Industry News

JACKSONVILLE — The Market President for iHeartMedia’s Jacksonville, Fla., station group has just been elevated to a key corporate-level sales post at the audio media company.

It’s a role that will see her report to Multi-Market Partnerships President Julie Donohue, as this 20-year iHeart vet takes on the new role of SVP/Multicultural Sales for the Markets Group.

Taking the role: Nicky Sparrow.

With the promotion, Sparrow will lead multicultural ad sales revenue for the Markets Group division. “Sparrow will apply her deep knowledge of multicultural audiences and strong relationships with multicultural ad agencies and brands to build, drive, influence and execute strategic multicultural initiatives across the iHeartMedia sales organization,” iHeartMedia said.

Donohue commented, “Nicky continues to demonstrate strong leadership skills and with her expansive experience, expertise in sales and vision for creating an innovative, strategic focus on our multicultural audiences, I am fully confident she is the person to lead our multicultural sales efforts.”

Sparrow says she’s “thrilled for this next step in my career. I’ve been with iHeartMedia for more than 20 years, and I can’t wait to take my experience and strong relationships with partners and advertisers to further deliver and create innovative and effective multicultural opportunities for our consumers that will not only grow our portfolio of assets, but represent and truly connect with our diverse audiences.”

Sparrow began her career at iHeartMedia as a sales representative in 1999, in Tupelo, Ms. She later rose to General Sales Manager, and in 2005 moved to Tallahassee to become Director of Sales. In 2008, she was promoted to GSM of iHeart/Jacksonville. After shifting to Memphis in 2011 as DOS and, later, taking the SVP role for iHeart/New Orleans, she returned to Jacksonville in January 2016 to serve as Market President.

In November 1993, Gary Cocola — the Fresno-based digital multicast pioneer — acquired a low-power TV station in one of the fastest-growing markets in the U.S. West.

Now, Cocola is parting ways with the LPTV station, the Azteca América affiliate in this Mountain West locale.

The buyer? Lawrence Weissman and Ted Achilles own it.

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Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., is a major U.S. Armed Forces training site, nestled within the Ozarks of Mid-Missouri.

The closest city of size is St. Robert, and a Class C3 FM playing Adult Contemporary Country favorites is trading hands.

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Two leading minority organizations are calling for the creation of a test pilot program before the FCC makes any decision about geo-targeting via FM boosters.

The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters made the recommendation to the Federal Communications Commission, which has been taking industry input about the geo-targeting concept proposed by technology company Geo-Broadcast Solutions.

Advocates of the GBS idea have cited potential benefits to minority broadcasters and businesses among its selling points; and MMTC and NABOB have been among those expressing support for the concept.

But the National Association of Broadcasters and several large radio groups expressed strong opposition in the recent comment period, saying that geo-targeting could have serious technical and financial implications for the FM business model.

Now Maurita Coley and David Honig, who are respectively president/CEO and president emeritus/senior advisor of MMTC, and James Winston, president/CEO of NABOB, have told the FCC, “The NPRM contains 103 questions. Fortunately, many of the 103 questions may be answerable with engineering and economic data that could be produced by a pilot test of the technology.”

They encouraged “the leading parties” to collaborate to design and execute a pilot with at least three markets: urban, suburban and rural.

“We recommend that the pilot be designed to address all of the questions raised in the comment round of this proceeding, including the impact of the technology on local advertising markets. We encourage the commission to help unite all parties in the quest for a universally beneficial result.”

[Related: “ZoneCasting Will Level the Playing Field for Radio”]

The post Minority Groups Call for a Geo-Targeting Pilot appeared first on Radio World.

The Federal Communications Commission has a couple of reminders for U.S. radio and TV stations.

First, its Enforcement Bureau has issued an advisory to broadcasters about their obligations for sponsorship identification.

“Broadcasters who air paid-for programming without disclosing the program’s sponsor can mislead the public and promote unfair competition,” the bureau reminded them in a public announcement.

