Radio+Television Business Report

If you didn’t think anyone could make money podcasting, think again.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has just released its U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study, and it reveals that podcast advertising will grow as much in the next two years as it did in the past decade.

Do you want to learn how you can get in on some of that revenue? Join us in July for our virtual podcasting conference:
CLICK BELOW FOR MORE! How to Make Real Money Podcasting

 

Driven by a strong Q4 in 2020 (+37%), podcast ad revenues climbed to $842 million in 2020, up from $708 million in the year prior.

IAB projects podcasting will see $1 billion in ad revenue in 2021 and $2 billion in 2023.

Here are additional highlights from the IAB report:

• Dynamically-inserted ads, which enable ad placement at the point of listener download, increased share of revenue from 48% to 67% year over year.
• Announcer-read/pre-produced ads increased share from 27% to 35%.
• Host-read continues to represent over half of revenue by ad type.
• Brand advertising (45% of 2020 revenue) is approaching parity with direct response (51% of 2020 revenue).
• At 76%, mid-roll spot placements continued to account for three-fourths (76%) of revenues.
• Half of Podcast ads lasted longer than 30 seconds in length.
• News continued to be the top content genre for Podcast advertisers (22% market share).
• Direct-To-Consumer brands maintained the top advertiser category market share (19%), while Pharmaceuticals more than doubled in share Year-Over-Year (9%).

The largest African-American owned media company superserving Black consumers across the U.S. has released its first quarter earnings report. And, like many media companies, the first three months of 2021 weren’t so rosy.

That set, the seeds for a strong COVID-19 pandemic recovery have been planted, and the digital dollar tree — like that of its peers in the media industry — is blossoming.

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In the early 2000s, Adam Curry (along with software developer Dave Winer) invented podcasting.

Today, Curry — once-known for his stints on Z100 in New York and on MTV — is reinventing podcasting with a new open-source platform called Podcasting 2.0, a collection of open technologies designed to enhance the RSS podcasting ecosystem.

On July 14 at Streamline Publishing’s virtual How to Make Real Money Podcasting conference, Curry will participate in a keynote interview.

In addition to his new Podcasting 2.0 platform, Curry will reveal how his 14-year-old podcast, “No Agenda,” pulls in thousands of dollars per episode — enough money for himself and co-host John C. Dvorak to make a living.

Just last week, one listener to the No Agenda show donated $3,333.33 because he felt that’s how much value he was getting from the show.

Curry and Dvorak are generating the kind of money every podcaster would love to have, and they are doing it without a single advertiser, network, or appearance on Apple’s New & Noteworthy. In July, you’ll hear all the secrets to their success.

Curry and Dvorak have created more than just a podcast with No Agenda. It’s a dedicated tribe of followers who just can’t get enough of their favorite hosts, including listener-generated meet-ups and a No Agenda social media platform.

You’ll find out how he built it all on July 14 at our How to Make Real Money Podcasting virtual event.

REGISTER HERE BEFORE THE PRICES GOES UP! You CAN Make Money Podcasting From the comfort of your own home, office, or vehicle, you’ll find out how.

CHECK OUT OUR SPEAKERS HERE
THE AGENDA IS HERE

“The equity markets have transitioned from looking to buy COVID winners in early to mid-2020 to seeking re-opening plays post the announcement of new successful vaccines last November to this current amorphous period of aimless drift,” notes MoffettNathanson Senior Analyst Michael Nathanson. “In our world, the question is what should media and internet investors do now?”

Should they keep last year’s streaming trade on? What about that short-lived (and memorable) rotation into media stocks? Now that they’ve worked so well, are the moves in Facebook and Google over?

He offers his thoughts in an investor note distributed Tuesday.

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Urban One is the next media company to present its first quarter earnings report. And, it hosts a conference call Wednesday at 10am Eastern to share its performance with analysts and shareholders.

RBR+TVBR will have full coverage of the company’s financial results in the afternoon headlines e-mail.

The company’s fourth quarter and full-year 2020 earnings were nothing short of spectacular. Net revenue in Q4 rose to $113.5 million, from $105.85 million a year earlier. At the same time, operating expenses on a consolidated basis fell to $79 million, from $93.79 million. This was driven by lower programming and technical expenses and lower selling, general and administrative expenses.

