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AudioScience is shipping the latest addition to its Dante series of audio products, the ASI5751 card for professional audio applications.

The card is equipped with 32 Dante inputs and outputs on a high-speed 1000Mbit Ethernet interface, facilitating high channel count connectivity. 

It can handle 32 mono or 16 stereo streams of PCM playback and recording, providing flexibility in playback and recording, and is driven by a robust Texas Instruments TMS320DM8147 DSP.

“Designed to accommodate a wide user base, the ASI5751 is compatible with both Windows and Linux software drivers, ensuring flexibility in your choice of operating systems,” AudioScience said in its announcement. Audio reproduction is assured with 24-bit PCM precision with sample rates of 48 kHz.

Up to eight cards can be used in a single system.

The ASI5751 is now available for purchase. AudioScience will exhibit at the spring NAB Show.

NAB Show Booth: W3811

[For More News on the NAB Show See Our NAB Show News Page]

The post AudioScience Expands Its Dante Line appeared first on Radio World.

As RBR+TVBR shared with readers on April 1, Steve Clendenin has decided to sell WHGM-AM 1330 in Havre de Grace, Md., and FM translator W263CQ in Chesapeake City, Md.

While the second FM translator used for WHGM, W284BE, remains the property of Hope Christian Church of Marlton Inc., Clendenin’s Maryland Media One is now parting ways with FM translator W298CG in Bel Air, Md.

Who’s buying this mini FM? Look no further than “The Bay,” perhaps.

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The Spanish-language broadcast TV network owned by the privately held media company led by CEO Peter Markham has added an affiliate for the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose market.

It’s thanks to a newly signed agreement with an individual known for his service to South Asian consumers, and ownership of stations targeting that audience.

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It may have just 100 watts, but at 9,039 feet above sea level, this Sun Valley, Idaho FM can reach Hailey and Ketchum just fine. That’s likely what enticed Boise State Public Radio to acquire the facility, and that deal announced in late 2023 has just closed.

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Radio World’s “Guest Commentaries” section provides a platform for industry thought leaders and other readers to share their perspective on radio news, technological trends and more. If you’d like to contribute a commentary, or reply to an already published piece, send a submission to radioworld@futurenet.com.

Remember the Progressive Insurance commercial where the life coach, in an attempt to avoid a student’s awkward outburst at seeing someone with blue hair, carefully mutters “we all see it, we all see it.” It doesn’t work of course. The honest but oblivious student blurts out “he has blue hair.”

Joseph C. Chautin III

Reading the FCC’s recent Report & Order reinstating the annual public filing of an EEO form to collect race, ethnicity and gender information on broadcast station employees was kind of like watching that Progressive commercial.

Despite commenters raising legitimate legal concerns about the form’s data being made public on a station-by-station basis, the FCC majority marched straight past those concerns to mandate that the form be specific to a station and in the station public file. The justifications for making it public are flimsy at best and themselves raise new concerns. 

Here’s the crazy thing: The majority’s objective could have been accomplished without the data being public, and it may have even resulted in a 5–0 vote in favor. Cue in the Progressive commercial. We all see it. It’s classic regulatory overreach, the kind that results in legal challenges, confusion, tough decision making and potential liability for broadcasters.

Imagine as a broadcaster trying to complete the form later this year by selecting an employee’s race, ethnicity or gender, realizing in a unique situation that you don’t have the information needed for 100% certainty, seeing that the form instruction allows you to make an informed guess, doing so, and then having the employee or someone else challenge the accuracy of the submitted form. Or, what if someone files a complaint that the station licensee is attempting to mislead the FCC? That’s no fun. Yet one of the R&O’s justifications for making the form public was to “increase the likelihood that erroneous data will be discovered and corrected,” and to “incentivize stations to file accurate data to avoid third-party claims that submitted data is incorrect.”

Does the majority not trust broadcast licensees? This one example opens a Pandora’s box of questions, some of which may require a stop at your employment attorney for advice.

Then there’s the constitutional law question as to whether making the report public is designed to ensure that individual businesses are targeted and pressured into making hiring decisions based on race and gender. 

