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On February 13, Gray Television confirmed that its affiliate for The CW Network in Cleveland, WUAB-43, is teaming up with the Cleveland Cavaliers for five home games.

With coverage scheduled to commence on Tuesday evening, the company has secured three partnerships that will bring Cavs over-the-air coverage to four other DMAs within the National Basketball Association’s footprint.

An arrangement with TEGNA will bring Gray’s coverage of the Cavaliers to WBNS-10 in Columbus, Ohio. A March 20 matchup will be seen on WBNS-10.2, while the April 6 and 7 telecasts will be seen on WBNS-10.

What about March 8 and March 29? In a unique twist, those telecasts will air on Nexstar Media Group‘s NBC affiliate, WCMH-4.

A similar split affiliate relationship has also transpired in Dayton, Ohio. Here, Cox Media Group has obtained the broadcast rights to the April 6 and April 7 telecasts, and will air them on MeTV-affiliated WHIO-7.2.

The three other games will appear on Nexstar-owned WBDT-26, the market’s home for The CW Network.

Nexstar has also ensured that fans in the Steubenville, Ohio market, which is shared with Wheeling, W. Va., has access via WTRF-7.2, a MyNetwork TV affiliate.

Lastly, it is Nexstar-owned WYTV-32.2 in Youngstown-Warren, Ohio, that will air the five Cavaliers games originating from Gray’s Cleveland stations.

“We are excited to share that in addition to airing these five games on Gray’s WUAB in Cleveland and WXIX in Cincinnati, Gray has partnered with local television broadcasters to expand the coverage of Cavaliers basketball throughout the region,” said Matt Moran, Senior Managing Vice President for Gray Television. “These agreements will offer an exceptional viewing experience with unparalleled reach. This is a significant victory for the Cavaliers and sports fans throughout the region.”

On February 23, TEGNA-owned WFAA-8, the ABC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth, shared the news that it will serve as the originating station for Dallas Mavericks telecasts.

At the time, it was known that the NBA team’s games would air in five other Texas markets. Now, that will also air in the Lubbock, Tex., and Sherman-Ada, Okla., markets, thanks to Gray Television.

Ten Mavericks games will be made available to the team’s fans in those respective markets across the remainder of the 2023-24 regular season, thanks to a fresh arrangement that takes immediate effect.

As such, the March 1 matchup between the Mavericks and host Boston Celtics will be seen on KXII-12 in Sherman-Ada, and KLCW-22 (plus sibling KMYL-LD 14) in Lubbock.

The remaining schedule for the two Gray stations is as follows:

DATE OPPONENT AIR TIME Monday, March 11 at Chicago Bulls 7 p.m. CT Wednesday, March 13 vs. Golden State Warriors 7:30 p.m. CT Thursday, March 21 vs. Utah Jazz 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 29 at Sacramento Kings 9 p.m. CT Thursday, April 4 vs. Atlanta Hawks 6:30 p.m. CT Friday, April 5 vs. Golden State Warriors 7:30 p.m. CT Tuesday, April 9 at Charlotte Hornets 6 p.m. CT Wednesday, April 10 at Miami Heat 6:30 p.m. CT Friday, April 12 vs. Detroit Pistons 7:30 p.m. CT

 

“Gray Television is proud to partner with the Dallas Mavericks to bring the Mavs games to its fans and its future fans through our stations in Lubbock, Texas and Sherman, Texas,” Gray Television COO Sandy Breland said.

Eight providers of services and software to the radio industry have formed an entity called the Radio Vendor Alliance. 

The companies are RadioFX, Envisionwise, Big Deals Media, Cool Radio Streaming, Rumple, Silverback Advertising, Radio Consulting Services and Frank Gerard Voiceovers. Their stated purpose is to provide planning and advisory assistance to small and medium-size radio station owners. 

“Companies that form the RVA have developed services in sync to assure broadcasters they are getting first-class applications that work together,” it said in a press release.

Radio Vendor Alliance’s logo

“For example, Big Deals Media provides new revenue opportunities through a gift certificate marketing program that integrates with Rumple’s state-of-the-art CRM program. Cool Radio Streaming’s audio streaming platform connects seamlessly to RadioFX mobile apps and Envisionwise’s website solutions. The programming and consulting experts at Radio Consulting Services can coordinate imaging with Frank Gerard’s world-class voice over work.”