This resulted in an operating income gain in Q4 2020, jumping to $34.53 million from $12.06 million.

General indices declined on Tuesday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped by 1.4% to 34,269.16 and the Nasdaq slipped by just 0.09%, to 13,389.43.

How did radio and TV industry stocks fare? Action was mixed.

Aside from Saga’s big surge, Townsquare Media and iHeartMedia were softer. In contrast, Nexstar Media Group grew again.

 

Five days ago, Saga Communications delivered first quarter results that were less than stellar. Expense reductions were not enough to prevent Saga from seeing its net income dip to $758,000 ($0.13 per share) from $1.68 million ($0.28). However, Saga’s debt leverage ratio is 0.92, with just $10 million in long-term debt.

That could be particularly attractive to investors. It’s just one theory as to why Saga shares rocketed upward by 30% on Tuesday.

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On April 9, the FCC established a formal pleading cycle that seeks public comment on iHeartMedia‘s request to win Commission approval for greater foreign ownership and non-U.S. investment.

It is tied to the audio media giant’s petition for declaratory ruling seeking FCC approval of a stake in the company controlled through Bahamas-based Global Media & Entertainment Investments Ltd. by one of Great Britain’s wealthiest individuals.

Legal counsel for this person, Michael Tabor, have now responded to the Commission. In the filing, GMEI’s position is clear: the PDR represents iHeart’s desire to use the FCC as a “poison pill.”

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NAB President/CEO Gordon Smith delivered remarks today at the association’s State Leadership Conference. The annual gathering of 500 radio and TV station owners and executives from all 50 states is designed to educate the broadcast industry to advocate on relevant legislative and regulatory issues.

This year’s conference is a virtual-only event and saw Smith delivered prepared remarks. They touched on his year-end retirement, and on the year that was for the broadcast media industry.

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Big retailers aren’t exactly plentiful when it comes to spot TV advertising.

However, one nationally recognized department store chain opted to use broadcast TV to perhaps drum up some Mother’s Day register ring-ups.

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It’s always exciting to see activity from a new advertiser, or an entirely new category, at Spot Radio.

The latest Media Monitors Spot Ten Radio chart delivers, with a new entrant representing the ride-share industry now actively using AM and FM stations to attract customers.

Now at No. 8 is Uber, which is engaged in a larger multiplatform marketing effort to win back riders as the pandemic eases in many parts of the U.S. Uber is present with some 32,479 spot plays.

That tops GEICO, which appears to be in a soft cycle with respect to advertising against Progressive. Of late, the latter auto insurance specialist has been omnipresent across audio, with its humorous voiceover artist intent on saying “bulbous walrus” one of the more entertaining commercial campaigns of late.

Not to be confused with V/O babble, Babbel — the online language-learning tool — remains strong at Radio, with some 46,568 spins detected for the week of May 9.

Here’s this week’s Spot Ten Radio report in full. It includes promotional spots airing on stations owned by Media Monitors parent iHeartMedia, which should be subtracted by readers who seek fully-paid advertiser data for their own sales department needs.

If you think this is just another streaming CTV/OTT puff story, you’re wrong.

Amagi serves broadcasters with advanced cloud-based automation, playout, and delivery. And, Amagi’s products enable the creation, distribution, and monetization of channels such video services as streaming, OTT, and, of course, traditional broadcast.

Mike Woods joined Amagi right before the pandemic in February of 2020 as SVP of Product. In this InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, Woods shares how Amagi is working with broadcast media companies and how the broadcast TV station owner can benefit, rather than fret, over lost dollars and audience to fast-growing digital video delivery platforms.

 

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Mike Woods, Amagi” on Spreaker.

Veritone says it has made “enhancements” to its cloud-native, AI-enabled media management platform, the Veritone Digital Media Hub.

Why does this matter?

While COVID-19 has created additional challenges for content creators during the production process, remote collaboration, compatibility with their existing applications and the ability to extract increased value from their existing content will remain even in a post-pandemic world. Veritone Digital Media Hub’s new features – including an annotation tool, data export tool and content notifications – are designed to meet these challenges by prolonging the lifespan of existing content by easily searching and identifying segments in both archived and newly produced content, the company says.

