Warner Tillman is parting ways with an AM/FM combo that includes an FM translator and no less than four boosters designed to give that FM station coverage of Eastern Washington’s largest metropolis.
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DAYTON, OHIO — On June 21, 2007, a group of AM and FM radio stations were placed into the Aloha Station Trust.
Now, the final FM properties placed in this trust originally overseen by the late Jeanette Tully and now led by former Backyard Broadcasting head Barry Drake are being removed from the trust.
However, they’re not being sold. Rather, these “Big” Dayton-market properties are being donated.
Who’s getting WRZX-FM & WYDB-FM?
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The Director of Sales for a pair of Sinclair Broadcast Group TV stations serving Asheville, N.C., and the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson-Clemson region of upstate South Carolina, is rising to VP/GM of the MyNetworkTV and ABC affiliates.
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What will emerge in mid-2022 as a new Discovery Inc., with WarnerMedia‘s assets merged into what will be a new company, is poised to surge past the company led by Bob Bakish and ultimately controlled by Shari Redstone and National Amusements, Inc.
That’s the biggest takeaway of the blockbuster Reverse Morris Trust-fueled merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc., announced early Monday, by S&P Global Market Intelligence’s TV Networks research analyst.
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The NAB on Friday filed comments with the FCC regarding a proposal to extend the Emergency Alert System to the Internet — including through streaming services. Congress is requesting a study of the issue.
But, the NAB cautions that updating EAS to enable internet alerts would be too complex, and likely infeasible, at this time.
Whether that is conjecture or a confirmed fact is perhaps up to debate. And, given the comments come on behalf of the biggest lobbying voice for broadcast media, there’s likely a tinge of defending radio and TV’s most important “go-to-now!” emergency traits before Congress.
That said, the concept of bringing EAS alerts to those streaming audio or video is clever, and likely one of concern for the American public.
Is it worth the investment in both time and dollars?
The NAB appreciates the Commission’s “forward-looking consideration of how EAS alerts may be disseminated through the internet,” consistent with legislation passed in this fiscal year. “The public interest benefits of expanded access to EAS alerts via internet services are plain, and we applaud Congress for requesting a study of this question,” the NAB’s top legal counsel say. “However, at least for the time being, certain technical challenges and open policy questions make it extremely burdensome, and likely infeasible, to update the EAS system to enable alerts to consumers provided through the internet.”
Before explaining why it would be so difficult, the NAB attorneys took the approach of demonstrating how broadcast radio and TV have a key role as “first informers” and are “essential service providers.” This empowers broadcast media to access disaster areas, the NAB says.
This led the NAB to illustrate the “reliability” of the EAS today, given how local radio and television stations “diligently implemented the ability to receive alerts from FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS), routinely test and upgrade their
EAS equipment as needed and take other steps — both voluntary and mandated — to
support EAS, and at their own expense. In addition, broadcasters are often the leaders (and in some cases the only engaged members) of their State Emergency Coordinating Committees.’
The NAB and individual broadcast companies also partner with the FCC and FEMA on various emergency-related initiatives and advisory groups intended to further
improve public alerting.
Today, to the broadcast media lobbying group’s knowledge, there are no pure-play independent streaming services that participate in EAS. Furthermore, the only online audio outlets that may retransmit EAS messages are websites and apps while simulcasting radio stations, and similar online video outlets while simulcasting local television news programming, as well as over-the-top (OTT) services that livestream local television channels.
Yet, wouldn’t it be prudent if Netflix, Hulu or similar over-the-top services offered EAS messaging?
To be clear, any on-demand service would be, today, technically impossible to integrate into EAS. Pure-play content streamers, in the NAB’s view, are not “well-positioned to participate in the existing EAS ecosystem” for live streaming feeds or on-demand content.
Here’s why, as the NAB sees it: “With respect to ingesting EAS alerts, the FCC states that
streaming services’ ‘large geographic service areas’ presents a monitoring challenge. Of
course, ‘large’ does not begin to describe the reach of a cloud-based service which is
available everywhere access to the internet is available. Video and audio streaming services
routinely have thousands or even millions of customers worldwide. NAB understands that the current web-based design and architecture of online streaming services does not typically incorporate or even contemplate any localized infrastructure that would enable a streaming service to monitor for EAS alerts based on either geography or the type of event.”
