and Dhruv Prasad, who each held the role of CEO prior to Bill Wilson.

Next week, Wilson will be presenting alongside Townsquare’s CFO at another key investor affair.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Executive VP for Newsgathering at CBS News has been selected, and it is a woman who will have editorial oversight for network newsgathering worldwide, including all domestic and international bureaus.

Taking the role is the the current EVP and CBS News Washington bureau chief, in the post since July 2020.

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SAVANNAH, GA. — For television viewers in Georgia’s Coastal Empire, local news choices have become more competitive than ever. While Gray Television’s WTOC-11 remains the leader and most top-of-mind local TV station in this region, Hearst-owned WJCL-22 has developed an incubator for its other local news organizations across the nation. Sinclair Broadcast Group’s FOX affiliate, WTGS-28, has also gained a sizable audience.

Then there is the local NBC affiliate, owned by Nexstar Media Group thanks to its merger in 2016 with Media General. It was a property that Raycom Media, at its founding, declined to own, choosing instead WTOC.

Today, that Nexstar station, WSAV-3, is on a growth spurt, making Savannah-Beaufort-Hilton Head a thriving market for broadcast TV. Now, WSAV has a new leader.

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WASHINGON, D.C. — The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has released a new Request for Proposals (RFP) for Broadcast Core Network technologies to enhance the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard.

The project is on a fast track, the group says, with initial responses of interest due by December 31.

“ATSC members are the stewards of the ATSC 3.0 Platform, evolving and expanding the system’s capabilities over time,” said ATSC President Madeleine Noland. “This new development will move the technology forward and unlock innovative business scenarios for the broadcast ecosystem.”

ATSC is in the process of specifying Standards for a Broadcast Core Network. ATSC envisions that the addition of core networking capabilities can be an integral part of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast system architecture. The aim, ATSC says, is to facilitate efficient interconnect between broadcast towers to form one or more service networks, enabling new business opportunities that require efficient regional or national data delivery options. Sourcing content from multiple data networks, a Broadcast Core Network holds potential to broaden the range of addressable use cases beyond those defined for linear television program delivery and extend the utility of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast facilities to untapped market areas, such as Broadcast (Virtual) Network Operator (BNO, BVNO), Regional or National Datacasting, enhanced Interactivity, and Data/Content Offload.

“We are excited to expand ATSC 3.0 options to include Core Networking,” said Luke Fay, Chair of ATSC Technology Group 3 and Sr. Manager Technical Standards at Sony Electronics. “This valuable addition to the ATSC 3.0 standard will enable broadcasters to coordinate data and content delivery across multiple markets. We look forward to specifying a state-of-the-art ATSC 3.0 extension with experts in the industry.”

Interested organizations may submit an intent-to-respond by December 31. Details of the response requirements and schedule can be found in the RFP.

Shulins Solutions, known for its monitor, control and protection products for transmission sites, drone-based tower inspections and broadcast consulting services, says a “leading North American tower company has agreed to a multi-site purchase of Stellar Eclipse broadcast site monitor and protection system featuring VSWR Sentinel.

It’s not revealing the name of the tower company, but Shulins says the purchase means they will increase their deployment of Stellar Eclipse to more than 70 sites across the top 50 markets, protecting over 350 of radio and TV stations.

“Shared common antenna sites often with complex combining networks demand monitoring and protection beyond a simple remote control,” Shulins says. “To protect these significant investments, broadcasters need a proactive solution to not only provide next level of monitoring, logging and control, but a comprehensive VSWR system for maximum protection.”

In selecting Stellar Ellipse, the company is deploying a platform and architecture to not only protect the RF systems for FM and all formats of analog digital TV on VHF and UHF including ATSC 3.0, but also provides unique cloud-based monitoring of many shared systems often overlooked in an individual stations remote control, Shulins says.

Paul Shulins, the company’s President, comments, “This investment in our next generation, cloud-based monitoring and protection systems delivers the protection and visibility of critical communication infrastructure our customers count on to deliver their content
in a demanding 24/7/365 environment and much more.”

