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DALLAS — The National Hockey League franchise that has called North Texas home for the last three decades has signed a multi-year agreement with the nation’s dominant audience measurement and media analytics company that gives it data designed to provide precise local viewing data.

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Customers of codec manufacturer Tieline can now order a Gateway or Gateway 4 codec with the optional Dante card fitted, which delivers compatibility with Dante devices. Dante Controller software facilitates simple stream management, as well as discovery of devices and streams.

“Many of our customers have sought a solution which allows their Gateway codecs to integrate seamlessly with Dante devices across their network,” said Charlie Gawley, Tieline’s VP of Sales for the APAC and EMEA regions. “The Dante card provides this capability, and it aligns with our philosophy of supporting interoperability between different vendors of IP systems and products.”

Gateway and Gateway 4 codecs include native support for AES67, ST 2110-30, ST2022-7, AMWA NMOS IS-04 and IS-05, Ember+, RAVENNA and Livewire+. An optional WheatNet-IP card, or the new Dante card, can also be installed.

Tieline codecs specialize in streaming low latency, high quality audio over the internet using a range of wired and wireless IP transports. They are ideal for STLs, network audio distribution, and multiple remote broadcasts. Interoperability between multiple AoIP protocols delivers greater flexibility when integrating IP audio streams into the broadcast plant from a range of sources. Tieline Gateway codecs now offer unprecedented support for a wide range of different open standard and proprietary AoIP protocols.

With 3,000 watts and a signal contour allowing it to serve three Southern Illinois cities, a noncommercial FM with a checkerboard schedule of programming has attracted an audience by being a true community radio offering.

Recently, the need for an FM transmitter upgrade arose for the station’s owner. It ultimately went with a product from a company based not far to the west, in Quincy, Ill.

WDBX-FM 91.1 in Carbondale, Ill., licensed to Heterodyne Broadcasting Co., selected a Elenos ETG3500 transmitter. Thus far, the station’s Operations Manager, James Helfrich, couldn’t be more pleased with the new equipment.

“When it was time to replace our aging transmitter, we shopped around quite a bit on medium power compact transmitters,” he says. With set-up of the new transmitter an easy task for WDBX, Helfrich says it brought a non-broadcast benefit that truly helped the station’s budget. “In the first summer of operation we experienced an average of 30% of more in energy saving from unit operation and association reduction in cooling cost.”

WDBX is pairing the Elenos ETG3500 with a new Inovonics 272 processor. As a result, Helfrich says, “Our signal is stronger and has never sounded so good.”

The Elenos ETG line offers circuit boards with a special coating, coupled with an aluminum chassis. This protects from corrosion. Redundant fans provide ample air flow for cool operations; a “lifeXtender” control algorithm keeps the transmitter operating at the highest safe power level even in the event of total fan failure.

“We are excited and pleased to help WDBX deliver its unique programing across Southern Illinois and thank them for trusting the Elenos Group with this important purchase,” BE President/COO Rich Redmond said. “We know the energy savings and the reliable operation that the ETG transmitters deliver will provide WDBX reduced operating costs and peace of mind for years to come.”

Elenos Group sales associate Ben Marth worked with WDBX with the acquisition of the new transmitter.

It’s a OTT platform that features content from heritage subscription-based cable TV network HBO and a host of Warner Bros. Discovery basic cable channels. And, in a cord-cutting universe, the company led by David Zaslav is betting on continued growth of the digital delivery app.

To attract new users, WBD is using Spot Cable — a sign that Zaslav and his team have no fear in shifting viewers of its cable channels to Max.

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BBC Studios announced today the expansion of its BBC Podcasts Premium subscription service to 166 countries around the globe. The subscription service operates through the Apple Podcasts platform.

This marks a major expansion for the subscription service, which debuted in 2021 in the U.S. and Canada and was expanded to listeners in Australia and New Zealand in March 2023.

“With a wide, inventive slate of audio content that includes everything from daily news to sports analysis to pop culture to fiction and more, we’re incredibly excited to continue to expand our relationship with Apple to reach more listeners globally,” stated Louise la Grange, senior vice president for audio distribution at BBC Studios. “Through BBC Podcasts Premium, we’re inviting new audiences around the world into this seamless, premium listening experience to hear the very best of our audio journalism and storytelling.”

The move follows announced plans to transfer some audio production responsibilities from BBC Radio to BBC Studios and the establishment of a new audio production unit within BBC Studios. Richard Knight heads up the new division, while la Grange oversees international audio distribution and monetization. BBC Studios is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC Group, responsible for production and distribution of BBC-banded content, channels, and services in the United Kingdom and around the world.