The FCC’s two prior efforts to collect and require disclosure of employee demographic data after the Supreme Court found employee quotas unconstitutional were shot down in court on — you guessed it — constitutional grounds, violations of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The FCC majority dodges that sticky question, choosing an approach that is likely to draw a legal challenge, and not withstand court review. We all see it. Commissioner Brendan Carr not only saw it, but spoke it in his dissent, declaring that “this is no benign disclosure regime” and pointing to “activist groups” as the catalyst for requiring public disclosure of the collected employment data.

So here we are. Trying to understand a new rule, one for which there is no new form or form instructions yet, one that still has to be approved at the Office of Management & Budget, and one that will likely draw a legal challenge that throws an unknown wrench into whether broadcasters will have to file it this fall. The new requirement has blue hair. It’s the public disclosure. We all see it. But the FCC majority didn’t care and blurted it out anyway.

This commentary appeared in the broadcast newsletter of law firm Hardy Carey Chautin & Balkin LLP.

[Read More Guest Commentaries Here]

The post The FCC’s EEO Form Has Blue Hair appeared first on Radio World.

With a big stock buyback underway and shares going ex-dividend this week, Townsquare Media is again one of the best performers when looking at publicly traded radio station owners. Investors are pleased, too, with shares $4 higher than they were at the end of October 2023.

Now, the company’s Local Media COO is taking advantage of that gain in stock price by cashing in several thousand shares.

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In 2022, Marketron introduced its ROI Calculator as “a free, easy-to-use tool to enable media sellers to forecast revenue for broadcast radio and third-party digital.”

Now, this product is getting a refresh.

“With this interactive tool, users can forecast their revenue for the next three years and benchmark their digital ad performance against small-, mid- or large- size markets,” Marketron says.

The calculator is now boasting a fresh update with new numbers for 2024 through 2026.

With the ROI Calculator, users may input their 2023 revenue numbers to see forecasts and can create graphs for the benchmarking part. Once they add their numbers, they can download a PDF.

Additionally, the tool enables these companies to understand how they stack up against similar-sized businesses regarding third-party digital sales.

The calculator is available for use now at https://www.marketron.com/calculator/form.html.

At the NAB Show, ENCO will introduce deeper integration of its DAD system with WebDAD’s remote workflow.

“ENCO will show how built-in WebDAD functionality simplifies and improves on-air and production workflows by extending DAD’s reach to more places through a scalable and affordable architecture,” it said in a press release.

ENCO’s WebDAD platform allows users to manage and control studio-based ENCO DAD radio automation systems remotely.

The company has added several features to WebDAD. Notably, DAD’s Presenter on-air interface is now accessible to remote operators.

WebDAD also now offers more granular control over user permissions, including controlled access to libraries, functions and systems. ENCO also has added support for third-party accessibility, simplifying usability for people with impairments or disabilities.

President Ken Frommert said ENCO will show how WebDAD “now packs the power of DAD into a lighter platform, with the flexibility to control their on-air systems within the local studio or in the cloud from a web browser. We are actively turning the broadcaster’s local DAD infrastructure into a global on-air and production network.”

He said ENCO also sees an opportunity to slim down the in-studio automation infrastructure as the company deepens WebDAD’s integration within the DAD framework.

The software company will also unveil the integration of AITrack for voice tracking and dynamic content insertion within the DAD and WebDAD architecture. AITrack is one of two AI applications that ENCO previewed last year at NAB. Frommert said it has evolved since then from a simple automatic voice track application to a multifaceted AI production toolset.

And ENCO will demonstrate SPECai, a tool that uses generative AI to create spec ads with human-sounding voices within seconds.

NAB Show Booth: W1743

[Read more NAB Show preview coverage.]

The post ENCO Highlights Remote and AI Workflows appeared first on Radio World.

NEW YORK — FOX Television Stations has selected a Senior VP of Insights and Media Measurement whose role will range from day-to-day measurement needs to the strategic direction of the over-the-air broadcast stations through the use of data and analytics.

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Brian Oliger

How are trends in audio codec technology playing out at a major-market radio news operation?