But, isn’t geotargeting and addressability the hallmark of digital media — and couldn’t Netflix easily incorporate EAS alerts using this granular data?
The NAB isn’t convinced of such a possibility, at least in the near-term.
The broadcast lobby also claims that streamers “simply lack the infrastructure and local presence to monitor other EAS Participants or alert originators for EAS messages.”
As Spotify inches closer to radio-like services, having recently hired veteran Los Angeles programming executive Kevin Weatherly, this could also change given the right technological advancements it wishes to invest in.
The NAB is steadfast in offering a “don’t count on it”-styled response to such suggestions.
“Even if such a mechanism could be created, requiring streaming services to somehow monitor, manage and prioritize all EAS alerts from the thousands of sources in every municipality (or EAS operational area) across the entire country would be extremely problematic,” the NAB said, adding that it also dismisses the belief that creating a process for streaming services to differentiate between market areas they serve when determining what kinds of EAS alerts to monitor, even with advice from state and local government officials, would help solve this problem.
Then, there’s the scenario of a Florida-based family watching a local newscast live on a streaming app — only the newscast is from a California-based TV station. “This could lead to dangerous confusion” if an EAS alert came on, the NAB says.
That said, the viewer could likely realize that, if locales in California were mentioned, they would be thousands of miles outside of harm’s way.
With Rick Kaplan and Larry Walke signing off on the NAB petition, the association concludes, “In light of all these challenges, NAB urges the Commission to report to Congress that EAS should not be extended to internet-based services at this time.”
It’s now up to legislators on Capitol Hill to judge for themselves if the NAB’s efforts have merit, or are simply crafted to defend one of the most valuable traits of over-the-air media — owned by companies whose revenues have been battered by digital entities.
Most of the time we receive a reader e-mail or, on rare occasion, a hand-written letter from a RBR+TVBR Member, the topic of conversation is usually about our poor proofreading and copy-editing, our choice of wording in a Headline E-mail subject line, or request that RBR+TVBR gives up trying to win a Pulitzer Prize by offering up very lengthy stories on a very esoteric subject.
Today’s RBR+TVBR Mailbag, however, includes a letter that was worth sharing. The topic: the lack of presets on a brand-new Sport Utility Vehicle’s snazzy OEM in-dash entertainment system.
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Four years ago, 8 rack units brought to life the first ATSC 3.0 air chain. Then came a reduced footprint, in April 2019, followed by the 2020 arrival of the first 1-rack unit using a Blade server.
Now, a cloud application on Amazon Web Services (AWS) today is in place for what powers NextGen TV.
It’s the latest advancement since June 2017 for ATSC 3.0 Air Chain technology pioneered by DigiCAP.
The Seoul-based company provided Air Chain technology first moved forward with its ATSC 3.0 tools by working with the three major South Korean broadcast networks during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, enabling them to transmit live 4K over the air.
These first-generation Air Chains were eight rack units (RU) tall.
After the PyeongChang games, DigiCAP analyzed data from their 14 live ATSC 3.0 broadcast sites. Two years later, they introduced an improved version that was only two RU tall, a 75% reduction in size. But the inside changes were significant.
Sang Jin Yoon, SVP of Business Development at DigiCAP, noted, “We took data from extensive field tests at our Korean broadcast sites and analyzed the data using static and dynamic code analysis to holistically optimize our software. In addition, we rebuilt the software to be more useful in the US, including improving the user experience by redesigning the system administrator, making our software compliant with the evolving ATSC 3.0 spec, and providing more meaningful system status information, and adding features to make DigiCaster more operation friendly.”
in June 2020, as the first commercially licensed ATSC 3.0 broadcast stations were launching in the U.S., DigiCAP introduced a new version on a single RU COTS blade. Yoon noted, “Every year COTS servers get less expensive and more productive. The use of software infrastructure in this configuration is a way to take advantage of the savings and efficiency boosts. Migrating from appliance to software is the unstoppable trend.”
Then, in February of this year, DigiCAP posted the first ATSC 3.0 Air Chain on Amazon Web Services (AWS). “This service will enable installations to go more quickly and let broadcasters pay for their Air Chains with a low monthly service fee instead of a large upfront equipment charge,” DigiCAP said.
Yoon concluded, “Our software infrastructure approach is catching on. Of the 28 US markets that have launched ATSC 3.0, DigiCAP has one or more users in over half of them. Add to that the 14 broadcast stations we have in South Korea and it makes a solid footprint for moving forward.”