BBC Podcasts Premium gives subscribers ad-free, early access to a range of BBC podcasts, including news, true crime, pop culture, history, science, and fiction programs. Since the service’s launch in 2021, BBC Podcasts Premium has been a regular fixture in Apple’s Top 10 subscriber channels, and its podcast “Dua Lipa: At Your Service” was named one of Apple Podcasts Shows We Love for 2023.

Coinciding with the expansion of the subscription service is the launch of “The Global Story,” a new daily news podcast. Hosted by Katya Adler, “The Global Story” provides deep coverage of a single story, drawing upon BBC journalists and expertise from all over the world.

[Read more Radio World stories about podcasting here.]

The post BBC Podcasts Takes Subscriptions Worldwide appeared first on Radio World.

The Petitioner requests the substitution of channel 29 for channel 2 at Greenville, South Carolina in the Table of TV Allotments.

Liam Power is senior systems engineer, ONE Media. Skip Flenniken is VP/GM of Technology Business Development, Sinclair.

One of the most interesting applications of ATSC 3.0, the new global standard for broadcasting, has been its use not only for television services but also for pure audio (radio) services. 

ATSC 3.0 enables the use of IP (Internet Protocol) as a core part of the standard, allowing enormous flexibility in the potential applications of the specification. If you can send traffic over an internet link, you can also send it over 3.0. At the end of the day, it’s all just bits: video, audio, software, files, signals, and so on. 

As a result, we can deliver audio services through a remarkably efficient, far-reaching and modern system.

Over the past year, we have experimented with a variety of methods of encoding, transport and physical delivery in several markets across the country including Baltimore, Las Vegas, Nashville, Detroit and Washington. The paper “Audio Services Over ATSC 3.0: A Proof of Concept,” given at the NAB Broadcast Engineering & IT Conference, explores in detail the decision-making and testing that led us to the current system design. The key results are summarized here.

A diagram of the prototype radio system. Metadata and thumbnails are also delivered over the air, providing a comprehensive experience without the need for an internet connection. Encoding and transport

First, when it comes to encoding, we found xHE-AAC by Fraunhofer IIS to be the most efficient at the targeted bitrates while maintaining “Good” perceived quality, compared to AC-4, HE-AACv2, HE-AACv1 and AAC-LC. This allowed us to carry audio at 24 kbps for music services, and even less for talk radio. It also has broad compatibility across devices and operating systems, simplifying integration.

Making a choice regarding the IP transport mechanism was a more difficult decision, as the standard options within 3.0 are geared towards much larger data streams than those used for audio, resulting in significant overhead at low bitrates. 

We experimented with UFTP, MPEG TS, muxed MPEG TS, RTP and Pro-MPEG RTP, as well as MMT and ROUTE, which are standard within 3.0. In the end, our decision to use Pro-MPEG RTP was second only to raw RTP for low overhead, but it came with the key benefit of FEC and ease of integration on the receiver side. One other interesting activity that we have been monitoring is BBC R&D’s work with QUIC multicast, which shows great promise in efficient distribution.

While we could simply insert the data at this point, one item within the 3.0 spec we took advantage of was UserDefined signaling, which allows us broad flexibility by permitting any valid non-conflicting XML to be sent as part of the standard signaling bundle known as LLS, or Low-Level Signaling. We crafted our service listing to allow for dynamic channel listing, some basic metadata and the ability to hand off services as a vehicle moves between markets.

Distance drive tests in the Baltimore area. We were able to receive the signal out to the Delaware border, to 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania border, and down to Washington. Testing in the car

With signaling and IP in hand, we turned to the physical layer. There are nearly endless parameters that can be tweaked here, allowing us to adjust to any reception case. 

For this activity, we focused primarily on a vehicle traveling 75 mph down the highway and secondarily on surface streets and in urban canyons. There are multiple excellent pieces of software that allow us to estimate reception in these cases, which we used in combination with real-world experimentation to determine a configuration that would result in full coverage of our target market. 

In our Baltimore tests, we were able to receive the signal out to the Delaware border, to 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania border, and down to Washington. In Detroit, the signal made it into Lansing going west and north past Flint. 

In both cases, this outperformed comparable FM stations hosted from a similar location, crossing well into adjacent markets, and notably, taking up a fraction of the bandwidth used to send an equivalent FM channel over the air. To make the math simple, using 20% of a UHF television channel a station can offer one hundred (100) audio services.

These results have several interesting implications for the radio industry and its competitors. 

