Industry News

This is the story of a station whose transmitter for two decades sat on an island — arguably the most famous such “island station,” WCBS 880.

The non-directional 50,000 watt powerhouse station, now owned by Audacy (the former Entercom), has been doing the demanding 24/7 format of news, sports and information for more than 50 years. At times it has been the nation’s most listened to station.

How did its transmitter end up on an island?

The saga of this flagship of the Columbia Broadcasting System started with the cigar business of Samuel Paley in the early 1920s. He owned a distribution company at a time when one of America’s growing male vices was a good cigar — or multiple cigars — a day. He dealt mainly with imports and focused on building brand recognition and brand loyalty to succeed in this emerging business.

Radio was “trending” at the time, the “new big thing.” Ad placement was the bailiwick of Sam’s son William Paley; they started using radio — ads and mentions — to get cigars into as many mouths as possible.

The power and the cost-effectiveness of radio piqued the younger Paley’s interest. Shortly thereafter the CBS epic began when he took over management of a nascent network of 16 stations, the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System.

In short order the Paley family and partners bought the operation. With 51 percent ownership, he ran and now controlled the network.

The file on WCBS starts with a different set of call letters. In 1924 the Atlantic Broadcasting Company applied for a New York station and got the apropos call of WABC. As with many stations of this period, WABC meandered around the dial until in 1932 it wound up on 860 kHz with 50 kW non-directional and a transmitter in Wayne, N.J.

The population of metropolitan New York was expanding along roads and transportation lanes into Brooklyn, via the famous bridge, and New Jersey, via the Holland Tunnel. Those demographic trends and travel corridors influenced the choice of new transmitter sites. Managers of other early stations serving New York City such as WOR and WEAF did likewise.

In 1936, CBS purchased the signal, adding to its station portfolio and distribution network.

In 1940 it sought to move the transmitter from New Jersey to what was then called Little Pea Island, located in lower Long Island Sound and northeast of Manhattan.

CBS bought the island and installed an aux transmitter for testing. The results demonstrated that the seawater conductivity would ensure formidable coverage in New York and New Jersey, and bonus extensive penetration into populous sections of Connecticut.

With the 1941 North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, the station moved from 860 to 880 kHz shortly before the final move.

Little Pea Island — later renamed Columbia Island — is a modest tidal rock of about one acre in size. It became home to an extraordinary engineering installation featuring a 410-foot self-supporting top-loaded tower. In 1941 two underwater cables brought power from New Rochelle to the site, and operations began.

News accounts said CBS spent approximately $500,000 (the equivalent of about $9 million now) to construct the tower, transmitter with backup and the building, including emergency housing for 10 workers.

A headline in the New York Times in October 1941 read: “Radio ‘Island’ Comes to Life; WABC’s New Transmitter Is Called an Engineering Dream — Built on a Man-Made Rock in Long Island Sound.”

Daily boat runs brought a change of operating crew, food, potable water and other creature comforts from the “mainland.” Weather and waves were not always cooperative. The bedrooms, kitchen and other quarters were put to use by stranded crews when circumstances isolated the site.

Federal Radio, a division of IT&T, built the transmitter from its own advanced design. Few details for this rig are available but Federal used it as a model for CBS’s later shortwave station further out Long Island.

Evidently this earlier, similar 50 kW unit was plate modulated. The high voltage supply took three-phase power direct from the power company at 4600 volts using banks of mercury vapor rectifier tubes to make DC. Filaments were transformer-powered unlike earlier motor generator schemes.

Jim Weldon of border blaster fame worked on the Columbia Island station as a Federal Radio engineer.

The official starting date was Oct. 18, 1941, with Kate Smith and Orson Welles, personalities well connected with CBS, participating in the inauguration.

In 1946 the company received approval to change the station call letters from WABC to WCBS.

Up until the late 1950s transmitters were operated on site by engineers who were on duty whenever the station was on air.

The station had a tremendous signal penetration and was the very definition of a “clear-channel, Class A station” that reached well into the heartland of America. Further, the saltwater location provided possibly an even bigger reach throughout the Atlantic, making it the voice of New York City to many far away at sea in war and the following peace.

Like other similar important big stations including WTIC and WCCO, WCBS during World War II had a guard detail to protect the facility from sabotage or disruption.

One story, legendary but probably true, is that in thick fog, the crew once found its way to the island by following the induction field created by the currents flowing in the underwater power cable.

Columbia Island provided a superb signal for CBS, but this rock was an expensive site to operate under any definition.

