Industry News

Spanish Broadcasting System has priced its offering of senior secured notes due 2026.

The media company focused on Hispanic consumers who prefer Spanish-language media says the notes will bear interest semi-annually at a rate of 9.75% per annum and were offered at par value.

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In the words of iHeartMedia Markets Group Division President Tony Coles, he’s “one of the most respected leaders in St. Louis,” with a track record of success and a “reputation for building a winning culture.”

Now, he’s a colleague, as a former longtime Emmis Communications leader in the Gateway City has been selected as Market President for iHeartMedia/St. Louis.

Taking the role, effective immediately: John Beck.

As Market President, Beck will work closely with the programming, business, and sales teams and oversee all of the station’s on-air and digital programming as well as create new revenue opportunities.

Beck was most recently SVP of Emmis Communications in St. Louis.

In January 2018, Emmis revealed that it was exiting St. Louis, one of its most profitable markets, for $60 million. Among the stations under Beck’s purview: Legendary Rocker KSHE-FM.

By the end of 2018, Beck had transitioned to radio station co-owner. As RBR+TVBR reported, Beck had teamed with Joe Schwartz and Dana Withers in the purchase of a group of stations serving Northern Arizona under the name Stone Canyon Radio and Marketing.

Beck remains best-known for his nearly 35 years at Emmis, which saw him not only lead KSHE-FM but also KIHT-FM (now KNOU-FM), KPNT-FM & KFTK-FM. He also had oversight of WRDA-FM 104.1 under Emmis ownership. Beck joined Emmis in March 1984 to oversee KSHE after some two years at Golden West Broadcasters’ KKCI-AM & FM in Kansas City. He began his career at WFFM in Pittsburgh

“I am thrilled to be working at iHeartMedia in the town I love,” Beck said. “I look forward to working with the local staff and leadership, several of whom I already know. iHeartMedia is an amazing company and I can’t wait to tell the story and find ways to use our stations to build and promote this awesome city and region that we call home.”

Throughout his esteemed decades-long career, Beck has also been honored with an array of awards, including being named one of America’s Top 10 Radio Managers by Radio Ink and receiving a Distinguished Broadcaster Award presented by the Missouri Broadcasters Association in 2002, as well as being named The Radio Wayne Market Manager of the Year by the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB).

In addition, Beck is also heavily involved in his community, working closely with many non-profit businesses. Locally, until its reorganization in January 2021, he served on the board of the St. Louis Regional Chamber, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The American Red Cross, Heat-Up & Cool Down St. Louis, The Foundation Board of St. Louis Children’s Hospital, the Magic House, Grace Hill, Character-Plus, the Downtown St. Louis Community Improvement District and the March of Dimes.

MIAMI — He joined Univision in 2006 as the Local Sales Manager for its Los Angeles media properties, following roles at Clear Channel Communications and its Katz Media Group.

Now, he being promoted to SVP/Audio Sales and Client Solutions as part of a retooling of what Univision Communications calls its “Uforia” audio content arm.

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A Mississippi station that wanted to raise power — and be a kind of test case for a proposed new FM class — won’t get that chance.

The Federal Communications Commission has turned down an application by Commander Communications Corp. for a rule waiver to upgrade its Class A station in Sharon, Miss.

Commander wanted to operate WRTM using parameters that another company, SSR Communications, has been urging the FCC to allow by creating Class C4, an intermediate FM class between existing Classes A and C3. The FCC has an open notice of inquiry on that question.

[Related: “C4 FM Proposal Stalls at FCC”]

WRTM asked to increase its effective radiated power from 4.6 kW to 9.2 kW to reach a larger audience. In addition to providing several technical arguments, Commander said approval of its application would provide the FCC with useful information about potential Class C4 facilities.

SSR Communications supported the idea as a kind of proof of concept of its idea.

But Commander needed a rule waiver because WRTM’s application didn’t satisfy minimum distance separation requirements from WNSL in Laurel, Miss. That station is owned by iHeartMedia, which opposed the request.

WRTM is a short-spaced station under rule section 73.215, which deals with contour protections for short-spaced assignments. WNSL is a fully spaced station under 73.207, which is about minimum distance separations between stations.

These rules mean that when WRTM calculates protected and interfering contour overlap, it must protect WNSL as though the latter were operating at the hypothetical maximum ERP and height above average terrain for its class rather than its actual predicted contours.

iHeart argued that such the fundamental questions at issue here should be handled through rulemaking, not through a waiver or as an interim measure.