One recent development is the removal of AM tuners from vehicles, particularly EVs. Being primarily on the UHF spectrum and thus unaffected by the interference plaguing AM receivers, 3.0 provides a convenient “lifeboat” for AM stations to still have a presence in vehicles, the primary location for radio listening. Additionally, 3.0 delivers improved audio quality and reach over traditional AM radio. This, of course, relies on vehicles having ATSC 3.0 tuners in them, but we have reasons to be optimistic on that front. 

It also isn’t just AM that can benefit from the improved quality and reception. FM and satellite can see similar advantages, as it is very simple to tweak the encoding to meet the desired bitrate, rather than being locked into specific quality levels. ATSC 3.0 provides the advantages of digital radio without the quality loss.

In Detroit, the signal made it into Lansing going west and north past Flint. The maps show sufficient overlap with adjacent markets to allow for signal handoff between towers. Flexible and efficient

The efficiency of ATSC 3.0 for linear content creates the opportunity to offload expensive internet and satellite delivery onto 3.0, primarily for the satellite and streaming companies, but also for those radio stations that provide online streams of their stations. 

Because of the IP nature of 3.0, it can easily transmit audio feeds and failover to the internet in the event of signal loss or market change. For large-scale providers, it offers the opportunity to bring their distribution costs more in line with those of radio stations, as they can take their most-listened linear streams and dynamically send them over 3.0 as listenership changes throughout the day.

Last, an area being actively explored is the integration of digital radio standards directly into 3.0. We have performed experiments with multiple standards thanks to the cooperation of such entities as Fraunhofer IIS and Xperi/DTS and found the burden of integration to be low. This presents a straightforward way to utilize 3.0 with existing receiver systems by carrying the digital radio data over 3.0 and passing it to the digital radio receiver. Imagine an RF-agnostic delivery method, where a signal could be received over AM, FM, ATSC 3.0 or the internet and presented in the same way to the end user. This would ensure the broadest availability at the lowest distribution cost.

In short, ATSC 3.0 is an immensely flexible and efficient standard, creating significant business opportunities for audio services delivered over broadcast.

Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject field.

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The post ATSC 3.0 Audio Services: The How and Why appeared first on Radio World.

In Brush, Colo., the local public school district filed an application with the FCC for a new noncommercial FM radio station. A noted broadcast engineer filed an informal objection to the application.

The FCC has now ruled in favor of the school district, allowing it to build the new facility.

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She holds a seat on the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee, which has direct oversight of the FCC, and served as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee for six years. In recent years, she’s fought to squelch Sputnik Radio from U.S. airwaves and demanded that “loud TV ads” be put to rest.

Come January 2025, there will be no further efforts in Congress from Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.). 

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A broadcast television station serving the Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., market recently completed its transition to a broadcast frequency of 57 MHz. While it is running at full power, it acknowledges that its low-VHF channel position makes over-the-air reception difficult for its viewers.

A shift to the more-powerful UHF band is now being sought, and is pending FCC approval.

 

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Getty Images/Maksim Prasolenko

The FCC has issued a waiver to allow ham radio operators to communicate with federal stations on and around Pearl Harbor Day.

The American Radio Relay League requested the limited four-day waiver from the Mobility Division of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.

“The waiver request is for the limited purpose of a short-term event relating to National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, commemorating the 82nd anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, and to allow amateur licensees to practice communication techniques with the United States military from Dec. 6–9, 2023,” the commission explained.

Section 97.111(a) of its rules authorizes amateur stations to transmit specific types of two-way communications and limits communications with federal stations. (The rule does grant such authority for one such event, the Armed Forces Day Communications Test, but no other commemoration day is authorized explicitly.)

ARRL said the waiver will allow tests to help train operators and test communications capabilities between military communicators and radio stations in the Amateur Radio Service, allowing operators to demonstrate their skills in a controlled context. It said the amateur operators would follow FCC regulations including mode, maximum power and license class. ARRL added that the relevant military authorities support these cross-band operations.

The commission approved the request. It said the event “presents a unique opportunity for the amateur and military communities to practice communication skills under the guidance of military officials, which may be useful in the future and serves the public interest.” It added that “this day has a historic significance and emphasizes the importance of reliable communications and the need to be vigilant in our national defense.”

The waiver is conditioned on participating stations monitoring the three identified federal frequencies of 14.375 MHz, 18.1625 MHz and 21.856 MHz; responding on spectrum allocated to the amateur service and only at the request of event organizers; operating consistent with the privileges of their amateur licenses; and limiting communications to the period Dec. 6–9.

