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GLOBE NEWSWIRE

HC2 Holdings Inc., the owner of low-power TV stations across the U.S. formerly led by Philip Falcone, confirmed Friday (1/22) that it is seeking to refinance all of its existing 11.500% senior secured notes due 2021 and a portion of existing 7.5% convertible senior notes due 2022.

As part of the proposed refinancing transactions, HC2 intends to, among other things, issue new senior secured notes and extend the maturity of a portion of its existing convertible notes by exchanging such existing convertible notes for new convertible notes.

The proceeds from the issuance of the new senior secured notes are expected to be used, together with other funds, to redeem in full HC2’s existing senior secured notes, repay the outstanding indebtedness under its revolving credit agreement, and pay related fees and expenses.

The proposed refinancing transactions are subject to market and other conditions, and the Company cannot make any assurances that it will complete any such transactions, in whole or in part, or as to the amount or timing of any such transactions.

The new senior secured notes and the new convertible notes will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, any state securities laws or the securities laws of any other jurisdiction, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration. The new senior secured notes are expected to be offered and sold only to persons reasonably believed to be qualified institutional buyers in accordance with Rule 144A under the Securities Act and to non-U.S. persons outside the United States in reliance on Regulation S under the Securities Act, and the new convertible notes are expected to be issued in one or more private exchange transactions pursuant to an exemption from registration under the Securities Act.

DAYTON, OHIO — Two weeks ago, in the evening hours, FOX affiliates KAYU-28 in Spokane, WHBQ-13 in Memphis and KOKI-23 in Tulsa; ABC affiliate KLAX-31 in Alexandria; the CBS and NBC affiliates serving Eureka-Arcata, Calif.; and the ABC, FOX, NBC and CBS stations serving Greenwood and Greenville, Miss., were all blocked from Suddenlink subscribers.

The reason: the MVPD owned by Altice USA couldn’t reach a fresh retransmission fee agreement with Apollo Global Management-controlled Cox Media Group for stations once owned by Brian Brady‘s Northwest Broadcasting.

That “blackout” continues. Now, a big CMG station in its founding DMA has a carriage problem. And, it is with a tiny service provider.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) has confirmed that the Committee’s formal organizational meeting for the 117th Congress will take place, remotely, on Tuesday.

The session will get underway at 1pm as a virtual event, owning to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

During the meeting, the Energy and Commerce Committee will adopt the Committee Rules and its six standing subcommittees, as well as announce subcommittee chairs, ranking members, and members.

This meeting will take place remotely via Cisco Webex video conferencing. Members of the public may view the meeting via live webcast accessible on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s website. Please note the webcast will not be available until the meeting begins.

Additional information for this meeting, including the live webcast, will be posted here as they become available.

By Bruce Roberts
Special to RBR+TVBR

When stay-at-home orders first went into effect across the globe, radio broadcasters found themselves facing a changed landscape. Many stations were concerned about the hit they would take with the rise in remote work and the loss of drive-time listenership.

Even with significantly fewer people commuting to and from work every day, a Nielsen survey conducted in Spring 2020 found that 83% of Americans were listening to as much or more radio than they were before the pandemic.

Radio audiences are growing, and they’re as engaged as ever, but they’re also listening in new ways. Audio streaming services like Spotify and Pandora had already sparked a shift toward digital streaming and on-demand, but as more individuals tune in using smart speakers or mobile devices rather than car radios, digital platforms are becoming increasingly popular with audiences and increasingly important for broadcasters.

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The author at work in the Earforce studio.

AMSTERDAM — Earforce is a recording studio that handles a range of tasks. We do mixing and post-production, and periodically record music for use in documentaries and other media.

In the past few years, however, podcasting has become a large part of our business. We produce the sound and make sure everything sounds beautiful, but we also help businesses and other podcasters develop content.

Our goal is to help our clients reach their audience, and also share the stories they want to tell.

As an audio engineer, my responsibilities have extended as we’ve gotten more into podcasting. I have always done a lot of recording and audio production, but these days I also produce podcasts and help write scripts, in addition to whatever else needs to be done.

Many of our podcasts involve interviews and other conversations that we need to record. When COVID hit in March, we had a whole string of podcasts that were cancelled because the country went into lockdown. Many of our podcasters were afraid to come to the studio, or their companies wouldn’t allow them to visit.

We obtained the Comrex Opal phone/IP audio interface because of the pandemic, and it has allowed us to continue producing content.

We use it to allow guests to call into a podcast from their laptops, and sometimes we’ll also record conversations over a connection between two Opal units. Additionally, we’ll use it to monitor voiceover recording for commercial and ad reads — it allows us and our customers to listen in high quality and give notes while our voiceover talent is recording.

Opal is about as easy as a solution like this could be to use. Basically, you just click on a link, then click “connect” and it works.

We still sometimes have difficulty getting interview guests to understand it, but we also have difficulty getting people to plug in their headphones. Nothing is truly foolproof. I have a routine where I remind people to check their connections and remind them to click the button, and even though some handholding is required, we can always eventually get it to work.

Opal helped us keep some of our podcasts recording, that would have otherwise been cancelled. We do a podcast with the pharmaceutical company Springer Healthcare called “The GP in Corona Times” (title translated from Dutch). We called general practitioners throughout the Netherlands using the Opal, and recorded their stories about COVID and their patients. The audio quality was significantly better than it would have been were we to use a phone or Zoom (or a similar streaming service). Our host was also connected to the studio from home with Opal. We couldn’t have produced it without that equipment.

