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A New York-based company known for workflow automation and ad management for audio content creation and distribution companies is team up with an ad management platform brand catering to publishers and media companies as part of a joint effort to deliver “quicker, more accurate requests for host-read ads.”

The combined offering of Frequency and Boostr “brings greater operational efficiencies to podcast networks to drive revenue growth and increased profitability.”

Specifically, API integration between the two companies connects their respective podcast ad management platforms to streamline and automate workflows.

As flights are added to Boostr’s order management system, production requests are triggered in Frequency with details such as ad types, copy execution, approval requirements, and more.

The automatic creation of production requests feeds into Frequency’s Production Automation workflow, where teams can manage the back and forth to finalize host-read ads for launch.

With requests centralized and communication streamlined, users can track details, set reminders, use bulk editing tools, QA recordings, and provide feedback.

Learn more at FrequencyAds.com

He’s a veteran news commentator and journalist who has worked at FOX News and ABC News. Starting this evening, he’ll now be serving as a correspondent-at-large for the cable TV network owned by Nexstar Media Group.

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Jerry Del Colliano

The author of this commentary is the publisher of Inside Music Media, where this commentary first appeared. Subscription info can be found here. 

It is becoming more apparent that SiriusXM sees the decline of in-car subscribers for their satellite monopoly and is now betting on the digital future instead – the only problem is, in digital they have endless competitors.

Satellite radio is a legal monopoly; the two authorized satellite companies XM and Sirius merged, giving them a clear path to take advantage of radio’s faults (commercials, lack of variety, fewer personalities).

Now at 34 million subscribers, satellite radio has peaked and the costly process of broadcasting from orbits above the earth is deemphasized.

The sat company is offering subscriptions for as low as several dollars a month.

In some cases, for example, Amex picks up 100% of the charge for Platinum card holders.

Ironically, the paid satellite service that competed for decades against free radio is in many ways also becoming free radio, prompting a change in strategy.

Late to digital

SiriusXM is embracing digital streaming like it is something new, but Spotify and Apple Music already dominate the sector, with many other digital options to compete with now.

SiriusXM controls the original music streaming service Pandora, which has not been able to keep up with Spotify and Apple Music, so their new plans include expanding out their satellite channels for digital delivery even to the point of keeping them aligned with the offerings available in cars.

BUT, SiriusXM is offering no new digital approach that would attract younger consumers – the ones they don’t currently have in the car and must have in any successful digital initiative.

I can tell you I have yet to find even one college student interested in SiriusXM at any price, either in the car or delivered digitally, although all have either or both Spotify and Apple Music.

The podcasting mistake

SiriusXM is not learning from Spotify’s costly and public flirtation with podcasting, in which they spent hundreds of millions of dollars to attract exclusive podcasts available only for paid subscribers – the experiment failed.

Spotify recently ended many costly podcaster exclusives and is keeping a few like Joe Rogan under very different circumstances and pay incentives making the podcasts available everywhere without a subscription.

Meanwhile SiriusXM is dropping $100 million on Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett as part of a large deal between SiriusXM and SmartLess Media. That’s higher than the $90 million they are currently paying for Howard Stern’s services.

They may be signaling a reluctance to reup the 70-year old Stern when his contract expires – at least at present numbers.

SiriusXM, like terrestrial radio, seems to be searching for something other than their core radio business, which is by all measures eroding – gross profit down 3% in 2023 – but terrestrial radio will not benefit from their retreat because satellite radio never hurt it in the first place.

To keep investors happy, SiriusXM is eliminating another 160 jobs as part of a rolling layoff that will help prune expenses.

The bottom line

Satellite radio missed its earlier opportunity to profit from the crass commercialization of radio and seems just as willing as its free radio competitor to virtually give away car subscriptions to join the digital revolution that may have already peaked.

Comment on this or any story. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

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The largest Spanish-language media and content company has launched 12 free ad-supported TV channels on a popular “FAST” channel platform offering from Amazon Video, expanding the potential audience for ViX programming.

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When it comes to “brand lift,” Chief Marketing Officers are more demanding than ever for results from advertising campaigns. A new tier of Veritonic’s “Brand Lift” offering promises to offer a new, wider dimension to brand health measurement, with enhanced metrics designed to further educate marketers and brand managers on their promotional efforts.