With the emergence of TV and the dropoff in network radio revenues, CBS explored locations nearby that were easier and more convenient to reach.

Eventually the corporate engineers settled on High Island just off the Bronx shore as a more practical site with a desirable land connection via a sandbar bridge.

After some delay and birthing pains, WCBS moved to that site in early 1962, where it remains today.

WNBC, 660, was diplexed into the tower shortly thereafter when crooner Perry Como decided he wanted the nearby site that NBC was developing for his New York City home! WNBC is now sister station WFAN 660. (It was this site that was knocked off the air by the fatal crash of a private airplane in 1967 on the day before WCBS launched its all-news format.)

Meanwhile, according to news accounts, Columbia Island was purchased by a show-business couple who aired a breakfast conversation show from their home there; then it went through multiple hands including the College of New Rochelle.

Actor Al Sutton eventually acquired it and built a “green” home on the site; you can find online stories about its construction, which is interesting in itself. At this writing, Zillow listed it for sale at $13 million. You can even take a video tour online.

But regrettably the 20-foot-square, 410-foot-high tower is long gone — regrettable, because for any resident the radio reception using that stick would have been extraordinary.

Broadcasting has often found some advantage or necessity to locate transmitter sites on islands. These islands vary from the isolated home of KUHB on frigid St. Paul Island in the  Bearing Sea to the defunct directional AM of WRIZ built on an island of pilings in Biscayne Bay in Florida.

If interested, we’ll visit some other islands in the stream in future columns. Please let us know your favorite or most engaging island station. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

Charles S. Fitch, P.E., is a longtime contributor whose articles about engineering and radio history are a popular recurring feature in Radio World.

The post WCBS: A Radio Island in the Stream appeared first on Radio World.

As people’s habits continue to evolve, with the pandemic accelerating those changes, Broadbeam Media conducted research that reevaluates, in a way, assumptions about the lifestyles and media habits of U.S. consumers.

Among the key finds is that linear TV – a.k.a. broadcast and cable channels – remains the most-often watched media. But, social video is close behind, and just behind that is YouTube and Facebook Watch. What does this mean for the broadcast TV station owner?

Broadbeam Director of Strategy and Research Tess Erickson offers up the answer, and more, in this RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.fm.

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Tess Erickson, Broadbeam Media” on Spreaker.

The author is the director of engineering services for the Alabama Broadcasters Association and chairman of the Alabama SECC. He can be reached at lwilkins@al-ba.com.

The Alabama State Emergency Communications Committee (SECC) is expanding the state’s EAS satellite network from 31 to 48 downlinks. These are strategically located at stations around the state to provide the widest distribution of alerts. There is no cost to the stations in the network.

The system, designed by Global Security Systems (GSS Net) and funded by the Alabama Broadcasters Association, was installed in 2011 to improve redundancy and reduce the amount of “daisy-chain” relay points in the state. The cost of the expansion is being shared by the ABA and the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.

[Read: Stakeholders Comment on Amendments to EAS]

“When an impending hazard is an immediate threat to Alabamians, a reliable alert and warning system is a critical component of state preparedness and mitigation,” said Alabama Emergency Management Agency Director Brian Hastings. “Each opportunity we have to improve warning time and reliability is an opportunity to save lives and property.”

Satellite receivers located at the 48 stations communicate with EAS units via a multicast protocol. Stations are still required to monitor two separate legacy sources. Those with a downlink have four sources to receive tests and alerts: the two legacy monitor sources, GSS Net and IPAWS. The chance of all four being down at the same time is unlikely. Maintenance of the satellite network is managed by the SECC and funded by the ABA. All the stations with downlinks are listed as LP-1.

The network is fully CAP-enabled and includes a secure portal for alert origination by approved agencies. It also is interfaced with the IPAWS network and WEA, which increases redundancy. When a state agency issues an alert, it goes to all downlinks within five seconds. Other features of the origination protocol include sending a test or alert to the entire state or to select counties. This is important for local area alerts and counties around the state’s two nuclear power plants. Recorded audio files can be attached to the alert, eliminating text to speech conversion. The receivers also include audio ports which were utilized during the last National Periodic Test (NPT), relaying the audio from a Sirius/XM receiver feeding the satellite audio channel.

The functionality of the network is constantly evaluated by the SECC which monitors over 150 EAS units around state. While the SECC’s monitoring of receivers does not take the place of the FCC requirements concerning station logs and chief operators, the SECC chairman works with local engineers when an error is observed in their EAS equipment.