Brian Oliger, CBT, CBNE, is technology manager for Hubbard Radio’s news station WTOP in Washington, D.C., where he has worked since 1999. He has extensive experience in radio and digital news content creation, management and distribution systems, broadcast IT, and studio and newsroom systems. We talked with him for the ebook “Trends in Codecs 2024.”

Radio World: Brian we’re asking our interviewees what they consider the most important recent trend in broadcast codecs and related transport and networking.

Brian Oliger: For us at WTOP, the most significant development has been combining multiple hardware codecs —or “instances” —  into one physical box such as the Comrex Access Multirack. Besides saving valuable rack space, it allows the codecs to share resources such as the network connection, the user interface dashboard or GUI, power connection and, using AES67, the audio connection. 

Sharing the same GUI is particularly convenient in a situation in which multiple codecs are required for the same event. An example of this is live sports, in which codecs are needed for play-by-play, perhaps separate nat sound, a feed to the arena concourse and the feed to the satellite provider. 

Having all these codecs visible in the same GUI allows the producer to switch easily among them to make or drop connections, monitor network conditions and audio levels and change codec profiles as needed. Hand in hand with that is support for AES67.

RW: Have you done a recent installation that was notable? How did it go?

Oliger: We purchased, installed and configured three Multirack codecs to replace an entire rack of Access Rack codecs. This was notable for us because it was my first experience working with AES67 and configuring those devices to integrate with our Wheatnet system, and configuring Wheatnet to work with them. 

We encountered a few challenges, such as how to route a mono bus-minus signal in Wheatnet to a stereo AES67 device, and others. It took a little creativity and taught me a lot about AES67. Kudos to the team at Comrex for creating a straightforward “How To” guide and to Wheatstone support for answering my questions quickly and thoroughly as they came up during the deployment. 

The best projects are the ones that teach you something along the way, and this was definitely one of those.

RW: What long-lasting changes did the pandemic bring, given the dramatic impact it had on radio at the time?

Oliger: Because we simply didn’t have enough hardware codecs to supply all of our talent working remotely, we learned the value of software products, especially SIP-based codecs like Linphone and smartphone apps like Comrex’s FieldTap. These products let us inexpensively outfit many more people working remotely than we otherwise would have been able to, and we still use them in several situations today. Configured properly, Linphone sounds perfectly adequate and is nearly indistinguishable from a hardware codec to everyday listeners on the air.

RW: How do today’s codecs integrate with today’s AoIP networks and infrastructures?

Oliger: Codecs that work with standard AES or analog audio are essentially plug-and-play and integrate easily into any AoIP system, but integrating an AES67 codec can be more challenging. It requires compatible timing with Precision Time Protocol v2, proper packet rate support, Session Description Protocol (SDP) data and more. However, once properly configured, AES67 audio from a codec is reliable and robust and sounds perfect. In most cases the codec manufacturer will provide instructions on how to integrate their AES67 product with the most popular AoIP systems.

RW: What codecs or apps do you use for news work?

Oliger: Our field reporters use Comrex Access hardware codecs, plus occasionally the Linphone softphone app —which communicates with our Comrex codecs on the backend using SIP — and the Comrex FieldTap app. In breaking news situations when reporters need to connect quickly and move around on a moment’s notice, the FieldTap app is their preferred choice because it makes connecting to our Comrex codecs as easy as making a phone call on their smartphone. The audio quality is “good” but not “great” compared to a hardware codec, but the tradeoff for extreme portability and ease of use is well worth it. 

In more permanent remote installations, such as our studio in the House of Representatives Radio-TV Gallery on Capitol Hill, we use a Comrex BricLink II with a “nailed-up” connection over a simple Virtual Private LAN Service or VPLS from a telco vendor. That works quite well. 

Our weather partners at WJLA TV here in Washington have two Comrex portable codecs set up in different locations at their studios, so their meteorologists can easily go live or file pre-recorded weather forecasts from the most convenient location. Each of those portable codecs connects to a dedicated partner codec in our TOC. The separate outputs of those are combined in a software Utility Mixer in one of our Wheatstone blades, which then appear as a single source on a fader in the consoles in our main studios. In that way, our news anchors don’t need to know or care which broadcast position the meteorologist at WJLA is actually using.