It said that an “involuntary section 73.215 designation” is a “highly controversial aspect” of the Class C4 proposal that would preclude WNSL from later increasing power to its class maximum and that could limit its options to relocate that station. And further, if a waiver was in fact granted, iHeart said, the reduction in interference protection would essentially constitute an unsought license modification to its station.

Albert Shuldiner, chief of the Audio Division of the FCC Media Bureau, now has ruled against Commander, saying the request didn’t provide compelling reasons to justify a waiver.

Simply wanting to reach more potential listeners isn’t a sufficient reason for a waiver, he wrote.

Also, the FCC won’t consider a waiver based on the theory that a station cannot construct, or is unlikely to construct, maximum class facilities. Maximum class protection, he wrote, is not a waste of spectrum. “Rather, it serves the public interest by preserving interference-free service while providing flexibility for future site relocations and service improvements.”

Shuldiner’s ruling emphasized that designation under section 73.215 is voluntary. “We will not force WNSL to accept diminished protection based on Commander’s assessment of whether WNSL (or the tower owner) could or should have capitalized on previous opportunities to upgrade.”

He didn’t accept other arguments made by Commander. “Many stations seeking a similar upgrade also could claim they would not cause harm by avoiding displacing secondary service stations, changing their communities of license, causing predicted contour overlap or affecting television spectrum repacking,” he wrote.

Finally, he agreed with iHeart that creating a new class of FM station or reducing protections for stations operating below class maximums “should be the result of careful consideration of a complete rulemaking record, not implemented piecemeal through the waiver process or to allow for a ‘proof of concept’ of the Class C4 proposal.”

The post FCC Rejects a Class C4 “Test Case” appeared first on Radio World.

NEW YORK — Latina-owned digital media company Canela Media has launched “Canela News,” billed as “the first free live-streaming newscast for U.S. Latino cord cutters.”

It’s a Spanish-language daily newscast offering the latest headlines, sports reports, features on immigration, and other subjects of particular interest to Hispanics who prefer to consume content en español.

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Three public media companies are working together to train broadcasters to develop programming for podcasts.

PRX, PBS Kids and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced a new project called the Ready to Learn Podcast Accelerator, a podcast training and development program for producers looking to create educational content for children. The program will take place virtually over 16 weeks starting in May and run through September. As part of the program, five production teams will be chosen to develop and create family-friendly audio content through a processing- and skills-development podcast program that will touch on everything from preplanning through the production process.

Creators in the program will receive 16 weeks of virtual podcast training led by PRX, a nonprofit media company, in tandem with children’s programming experts from PBS Kids. That training will include workshops, webinars and intensive sessions focusing on concept development, audience, community engagement and production values. The selected groups will also receive $10,000 in funding to assist with production and operational expenses. The deadline to apply is March 19.

The three companies are encouraging production teams with a demonstrated level of interest in children’s storytelling and education media to apply. In addition, independent production teams, public media station teams or teams from U.S.-based media organizations are encouraged to submit new podcast ideas for the children’s media landscape, especially content that centers on diverse voices and communities.

Content may be submitted in any genre, but should center on introducing children ages 4–8 to the world of work. This includes exposure to a variety of career and job options as well as development of social and emotional and executive functions.

The application submission window is open through Friday, March 19. More information can be found at the program website here.

The post Public Media Companies Rally Together on Podcast Training appeared first on Radio World.

Newly released field testing done by Sony Electronics shows that delivery of a NEXTGEN TV signal via ATSC 3.0 signals can be done successfully, and with nearly zero reception trouble.

That’s the latest ATSC 3.0-related news from Pearl TV, the business organization of U.S. broadcast companies with a shared interest in making NEXTGEN TV a success.

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In May 2011, Educational Media Foundation agreed to purchase a Class C3 FM licensed to Okeene, Oklahoma. Its ownership of the property was short-lived, as it later saw for-profit FMI Media and non-profit Libertad En Cristo Ministries obtain ownership of this station.

Most recently, it was poised to become a Highway 64 Media-owned property. Now, that’s not going to happen.

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The founder and CEO of Diya TV, serving South Asian consumers, has been active in recent weeks for his agreements to purchase low-powered TV stations in various locales across the U.S.

His latest deal will put him in the middle of the biggest DMA in America.

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In early November 2020, the No. 1 audio media company in the U.S. received an affirmative Declaratory Ruling from the FCC in response to its request to increase its authorized aggregate foreign ownership from 25% to 100%.

With the decision by the Pai Commission, iHeartMedia gained the ability to become fully foreign-owned, should it choose to go that route.

That’s not likely, but a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing getting lots of coverage in the British press confirms iHeart ownership has just gone “Global” — sort of.

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