Industry News

William W. McCutchen III a decade ago was described by the Waco Tribune-Herald as “the force behind Waco Entertainment Group LLC.

Based in the Los Angeles area, McCutchen in January 2010 acquired two Spanish-language FMs for $1.95 million from the now-defunct Border Media Partners. It was added to an FM in Sherman, Tex.

An Abilene property was also added to the mix. Now, the FCC has given its blessing on its sale.

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Vic Michael has been an active buyer of noncommercial low-powered and full-power facilities across the U.S. West, and in Hawaii, of late.

Now, he’s agreed to buy an expanded-band AM with an all-important FM translator at 94.7 MHz.

It serves much of the Cheyenne, Wyo., market.

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She’s widely known as a Partner with Wiley Rein LLP’s Washington, D.C. office, where she serves as Co-Chair of the firm’s Telecom, Media & Technology group.

Now, this legal eagle is tacking on the title of Secretary and General Counsel of the Broadcasters Foundation of America.

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Jörg Fries was named the new vice president of Broadcast, Amplifier & Media Solutions for manufacturer Rohde & Schwarz. He replaces Cornelius Heinemann, who has taken another role at the company outside of the Broadcast & Media Division.

He has been with the company for 25 years, most recently in the Wireless Multimedia segment.

[Read: R&S Celebrates Istanbul Tower Project]

“His appointment to head Rohde & Schwarz’s Broadcast and Media Division supports the strategic shift in its approach towards its core markets and reinforces the company’s intention of becoming more disruptive in production, delivery and distribution workflow management and software-centric products and systems,” the company stated.

In the press release, Fries said that among the most important trends in the market right now is “the rise of remote production based on a flexible, software-centric approach.” He said the company is focused on “increasing production efficiency in remote architectures, standardizing new workflows and establishing new technologies to enable a seamless transition to remote production.”

Send business announcements for our People News coverage to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Fries to Head R&S Media Division appeared first on Radio World.

TORONTO — A provider of digital products to the radio industry has just added a longtime broadcast sales professional known for stops in the Big Apple as its Managing Director for Advertising and Research.

He’ll be tasked with ensuring that SoCast broadcast partners get the sales training, support and tools they need to become digital advertising experts.

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In India, where regulators have been working toward recommending a standard to digitize the FM band, Digital Radio Mondiale is presenting its case.

DRM has been conducting trials and demos since late February, when a digital radio transmission with three audio services and Journaline text information went live in Delhi alongside existing analog FM transmissions.

“The transmission is part of an extensive trial and demonstration of DRM conducted by Prasar Bharati and its radio arm, All India Radio (AIR), with the help of the DRM Consortium and its local and international members,” DRM stated in a press release. “The test was officially launched on Feb. 24 and 25 at the headquarters of All India Radio in New Delhi.”

The test was requested by regulator TRAI and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting.

DRM officials said a presentation to AIR’s committee showed DRM in the FM band on various car radios including line-fit, aftermarket, standalone receivers, mobile phones and tablets. A head unit from Mobis, upgraded for FM via firmware, was installed in a Hyundai Verna. DRM said, “The reception was found to be excellent for over 15 km radius with just 100 W of DRM power in digital,” including  5.1 surround sound test broadcasts on DRM.

The DRM for India Automotive Group wrote, “A whole automotive eco-system has evolved in India around DRM. It includes chipset manufacturers like NXP, Tier-1 receiver manufacturers and car brands like Hyundai, Maruti-Suzuki, Toyota and others. These companies have invested large amounts of money in digitizing car radios based on the DRM technology.”

It said 2.5 million cars on Indian roads have DRM receivers. “The India trial has been an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how the existing DRM transmissions in the former AM bands can be upgraded to support DRM in both AM and FM bands by a simple receiver firmware update (no change in hardware needed).”

Chairman Ruxandra Obreja said she hoped the results will “convince the Indian authorities that DRM is the right standard to upgrade All India Radio’s already established country-wide DRM services in the AM bands to the FM band.”