[Related: “FCC Replaces Many Amateur Radio Symbol Rate Limits”]

The annual commemoration remembers the 2,403 service members and civilians killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Another 1,178 people were injured in the attack, which permanently sank two U.S. Navy battleships and destroyed 188 aircraft. In 1994 ongress designated Dec. 7 as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, according to a summary on the National Park Service website.

The post Amateur Radio Gets Waiver for Pearl Harbor Day Activities appeared first on Radio World.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Curious as to when the voting members of the FCC will be holding their monthly Open Meetings next year?

The calendar has just been released by the Commission.

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As the broadcast television company warns viewers of its stations that they could face a “blackout,” by law, if they are DirecTV subscribers due to the absence of a fresh retransmission consent accord, TEGNA has moved forward with the naming of a new Director of Content for its NBC affiliate serving Atlanta.

Starting December 11, the position will be held by Carol Fowler, who will oversee the day-to-day operations of the news department at WXIA “11Alive.” Fowler will also be asked to serve as a leader in developing the strategic vision for the station’s audience growth.

Once at WXIA, Fowler will report to President/GM Kristie Gonzales. “During her more than 25-year career, Carol has led large market newsrooms to new heights,” Gonzales commented. “With her digital acumen, she has successfully created innovative newsrooms that serve the local community, no matter the platform. She is a strong believer in teamwork and her unwavering dedication to inclusive journalism is evident in her team’s award-winning work in St. Louis. We are thrilled to have a leader of her caliber in Atlanta.”

Fowler since 2019 has been in charge of content strategy at TEGNA-owned KSDK-5 in St. Louis, also an NBC affiliate. There, she managed a team of more than 90 journalists. Before joining KSDK, Fowler was an adjunct lecturer at Northwestern University and a co-facilitator at the Poynter Institute.

From October 2017-December 2018, Fowler was in the print journalism business, serving as SVP of Digital News Products at the Chicago Sun-Times. However, Fowler is widely remembered in Chicago for her role as VP/News Director at WBBM-2, from September 2002 through early 2009; and at WFLD-32 in Chicago from February 2009 through January 2012. Additionally, Fowler was a News Director for WGN-9, and from May 1989 until September 1994 was a newscast producer at WLS-7.

“It’s an honor to join 11Alive in this leadership role,” Fowler said. “Our goal is to create and support a newsroom environment that brings out the very best in every journalist, all with a clear understanding of our purpose as a news organization. Reporting stories that are top of mind and highly relevant to the lives of our diverse Atlanta audience will be at the core.”

Fowler is a native of Jackson, Miss., and a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia with a degree in Journalism. She and her husband, David Klobucar, are the parents of two adult daughters, Kate and Christine.

On November 21, RBR+TVBR shared the news that, after much speculation, a New York-based investment firm confirmed its lead role in a shareholder group that seeks to acquire Broadcast Music, Inc., the music rights group known as “BMI.”

What wasn’t known until now is just how much the nation’s No. 1 owner of radio stations will pocket from the deal, giving it much-needed cash to bolster cash flow battered by continued macroeconomic headwinds.

 

According to a brief statement distributed by iHeartMedia, the company led by President/CEO Bob Pittman and COO/CFO Rich Bressler said the sale of BMI to the shareholder group led by New Mountain Capital will bring a big payday to the radio station owner and podcast industry player.

Specifically, iHeart expects to receive approximately $100 million of proceeds related to its equity interest in BMI.

That payout is subject to approval of the transaction by BMI shareholders and customary regulatory approvals.

What’s the plan for iHeartMedia once it has that big chunk of cash? “The Company plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include the repayment of debt.”

With the transaction set to close no later than March 2024, that means iHeartMedia will likely report the additional dollars on its Q1 2024 fiscal report.

And, it is another shot in the arm for iHeartMedia with respect to dollars generated from non-advertising-related activities. In Q3 2023, the company enjoyed $45.3 million in cash proceeds from the sale of 122 tower sites. The cash was used to lower iHeart’s outstanding debt of $5.229 billon, as lease-back agreements were initiated for all but one of those tower sites.

The $100 million influx of cash represents roughly 1.91% of iHeart’s total long-term debt.

BOCA RATON, FLA. — With low temperatures in the mid-50s in the forecast, tomorrow and December 5 are shaping up to be beautiful Tuesdays in South Florida. For Townsquare Media, the hope is blue skies will yield greenbacks in the form of institutional investor commitments generated from a pair of key investor conferences company executives will appear at.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The EVP/Technology and Chief Technology Officer of the NAB is actively reminding broadcast television licensees that they have until Wednesday to abide by a FCC requirement that, if no action is taken, could greatly impact the station.