The RVA plans on a presence at the NAB Show with a sponsorship of the Small and Medium Market Radio Forum.

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

The post Vendors Form Alliance to Aid Smaller Station Owners appeared first on Radio World.

On May 18, 2023, RBR+TVBR first reported on an agreement between the son of a former automotive parts supplier company and Mission Broadcasting that, pending FCC approval, would bring the Nancie Smith-owned and Dennis Thatcher-led company WADL-38 in Detroit.

Today, the proposed $75 million transaction has yet to win Commission approval. That’s led the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition to press FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel for answers.

In-depth reporting, written by experienced editors and reports. Go beyond the blog with a RBR+TVBR Membership and get all of the details you need to move your business forward.

 

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Radio World Buyer’s Guide articles are intended to help readers understand why their colleagues chose particular products to solve various technical situations. This month’s articles focus on products that support sports and other remote audio coverage.

Many schools offer video production as part of their media curriculums, often producing live video webcasts of sporting events. 

This requires a considerable commitment of video and audio gear. Ironically, the video, including the cameras, switcher and monitors, is often the “easy part.” It’s the audio that becomes a huge headache.

The broadcast team usually includes play-by-play talent, a “sideline” reporter, camera operators and a producer. Mixing their mics is easy. But you also need headphone audio, usually with a different mix for each user, and an intercom for off-air communication between the team members. 

Henry Engineering says its SportsCaster does all this. “It’s ‘Audio-Control-in-a-Box’ that simplifies play-by-play sports audio,” the company states. 

“It mixes the announcers’ mics, controls headphone mixes for announcers, producer and camera operators, and provides duplex intercom for essential communication between everyone.”

Tom White, a former high school video production instructor, told Henry: “Before we had the SportsCaster system, it would take me hours to install the audio gear. I was using several mixers just to deal with the headphone feeds and intercom. It was a complicated mess and never worked very well. Teaching students how to use it was nearly impossible.”

Hank Landsberg at Henry Engineering worked with them to design a system that would streamline the process.

“That’s where the SportsCaster came from,” White said.

“The SportsCaster allows me to mix audio and communicate with all of the members of our production staff with ease. For football games, we have talent who does play-by-play, a color analyst and a field reporter as well as a field producer, a social media producer and a producer. The struggle we had in the past was giving all of these people the ability to talk with each other in a way that didn’t require several mixers and complex wiring.”

He said the SportsCaster makes this task easy and that he can train producers on how to use the system in a few minutes before a game starts.

“Our producer can give cues to the announcers and/or field reporter, while simultaneously ‘calling the shots’ to the camera operators. The producer controls the intercom audio paths, so that each team member hears only what is necessary, without hearing comms intended for someone else. This minimizes confusion, especially when dealing with inexperienced student announcers and techs.” 

SportsCaster works with Henry Engineering’s Sports Pod announcer stations and integrates all audio mixing, headphone and intercom functions into one easy-to-use unit. 

Tom White now works at Amitrace, a new Henry Engineering dealer for the SportsCaster system and a systems integrator that specializes in video production systems for education, government, worship and corporate environments. 

[Read More Buyers Guide Reviews Here]

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Scott Stiefel became CEO of Telos Alliance in January of last year. We checked in with him and Executive Chairman Frank Foti about current developments. 

Telos Alliance brands include Axia, Omnia, Telos, 25-Seven, Linear, Minnetonka and Infinity, and the company has a worldwide distribution agreement for Jünger Audio products.

Radio World: Update us on the state of the business.

Scott Stiefel: I’m fully situated now in the CEO role. We had an incredibly busy 2023 on the corporate side. We added around 10 people; and though there was uncertainty in the economy, with ripples throughout the industry and with ups and downs in the supply chain, we stayed the course. We’re quite profitable and will continue to expand. 

We started our fiscal year, which began in November, with a roar. We’ve got a spate of products coming out around NAB Show time, and more slated for IBC. We’re always on the lookout for opportunities for mergers and acquisitions. And while our primary focus is still broadcasting, we have opportunities to look into adjacent markets too. So I’m really excited. 