RW: Are ISDN and T1, for all intents, fully sunsetted? 

Oliger: Here in Washington, ISDN is essentially fully retired. The main telco provider, Verizon, doesn’t install new ISDN lines anymore and, at least in our experience as of a few years ago, won’t repair them anymore either. When we moved and built out new studios and newsrooms about five years ago, we abandoned ISDN completely. 

T1 is still a valid technology but is clearly nearing end of life. We just canceled our last three T1 circuits for audio in favor of a small VPLS network tying together a few of our remote locations. Now, together with one of our vendors, we’re in the process of implementing SDWAN technology to tie together most of our locations: studios, backup/disaster recovery, and transmitter sites.

RW: What misconceptions do many people have about codecs that you’d like to dispel?

Oliger: Among our non-technical staff, when audio problems occur while using codecs — dropouts, audio issues, etc. — their first reaction is to blame the codec, when 99.9% of the time the true problem is poor internet quality on the remote end. So for us it’s not uncommon to have to explain to people that the codec itself is working fine, but it relies upon and assumes a good quality internet connection. 

The analogy I use is driving a car: As a driver, you rely upon and assume the engine is in good working order, but if the car conks out, it usually isn’t fair to call the operator a lousy driver.

Codec manufacturers have come a long way in trying to minimize or overcome connection issues internally with various technologies. At the end of the day you still need a fairly reliable data stream from Point A to Point B.

[Read the ebook “Trends in Codecs 2024.”]

The post We Talk Connectivity With Brian Oliger of WTOP appeared first on Radio World.

LAS VEGAS — Thanks to a newly signed agreement, the Tupelo Media Group housed within Gray Television and its FOX affiliate in Southern Nevada are teaming with the SportsGrid free ad-supported streaming television channel to produce five “major sporting event” specials centered on sports betting.

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Dubformer, the Netherlands-based AI platform offering broadcast-level quality video localization, has launched a computer-generated dubbing software application tailored specifically for Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST).

Dubbing FAST “stands as the closest available option to high-quality, in-studio human dubbing that’s currently used for premium content,” says Dubformer.

The service is fully accessible to FAST TV streaming platforms in the U.S., Europe, and other undisclosed regions.

“Despite the rapid advancements in technology, AI dubbing continues to require a human touch for perfection,” said Anton Dvorkovich, co-founder and CEO at Dubformer. “For companies seeking to grow their FAST channels with a high volume of content, Dubbing FAST is an excellent solution, nearing that point where capabilities and broadcast-level standards are almost fully met.”

Dubbing FAST boasts word matching speech duration; unique natural voice for every character; ordinary lip-sync with speech beginning when the mouth is open; and translation with cultural adaptation.

Dubformer seeks to offer additional features by the end of June 2025, including theatrical acting and full representation of the character’s emotion, lip-sync with articulation that include speech matching lip movements.

Dubbing FAST has already been tested by clients including W4tchTV and Mainstream Media.

MORE FROM RBR+TVBR:

https://podbay.fm/p/rbrtvbr-infocus-podcast/e/1704993387

 

By Brian Galante
Special to RBR+TVBR

When CP Communications and its Red House Streaming subsidiary were tasked with delivering live, multi-camera coverage of the recent 2024 Marathon Trials in Orlando, it was business as usual — that is until Carr-Hughes Productions, the company in charge of managing all production elements for the event, added a new wrinkle required by its broadcast client, HDR.

With a field of competitors including amateur and professional U.S. runners, the 2024 Marathon Trials streamed live on Peacock on the morning of February 3 and was broadcast later that day on NBC. The top two men and top three women finishers earned the opportunity to run in the Paris Games, which begin in late July.

For the first time, CP Communications and Red House Streaming, hired by Carr-Hughes Productions, were responsible for capturing and transmitting HDR video and audio from a marathon course. The event was covered via two smart cars, four motorcycles, a handheld camera at the start line and a jib camera stationed at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Orlando. Each source provided live coverage using bonded cellular technology.