The self-serve Brand Lift Pulse tier provides brands with access to “actionable awareness, favorability, use, intent, and recall data for audio campaigns of all sizes,” Veritonic claims. “Additionally, audio platforms and networks can now offer this highly coveted data to clients at every spend level and campaign size, providing invaluable insights that were historically reserved for substantial campaign investments.”

Elaborating on the new offering, Veritonic founder and CEO Scott Simonelli commented, “At Veritonic, we are firm believers in democratizing access to essential data for audio success, advocating for the principle that every brand, agency, and platform should have the tools they need, irrespective of their size, scale, or investment capacity. Brand Lift Pulse not only levels the playing field, but also empowers every player incorporating audio into their marketing strategy. It ensures that all stakeholders can maintain a keen awareness of market dynamics, equipped with the essential data and metrics necessary for informed decision-making in both current and future audio campaigns.”

Similar to Veritonic’s Standard and Custom tiers of Brand Lift, Pulse includes demographic segmentation, custom questions, reporting, best practices, and in-platform access to data.

Veritonic Chief Revenue Officer Korri Kolesa added, “Brand Lift has long been a measurement modality reserved for more established brands spending significant amounts of money, and ones that focus on top of funnel brand metrics. Brand lift metrics are crucial for brands of all sizes and as the audio space has matured, so has the needs of its advertisers. Brand Lift Pulse goes beyond the conventional focus on bottom-of-the-funnel metrics, providing comprehensive support for brands seeking a holistic understanding of their impact. Similar to how the advent of attribution transformed the advertiser mix in audio, we are now witnessing brand lift spearhead the next era of confidence in the medium.”

“The best in classic television” with programming including classic second-run episodes of Doctor Who, Naked City, The Beverly Hillbillies, One Step Beyond, The Ray Bradbury Theater and soap opera The Doctors is returning to a fast-growing DMA after being absent there since 2021.

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Planning for the 2024 NAB Show is ramping up, and Radio World is asking exhibitors about their plans and expectations. Doug Vernier is president of V-Soft Communications.

Radio World: What is the most important technology issue or trend for radio engineers and facility managers in 2024?

Doug Vernier: For AM it’s the cost of doing business, particularly when the property you use for your tower is worth much more being sold for a different purpose. The price of electricity will continue to rise so the average engineer will be asked to find ways to lower the cost by using Modulation Dependent Carrier Level (MDCL) technologies or other processes such as Adaptive Carier Control and Modulation Companding.

Many more AM stations will go off the air. FM operating expense will have to be trimmed and this will be the engineer’s biggest issue. The trend in transmitters is smaller is better.

There will be a continued movement from the older tube technology to the newer solid state that produces considerably less heat and requires a smaller footprint at the transmitter. Unfortunately, HD transmission uses more energy, so there will be even more questioning of its use, particular in the smaller cities where it never really caught on.

Doug Vernier

RW: In what way(s) will AI-based tools change radio broadcasting workflows most substantially?

Vernier: I see AI as infiltrating every aspect of the broadcaster’s business. More than just on-the-air hosts and copy writing, we will see the AI integration in all areas of running the business and doing the engineering. AI [will] be talking to other AI systems to form a cohesive whole to all the facets of station operation, not the least of which is audience research. (ZoneCasting may make sense to some, but it will take AI to make it work with the least effort.) This will change the whole profile of broadcasting in the drive to find the wisest way to profitability.

RW: What news will your company feature at the convention — any new products or services? 

Vernier: V-Soft Communications has spent more than 30 years in the business of  communicating with engineers and other users to develop better and faster methods of solving coverage and frequency allocations issues with software. Its programs have been improving exponentially with each of those releases. Our company will be demonstrating these many new features and updates with it’s AM-Pro-2, FMCommander and Probe 5 software.

RW: Are there any other important technology trends that you’d like to comment on?

Vernier: Radio’s rapid movement toward virtualization will continue and be more powerful with the use of AI. There will be fewer studios to maintain because the definition of a studio is changing, and with it the need to pare down physical facilities. Much of the work will translate to computer maintenance, development of in-house AI systems and knowledge of streaming techniques. There will be fewer engineers who know R.F. which well elevate the need for more contract engineers.

RW: What else will you be watching for at the convention?