RW: How did fiscal ’23 compare to the prior year?

Scott Stiefel and Frank Foti are shown celebrating an award from RW’s sister publication TV Tech last spring.

Stiefel: Revenue was on par, though bookings were down. We had an enormous backlog going into that fiscal year because of the supply chain, which helped us on the revenue side. 

Then we started to see things pick up this September, and we really hit it out of the park as the new fiscal year started. We’ve started to see the recovery — sooner than we expected, actually. 

RW: Frank, what are you working on?

Frank Foti: Behind the scenes, I’m still doing developmental work and research. The next generation of our tech is going to be containerized as well as hardware-related, so we’ve got things happening with regard to audio processing. 

One concern for some broadcasters is the “codeability” of the Portable People Meter system with respect to certain talent and content. There are program segments and talent where the vocal spectrum is not 100% agreeable with how the PPM encoder works; I’ve been spending time on that issue.

I continue to work on my Déjà Vu surround upmixer as well as a 3D immersive application for headphones. There’s a lot we can do to make the listening experience in headphones or earbuds more exciting. 

And I enjoy being able to empower others on our team in doing development work and bringing ideas to life. That’s reflected for instance in our new Forza product.

RW: Scott, what do trends toward a software-based world and virtualization portend for your business?

Stiefel: We’re looking at it as a huge opportunity. Telos has grown in quantum leaps at times when we were able to visualize applications of developing technology to broadcasting and capitalize on it — with perceptual coding, DSP, audio over IP, the prevalence of high-speed networks and so on. 

The next shift is the incredible expansion of computing power, obsoleting discrete DSP chips and bespoke hardware. We’ve been thinking this way going back to the processing engines for the first Axia consoles. We’ve worked for years to position the software that we write for our hardware so it can also be nestled into high-density solutions, first in servers and then expandable into the cloud for virtualization. AoIP provides the backbone that allows interconnectivity of these different functions. 

Beyond that, we’ve been taking DSP algorithms and moving them out of tiny chips to take advantage of multicore server processor platforms.

The next phase is to ask, “How would you think about audio processing if it didn’t exist solely in a box? If all the pieces of the audio processor could be rearranged in any way you wanted?” There are all sorts of opportunities through virtualization if we break these pieces into discrete components and are able to reassemble them quickly through software in any fashion we want.

Foti: I’ve always wanted a digital version of what we did back in the analog days. You’d take a Compeller and hardwire it to some Audio Prisms, and then to an Optimod, or you’d mix and match with your processing du jour.

Now you’ll be able to do that by buying into a library of functions. If you want to modify the architecture of what we offer, you’ll be able to point and click, move things around, hit “Apply” and, boom, there you go. And while I say it in respect to one product, you can have a whole ecosystem where you can do that. 

There are people saying “Frank, I still need to have a box.” They’ll sleep better knowing there’s a box in their rack doing a dedicated thing. So we must serve two masters and walk that line. I want the marketplace to know that we will support hardware too. 

Stiefel: We still live in a physical world, and some things are just better suited to hardware for the way people operate. For instance, endpoints. You need to get audio from the mic or from other sources onto your AoIP network, even if the processing is done in the cloud. People still feel comfortable controlling their mix with faders and buttons. So we’re continuing to invest in the human interface. 

But another consideration is flexibility. How do you as the customer want to pay for something? What’s optimal for your operation? Do you buy a piece of software outright and own it? Do you buy the software with a service level agreement, so you get not only patches or bug fixes but also updated versions? Do you buy on subscription, where it’ll work for a year and automatically renew, but you can always turn it off? 

Eventually, in the cloud, you get to a software-as-a-service model, where you pay just for the time you’re using the software, which is hosted remotely. We’re looking at those models as well. 

And internally there’s the operations side. How do we deliver those licenses? How do we ensure cybersecurity so that things can’t be hacked? We want to present not only the best product but also a seamless experience to the customer.

RW: How would you characterize the health of the radio technology supply sector?

Stiefel: At least from our chair, we’re as healthy or healthier than we’ve been in decades. Shifts in technology provide us with opportunities, not threats of obsolescence, as long as we continue to learn and bring on staff who know how to do those things. 