Powered by aiWARE, these new features, Veritone notes, “will assist current and future customers to rapidly curate and activate assets to increase content discoverability, operational efficiency and revenue opportunities in content creation.”

New enhancements to the solution include:

• The Annotation Tool, which offers new ways to curate, search, visualize, and validate cognitive and structured data for a media file by tagging and saving descriptive information against a segment of content. This new feature will support customers with multiple use cases, including licensing and monetization.
• The Data Export Tool, which gives users the flexibility to narrow down a specific moment within a media file, a time range, or an entire data set by seconds, frames, or timecodes, and easily export this data as both JSON and XML output files.
• Content Notifications that deliver a customized email alert for new content ingested into the platform, informing users of the type of content that has been uploaded.

“Our enhancements to Digital Media Hub, coupled with the power of aiWARE, will give current and future media and entertainment customers a new way to visualize, edit, and engage with their content and its associated data,” Veritone President Ryan Steelberg President. “This will provide them with greater control over their content by increasing the accuracy of how their content is tagged, giving them more ways to export it, and helping them stay on top of what is currently available in their library, which will culminate into more licensing and revenue opportunities. Additionally, these new capabilities have piqued the interest of our state and federal government customers too, and we look forward to expanding the value of Digital Media Hub into those markets as well.”

For more information on Veritone’s Digital Media Hub, visit: https://www.veritone.com/applications/digital-media-hub.

A new DAVID IV 719N FM/HD Radio Broadcast Processor with Network Interface has been added to the lineup of tech products available from Inovonics.

The company says it provides eased internet access for set-up, control, and increased networking capabilities to the DAVID IV 719 processor.

There is no price increase for the new 719N processor model.

“Adding the Network Interface to our popular 719 processor really gives it two very important features,” Inovonics President/CEO Ben Barber says. “One, the Web GUI can be controlled from any web enabled device; and two, adding SNMP makes remote management and control a breeze.”

The 719 DAVID IV processor was originally launched in 2011.

The New DAVID IV 719N model adds an intuitive, menu-driven Web interface for remote set-up, monitoring, and control.

UPGRADE PROGRAM: Inovonics will provide Free upgrades to 719 users that purchased their processors from January 1, 2020 to May 2021 (transport not included). For those with 719 processors purchased before 2020, there will be a $500 upgrade fee + transport to convert their 719 units to the new 719N model.

For more information about price and availability, please contact Inovonics Sales Department a 831-458-0552 | Email: sales@inovonicsbroadcast.com

BOCA RATON, FLA. — Xytech, the facility management software maker serving broadcast media, has appointed Rob Evans as Product Manager for Broadcast and Transmission Products and Linda Staudenmaier to the role of Director of Professional Services for ScheduALL users.

The appointments follow the closing of Xytech’s acquisition of ScheduALL from Net Insight.

A veteran of ScheduALL, Evans has more than 25 years of experience in broadcast media. He transitions from ScheduALL, where Evans served as a Senior Product Architect, researching complex client environments, and designing contribution and distribution scheduling solutions for video transmission.

“I’m excited to put my industry knowledge at the service of the Xytech community and look forward to show ScheduALL customers our upgrade path,” Evans said. “The industry we serve continues to change rapidly and we have to be nimble and innovative to stay relevant.”

Staudenmaier joins Xytech from production platform The Switch, where she served as Vice President of Enterprise Applications, Software Development and IT. Before that, she spent more than 10 years as the Senior Implementation and Professional Services Manager at ScheduALL.

“I’m thrilled to join the Xytech team during such an exciting time of growth,” Staudenmaier said. “As the leader in its space, Xytech sets the pace when it comes to resource management for media and broadcasters. My extensive background in software and experience working with top-tier broadcasters will be put to good use. I look forward to continuing assisting users through their ScheduALL journey.”

Staudenmaier will be based at the Plantation, Fla. office, and report to Xytech’s Stefan Nied, ScheduALL’ s Managing Director.