ABA President Sharon Tinsley addressed the association’s role in the EAS distribution network, “We view this as one of the most important services we provide stations. In this way, we help equip them to provide alerts to their communities while remaining in compliance with FCC rules. By maintaining and monitoring the distribution network, we can assure operators that alerts will get to their stations.”

The post Alabama Expands EAS Satellite Network appeared first on Radio World.

Congress is pushing the FCC for better emergency alerting in the United States and a review of public comments on the latest proposed improvements shows most stakeholders are focused on the ability of the system to repeat national alerts from the president or FEMA if necessary.

Changes are coming to EAS after the Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement (READI) Act passed Congress earlier this year and mandated emergency alerting reforms in this country.

[Read: Changes Coming in National Alerting]

Several EAS equipment manufacturers support the commission’s efforts to simplify how national level emergency messages are repeated if necessary. The FCC has acknowledged requiring each EAS participant’s EAS equipment to repeat an alert automatically could present technical complications. Such an upgrade would require firmware or software updates to EAS decoders, EAS experts say.

Sage Alerting Systems agrees with the FCC’s approach in the proposal to repeating alerts: “Reminding originators that they can repeat or update any alert they issue by simply reissuing it, and not making changes to the existing EAS implementation. This greatly reduces the cost to all stakeholders that changes of this level to EAS would cause, and leaves control of repeating information in the hands of originators.”

The EAS equipment maker wrote in its comments that even if protocols are modified and new implementations are pushed into the field, any “automatic system of repetitions could make the overall system more fragile.” Sage continued: “If an errant repeating alert is issued, and the originator can’t issue a cancel, what is the method for removing such an alert, especially if issued via legacy EAS?”

Digital Alert Systems is another manufacturer that supports the manual message repeat approach suggested by the FCC: “Wherein an alert originator may choose to repeat an alert by interactively creating a new alert message is likely the simplest course of action to meet the objectives of the legislation. No modification to existing rules would be necessary.”

However, the EAS equipment manufacturer believes the FCC’s recommended approach would still “require substantial orientation and training among alert originators, and potentially commercial alert origination system providers, so that they may fully understand the features and limitations of each dissemination system.”

The only comments submitted by the National Association of Broadcasters are specifically aimed at the proposed mandate from Congress to allow repetition of EAS alerts for national security events.

“NAB appreciates the simplicity of [the FCC’s] approach. We recognize that the FCC could have proposed any number of more complex, prescriptive methods for implementing. However, the FCC has wisely struck upon an efficient proposal that fits within the existing regulatory scheme, leverages the current architecture of EAS, and is not expected to require costly upgrades to broadcasters’ existing EAS equipment and system,” the NAB wrote.

Another key facet of the NPRM is holding states more accountable for managing alerting infrastructure and how State Emergency Communications Committees (SECC) are structured. And whether those requirements should be adopted as part of the commission Part 11, EAS Rules. There are no current rules covering SECCs.

The Washington State SECC wrote on that topic: “It is true that the structure of SECCs is not uniform nationwide. It would be most helpful if this issue could be corrected. It also would be helpful if the commission’s rules clarified its scope of authority regarding enforcement of critical aspects of the state EAS Plans.”

In addition to more state oversight on emergency alerting, SECC committees would be required to meet at least once a year and submit an updated EAS plan annually, which would be accepted or rejected by the FCC. State plans, currently posted on the FCC website, would not be available to the public except for names and contact information for SECC chairs.

The FCC also invited comment on whether it should replace the WEA [Wireless Emergency Alert] system’s “Presidential Alert” with a “National Alert,” which is an alert mobile users cannot turn off.

REC Networks, a low-power FM advocate, pointed to the political divide in the United States as a good reason for the alert name change. “REC does support the name change of Presidential Alerts to National Alerts, as such a change would better represent the purpose of the alert as opposed to the originator of the alert,” the group wrote.

REC Networks continue: “Because we are now in a blue vs. red and us vs. them culture, the use of the term presidential can be seen as continuing to divide this nation, where the term national would remove any perceived political party influence out of the objective of such alerts, which is to inform and unite the nation. In this case, perception is important.”

Another proposed change would require jurisdictions to report false EAS or WEA alerts to the FCC Operations Center when they occur in order to help prevent future false alerts. One commenter expressed concern about potential backlash for doing so: “The FCC considers requiring FEMA administrators or state, tribal, local, or territorial entities report a false EAS activation or WEA alert when they become aware of such a message, whether or not they originated the message. However, there is no definition of what constitutes a false EAS activation or WEA alert,” wrote Adrienne Abbott, Nevada SECC chair.