With the support of Fincons Group, Univision developed a new broadcasting app to enable personalization of viewer experience over both broadband connected and linear TV.

The app, which leverages ATSC 3.0 technology and innovative integrations to provide viewers with dynamic content both via Broadband (OTT) and Broadcast (OTA) connection, is a winner. Literally.

Fincons Group’s Univision ATSC3.0 Broadcast App is a Best New Streaming Technology winner in the 2021 NAB Show Product of the Year Awards. The awards program recognizes the most significant and promising new products and technologies showcased by corporate partners of NAB Show.

The app enables the delivery of additional information regarding news anchors in the “Meet the local news team” navigation node, access to QR coded additional content and dynamic local weather forecast. For OTT viewers, the app also provides access to on-demand local news clips.

The app, which integrates the A3FA Consortium Framework, is one of the first to leverage the ATSC 3.0 standard to deliver enhanced viewing experiences to both connected and unconnected TVs.

NAB Show Product of the Year Award Winners were selected by a panel of industry experts in 16 categories and announced in a live awards ceremony on NAB Amplify on November 3. To be eligible for an award, nominated products had to come from companies scheduled to exhibit in either the 2020 or 2021 NAB Show and are delivered within the 2021 calendar year.

When the pandemic put a full stop to sports and live event production, CP Communications parked its mobile trucks and shifted its focus to REMI and in-studio production. It’s a business that continues to grow for the company.

The return of live sports now has CP Communications treading familiar territory with events such as the MLB All-Star Game, NBA Finals, and – most recently – Aramco Team Series New York, an internationally televised and globally streamed professional golf event.

CP Communications, a specialist in RF and IP-based content acquisition for professional golf events, was hired by event producer Olhmeyer Kusserow Group (OKG) to step in on short notice due to COVID-related restrictions for international production teams. Within two weeks, CP Communications had a turnkey crew and technology plan for the hilly Glen Oaks Club on Long Island in October 2021.

CP Communications drove its flagship HD-21 production truck to the course with 50,000 feet of fiber, eight RF cameras, eight RF effects microphones, two RF talent microphones, and course-wide communications. The company also coordinated RF frequencies for live coverage, using special temporary authority, or STAs, from the FCC to acquire spectrum.

“It felt like old times,” said CP Communications CEO Kurt Heitmann. “We have years of experience providing full video and audio coverage of big golf events for major broadcast networks, and the ability to turn around a turnkey system and crew on minimal notice for live productions of any size. When the OKG team came calling, we were ready and eager to step in to help them bring this event to viewers worldwide.”

CP Communications Vice President of Sales and Marketing Aaron Segarra adds that one of the more challenging elements of covering golf is perhaps unexpected.

“Ensuring high-quality video and audio production is essential for any live televised production, but with golf the more challenging elements is clean communications,” he said. “We established a Hytera network with 40 two-radio radios and four channels each of inbound and outbound communications. That is where we really shine for golf, and it is so important given the number of acquisition points and production sites positioned around the course.”

CP Communications acquired and distributed all content over RF for delivery back to HD-21, where MultiDyne VF-9000 video fiber-optic transport frames received and processed the signals. CP technicians managed and switched the feeds in HD-21’s master control center before handing off to OKG, which provided the World Feed and other live broadcast services to TV networks and OTT services. That included four channels of video and multiple channels of audio distributed to the host broadcast facility in Germany.

“Golf is one of the toughest sports to produce, and CP Communications gave us very close to full coverage from tee to green across all holes on a hilly course that is challenging to cover,” said Chris Ohlmeyer, Executive Producer and Managing Partner for Olhmeyer Kusserow Group. “They executed a plan that allowed them to cleanly capture and run signals RF over fiber, while also supporting our own hard cameras over the same infrastructure. They came through with a professional operations and support team on short notice while also keeping us within budget. These were tall orders with only two weeks from first contact to tee off.”

— Brian Galante