In the British live TV show “Dancing on Ice”, a figure skater is skating among the dancers with a Sony HDC-P50 camera and Canon HJ14 lens. This broadcast camera is stabilized and remote-controlled through a NEWTON system and the results are unique in the broadcast world.

DANCING ON ICE

Dancing on Ice is a British television series that features celebrities figure skating with professional skating partners in front of a panel of judges. Each season has 10 shows that airs live on ITV from January to March and each show has around 6 million TV viewers. The series started in 2006 but was cancelled in 2014 and then revived in 2018 with a new TV studio at RAF Bovingdon. With the revival, the production hired Alan Wells Camera Services, which supplies a rail cam along the skating rink and since the 2019 season has helped introduce a new camera angle to the show, the Ice Cam.

THE ICE CAM

The Ice Cam consists of the figure skater Jordan Cowan, wearing a Ready Rig that holds a NEWTON stabilized remote head. The head features a Sony HDC-P50 broadcast camera and a Canon HJ14 lens that is remote controlled by cameraman Dominic Jackson, through the renowned NEWTON control panel at a normal operator’s desk.

JORDAN – THE SKATING CAMERA DOLLY

Jordan Cowan is an American figure skater who used to compete in the national team, and since a few years, he is bringing cameras onto the ice to film figure skaters under the name “On Ice Perspectives”. In mid-2018, Cowan heard through a friend that the producers of the reality show “Dancing on Ice” in London, UK were looking for a cameraman who could skate. Jordan explains: “I contacted the producer and showed them some of my recent video productions. They liked it and hired me for the 2019 season, making me the first ever skating camera operator for a live televised skating show.“

DEVELOPING THE ICE CAM

Cameraman Domenic Jackson had operated a Steadicam on “Dancing on Ice” for several seasons and he used to walk out on the ice, with spike shoes, to shoot links in and out of dance numbers. In October 2018, ITV asked Alan Wells to put together a rig that could move faster on the ice and replace the Steadicam. Alan Wells first thought of a push trolley featuring a remote stabilized camera head but soon abandoned it for a handheld solution. The outside broadcast company Telegenic supplies the cameras and lenses for “Dancing on Ice” and with their input, the team at Alan Wells customized a Ready Rig so it could control a Sony HDC-P1 camera and Canon HJ14 lens. This was achieved by adding carbon fiber brackets on the Ready Rig so it could hold a NEWTON stabilized remote head, which is rarely used handheld, but that Alan Wells use for broadcast on cable cams and rail systems. Unlike typical handheld gimbals, NEWTON has a control panel that features a standard broadcast setup for camera angle and lens, which is much more suitable for professional TV cameramen.

During the development of the camera rig, the team at Alan Wells had conference calls with Jordan and when he arrived from USA, they could do the final customizing to Jordan’s body and arrange the balance of the gear to allow full movement. They also met up with the “Dancing on Ice” production at the Bovingdon studio, to do tests with camera supervisor Lincoln Abraham and director Nikki Parsons. The final wireless camera rig, the Ice Cam, weighed 15 kg and included an RF system for data communication, a Boxx Link for video, batteries and a monitor so Jordan could see the picture.
Jordan comments the weight:

“The rig could be lighter, but NEWTON was the only gimbal that could keep a steady horizon through all the twists and turns at high speeds on the ice, while carrying the standard 4.3-60 mm zoom lens. NEWTON also requires less clearance for the 3-axis motors which, while requiring counterweights, meant I could let the rig hang close to my body and thus keep it close to my center of balance.”

AT THE TV PRODUCTION

Dancing on Ice is rehearsed on Saturdays as they do a full camera run-through of all music numbers and this amounts to three rehearsals per dancing couple. Then on Sundays all the links are rehearsed with the presenters and there is a full dress run before the live show at 6 PM.

Since Dominic had been a camera operator on the show for several seasons, he knew the format well but controlling a skating camera was new. He soon realized that he needed line of sight to Jordan so he arranged his control desk so he always could see where the camera was in relation to the dancers. Apart from hearing production talkback, Dominic and Jordan have a radio system that allows them to talk to each other.