Content is still growing at an exponential rate. How will traditional broadcast suppliers adapt to how content is made, who’s making it and what those price points are? That continues to be a challenge. 

Talking with people in podcasting, it’s fascinating to learn which platforms are successful. One person told me that when he uploads his audio podcast to the Apple or Google platform he gets maybe 400 downloads a week, but when he uploads the same content to YouTube, he gets 100,000 views. It’s orders of magnitude bigger than “traditional” podcast platforms. But conversations with him about the software or hardware to make a professional audio production are radically different than if I talk to a traditional broadcaster. 

RW: How will AI play into your business model?

Stiefel: I don’t want to give away trade secrets. But we have a sizable group of people who are looking at the five- to 10-year horizon of technology, and AI is on the front burner, primarily around making our products smarter, understanding the topology of the workflow, recognizing different inputs and context. 

As far as the generative stuff, creating AI-based content, there are others working on that. We do have partnerships with some of those players, because those pieces of technology don’t exist in isolation. But on the machine learning side, there’s all sorts of opportunities to improve the performance of our products.

RW: What are your priorities for the coming year?

Foti:  Staying on point with our team to get projects we have in the can out into the real world. And as I mentioned, broadcasters are concerned about getting that People Meter signal across; so seeing to it that audio processing on AM can cut through the noise from power lines, seeing to it that FM stereo has minimal multipath, to make sure they get credit for that quarter hour. Every meter counts. 

For the most part, our world has been oriented to the transmit side, and we’ll continue to do that. But there are opportunities as well to enhance the experience for the consumer. How can we best utilize our big toolbox, not just for broadcasters but for consumers and the professional audio world?

Stiefel: “Time to market” is one of our major focuses. And we’ll review our design process. We’ve got a huge bullpen of ideas that are clamoring to get out. How can I align the organization to allow that vision to happen, how do we get it through the funnel quickly and deliver it with quality so our customers can take advantage of these leaps in technology and exploit the value of them? 

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The post Telos Sees Opportunities in the World of Software appeared first on Radio World.

Radio World Buyer’s Guide articles are intended to help readers understand why their colleagues chose particular products to solve various technical situations. This month’s articles focus on products that support sports and other remote audio coverage.

KEOM 88.5 FM is a noncommercial, educational, community station owned and operated by the Mesquite Independent School District (MISD) in Mesquite, Texas. A fully functional Class C1 FM station, KEOM features student DJs on the air live from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on school days. 

KEOM offers a professional-grade facility, which serves as a way for MISD high school students interested in radio as a potential career to get hands-on experience.

“We want to give [students] the experience of working at a real radio station,” Shondra Tharp, station manager for KEOM radio and supervisor of the student program, told Comrex. “We use every bit of the equipment that the big radio stations use.”

Steve Glenn, sports announcer for KEOM.

As part of the program, students gain real-world experience by coordinating and participating in field-based broadcasts. 

“We go out into the community and do remote events where we are representing the station and getting to know our listeners,” said Tharp. “We bring our Comrex [Access NX Portable] out to those events, and the students get to use it.”

In addition to community-oriented events, KEOM uses their Access NX to cover sports. 

“Sports broadcasting was one of the reasons for starting the station,” said Tharp. “Using Comrex for all of the sports broadcasts that we do was something we did from the beginning, and that’s been a big part of the program.”

Ryan Castle, KEOM sports director and announcer, uses Access NX regularly to cover MISD football. 

“We will have 18 broadcasts over the course of the football season. We also have an online-only component that generates probably another 15 or 16 broadcasts a year,” said Castle. “The Comrex has been our primary piece of equipment since I’ve been with the organization. As far as ease of use goes, it doesn’t get a lot better.”

Ryan Castle adjusts audio levels on the Access NX Portable with Mixer attachment at the North Mesquite vs. Forney football game in October 2023 at Mesquite Memorial Stadium.

KEOM uses WheatNet-IP, an AoIP network system, for its studios. To receive the audio from Access NX units in the field, engineering consultant Brian Chase of Broadcast Works installed Access NX Rack, a rackmount IP audio codec that is AES67-compatible and designed to integrate into most AoIP systems available. 