Vernier: This will be the year of AI at the show. It will be interesting to see how this changes all broadcast products and how this will impact stations and their audiences.

V-Soft Communications booth: W3147

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

The post Exhibitor Preview: V-Soft Communications at the NAB Show appeared first on Radio World.

From Radio World’s Who’s Buying What page: Kuskokwim Public Media purchased five Nautel VX150 FM transmitters for KSKO(FM) in McGrath, Alaska, and several satellite stations.

Program Director Paul Walker — who calls himself “The Alaska Radio Nerd” — told Nautel: “Our transmitters while not in the very worst environments, aren’t in the very best either and they need to just WORK, and Nautels are tough. All of our stations are under 100 watts but we need a little extra than that to make the ERP, given the antennas we use, and we don’t need 300 or 6000 watts.”

These racks serve KGYA 90.5 in Grayling, KLOP 91.5 in Holy Cross and KMGS 89.5 in Anvik, which are full-time “satellators” of KSKO in McGrath, Alaska. The blue Nautel transmitters are visible.

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

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The nation’s No. 1 owner of broadcast TV stations, which controls The CW Network and also owns heritage spoken word radio station WGN-AM in Chicago and the NewsNation cable TV channel, has appointed an individual whose chief responsibility is “driving demand and developing unique creative opportunities” for advertisers to connect with the company’s local and national audiences.

 

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Each year, the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters honors the exceptional accomplishments of the Keystone State’s broadcast stations and their professionals. This year, Audacy Inc. is part of the honors.

In fact, Philadelphia-headquartered Audacy, which is winding its way through a Houston federal bankruptcy court as it seeks to quickly shed its debtor-in-possession status with a restructuring, is the recipient of 15 PAB 2024 Excellence in Broadcasting Awards.

Recipients will celebrate at a luncheon in May.

In addition to Audacy, WVIA-TV, the PBS affiliate for Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania; and TEGNA-owned WPMT-TV “FOX 43” in  Harrisburg-York-Lancaster, Pa., scored honors. WVIA’s NPR Member radio station is also an award winner for 2024.

For a full list of winners, please click here.

The list of Audacy winners are as follows:

Outstanding Use of Digital Media 2024
KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh
This Hits Different

Outstanding Radio Station Marketing & Promos 2024
WBEB-FM in Philadelphia
Bee Positive on B101

Outstanding Radio Station Marketing & Promos 2024
WTDY-FM in Philadelphia
90-SWIFT-FIVE T-A-Y Rebrand Stunt

2024 Outstanding Public Service Announcement/Campaign
WBEB-FM in Philadelphia
B101’s Christmas Choir Competition

2024 Outstanding Feature Story/Report 
KYW Newsradio AM & FM in Philadelphia
Crisis at the Juvenile Justice Center

2024 Outstanding Local Radio Newscast
KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh
Garfield Standoff

2024 Outstanding Local Radio Newscast 
KYW Newsradio AM & FM in Philadelphia
The I-95 Collapse in Philadelphia

2024 Outstanding Radio Coverage of a Local Sporting Event
KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh
Oobi’s Orchestration

2024 Outstanding Local Radio Personality/Team
WPHT-AM in Philadelphia
“The Rich Zeoli Show”

2024 Outstanding Local Radio Personality/Team
WGGY-FM “Froggy 101” in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre
“The Doc Show with Chewy”

2024 Outstanding Local Radio Personality/Team
WPHT-AM in Philadelphia
“Kayal & Company”

2024 Outstanding Local Radio Personality/Team
WBZZ-FM “Star 100.7” in Pittsburgh
“Bubba Show”

2024 Outstanding Radio Station Sponsored Event
WOGL-FM in Philadelphia
BIG 98.1 Loves Our Kids Radiothon

Judges’ Merit Radio 2024
KYW Newsradio AM & FM in Philadelphia
“The Baker and the Grocer”

Judges’ Merit Radio 2024
WBEB-FM in Philadelphia
Christmas Music Kick-Off on B101

Note: KDKA-AM also airs on an FM translator within Pittsburgh.

Audience measurement and consumer intelligence company Nielsen has secured a multi-market renewal with Morgan Murphy Media, the Madison, Wisc.-based television and radio company.

What will the new agreement for ratings  bring to the company?