Consortium Vice President Alexander Zink listed the involvement of Technomedia for logistics and signal measurement; Gospell and StarWaves for providing consumer receivers; and Fraunhofer IIS, Nautel and RFmondial for content, transmission and professional monitoring receivers. NXP, Hyundai Mobis and Harman also supported the demo with FM-band upgrades to existing automotive DRM receivers.

The trial is to continue in Jaipur, where DRM hopes to demonstrate a transmission of up to six signals, which would provide up to 18 audio programs and six Journaline services from one FM band transmitter.

Xperi’s HD Radio FM system has also been tested in New Delhi.

The post DRM Makes Its Pitch for India’s FM Band appeared first on Radio World.

A U.S. patent has been issued to an independent media metrics technology company devoted to measuring individual media viewing behavior at “their most granular level.”

For those dissatisfied with the products offered by Nielsen, ComScore and others in the space, the patent is certainly attention-grabbing.

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Entercom has added to its podcast business with an acquisition of Podcorn. It says the acquisition will help advertisers “tap into the hard-to-access micro-influencer community.”

Podcorn calls itself a marketplace of podcast influencers, “connecting unique voices to unique brands for native advertising.”

The transaction values Podcorn at $22.5 million, with an upfront cash payment of $14.6 million and a performance-based earnout over three years. Founders Agnes Kozera and David Kierzkowski will stay on.

Entercom head David Field said the deal “builds on our position as one of the country’s three largest podcast publishers and the #1 creator of original, premium audio content.”

The big media company also owns Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Studios in the podcast space.

Chief Digital Officer J.D. Crowley noted the explosion in podcast programming over the past two years but said only a fraction of those shows generate revenue.

Field said Podcorn makes it easier for brands to collaborate with targeted creators. According to Entercom, this marketplace includes 40,000 creators and an infrastructure for enabling client relationships

“The acquisition fills an industry-wide gap in helping brands of all sizes tap into the hard-to-access micro-influencer community.”

Among the benefits Entercom cites to advertisers are “highly immersive, native formats,” “host reads at scale” and “workspaces where they can craft the ideal relationship and explore deeper formats including reviews, unboxings, guest interviews, panels and topical discussions, which provide true listener value.”

The post With Podcorn, Entercom Chases “Micro-Influencers” appeared first on Radio World.

They’ve long been associated with some of the nation’s leading music radio stations.

Now, they’ve been added to the programming team at Gary Spurgeon-led Clear Media Network.

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The Dallas-based syndicator now counts Smokey Rivers and Tom Calococci among its programming staff.

Rivers will be consulting and programming the Adult Contemporary and Oldies formats.

He’s a former VP of AC Programming for CBS Radio, served as a VP/Programming in Phoenix for iHeartMedia and circa 1984-85 was the Program Director for WAVA-FM in Washington, D.C., a Top 40 station where he butted heads with then-nighttime air personality Don Geronimo prior to his morning pairing with Mike O’Meara.

“Clear Media Network is providing a turnkey solution for broadcasters to easily deliver a quality audio product,” Rivers said. “That’s my kind of thing.”

Meanwhile, Calococci will consult and program Clear Media Network’s Classic Hits format.

His extensive programming career includes successful programming stops at WFLC-FM in Miami, which was converted from Hot AC “Coast 97-3” to Top 40 “Hits 97-3”; crosstown WPOW-FM in Miami; Urban KKBT-FM in Los Angeles, and pioneering Rhythmic Top 40 WERQ-FM “92Q” in Baltimore some 30 years ago. He is also responsible for Content Creation for Sheet Happens Prep services.

Calococci said,  “As the media landscape continues to evolve, we must adjust to the ever changing demands of listeners and find ways to provide great content for radio stations. I am looking forward to being a part of providing a great resource for our Network clients.”

Both Calococci and Rivers report to President of Programming Mark McCray.

Clear Media Network offers 11 formats to broadcast radio across the U.S.