“Such non-disclosures foster the perception by the public that a paid announcement is the station’s editorial content, while concealing that the station is being paid by a third party to promote a particular message. That impression can also give undisclosed sponsors an unfair advantage over competitors whose paid programming is properly disclosed as paid-for material.”

The document summarizes broadcasters’ disclosure obligations and provides more information; read it here.

Second, with the broadcast license renewal cycle moving ahead, the Media Bureau is reminding commercial broadcast licensees that every “sharing” agreement about the operation of the station must be retained in their online public files.

That includes lease of airtime, joint sale of advertising or sharing of operational services.

“Commercial broadcast licensees have a longstanding obligation to place in their OPIF, within 30 days of their execution, public copies of every agreement or contract involving the lease of airtime on a licensee’s station (or of another station by the licensee) and every agreement for the joint sale of advertising time involving the station,” the bureau wrote.

It emphasized that these requirements are based on the substance of an agreement rather than its title, even if it is not specifically labeled as a “Time Brokerage Agreement,” “Local Marketing Agreement,” “Joint Sales Agreement” or “Shared Services Agreement.”

Broadcasters have seen recently that the FCC is well aware of what is in their online public files, given the announcements in recent months of numerous consent decrees involving public and political files not being kept current.

The post FCC Issues Enforcement Reminders appeared first on Radio World.

The final three months of 2020 were robust for many publicly traded media companies. Political advertising, along with digital revenue growth, were key catalysts at the broadcast station owners experiencing growth in Q4.

Unfortunately, Saga Communications, the owner of radio stations in mid-sized and small markets across the U.S., can’t be included in the list of fourth-quarter media industry fiscal success stories.

With the COVID-19 pandemic’s wrath continuing to strangle Saga across its markets, net operating revenue was down to $28.75 million in Q4 2020, from $31.98 million a year ago.

The good news: Sequential quarterly revenue improvement is being seen, as the $28 million bests the Q3 2020 total by 19.1%, Saga says.

Saga didn’t mention that Q3 net revenue fell 22.8% year-over-year.

While operating revenue was down in Q4, so was the company’s station operating expenses, as belt-tightening reduced them to $21.12 million from $23.05 million.

Nevertheless, net income fell to $2.27 million ($0.38 per share), from $3.84 million ($0.64).

Yes, income tax expense impacts this, but even before that expense, net income was off, dipping to $4.95 million from $5.4 million.

Free Cash Flow declined to $5.13 million from $5.43 million in Q4.

Radio Television Malaysia has installed six Calrec Type R radio broadcast consoles in its PerlisFM regional studio facility as part of a substantial upgrade project, including AoIP networking.

A release adds, “The facility is now the reference for all future upgrades to RTM’s other regional stations.”

The release says that the Type R in some studios integrates with RCS Zetta automation and Visual Radio’s MultiCAM visual radio system.

[See Our Who’s Buying What Page]

RTM points to motorized faders, customization options, touchscreen operation and native IP networking as highlights.

The project was completed and overseen by Calrec’s Malaysia distributor, JAA Systems, with VME Broadcast acting as the main contractor and Medialab Alliance as the system integrator.

JAA Systems’ David Chan said, “We are very honored to be part of this transformation of RTM’s radio infrastructure, which places it at the cutting edge of modern radio. Calrec’s Type R for Radio is perfect for this installation. … We believe that this IP installation points to the future of radio across Malaysia and beyond.”

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

The post RTM Selects Calrec Consoles appeared first on Radio World.

Add Entravision Communications to the roster of media companies lighting it up in the final three months of 2020.

The owner of Hispanic-targeted radio and TV properties, which has a heavy digital presence, saw its revenue and net income surge on a year-over-year basis.

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On Jan. 25, 2021, Portland, Ore.-based Alpha Media took an important step toward reducing its $267 million debt burden by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Now, it is getting all of its ducks in a row, if you will, for an emergence from debtor-in-possession status, one the company tells RBR+TVBR is still on track for completion by the end of June.

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A bill to repeal outdated regulations of the 1992 Cable Act has been reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by two influential leaders in a bipartisan move that could potentially erase current retransmission consent legislation.

The bill would also rewrite the rules on the compulsory copyright license.

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