Abbott cited several recent examples of false EAS activations in her state and concluded: “The FCC must also consider the impact of requiring an EAS participant to report a false activation to their regulatory agency and possibly running the risk of being fined for an action over which they have no control.”

The post Stakeholders Comment on Amendments to EAS appeared first on Radio World.

Despite a late-session rally, Audacy shares declined for the second-straight session, putting new scrutiny on a glowing seal of approval on the company formerly known as Entercom from a key Wall Street investor blog.

BIG NEWS COMES FIRST WHEN YOU FOLLOW RBR+TVBR ON TWITTER!

On average volume, AUD finished Wednesday (4/21) at $4.63, down 5.1% from Monday, a day when shares also saw a significant dip in value.

The decline puts AUD at a place it’s not seen yet — technically.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

LAKEWOOD RANCH, FLA. — In a blow to one of the nation’s biggest broadcast television companies, the FCC‘s Media Bureau on Wednesday (4/21) in a memorandum opinion and order denied a “Good Faith” complaint against Frontier Communications in response to the discontinued distribution of the ABC affiliate focused on Sarasota and Manatee Counties of Florida.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Radio and TV C-Suiters are obsessed with millennials. They’ve been credited with upending entire industries, says an eMarketer analyst, and retail is hardly an exception.

He’s penned a piece on what retailers need to know about attracting and retaining consumers from this consumer group.

It could help you, too.Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Cumulus is planning to convert an AM talk radio station in the New York City suburbs to all-digital transmission next month.

WFAS(AM) in White Plains will use the slogan “Digital AM 1230 HD: New Talk for New York.”

The company filed an application with the FCC that it plans to flip on May 24. Its website carries a notice advising listeners that analog radios will no longer hear the station, but that listeners can find it using an HD receiver, online streaming, mobile app or smart speaker.

“Broadcasting in digital will eliminate annoying static and interference, improve the sound quality to equal FM radio and streaming, and extend the range for clear reception,” it told listeners.

WFAS will use the enhanced mode of digital HD Radio.

The decision by one of the country’s biggest broadcast chains to commit an AM frequency to all-digital is a notable one.

The Federal Communications Commission recently approved the option for stations to take this step. But as Radio World has reported, there are only a couple of other stations on the air in the country with all-digital AM, including the Hubbard station WWFD in Maryland that has been a kind of national test case.

Cumulus declined to comment on its plans for the station in response to a query from Radio World.

In Florida, broadcaster NIA Broadcasting, run by Neal Ardman, had flipped one station, WMGG, and told Radio World that as of today he is waiting on a transmitter with plans to flip WTMP, which is also in the Tampa area.

The post A Cumulus AM Near NYC Will Go All-Digital appeared first on Radio World.

The New York Festivals Radio Awards has named content creators and “global storytellers” Jennie Caltaldo, Helen Shaw, and Carole Zimmer to the Radio Awards Advisory Board.

The 13-member Advisory Council, formed in 2010, is comprised of content creators and thought-leaders within the radio industry. They provide NYF’s Radio Awards competition with ongoing knowledge of emerging trends and critical industry insights.

Cataldo is the VP of Programming and a radio and podcast producer for BMP Audio, owned by Ben Manilla.

Shaw is the Founder/Director of Ireland-based Athena Media. She ran RTE Radio for five years, launching RTE Lyric fm and leading RTE’s digital transformation before taking a sabbatical at Harvard University.

Zimmer is a freelance reporter for The New York Times and host of the Now What? podcast. Her resume includes stints at Bloomberg, NPR, and the CBS and NBC radio networks.

The Radio Awards receives entries from radio stations, networks, and independent producers from over 30 countries around the globe. The mission of the competition is to honor the achievements of the men and women who make up the global audio storytelling community.

This year is the eleventh year of NYF’s strategic partnership with NAB Show, the ultimate marketplace for people passionate about media, entertainment, and technology. All attendees will have access to the multi-day NAB event which is the world’s largest media entertainment marketplace taking place in October 2021.

The deadline to enter the 2021 Radio Awards competition is May 20. To enter please visit HERE

Across the Southeast’s biggest emerging Hispanic markets, perhaps no company has invested more in reaching this Spanish-language audio content consumer of late than Norsan Media.

Now, it is grabbing what will become its third radio brand in the largest city in the U.S. by square miles.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)