“This being our first bonded HDR show, it introduced some new challenges for us, including getting the right hardware to support it,” explained Allen Harris, Lead IP and Bonded Cellular Specialist, CP Communications and Red House Streaming. RHS used Haivision Pro460 mobile video encoders/transmitters, which can broadcast video in HDR at up to 10-bit pixel depths with low latency over bonded cellular networks. The Pro460s were deployed with all eight cameras, and the setup also provided full paint control across all bonded cellular video feeds.

Beyond the eight cameras using bonded cellular, a PTZ camera for beauty shots was positioned on a roof near the RHS production compound. There was also a helicopter camera, the only video source that required conventional RF for its first hop (COFDM), which was downlinked to the same rooftop as the PTZ. From there, Haivision Makito X4 video encoders sent the two camera feeds via air fiber to the production truck.

For crew communications, RHS used its Unity radio system, while the talent could hear the control room via the Pro460’s on-board IFB system, which Harris said was “very, very effective.” The broadcast had several choices for audio coverage. For example, the motorcycles offered two channels of audio, including a low mic for foot noise. Each smart car included a low foot mic, high effect mic and talent mic.

In The Loop

Unlike marathons in Boston, New York, and Chicago, or the Orlando course race path was a “loop” course, with runners beginning with a 2.2-mile loop followed by three 8-mile loops. “Once we had good coverage around the loop, our confidence was high,” Harris said. “As it turns out, Orlando has a very good cell infrastructure, so we didn’t really have any issues along the course other than the standard wrinkles of any cell system. We were able to provide coverage from start to finish with very good quality and very good reliability over the course.”

All feeds were handed off to Carr-Hughes, which produced the show in its High Rock 1 production truck and sent it to NBC for quality control and broadcast. “They were quite happy with the quality of the HDR coming off the bonded cellular cameras as well as the helicopter feed and the PTZ camera on the roof,” Harris said.

Carr-Hughes invested in 10 new Sony 3500 cameras to support the event’s HDR initiative. “This is the first time we produced an HDR show, so we added our new Sony cameras into the mix with all of the bonded cellular systems that the RHS team was responsible for managing,” said Jim Carr, President, Carr-Hughes. “It was a very big accomplishment being a new technology for our crew and freelancers to learn and understand, so having Red House Streaming in charge of transmitting the HDR signals through their bonded cellular systems brought peace of mind.

The event’s organizing committee also requested feeds of the race for several local VIP watching events, but running cables was not practical. Instead, RHS used Haivision Pro460s and the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) protocol to distribute the required feeds over the public internet to the various venues. Each location was outfitted with a decoder, which was monitored remotely through a management portal. “That system worked flawlessly across the event. It’s a pretty foolproof solution for distributing these streams in low latency using Haivision’s SRT protocol,” Harris said.

RHS also rolled out its Spark HD 16-foot mobile unit to the event. Originally launched last year as a mobile production truck, it was used as a distribution truck for the race. “The Marathon Trials broadcast was really Spark’s maiden voyage as its reincarnation as a distribution truck – and it worked exceptionally well,” said Kurt Heitmann, CEO of CP Communications and Red House Streaming. “It gave us the resources to manage dozens of feeds coming in and going out to watch them to assess them. It’s not a bad place to be if you’re in the middle of a very complex and high-profile show. The client literally sat in Spark for most of the broadcast, because he could see everything that was going on and he wasn’t in the fray of the production truck.”

Cablecast Community Media will preview its new Social Streaming and Control Rooms features, which simplify direct streaming and simulcasting to social media platforms from Cablecast Automation software, at NAB Show 2024 in Las Vegas (April 14-17).

Building on the ability to playout and record unlimited network stream sources, the new Social Streaming feature for Cablecast VIO video servers provides “a reliable, straightforward way” to stream live events directly from their Cablecast video and automation server to social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.

Designed specifically for events televised from the TV studio or city council chamber, social streams can be scheduled directly into the playout schedule the same way all live events are scheduled in Cablecast, or as a user-initiated switch in the virtual switcher.