I think Opal is definitely worth buying. The price point is low enough that it pays for itself. Good audio is so important — if you hear something in high quality, even if you don’t know anything about audio, it just feels better to listen to. Especially these days with everything going remotely, the Opal definitely comes in handy.

For information, contact Chris Crump at Comrex in Massachusetts at 1-978-784-1776 or visit www.comrex.com.

Radio World User Reports are testimonial articles intended to help readers understand why a colleague chose a particular product to solve a technical situation.

 

The post User Report: Earforce Keeps Interviews Rolling With Opal appeared first on Radio World.

In May 2018, a group led by Fletcher Ford agreed to purchase an AM in Canton, Ill., and its FM translator as part of a deal for a Class B FM.

It’s a facility, now owned by another licensee, that was owned for 46 years by the late Charles E. Wright Jr., who passed away in January 2012 and had sold the facility in 1999.

Now, this AM is on the move again.

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In July 2009, Fred Dockins expanded his media holdings in a significant way. With one Florida FM in his possession, he moved forward with the acquisition of a five-station group in rural southeast Missouri from Randolph Miller’s Southern Star Broadcasting.

Now, Dockins is adding to his Show-Me State holdings, and it’s thanks to a “joyful” deal.

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Ron Gangwer, left, with Steve Tuzeneu

From our People News page: Connecticut station WIHS(FM) recently honored Ron Gangwer for his service to the station over 20 years.

Gangwer is program manager and an on-air host; he joined the staff of the non-profit Christian outlet in 2001.

Gangwer is a former sixth-grade teacher and school administrator. Steve Tuzeneu, at right in photo, is general manager of WIHS, the call letters of which stand for “We’re in His Service.”) The station is owned by Connecticut Radio Fellowship and emphasizes “live and local” content.

Send People News items to radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

 

The post Gangwer Honored by WIHS appeared first on Radio World.

Radioline announced the launch of a radio app that’s compatible with the new premium Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro smartwatch. It said it is the first such app outside China.

“The application offers a wide range of content to listen, with real-time control of the mobile app from the watch, in a simple and elegant UI,” the organization said in a press release.

“With one touch, users can easily start /stop the program and save their preferred shows, podcasts or stations in the favorites. They can also control the volume and see the station or podcast name.”

The announcement was made by Xavier Filliol, COO of Radioline, and Rico Zhang, president of the smart wearable and health products line at Huawei Consumer Business Group.

Radioline, part of Baracoda Co., was founded in 2012 as an online radio service and now promotes itself as a global radio provider with access to 90,000 radio stations plus podcasts. Its content is distributed through a range of partners. Its content is consumed on devices such as smartphones, PCs, connected TVs and certain in-car digital products.

Radioline also recently partnered with Swisscom to offer an Android radio application on the latter’s blue TV Platform.

 

The post Radioline Adds App for Huawei Watch GT2 Pro appeared first on Radio World.

The controversial donation-based broadcast TV service provider that says it is a non-profit — thus avoiding retransmission consent negotiations — has debuted in two more markets in the U.S. Southeast.

One is a major banking hub and home to Bank of America. The other is home to the nation’s biggest collection of theme parks.

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According to MoffettNathanson Senior Analyst Michael Nathanson, “It should be clear that the COVID-19 pandemic, which has ravaged much of the world for the past 12 months, has accelerated the adoption of streaming services.”

And, as summer turned to autumn and fall turned to winter, Americans once again found themselves in front of their screens with few linear options — aside from live news and sports.

In contrast, Nathanson says, consumers had access to “an unlimited bouquet of
increasingly excellent streaming content choices.”

Is broadcast TV losing the content war to “SVOD”?

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Ross Video will host a Webinar on Tuesday (1/26) which will talk about new software-based audio solutions for broadcasters.

Orban and Nielsen partnered with Ross to add specific elements to this platform that bring a new set of tools to radio broadcasters.

This event is scheduled for 11am Eastern/8am Pacific on Tuesday.

It sees the Signal Processing Team discuss in detail Ross Video’s infrastructure products for Cloud Technologies, IP Networks and SDI Infrastructure.

The Ross team will also be joined by representatives Orban Labs and The Nielsen Company to discuss cloud-based signal processing infrastructure.

“The broadcast community, including radio, is moving steadily toward software-based solutions for the broadcast air chain,” says Orban VP/Business Development Mike Pappas. “The new softGear platform from Ross, which incorporates next-generation Orban processing along with Nielsen audio watermark encoding and Dolby audio, brings powerful tools to Radio broadcasters. It’s available now.”

Pappas adds that one launch customer “has ordered hundreds of channels.”

Product introductions and upgrades to Ross’ Signal Processing portfolio will also be shared on the Tuesday webinar.

To register, click here: https://www.rossvideo.com/live

 

Beasley Broadcast Group’s wholly owned subsidiary Beasley Mezzanine Holdings on Thursday (9/21) priced its offering of $300 million in aggregate principal amount of 8.625% Senior Secured Notes due 2026.

The size of the offering was increased by $20 million from the previously announced offering size of $280 million.

The Notes were offered to persons “reasonably believed” to be qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and outside the United States in compliance with Regulation S under the Securities Act.

Beasley expects to use the net proceeds of this offering to repay in full existing indebtedness under the company’s senior secured credit facilities and certain other indebtedness, with remaining proceeds to be added to the Issuer’s balance sheet and used for general corporate purposes.

Translation: It is a new debt for old debt transaction.

The Notes offering is expected to close on February 2.

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