“I interfaced it into the WheatNet system, and they just dial in remotely — whether it’s on the telephone wireless or whether it’s on the internet — and boom, we’re on the air,” Chase said.

When building the MISD studios, he said it chose Comrex products because of their consistency. 

“I’ve used Comrex gear since back in the days of the little wireless packs. As time went on, I just kept buying them because they work,” said Chase. “I consider them to be sturdy and reliable, and the audio quality is great.”

Steve Glenn, KEOM sports announcer and former director, said, “We first bought a Comrex unit 15 years ago or so. We have a 61,000 watt [station] here and so a lot of people listen. We want the sound to be good, and [with Comrex] the sound is excellent.” 

[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]

The post KEOM Implements Access NX appeared first on Radio World.

Bob Heil has died, according to the company he founded.

“Bob fought a valiant, year-long battle with cancer, and passed peacefully surrounded by his family,” Heil Sound posted on Facebook.

“Driven by a lifelong passion for sound, Bob’s pioneering work revolutionized how concertgoers experienced live sound.”

Heil was the inventor of the famous Heil Talk Box used memorably by musicians like Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Slash, Richie Sambora and others. He was invited to exhibit his innovations at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He also was an active member of the amateur radio community.

In 2022 Bob and Sarah Heil transferred ownership of their company to President/CEO Ash Levitt and Director of Operations Steve Warford, Radio World reported at the time. “Sarah Heil has retired, but Bob will continue to do outreach work and product design within the amateur radio space under the title Founder and CEO Emeritus,” it stated then.

Bob Heil began his audio career as a teenager performing concerts as the house player on the Wurlitzer theater organ at the Fox Theater in St. Louis. According to a company bio he was also deeply involved in ham radio and began tinkering with electronics and electronic design.

Click on the photo to view more pictures of Bob Heil. 

He opened “Ye Olde Music Shoppe” in Marissa, Ill., in the early 1960s and found success catering to professional touring bands. Heil Sound was formed in 1966 to provide pro touring gear and systems, and system design and equipment for music festivals.

Among his innovations is the famous Talk Box used by Joe Walsh and Peter Frampton, the quadrophonic mixer for the Who, and modular mixing consoles. The company entered mic manufacturing in the 1990s based in part on the prompting of Bob Heil’s friend the musician Joe Walsh.

In the 2022 announcement the company quoted Bob Heil saying, “My life has been about achieving great sound, whether on the concert stage or in the amateur radio world … This company has been my passion but it is time for me to step aside.”

Read our 2006 interview with Heil about his career including his work with the Grateful Dead, the Who, Peter Frampton and many other notables.

Listen to a podcast about the creation of the Heil Talk Box.

The post Audio Innovator Bob Heil Dies appeared first on Radio World.

In Pittsburgh, the North Shore neighborhood is today a hub of live sporting events and cultural and culinary arts. Country singer Jason Aldean recognizes this, and that could explain why he’s opening a restaurant in this city’s entertainment hub.

What’s noteworthy about the forthcoming establishment isn’t so much what’s cooking in the kitchen, however. Instead, patrons may be intrigued to see what’s sizzling in the branded studio coming to the restaurant, thanks to iHeartMedia.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tequila Cowboy — the Aldean-aligned eatery from TC Restaurant Group — will house a behind-the-glass broadcast facility linked to the company’s Country WPGB “Big 104.7.” Other stations in the iHeartMedia/Pittsburgh group will also use the space, including Rocker WDVE, Classic Hits WWSW “3WS,” Top 40 WKST “96.1 KISS FM,” Alternative WXDX and Sports Talker WBGG-AM 970.

For Steelers fans, the restaurant may be in a familiar locale, as it is the former home of Jerome Bettis Grill 36.

“This is the perfect partnership for iHeartMedia Pittsburgh and BIG 104.7, and we’re excited to work with TC Restaurant Group,” iHeartMedia Market President Tim McAleer said in a  statement. “From this location, we will be able to feature artists’ interviews, meet and greets, pre-show parties and the NEXT BIG THING performance series live from Jason Aldean’s throughout the year.”

The iHeartRadio-syndicated Kasper Show will originate from the studio each afternoon.