Last week, with NewFronts staged ahead of virtual Upfront presentations scheduled for this week, Discovery Inc. CEO David Zaslav and WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar spoke at the eighth annual MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit.
What timing! With the May 17 pre-market confirmation that WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. will merge via a tax-free Reverse Morris Trust-engineered merger, the Wall Street firm’s leaders believe that “the rationale for today’s monumental news that
WarnerMedia will be merging with Discovery can be plainly found in our Q&As.”
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It was first reported early Monday, European time, by several business media outlets, with an announcement due no later than 12:30pm in London.
Like clockwork, the official word came from Dallas and from New York: Another blockbuster media merger had been consummated. Only this time, it involves two major players in a rapidly evolving MVPD arena seeking to remain as relevant in the connected TV world as it has been in the cable universe.
WarnerMedia and Discovery are merging.
To make this happen, WarnerMedia parent AT&T and Discovery Inc. will combine its entertainment, sports and news assets that include such brands as CNN, Home Box Office (HBO), TNT and TBS with Discovery’s array of channels, which include Animal Planet, HGTV, Food Network, TLC and ID.
The deal is also significant as Discovery on January 4 rolled out its discovery+ OTT platform, which has been heavily promoted across spot cable since its launch, Media Monitors data show.
For those who closely followed the merger acquisition of the former CBS Radio by Audacy, then known as Entercom Communications, terms of the Discovery/WarnerMedia deal are structured similarly in that a new entity is being created through a Reverse Morris Trust transaction.
Thus, AT&T will spin off WarnerMedia, and this will immediately enter into a merger upon closing with Discovery through an all-stock transaction that is tax free.
AT&T would receive $43 billion — subject to adjustment — in a combination of cash, debt securities, and WarnerMedia’s retention of some debt. For AT&T shareholders, they’ll receive stock representing 71% of the new company; Discovery shareholders would own 29% of the new company.
The Boards of Directors of both AT&T and Discovery have approved the transaction. The transaction is anticipated to close in mid-2022, subject to approval by Discovery shareholders and customary closing conditions, including receipt of regulatory approvals.
No vote is required by AT&T shareholders.
“The new company expects to maintain investment grade rating and utilize the significant cash flow of the combined company to rapidly de-lever to approximately 3.0x within 24 months, and to target a new, longer term gross leverage target of 2.5x-3.0x,” the companies said in a joint announcement. “WarnerMedia has secured fully committed financing from JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and affiliates of Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC for the purposes of funding the distribution.”
For AT&T and its shareholders, the company believes “this transaction provides an opportunity to unlock value in its media assets and to better position the media business to take advantage of the attractive DTC trends in the industry. Additionally, the transaction allows the company to better capitalize on the longer-term demand for connectivity.”
ZASLAV TO LEAD
David ZaslavDiscovery President/CEO David Zaslav will lead the proposed new company.
Discovery’s current multiple classes of shares will be consolidated to a single class with one vote per share.
The new company’s Board of Directors will consist of 13 members, 7 initially appointed by AT&T, including the chairperson of the board; Discovery will initially appoint 6 members, including Zaslav.
Commenting on the merger, Zaslav said, “During my many conversations with [AT&T CEO] John Stankey, we always come back to the same simple and powerful strategic principle: these assets are better and more valuable together. It is super exciting to combine such historic brands, world class journalism and iconic franchises under one roof and unlock so much value and opportunity. With a library of cherished IP, dynamite management teams and global expertise in every market in the world, we believe everyone wins … consumers with more diverse choices, talent and storytellers with more resources and compelling pathways to larger audiences, and shareholders with a globally scaled growth company committed to a strong balance sheet that is better positioned to compete with the world’s largest streamers. We will build a new chapter together with the creative and talented WarnerMedia team and these incredible assets built on a nearly 100-year legacy of the most wonderful storytelling in the world. That will be our singular mission: to focus on telling the most amazing stories and have a ton of fun doing it.”
‘DTC’ PLAYER DESIRE
The new company, which could remain named Discovery or see a new name by the end of 2022, seeks to compete globally in the fast-growing direct-to-consumer business.
And, it will very much seek to bring “compelling content” to DTC subscribers across a portfolio that today includes discovery+ and HBO Max.