Jordan is an experienced skater, so he knows how skaters behave and to read their movement during the show. However, he had only filmed skaters with a DSLR gimbal before and never on a TV set, so he had a steep learning curve about live TV production; Technical sides and terms, to count bars and beats whilst listening to the director, the PA and Dominic, being aware of other cameras, what shots are before and after to keep out of the other cameras. Jordan elaborates: “Dominic has been an essential part of the show for me and his experience working with Nikki was invaluable. We work closely together on headset the entire weekend through rehearsals and the show. Dominic taught me everything I needed to know to work in a live multi-camera broadcast situation and taught me how to translate Nikki’s shot cards. He’s been a great mentor as well and I’m lucky to have learned so much from someone so experienced in live broadcast television.”

THE POSITIVE RECEPTION

The new perspective of the Ice Cam was well received by the UK TV viewers and after the first season in 2019, Dominic Jackson and Jordan Cowan were nominated for the GTC Awards for Excellence. The Guild of Television Camera Professionals stated the following reason for their nomination:

“A whole series of brilliant teamwork bringing some spectacular shots that fitted in seamlessly with the live performances and the rest of the camera coverage. The addition of the Ice Cam to the show helped audiences get closer to the action and feel as though they were on the ice with the skaters. I don’t believe anything like this has been done on an ice-rink on a live broadcast before and the skill and synchronization required of Dom and Jordan deserves an award.”

Jordan continues: “The Ice Cam revolutionized Dancing on Ice and gave audiences a new way to appreciate the real speed skaters experience on the ice. The 360 degree shots also let us see the back of the studio and audience for the first time, something the show’s set designer really appreciated because he always puts work into making a full 360 degree experience. In December 2020, another British show, The Real Full Monty on Ice, also brought in the Ice Cam with me skating and Alan Wells in person behind the NEWTON controller.“

MORE REMOTE CAMERAS ON THE SHOW

Apart from the Ice Cam, Alan Wells Camera Services also supplies another NEWTON stabilized remote head moving on a Ross Furio dolly on a completely bespoke track designed to follow the oval shape of the ice rink. The NEWTON stabilization helps transition between different radius curved track and the remote head controls another Sony HDC-P50 with Canon HJ14 lens which unlike the Ice Cam is cabled to the production. The company also supplies a hothead above the ice rink which offers shots of the skaters and the light projections on the ice.

WHAT’S NEXT?

After the 2021 season of Dancing on Ice, Jordan Cowan will continue to develop his “On Ice Perspectives”. He explains: “I want to keep pushing myself into the professional TV and movie world, because I believe that seeing skating in television, movies and on live TV shows is going to be so important for the future of this sport.

The agenda for the new virtually delivered ANGA COM is now available.

Dubbed ANGA COM DIGITAL, the online convention will take place June 8-10 on an AI-powered digital event platform that offers online-optimized showrooms and networking options.

More than 60 international companies from the broadband and media industry are involved as digital partners and will present themselves to congress participants in interactive digital showrooms.

Registration is free of charge for congress participants and is now open at www.angacom.de.

Highlights of the strategy program are five summit events with German media industry companies.

“Media Summit – How to win the Streaming Battle?” and the “International Content Summit – Strategies to win the OTT Competition” are among the sessions on the lineup.

The key topics for the technology panels and digital showrooms include Fiber Optics, DOCSIS for 10G, FTTH, WiFi, 5G, Fixed Mobile Convergence, Trenching, Cloud Services, IPTV, OTT, App TV, Video Streaming and Measurement. From the U.S., the industry association SCTE is a partner.

ANGA COM is Europe’s Exhibition and Conference for Broadband, Television & Online. Most recently, ANGA COM counted more than 500 exhibitors from 35 countries and 20,000 participants from 83 countries. Amongst the participants were 540 network and platform operators serving more than 200 million households all over Europe, as well as 370 media companies. Some 44 percent of the participants belonged to the senior level.

— RBR+TVBR European News Desk, Kaiserslautern DE

Quicklink is now a part of the SRT Alliance, the open-source initiative dedicated to overcoming the challenges of low-latency video streaming.

The SRT open-source video transport protocol has initially been adopted in Quicklink’s STS410, a hybrid switcher.