Nielsen will expand its Local TV measurement coverage for Morgan Murphy with newly licensed TV stations in the Yakima-Pasco-Richland-Kennewick, Wash.; and Marquette and Alpena, Mich. DMAs.

Additionally, renewed agreements for Local TV service in Spokane; LaCrosse-Eau Claire and Madison, Wisc.; and Victoria, Tex., are in place.

The Texas operation was formerly owned by Saga Communications.

“We are honored to expand our coverage with Morgan Murphy in Washington State, Wisconsin, Texas, and now Michigan” said Paul LeFort, Managing Director for Nielsen’s Local TV business. “Nielsen’s local TV solutions empower Morgan Murphy and our Local TV customers to make critical content decisions, maximize the value of their premium audiences and serve the communities where they operate.”

Chris Cornelius, Vice President of Business Development for Morgan Murphy Media, added, “Nielsen’s innovative approach to Local TV measurement in our markets was critical in our decision to expand our relationship. Their ongoing investments to transform measurement in our markets made Nielsen the natural choice to serve both our existing and new properties.”

Hearst Media Production Group (HMPG), known as a producer and distributor of wildlife programming, has launched a free-ad supported television (“FAST”) channel on the Paramount-owned streaming service.

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Memorandum Opinion and Order dismisses the Application for Review filed by Albuquerque Board of Education seeking reinstatement of the cancelled licenses of DKRSN(AM), Los Alamos, New Mexico and FM Translator Station DK296GI, Los Alamos, New Mexico.

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For years, cable TV subscribers in two Western New York counties have had the ability to watch CBS programming from either Buffalo or Rochester, N.Y.

Not anymore. Charter Communications’ Spectrum has dropped the affiliate serving the latter market from its systems in those two Empire State locales.

Interestingly enough, both CBS affiliates are owned by the same company — Nexstar Media Group. And, Nexstar has put the blame on the MVPD for not wanting to pay for it.

Spectrum sees it differently.

 

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Several years ago, the author wrote about options available to AM stations and licensees that needed to move or wanted to maximize their facilities. Radio World asked him to update that useful article for our recent ebook “Maximizing Your AM Infrastructure.”

I have in recent years had discussions with several individuals about AM siting issues. Stations frequently lose their land leases or have to sell their land for economic reasons. Landlords and station owners find that the dirt under the AM tower or towers is worth far more for another purpose than as an AM site.

Many times, this news comes with little warning, and stations don’t have a lot of time to find another site. The other side of this double-edged sword is that it isn’t easy to build a tower anymore, even out in the middle of nowhere.

Tight ASR regulations requiring public notice and environmental processing, in addition to NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act) and NPA (Nationwide Programmatic Agreement) compliance, can add years to the tower approval process. Add to that the state and local environmental, zoning and land use regulations that many venues have in place, and you may find that it will take three or four years just to get all the approvals needed to build — if you can get them at all.

None of that regulatory compliance is cheap. The cost can easily exceed the cost of the tower or towers. Or even the whole radio station. The sad economic reality can well be that it’s just not worth it. The earnings potential of the AM station over five or 10 years may not come close to paying for development of the new site. All of that pushes AM station owners to look at other options, one of which may be shutting the station off and turning in the license. We’ve done that very thing at Crawford Broadcasting in recent years.

COLLOCATION

“Collocation” is a word that has gained popularity with local regulatory bodies since the start of the cellular boom. I have found that some local planning bodies have the word written into policy or even codified into statute. If an applicant comes to them wanting to build an antenna support structure of any kind, their first question is whether it can be collocated on an existing site. The bar is often set fairly high for this, making collocation a much more attractive route than new construction.

Of course, these rules and policies were written mostly to address the cellular proliferation of the past close to 30 years. AM (or any broadcast) use was not even a factor; but a tower is a tower, so AMs get lumped in with the rest and have the same burden of proof as to why they can’t simply hang their little antenna on the side of the 60-foot 5G monopole behind the Wal-Mart.

That being said, it’s a pretty rare thing for an AM station to be the only broadcast outlet in a town, especially in urbanized areas, and that opens up the possibility of some kind of collocation.

AM WITH AM

The easiest kind of collocation to do is with another AM station. If the tower is tall enough to present a reasonable impedance and the stations are sufficiently far apart in frequency (>120 kHz), diplexing two AM stations together is a fairly simple matter of using pass/reject filters on each frequency. Fig. 1 shows cabinets enclosing the needed components. 