“Social Streaming is a vital tool that empowers our clients to schedule live events to be streamed directly to their audience’s favorite social media platforms. With Cablecast, simulcasting to social media is now a simple and seamless part of your public communication strategy,” said Steve Israelsky, President, Cablecast Community Media.

The new Control Rooms feature will simplify broadcast and streaming event workflows for Cablecast operators by giving them customizable views for live switching. As organizations add more network sources and digital distribution platforms to their channel operations, a single Cablecast system may include several live sources, network encoders, multiple channels, and live streams.

“We see so many PEG operations supporting multiple channels, it can become difficult to navigate the manual controls, even in our streamlined interface,” added Israelsky. “Control Rooms lets you configure a separate, simplified set of devices and outputs – just the ones you need for that particular production – to streamline the live event process.”

With Control Rooms, a station covering council meetings for several cities can create a control room for each municipality that displays only the specific channel, source locations, and outputs needed for each city.

Combined with the Social Streaming feature, the Control Rooms user interface also gives users a shortcut to start an RTMP stream and begin streaming directly to social media platforms like YouTube. Additional tools in the event bar include a countdown, controls for starting and stopping the live event, and testing the live streams.

Cablecast exhibits at the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel, Suite 839, next to the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Sencore, the provider of professional content delivery solutions, has scored a partnership with Showfer, known for its content management platforms, just in time for the NAB Show.

The pact is aimed to provide the broadcast industry with better content transport, monitoring, playout, and workflow scheduling opportunities.

At the heart of this collaboration lies Showfer’s innovative “ProVision” platform, a content management product for content playout, workflow scheduling, and content distribution.

Paired with Sencore’s Centra Gateway, this, says Sencore, “takes content transport and monitoring to new heights.” The video transport and monitoring platform is capable of transporting content over open internet connections and cloud-based systems. “This
pairing enables cost-effective contribution and distribution of content from the camera to the viewer, giving broadcasters the resources they need to succeed in an increasingly competitive market,” Sencore notes.

Telos Alliance has introduced the the latest member of the Forza family of software processors, just in time for the 2024 NAB Show.

Like the original Omnia Forza product for HD, DAB, and streaming audio – now branded as Forza HDS – Forza FM will be delivered as a container that can run on an on-premises COTS server or on a cloud-hosted platform such as AWS.

Forza FM maintains the same five-band architecture, but its wideband and multiband processing stages have been optimized to meet the unique demands of FM radio. It features the same Frank Foti-designed “Silvio” clipper used in Omnia.11 and includes processing for HD-1 with a built-in diversity delay. The FM stereo generator will feed both µMPX and linear MPX over IP outputs.

Forza FM maintains the HTML5 UI introduced with Forza HDS, making use of “smart controls” to adjust multiple parameters with a single control, ensuring less-experienced users can easily deliver a stellar on-air sound to their listeners while still providing the individual controls processing pros expect to fine-tune their audio, Telos Alliance notes.

“As soon as we released Forza HDS at last year’s NAB, it was an instant hit for broadcasters who were looking for a way to make their audio streams stand out,” said Frank Foti, Omnia Founder and Chairman of the Board of Telos Alliance. “Ever since then, the excitement for a full FM version of Forza has been building, and I am pleased to make the official announcement of Forza FM to our loyal Omnia customers.”

Omnia Forza FM is expected to be available in May 2024 through the Telos Alliance’s worldwide network of Omnia partners.

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Partial County Alerting allows broadcasters to tailor the dissemination of EAS messages to affected areas. It will be the subject of a panel discussion in the Broadcast Engineering & IT Conference on Monday of the NAB Show.

Adrienne Abbott is chair of the Nevada State Emergency Communications Committee. Tim Schott is a meteorologist at the Analyze, Forecast and Support Office of NOAA, while Dan Berc is warning coordination meteorologist with the Las Vegas Weather Forecast Office of NOAA and the National Weather Service.

Abbott answered our questions by email:

Radio World: What is Partial County Alerting and why does it matter?

Adrienne Abbott: PCA is a National Weather Service programming capability that provides broadcasters with EAS weather activations targeted specifically to the area covered by the broadcaster’s signal. At the same time, PCA also targets warning dissemination on NOAA Weather Radio (NWR). 