The Three Rivers eatery will be the second tied to Aldean to have an iHeartRadio studio; the other location is in Nashville. The new Pittsburgh restaurant will have a stage for live performances.

We go behind the scenes with one of public radio’s most popular weekend programs.

Jeremy Preece tries out the new triple EAS tuner from Inovonics.

Readers tell John Bisset about tools they can’t live without.

And here’s what NAB found when they drove around Detroit and Little Rock to see how radio metadata looked in car dashboards.

Read it here.

 

The post Read the March 1, 2024 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World.

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The Bureau cancels the Notice of Apparent Liabiity issued to Cascade Community Radio

The Media Bureau affirms the dismissal of the application of Aire Broadcasting Foundation, for a new LPFM station at Hazleton, Pennsylvania

iHeartMedia and other radio broadcasters have closed the books on a disappointing 2023, but there seems to be a consensus that ad markets will recover over the course of 2024.

Full-year consolidated revenue for the largest audio content creator and distributor in the U.S. stood at $3.7 billion, down 4% YoY, according to the company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). iHeart reported a net loss of $1.1 billion for 2023, which was primarily the result of a $965 million of non-cash impairment charges the company recorded in Q2 2023.  

The challenging advertising climate in 2023 stretched into the fourth quarter for iHeart with total consolidated revenue coming in at $1.1 billion, down 5.2% year-over-year. Of the three reportable business segments, only the Digital Audio Group saw an increase in revenue in the Q4. That division reported $318 million in total revenue, which was up 6% compared to Q4 in 2022. 

Driving the digital revenue growth was podcasting. iHeart reported a total of $132 million revenue attributable to podcasting, which is up 17% YoY. Company Chairman/CEO Bob Pittman said podcasting remains “the biggest growth vector in the media business and shows no signs of subsiding.”

Bob Pittman

The company’s Q4 data release shows that the Multiplatform Group, which includes the broadcast radio segment, was down 6.7% in revenue at $684 million. Part of that decline was attributable to a decrease in political advertising compared to the fourth quarter a year prior, the company said in its SEC filing.

iHeart’s broadcast revenue from its 860 radio stations in 160 markets was down 6.9%, but the radio network business for iHeart continues to struggle even more. The company’s Premiere Networks and Total Traffic and Weather Network (TTWN) saw revenue decline 8.4% in the fourth quarter compared to YoY. 

The Audio and Media Services group, which includes Katz Media Group and RCS, tumbled 28.6% in Q4, reporting $67.5 million in revenue as compared to $94.5 million in the same quarter in 2022.

The company reported operating income of $80 million in the Q4 2023, down from $173 million in Q4 2022. 

iHeart’s full year 2023 revenue results show Multiplatform Group revenue dropping by 6% to $2.6 billion. The Digital Audio Group saw yearly revenue climb to just over $1 billion. That represented a 5% boost YoY. Podcast revenue for the year jumped up 14%. 

[Related: “Cumulus Revenue Tumbled 11.4% in 2023“]

Asked on the earnings call about his view of the broadcast radio sector, Pittman said he is optimistic. He spoke to the development of the company’s proprietary technology program to enhance its advertising business, saying it will unlock programmatic and automated trading revenue for its broadcast inventory. 

“The problem with broadcast radio has not been the consumer reach, but in how we are selling our advertising,” said Pittman. “Now we are developing the technology platform so that the advertisers who are looking for that inventory to look like digital inventory, will have the platform to allow that to happen. Broadcast radio has an incredible upside opportunity for advertising sales.”  

The company “still values broadcast radio,” Pittman said. Broadcast revenue accounts for 64% of total revenue at iHeart. The Digital Audio Group’s contribution to total revenue has now grown to 30%.

iHeart’s top executive said he views 2024 “as a recovery year with a return to growth mode … with strengthening of advertising across the board.” Political advertising in a presidential election year will also bolster the second half of the year, he said. iHeart generated $167 million in political revenue during the last presidential election cycle. 

iHeart revenue in January 2024 was down 8% compared to YoY, but, after a slow start, the company reports trends that will lead to a strong fiscal 2024. iHeart leadership said the company’s momentum grew in February and March with revenue pacing up in the low single digits. iHeart now expects its revenues to be flat for Q1 2024, according to the SEC report.