The SRT Alliance, founded by Haivision in April 2017, already has more than 450 members. Its mission is to overcome the challenges of low-latency live streaming by supporting the collaborative development of SRT (Secure Reliable Transport), the open source streaming project.

“Quicklink are extremely excited and proud to join the SRT Alliance and adopt SRT as a protocol within our solutions,” said Richard Rees, CEO of Quicklink. “We are seeing SRT gaining huge momentum as a video transport protocol within the industry. As a result of this growth, we have received a huge number of requests from customers to integrate SRT within the Quicklink solutions.”

Quicklink also plans to roll-out SRT adoption across the entire range of Quicklink’s award-winning video and audio contribution solutions.

“We’re pleased to see the SRT protocol being actively implemented by some of the world’s biggest broadcast and enterprise streaming workflows as its adoption and industry-wide recognition continues to grow, becoming the defacto standard for low latency internet streaming.” said Jesús (Suso) Carrillo, Director of SRT Alliance at Haivision.

 

It’s an upsized debt offering from a company pivoting from direct broadcast satellite-delivered cable TV services to a major 5G wireless internet connectivity conveyor.

DISH Network on Monday priced an offering of an aggregate principal amount of its Senior Notes due 2029. It is higher than what DISH thought it would be when it announced the offering.

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The Media Rating Council (MRC) has released a statement indicating that, in its opinion, the Total Usage of Television (TUT) by Persons 18-49 was understated by approximately 2 to 6 percent for the February 2021 measurement period by Nielsen.

The finding, MRC says, is based on Nielsen’s analyses of the potential impacts of the changes to its panel procedures.

In addition, MRC believes that Persons Using Television (PUT) estimates among the Persons 18-49 group was understated by a range of 1 to 5 percent in February 2021.

The MRC statement’s late Monday release (5/10) came after its Television Committee met with Nielsen management to review the results of a series of analyses Nielsen conducted in response to requests from MRC and its members.

The analyses were designed to determine the impact (if any) to national television viewing estimates that may have resulted from certain changes made to Nielsen panel-related procedures because of COVID-related matters.

These changes included adjustments to Nielsen’s standard meter maintenance procedures, a curtailment of the recruitment of new panel homes, and extending the time limits at which panelists are forced to turnover from participation in the panels.

Nielsen’s analyses indicated that 93% of simulated Persons 18-49 C3 program ratings
estimates for February were within +/- .02 points of the estimates originally reported.

While certain programs showed no change in their rating, and some even had lower ratings in the simulated results, MRC believes these may have been partly a function of the analytical approach used, where homes were removed for the purpose of the simulation, resulting in greater variability, as well as the fact that the analyses were conducted prior to the completion of maintenance procedures for all suspect panel homes.

In short, MRC believes changes to program estimates are “largely one-directional,” and that there was some degree of understatement overall in the C3 Persons 18-49 estimates that were originally reported by Nielsen in the February 2021 period.

While the MRC MRC also notes, “and users of the data should keep in mind,” that this range of impact, as well as the originally reported ratings themselves, are estimates with standard errors associated with them, “we believe the directional impact noted above is appropriate to consider in assessing the estimates originally reported by Nielsen.”

It is difficult to estimate the impact, if any, to reported estimates that may have been attributable to the changes in panel recruitment and turnover processes, the MRC says.

What are some of the next steps?

The MRC plans to continue to work with Nielsen and its members to further analyze the impact that panel disruptions may have had on the viewing estimates Nielsen reported over the affected period. These efforts will include investigating any impacts to Nielsen’s reporting in local markets, as well as further exploration of the role that certain zero-tuning households may have played in reported viewing estimates. Beyond the general numerical ranges that are noted in this statement, customers are encouraged to seek further detailed information on possible impacts from Nielsen, and how these may relate to their specific audiences.

The MRC also plans to continue to work with Nielsen in its ongoing audit and accreditation process for the National Television service as Nielsen more fully returns to a pre-COVID, business-as- usual state in regard to its field visitation practices and the systems it uses to detect potential metering and other issues that could negatively affect its ability to collect full and accurate viewing data from its panel homes.

To view the MRC’s entire statement in full, please click here:

051021 MRC Industry Communication on Nielsen Natl_Final