Industry News

In year’s past, April was the month where the media industry gathered in Las Vegas for the NAB Show. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that last happened in 2019.

While a NAB Show is planned for October 2021, a digitally delivered “NAB Show Premiere” kicked off Monday as a forum for innovation and discussion hub for radio and TV station owners in continuous transition as local digital nibbles away at ad dollars and localism’s balance with budget realities continues to create challenges for some broadcast companies.

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Spring is here, and with the housing market on fire in locales as diverse as Ulster County, N.Y. and Palm Beach County, Fla., the need for new furniture is growing.

One retailer is using spot television to court these potential customers.

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It boasts 6,000 watts of power, and provides “Today’s Best Music” to communities due west of Midland, Mich.

Now, it is trading hands, and Norm McKee and Michael Chires are the two individuals tied to the buyer.

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Bill Bowin, CSRE/CBNT, chief engineer at North American Broadcasting, writes that we’ve “beaten to death’” the topic of condensate drains over the last six months, but Bill has one more trick that he has used on rooftop units that he wanted to share.

Rooftop units may be located far from the roof drains and require a very long piece of PVC drain pipe.

Sometimes, installers don’t use glue so the PVC junctions can be disassembled and cleaned later. But Bill finds that this is not a good idea. Wind on the roof may move the long horizontal runs of PVC around, and, if the fittings are not glued, joints can pull apart.

An alternative to glue is to use pipe unions, so the drains can be taken apart, cleaned and reassembled. Bill provided a closeup of the junctions at one of his sites; note each section can be easily removed.

You’ll also find a number of online videos on this subject from manufacturers like Flexible PVC.

Consulting engineer and frequent Workbench contributor Frank Hertel of Newman-Kees RF Measurements & Engineering spotted this interesting device.

The SensiML is a sensor tile that can be affixed to a fan or motor. It’s a predictive maintenance device that gives a condition readout on a smartphone.

Watch a very interesting demo of it at https://youtu.be/qad5dFzqdI8.

Using the sensors in the battery-powered STMicro SensorTile, which is mounted atop the fan, SensiML shows how its AutoML software can produce autonomous predictive fault models. The device’s sensing algorithms can be built by developers with little to no data science expertise using the SensiML Analytics Toolkit.

Remember the failed blower fan on the BE transmitter that was causing overheating, discussed in the Feb. 17 issue? A sensor such as this, mounted on each fan, would alert the engineer of failure, loose mounting or blade obstruction.

Visit https://sensiml.com/products for more information. A headline on that page gives a sense of their purpose: “Transform your IoT device from merely connected to truly intelligent.”

Louis Judson was the first of many to respond to our question about a flaw in the Seekers’ Abbey Road video discussed in the Feb. 17 issue.

Louis, who works as an audio engineer for Intuitive Audio in the Bay Area, notes that the percussion is not in the room and apparently not on the multi-track either.

He also noted the interesting mic position on Judith Durham. “Assuming it is side address, why have the mic below her and pointing up? That would invite ‘plosives’ — better above the singer, pointing slightly down.”

But what was the “flaw” I referred to? Louis spotted it as well. Watch when the engineer starts the Ampex recorder. He presses what appears to be the “stop” pushbutton and doesn’t depress the “record” pushbutton.

Okay, picky-picky! Still a fun video to watch.

John Bisset has spent over 50 years in the broadcasting industry and is still learning. He handles western U.S. radio sales for the Telos Alliance, holds SBE CPBE certification is a past recipient of the SBE’s Educator of the Year Award. Workbench submissions are encouraged and qualify for SBE recertification. Email johnpbisset@gmail.com.

The post Pipe Unions Can Solve PVC Problems appeared first on Radio World.

PSAs and podcast promotion, along with iHeartRadio content plugs, permeate the latest Spot Ten Radio report from iHeart-owned Media Monitors.

What brands stick about in-between all of those efforts? Indeed, there’s a big return for the nation’s largest do-it-yourself home improvement chain.

That’s The Home Depot, which storms back into the Spot Ten this week thanks to nearly 41,000 spot plays, as detected by Media Monitors.

Otherwise, job search site Indeed is in power mode, with nearly 56,500 spot plays seen as the employment market is heating up, based on RBR+TVBR monitors.

Also of note: Progressive trumps GEICO in the auto insurance category once again.

Streaming service provider SurferNetwork has implemented RadioDNS to support radio stations that want to participate in hybrid radio.

“With so many features, such as ‘follow on’ that dynamically switches between broadcast and internet radio, and enhanced ‘now playing’ information, hybrid radio is the way of the future,” the New Jersey-based company stated in a press release.

[Read: Power Up Hybrid Radio With RadioDNS].

WEZF(FM) Star 92.9 in Colchester, Vt., owned by Vox AM/FM, is one of the first stations to get a DNS hookup through SurferNetwork. Jamie Dennis is chief engineer and director of IT for Vox AM/FM.

Nick Piggott, project director at RadioDNS, was quoted in the SurferNetwork announcement saying, “RadioDNS is looking forward to more stations across the U.S. adopting our standards in the future.”

Bill Grywalski is president and co-founder of SurferNetwork.

Send news for Who’s Buying What to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post SurferNetwork Partners With RadioDNS appeared first on Radio World.

First, it was a branding agreement via a long-term licensing deal.