Fig. 1: These cabinets contain diplex filters, ATU and prematch components to allow two 15 kW AM stations to share the tower.

Just a little over a year ago, I did a “DIY” diplex project that was chronicled in the pages of Radio World Engineering Extra. Give that a look for an example of what can be done in some circumstances. 

Even if a tower might otherwise be considered too short for the frequency of the station to be collocated, there are often things that can be done to make it work. Reactance can be resonated with shunt components to raise the impedance, and broadbanding networks can sometimes be used to produce a better VSWR bandwidth.

Until February 2016, stations didn’t often have this option. The FCC’s minimum antenna efficiency standards required in most cases for an antenna to produce at least 282 mV/m per kilowatt at 1 km. Fifty-five electrical degrees was about as short as you could go and still meet the standard.

In the FCC’s initial AM Revitalization effort, the minimum antenna efficiency standard was reduced to 215 mV/m per kilowatt at 1 km. Curve A in §73.190, Figure 8 only goes down to about 18 electrical degrees (0.05 wavelength), and that corresponds to about 214 mV/m, so presumably a 19-degree antenna would meet the minimum antenna efficiency standard. That really gives stations some options. The lower efficiency could be made up for with transmitter power (and electricity usage).

A station on 600 kHz could, for example, diplex with a station on 1550 kHz that uses a 90-degree (158-foot) tower and still easily meet the minimum antenna efficiency standard.

Of course, we’re talking about non-directional daytime operation here. At night, the vertical plane radiation pattern comes into play, known as the “function of theta.” Short towers are notorious “cloud burners,” radiating a lot of energy well above the horizon. A full-time non-directional AM station that moves from a quarter-wave tower to one that’s 30 or 40 degrees tall will have to reduce power at night to keep from raising the night limits of all the other stations on frequency, particularly those within a few hundred miles.

Can directional stations diplex together? Certainly, if the tower lines and spacing are right for putting the lobes and nulls in the right places. 

Years ago, I had a 5 kW 1290 kHz station in Portland that diplexed into all three towers of a 50 kW 1520 kHz station. The tower line and spacing were just right and it worked. At present I have a 5 kW 970 kHz station in Buffalo that diplexes with a 5 kW 1270 kHz station using all five towers of our directional array, and it works well for both stations day and night (Fig. 2). That kind of thing is rare, however.

Fig. 2: This five-tower inline array is home to WDCZ and WHLD, both 5 kW stations, in the Buffalo market. That’s Lake Erie in the background.

How about a non-directional AM diplexing on one tower of another station’s directional array? That’s fairly easy to do, although pass/reject filters and detuning components will be required at the unused towers for the relocated station. It’s also possible to use as a directional antenna just a few towers of another station’s array that has more than that, again provided that the tower line and spacing are right, and again with the understanding that pass/reject filters and detuning components will be required on all the unused towers.

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AM ON FM/TV

It’s also possible for an FM or TV (or communications) tower to be used as an AM radiator. The easiest way to do this is to add a set of skirt wires to the tower, insulate the guy wires and plow in a radial ground system. If the tower is fairly tall, the skirt wires may need only go up part of the way, leaving the top part of the tower unencumbered for antenna mounting. Fig. 3 shows two adjacent towers “wearing” a wire skirt.

Fig. 3: The stick on the left is an FM structure with a wire skirt to allow an AM to operate using the tower. The one on the right is a communications tower with an AM skirt.

For many years, I have used Greater Media’s 1,000-foot “Motower” in Detroit for a nighttime site for our 560 kHz station there, seen in Fig. 4. A set of skirt wires runs some distance up the tower and shorts to it at a spot that provides a reasonable impedance at the bottom of the skirt.

Fig. 4: WRDT feeds a skirt on the 1,000-foot Motower in Detroit. Note the insulated guy wires.

Only three ground radials are used for this antenna because of structures and parking lot that occupy what would be the antenna field. Field measurements were made to prove the efficiency of the antenna and determine the input power.

That’s sort of an extreme example, but the point is that it works very well, and we have seldom seen any base impedance change as a result of antenna and transmission line changes on up the tower.