Broadcast signals don’t stop at county lines and they may not cover an entire county. PCA works by dividing the county into subdivisions based on microclimates, weather patterns, broadcast footprints and other geographic factors. 

PCA is addressed in the FCC Part 11 Rules detailing the EAS Protocol, 11.31(c), which states that a county may be defined by one or more “subdivisions” and there may be as many as nine subdivisions. For maximum communications clarity, the NWS and its broadcaster partners are using the phrase “county partitions” instead of “county subdivisions.” The broadcaster chooses which partitions apply to their broadcast area and very easily programs that information into their EAS equipment. 

By utilizing county partitions, the EAS equipment will receive and rebroadcast only the EAS weather activations for the selected partitions. This increases the credibility of EAS weather activations because the broadcast audience doesn’t hear warnings that don’t apply to them. 

RW: How does it work, technically?

Abbott:  PCA works well in Clark County, Nev., because the county is very large, larger than several East Coast states, and no radio or TV station has a signal that covers the entire county. 

The most heavily populated area, and the one with the most broadcast signals, is the Las Vegas Valley. Before PCA, the Las Vegas broadcasters would receive EAS weather activations for storms which were outside the valley and confined to the rural areas of Clark County. With PCA, broadcasters covering the outlying communities such as Mesquite, Indian Springs or Laughlin receive and rebroadcast EAS weather activations for those areas, while Las Vegas radio and TV stations do not activate EAS, allowing their audiences to enjoy their usual sunny skies with no broadcast interruptions.

PCA zones allow officials to focus alerts on a selected portion of Clark County, Nev. From the National Weather Service page: www.weather.gov/vef/ClarkCountyPCA.

RW: Are there other particular parts of the country where PCA would be helpful?

Abbott: PCA is helpful anywhere a county has various ecologies and microclimates, geographic features like mountains, plains, valleys, canyons, lakes and seashores, and broadcast signals that don’t cover the entire area. 

We have also found it helpful for counties with discrete population centers, which is exactly the case in Clark County. It’s particularly helpful for very large counties; in fact, the 29 largest counties in the continental United States lie west of the Mississippi River. While many of the large counties of the western states can certainly benefit from PCA, other areas of the country can benefit as well.

RW: How does the National Weather Service use PCA and what are its plans to expand it?

Abbott: The 122 Weather Forecast Offices, or WFOs, operate on a national software baseline. Six offices are currently employing PCA using local applications. However, PCA will be included in an upcoming software baseline deployment from NWS headquarters. We expect additional WFOs will on-board PCA for one or more of their counties in the first half of 2025. 

A stock photo of weather patterns on a computer display. PCA provides stations with EAS weather activations targeted to specific areas. Credit: Getty Images/spxchrome

RW: What has the experience in Clark County taught you?

Abbott: What we’ve learned in Las Vegas is that it can take time to see the benefit of PCA. The first year it was implemented, there was a very mild monsoon season with relatively few weather events that necessitated EAS activations. However, those activations were issued with PCA and we were able to see the benefit of this improvement.

RW: Which organizations in a given area need to be involved for PCA to be put to work in a given area?

Abbott: The FCC rules address this when they state, “Any subdivisions must be defined and agreed to by the local officials prior to use.” And that’s exactly what we have done.  Planning for PCA implementation involves the Weather Forecast Office (WFO), the State Emergency Communications Committee chair and members, the state or local broadcaster association and state and local emergency managers. The Las Vegas WFO even conducted a public comment period. It’s a team effort to obtain input and implement this alerting improvement. 

RW: What else should we know?

Abbott: If someone complains that there are “too many EAS activations” from the Weather Service, they should know that there are some options available to make those activations more applicable to their station. The place to begin this discussion is with the warning coordination meteorologist, or WCM, at their local WFO. They should work with their EAS SECC and their NWS offices to implement a solution that can improve their situation.

[For More News on the NAB Show See Our NAB Show News Page]

The post Partial County Alerting Will Be in Spotlight at NAB Show appeared first on Radio World.