With cord-cutting a factor that companies such as WarnerMedia and Discovery must accept, rather than battle, as viewer consumption platform habits evolve, the merger immediately signals their combined desires to compete directly against Netflix, Amazon Video, Disney+ and Hulu on their own turf.
Further, AT&T and Discovery note, “The new company will be able to invest in more original content for its streaming services, enhance the programming options across its global linear pay TV and broadcast channels, and offer more innovative video experiences and consumer choices.”
Advisors
LionTree LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC served as financial advisors and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP served as legal advisor to AT&T.
Allen & Company LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC served as financial advisors and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP served as legal advisor to Discovery. Perella Weinberg Partners and Wachtell Lipton, Rosen & Katz served as advisors to the Independent Directors of Discovery.
RBC Capital Markets served as financial advisors and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP served as legal advisors to Advance.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Twenty-five members of the House of Representatives and six Senators have added their support to a resolution opposing “any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge” on local broadcast radio stations.
The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress’s opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 112 co-sponsors in the House and 14 in the Senate.
Adding their support recently for the Local Radio Freedom Act in the House are Reps. Ken Calvert (R-CA-42), Jerry Carl (R-AL-1), Joe Courtney (D-CT-2), Henry Cueller (D-TX-28), Mike Gallagher (R-WI-8), Sam Graves (R-MO-6), Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH-16), Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon (R-PR-AL), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ-5), Brett Guthrie (R-KY-2), Dusty Johnson (R-SD-AL), Mike Johnson (R-LA-4), Bill Keating (D-MA-9), Doug Lamborn (R-CO-5), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO-3), Elaine Luria (D-VA-2), Ralph Norman (R-SC-5), Scott Perry (R-PA-10), Mike Rogers (R-AL-3), Brad Schneider (D-IL-10), Pete Stauber (R-MN-8), Claudia Tenney (R-NY-22), Glenn Thompson (R-PA-15), William Timmons (R-SC-4) and Jackie Walorski (R-IN-2).
Adding their support for the resolution in the Senate are Sens. John Boozman (R-AR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Todd Young (R-IN).
Reps. Kathy Castor (D-FL-14) and Steve Womack (R-AR-3) are the principal cosponsors of the Local Radio Freedom Act in the House of Representatives. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and John Barrasso (R-WY) are the lead cosponsors of a companion resolution in the Senate.
The 112 House cosponsors of the Local Radio Freedom Act include (new cosponsors in bold):
Rick Allen (R-GA-12)
The Local Radio Freedom Act’s 14 Senate cosponsors are (new cosponsors in bold):
John Barrasso (R-WY)
“Congress should not impose any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge relating to the public performance of sound recordings on a local radio station for broadcasting sound recordings over the air, or on any business for the public performance of sound recordings on a local radio station broadcast over the air,” reads the Local Radio Freedom Act.
It’s hardly a shocker: U.S. consumers who participated in a study for Publicis Media and Verizon Media want streaming options that are less costly.
And, they’d not mind if commercial advertising be seen to offset a subscription.
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The value of iHeartMedia shares continues to reach new heights. On Friday, IHRT gained another 3% to finish at a fresh post-bankruptcy high.
The bigger news: IHRT is up 236% from exactly one year ago.
A review of the last 12 months for iHeartMedia shares shows that, aside from a momentary blip in June, the value of IHRT has steady grown since the Independence Day holiday of 2020, when a $6.65 closing price was seen.
Come Election Day 2020, a $10 closing price was seen by iHeart.
Then, the engines went into overdrive, with March 1 seeing IHRT’s first $15-level finish. By March 15, a $16.87 closing price came.
The following two months have been nothing short of exceptional for the nation’s largest audio media company on Wall Street. On Monday, intrasession trading pushed IHRT as high as $23.49, before settling at $22.90.
With a $22.64 opening price set to start next week as Upfront presentations begin for the television industry, iHeart’s spot at the marketer’s planning table is perhaps more of a possibility than ever.
It’s Friday night, and the De’Lacy track “Hideaway” is booming out of the speakers. It’s a song featured as part of the Club Classics show heard on national Hot Adult Contemporary network Heart, found at 106.2 MHz across London.
If the mid-1990s “banger” isn’t your style, there’s always contemporary dance tracks over on CHR network Capital FM; love songs on Smooth Radio; Friday Night ’50s on Gold; or L’Heure Exquise with Emma Johnson & John Lenehan on commercial Classical network Classic FM.