Pittman on the earnings call said the application of AI to translate podcast content is enabling cost effective international expansion into non-English markets, which is “extending its audio audience leadership position beyond just AM and FM and onto new devices and platforms.”

Further, Pitman said iHeart executives continue looking at the company’s cost-base “and have built a culture within the company that is relentless in driving efficiency. And of course, we have a new tool to fuel that, which is AI.”   

iHeart President, COO and CFO Rich Bressler called AI “a driving force” of expense reduction and spoke further on the company’s priority of finding operating efficiencies.

“As part of our relentless focus on efficiency, we have been re-allocating capital from our lower growth Multiplatform Group to feed our higher-growth in our Digital Audio Group,” said Bressler. “In fact, since 2019 we have actually reduced our Multiplatform Group expense base by 7%, which has in turn helped us fund the growth of our Digital Audio Group.”

The company realized proceeds of $7.5 million from real estate sales in 2023, according to its SEC filing. Radio World has previously reported iHeart sold off some tower assets to improve its cash position. The broadcaster sold 122 of their broadcast tower sites in September 2023 for net proceeds of $45.3 million and entered into long-term operating leases.

It’s full-year capital expenditures in 2023 were $102.7 million. Bressler said cap-ex for 2024 will be approximately $100 million. The company received more than $100 million in proceeds from the sale of its equity stake in BMI in February 2024. 

iHeart reported approximately $4.9 billion in existing net debt at the end of 2023. Bressler says the company has no debt maturities until May of 2026. 

[Related: “iHeartMedia Adds to Legal and Lobbying Team“]

The post iHeartMedia Fourth Quarter 2023 Revenue Dips 5.2% appeared first on Radio World.

An organization that wants to build a low-power FM radio station in Hazleton, Pa., has failed to convince the FCC to overturn the rejection of the application.

The FCC Media Bureau originally dismissed the application of Aire Broadcasting Foundation, filed during the 2023 LPFM window. Aire sought to broadcast on 94.5 FM but the commission said it would violate second-adjacent channel spacing requirements in respect to 94.1 WQKX, a Class B signal licensed to Sunbury.

The Local Community Radio Act authorizes the commission to waive second-adjacent spacing requirements if  an applicant specifically requests a waiver in its application and demonstrates that its facilities would not result in interference to any authorized radio service.

Aire did not submit a waiver at first. It attempted to amend its application on Jan. 9, saying its engineer had made a mistake, but this was during a filing freeze for amendments to LPFM applications. When the freeze ended Aire filed a petition to seek reinstatement of its application and a waiver of the second-adjacent requirement. Aire argued that the signal would not cause interference, citing a corrected engineering exhibit.

But the commission now has upheld its decision.

It said Aire had not shown justification for a waiver, and it pointed out that the procedure notice published in advance of the application window made clear that an application that failed to protect authorizations, applications and vacant FM allotments would be “dismissed with no opportunity to correct the deficiency.”

The commission also said errors by “technical assistants” are not an excuse for failure to adhere to the rules. And it said that permitting someone to file requests to waive separation requirements after the close of the window and dismissal of their application would be “unfair to the many applicants who fully complied with the rules and filing requirements, and is therefore, contrary to the public interest.”

Thus, Aire Broadcasting Foundation’s petition that the FCC reconsider its Hazleton LPFM application was denied. (Read the decision.)

According to its application, the organization wanted a station that would focus on environmental stewardship, health and wellness, community affairs, media literacy and other local interests.

[Related: FCC Rejects Proposed LPFM Coastal Weather Network]

The post Applicant Fails to Secure an LPFM in Hazleton, Pa. appeared first on Radio World.

Just days before the end of 2023, under a federal court order, the FCC approved on a 3-2 party-line vote its 2018 Quadrennial Order. While radio station ownership rules were largely untouched, the FCC’s prohibition on owning more than one top-four full-power network station in a DMA not only continued but now extends to digital multicast channels and low-power television stations.

The nation’s No. 1 owner of over-the-air television stations has now responded by suing the Commission.

 

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Three top cable television networks have won an exemption from the FCC’s audio description rules applicable to the top five national non-broadcast networks.

Why? It has everything to do with the lack of non-live programming in prime-time.

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