In fact, it could lead to a license cancellation.

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From Portland, Ore., and Tampa, Fla., to Buffalo, N.Y. and the Nation’s Capital, viewers of television stations owned by the company formerly known as Gannett are being warned that, if they are DirecTV subscribers, they could lose access to the channels as soon as late Thursday evening.

The direct broadcast satellite company is already speaking out about the potential retransmission consent dispute.

With crawl screen messages seen on stations including WTSP-10 in Tampa-St. Petersburg and WUSA9 in Washington, D.C., on Sunday and a banner appearing on their station websites indicating “a special message” for those who watch via DirecTV, TEGNA is warning of a loss of access to their stations if a deal is not reached by November 30.

The retransmission consent negotiations also involve AT&T U-Verse.

Viewers of the TEGNA stations visiting their websites are routed to “keepmylocaltv.com,” with variants for each station based on their network affiliation. For example, KGW-8 viewers in Portland, Ore., are shown a microsite highlighting how Sunday Night Football, The Voice and Saturday Night Live are at stake.

On the site, TEGNA says, “We are negotiating with DIRECTV, but thus far, they have refused to reach a fair, market-based agreement to keep our station on DIRECTV and AT&T U-verse.”

In Sacramento, KXTV “ABC10” began running crawl screen messages warning of the November 30 expiry date of the current retransmission consent agreement on Saturday morning. The timing was designed to reach college football game-day viewers.

What does DirecTV have to say about the potential “blackout,” by law, it must undertake should a fresh retrans deal with TEGNA not be signed by the end of the day Thursday?

As is typical in these negotiations, the MVPD blames the TV station owner for seeking an unfair compensation value for the right of DirecTV to profit from the carriage of the signals owned by broadcast TV companies such as TEGNA.

In a statement provided to RBR+TVBR, a DirecTV spokesperson said, “TEGNA has once again made a private negotiation public in the hopes of creating unnecessary and premature concern among some of our customers to extract higher rates for local broadcast stations. Unfortunately, that’s become the industry norm as the costs for free local stations have soared more than 20% year upon year upon year despite declining popularity and less-compelling content. We will continue to meet our customers’ demands for greater choice and value and do our utmost to shield them from unwarranted price hikes as we work with TEGNA to renew its stations without any interruption.”

TEGNA owns and operates 68 stations, with 21 stations affiliated with NBC and 16 with CBS. Each of the stations, DirecTV points out, stream their local news product while network content can be seen via Peacock or Paramount+.

“Powerful tools that help radio stations thrive in today’s dynamic broadcasting landscape.”

That’s the brand promise of Vancouver, B.C.-based SPARC Media Hub co-founder Skyler Richard, who last week shared details about a new “comprehensive” digital workflow system now available for radio stations.

The product is designed to increase operational efficiencies for radio stations, with total management of all digital operations needs.

The Digital Workflow integrates within SPARC’s existing Creative Workflow.

For details about SPARC Media Hub’s Digital Workflow integration please visit www.sparcmediahub.com

Logo of Brush High School

A Colorado school district has won a construction permit to build an FM radio station despite objections from broadcast engineer Jim “Turbo” Turvaville.

Brush School District serves 1,500 students in the community of Brush on the northeastern plains of Colorado. It applied for a noncom educational FM station during the 2021 NCE FM filing window and originally was part of a group of mutually exclusive (MX) applications; as a result of technical amendments it is now a “singleton.”

The school district wrote in its filings that it intends to include the station in its curriculum and plans to use it to teach communication, management and technical skills.

The FCC Media Bureau had dismissed its application in January of 2022 because of signal overlap with a co-channel station, but the school district amended its proposed channel and the bureau reinstated the application.

Turbo Tech Services, run by engineer Jim Turvaville, filed an informal objection, saying that the application remains defective for several reasons and should be dismissed for failure to provide corrective amendments “at the single opportunity provided by the commission staff.”

An important concept in the case is “nunc pro tunc,” a legal term used to describe circumstances in which an agency may change an outcome retroactively.

The commission now has rejected Turbo’s several arguments. (Read the ruling.)

The upshot is that the Media Bureau has issued the CP to Brush School District for a Class A FM station on 88.3 MHz with 3 kW effective radiated power.

The school system mascot, by the way, is a Beetdigger, and its logos bear the image of a beet-digging tool.

The post The Brush Beetdiggers Will Get an FM Station appeared first on Radio World.