Still not satisfied? How about a little Elastica, Doves and classic David Bowie over on Radio X? What about Krept & Konan & WizKid offering up some U.K.-flavored hip-hop on Capital Xtra?
Music not your thing? “Leading Britain’s Conversation” is popular Talk network LBC discussing holidays to Portugal, now open from a COVID-19 travel ban.
No matter your choice, consumption to each of these eight radio brands means you’re supporting a British audio media giant that wants a greater stake in iHeartMedia.
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Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), BMI and the Mentoring and Inspiring Women in Radio (MIW) Group will stage the 13th annual “Rising Through the Ranks” program virtually for 2021.
The program will be split into five days and will be held each Tuesday of the month of August, from Noon-3pm Eastern starting August 3.
BMI will offer 20 scholarships for this year’s program, which will cover the cost of the professional development course designed to foster and educate current and emerging female radio managers within broadcast radio.
“Rising Through the Ranks is a priceless opportunity for our scholarship recipients and we are excited to be bringing the event back this year,” said RAB President/CEO Erica Farber. “With the tools and experience we’ve all had with virtual events, we know that this year’s program will be as engaging and inspiring as our in-person event.”
This year’s agenda and speaker lineup will be announced at a later date.
Scholarship applications and registration are available on www.rab.com and will be accepted April 26, through 6:00 p.m. CT on May 28, 2021. Scholarship recipients will be notified of their selection by the week of July 1, 2021.
Some 60 miles from Omaha is the town of Firth, Neb.
Here, a Class A Sports Talker is trading hands, with paperwork filed following the May 11 signing of an asset sale agreement.
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MIAMI — “Our quarterly results demonstrate that Univision’s transformation is continuing to gain momentum.”
That’s a statement made Friday by Univision Communications CEO Wade Davis, as the privately held company focused on superserving Spanish-speaking Hispanic consumers released its first quarter results.
How did the company do in Q1? Adjusted EBITDA was up slightly, while its recently launched PrendeTV over-the-top offering is off to a roaring start.
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No, Tony Stark has nothing to do with it.
But, it could prevent a super new way for audio media purveyors to profit from what AI experts at Veritone are calling “hyper-realistic synthetic voices.”
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With pre-market trading not as brutal as after-hours action had been for The Walt Disney Co.‘s stock, investors are now perhaps looking beyond shaky Disney+ OTT subscriber rolls and less-than-hoped for theme park attendance and revenue by looking at other segments of the company.
Among them, of course, is Broadcast. And, the fiscal Q2 tale shows network growth on a balance beam with owned-station revenue slowdowns.
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By Jeffrey Hedquist
Every day you can see and hear commercials that were created by committee: politically correct, watered-down, automatically written ads that offend no one…and motivate no one. Commercials that sound like…well, like commercials. They make you want to change the station, or at best, ignore the message.
If you want your spots to make it all the way from the senses to the brain, you’ll need to take a few risks.Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)
As anticipated, the radio industry took “a very big hit “in 2020 due to the pandemic and subsequent cutbacks in overall spending activity.
Over-the-air advertising revenues dropped to $9.7 billion, a 23.6 percent decline from $12.8 billion in 2019.
That’s according to the first quarter edition of BIA Advisory Services’ 2021 Investing In Radio Market Report.
To little surprise, BIA also determined that Digital ad revenues at stations demonstrated their continued strength, posting only a slight decline to $939 million in revenue in 2020 versus $1 billion in 2019.
“Local radio stations have been feeling the impact of new competition for the past few years; unfortunately, the pandemic just exacerbated the problem and it will take some time to recover,” said Dr. Mark Fratrik, BIA Advisory Services’ SVP and Chief Economist. “The shining star continues to be radio’s online digital advertising revenues, which will outpace over-the-air growth this year and moving forward. Those broadcasting groups that have invested-in and oriented their companies toward digital will benefit faster from that foresight.”
Fratrik forecasts 2021 total local radio revenues to reach $11.7 billion, with $1 billion coming directly from online revenues; a 9.7% increase over 2020.
Transactions Down
“Mirroring the economic climate in 2020, radio station sales fell to levels that hadn’t
been seen in years,” BIA notes.
Only 534 stations were sold in 2020 for an estimated value of $139 million — a
stark contrast from the 1,080 sold in 2011 for $1.1 billion.
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