Now, Bally’s Corporation has signaled its ready affirm an additional accord with Sinclair Broadcast Group that makes it a key content collaboration partner for the regional sports networks formerly owned by FOX.

And, you’ll never guess who offered comments in his role as Bally’s Corp. Board Chairman. That would be the man who seeks greater control of TEGNA.

BE SURE TO FOLLOW RBR+TVBR ON FACEBOOK!

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MIAMI — A pocketful of legal knowledge crafted in the Sunshine State has just landed at the NAB.

With a J.D. from Florida International University’s College of Law in Miami and degrees from Orlando’s University of Central Florida, this woman has just joined the office of Government Relations at the U.S. media industry’s biggest lobbying association.

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When NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landed on February 18, it was an exciting triumph; after all, it’s not every day that NASA sends something more than 134 million miles across space and has everything go to plan. Perseverance is there to collect rock and sediment samples for future return to Earth, search for signs of ancient microbial life, and more, but one of its first successes was to simply record and send back audio from the Red planet for the first time.

NASA opted to use an off-the-shelf DPA d:dicate 4006 omnidirectional mic in tandem with an MMA-A digital audio interface and MMP-G modular active cable. The mic itself was stripped down to its bare essentials, said René Mørch, product manager, DPA Microphones, in order to reduce its weight as much as possible. “The microphone and the MMP-G are housed outside on the port side, while the MMA-A is safe in the rover itself so that it will not go through the outside temperature changes.”

There are other factors affecting the microphone’s recordings besides the temperature. Between the extreme temperatures and the thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, higher frequencies attenuate more quickly, and there’s also a lower speed of sound, roughly 540 mph versus a typical 760 mph on Earth.

[Read: Miking Up Mars]

The 4006 mic was put on the rover to record audio of the descent, like friction from the atmosphere and dust thrown around by the craft’s thrusters, but there was no certainty that it would survive the trip. Ironically, the mic wasn’t able to collect sound from the landing, but has since captured and sent back audio from the planet’s surface. Those initial audio files were sent to DPA’s engineering team for processing, and then back to NASA for final analyzing and publishing.

If it seems surprising that NASA never recorded Mars before, it’s not for lack of trying. Some previous landers captured some wind noise via seismometers with minimal success, while other landers that had microphones either crashed or NASA opted to leave the mic off for fear of affecting the landing. Perseverance’s recordings, then, mark the first proper audio to be captured on Mars.

We can look forward to hearing more from Perseverance in the months to come, too, as its mission is just getting started. The rover will spend at least one Mars year — roughly two Earth years — exploring the landing site as it sends back data and the gusty, windy sounds of the Red Planet.

The post Recording the Red Planet appeared first on Radio World.

Tracy Johnson Media Group announced the availability in North America of AudioLogger, a recently introduced software product that can be used to record “any radio station in the world.”

The company, based in San Diego, said approximately 100 stations in the United States and Canada are using the software. It says AudioLogger is intended to be used for competitive monitoring, accessing air checks and video publishing, among other things.

As part of Radio World’s “Supply Side” series with manufacturers, we asked Tracy Johnson about it.

Radio World: What is AudioLogger?
Tracy Johnson: AudioLogger allows users to record any radio station in the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, then edit, manage, export and share that audio in many ways.

RW: And what does Tracy Johnson Media Group do?
Johnson: My main business focus is consulting radio stations on talent coaching, programming and marketing. We also have a show prep service, Personality Magnet; a premium content site for programmers, personalities and marketing pros, Insiders Radio Network; an air check coaching service, AirCheckCoaching.com; and have now launched AudioLogger.

RW: What is your business involvement with the product?
Johnson: We are the exclusive dealers for North America and have been intimately involved with the creator through the development of the app. The software has been beta testing in the market and is now in general release. Tracy Johnson Media Group is the first dealer in the network, but there are likely to be more added to represent other parts of the world in the coming months.

RW: Who is the designer in Belgium?
Johnson: The company that designed the software is Rute98, which is headed by programmer Alain Claes. I’ve known Alain for many years as a colleague and client.

RW: What is unique about AudioLogger that other products in this sector don’t do?
Johnson: There are several unique aspects. First, it’s so easy to use. All of the functions are intuitive and take place on one dashboard. Second is the ability to record any station in the world, regardless of location. Third is the ability to export audio to video instantly. And fourth is the cost. AudioLogger starts at just $9.99 per month.

RW: What other features should we know about?
Johnson: There are dozens of features, but some of the most popular include the ability to download the music log and most-played list of any station. We’ve already had two new clients tell us they plan to drop their current music monitoring service. The video to audio export feature is a major timesaver. It’s so easy to create an online video. A digital manager told me they would be saving up to four hours a day in their department with this feature. And a user can export any segment to a branded landing page, then invite listeners, winners or advertisers to hear and share the segment.

RW: What does it cost?
Johnson: There are three subscription tiers ranging from $9.99 to $49.99 per month. The difference between the tiers is the features unlocked at each level. Additional users and stations can be added to any subscription for a modest fee.

RW: What else should we know?
Johnson: I’ve been using AudioLogger for several months and I can’t imagine my life without it. It really is the world’s smartest, most affordable audio logging system with benefits for every department in any radio station, from sales to programming to promotions to the digital team to engineering and air talent.

The post AudioLogger Is “Smart and Affordable” Logging appeared first on Radio World.