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NON-TRADITIONAL ANTENNAS

I would be remiss if I did not mention non-traditional antenna options such as the Kinstar from Kintronic Laboratories (Fig. 5) and the Valcom whip.

The Kinstar uses an array of five short support poles instead of a tower and has been shown to provide good results, an inverse distance field of 300 mV/m/kW, and it is short enough that it may not require any special zoning or local regulatory approval.

Fig. 5: The Kinstar antenna is a non-traditional, low-profile AM radiator that may work in height-limited situations.

The Valcom Whip antenna is a 75- or 85-foot (depending on model) fiberglass whip that’s good for 2 kW input power below 1,000 kHz and 5 kW above. in 2008, the FCC approved use of the 85-foot Valcom Whip above 1,200 kHz, stating in the public notice that it met the minimum antenna efficiency standard in effect at the time. Presumably, the Valcom could be used on lower frequencies now that the minimum efficiency standard has been lowered.

Either of these options would require a ground system, and a full quarter-wavelength radial system would be best. Still, a low-profile antenna would likely find an easier (and faster) path through the regulatory labyrinth than a full-sized tower.

GROUND SYSTEMS

What happens when an existing station moves to the tower(s) of a higher-frequency station and the ground system is short on the lower frequency? The short answer, no pun intended, is that this is largely taken care of in the new antenna efficiency standards.

The FCC has an unpublished (as far as I know) algorithm that it uses to calculate the inverse distance field of an AM tower with a shortened ground system, based on the average length and number of radials. For example, a 55-degree tower with a full 90-degree 120-radial ground system has an efficiency of 282 mV/m at 1 km per kilowatt. Change the average radial length to 60 degrees and the Curve A efficiency drops to 257 mV/m/kW.

The bottom line (again, no pun intended) with these things is that measurements trump everything (as they did with the Motower example), so if in doubt, if on the edge or off the bottom of the chart, request an STA or experimental authority, temporarily feed the tower on the new frequency and go out and make some measurements in accordance with §73.186. You can then submit those with your application. Measurements would almost certainly be required with a Kinstar or Valcom antenna.

COMMUNITY COVERAGE

I should mention the changes in the community coverage standards that were also enacted in 2016. Before the change, AM stations had to produce 5 mV/m coverage of 80 percent or more of the principal community during the day and interference-free coverage in the same percentage of the community at night. That was a real problem for siting AM stations, especially as community boundaries have often grown and available sites are many times a good distance from the town.

The new rules, which require only 50% principal community coverage with the daytime 5 mV/m contour and 50% (area or population) nighttime principal community coverage with the higher of the night interference-free contour or 5 mV/m, give existing AMs that are forced to move a lot of options.

If you’re faced with the prospect of an AM site move, keep these options in mind.

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iHeartMedia knew it would get a healthy cash boost from the sale of its equity interest in Broadcast Music Inc. Now it has announced the total: $101.4 million.

It announced the total in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission once the acquisition of BMI by a shareholder group led by New Mountain Capital closed.

The dollar amount is in line with an estimate that had been announced when the acquisition was made public in November.

iHeart says it plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include the repayment of debt.

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NASHVILLE — The Pandora Media LLC unit of Sirius XM has been used in a Nashville federal district court on the grounds that it short-changed the Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) on royalty payments.

The MLC also seeks late fees from Pandora, due under a compulsory mechanical blanket license obtained by Pandora to reproduce and distribute musical works in the United States via its consumer music streaming platform.

The MLC seeks corrected usage reporting and associated unpaid royalties and late fees for periods dating back to January 1, 2021, along with an order requiring compliance going forward. A copy of the complaint can be found here.

While Spotify has largely taken over individual music-on-demand streaming from Pandora, the latter’s place in the retail world has grown under Sirius XM ownership. However, the action from the MLC asserts that Pandora underreported and underpaid mechanical royalties due in connection with the operation of its ad-supported music streaming offering marketed as “Pandora Free.”

The action further explains that Pandora Free is an interactive service under the law, meaning that mechanical royalties are due for all streaming activity on the service. According to the MLC, Pandora has only reported a portion of the activity on Pandora Free and “refused” to report and pay mechanical royalties for the rest of the activity.

In a statement, The MLC’s Chief Executive Officer, Kris Ahrend, said, “The MLC has worked closely and tirelessly with blanket licensees to ensure their compliance with the compulsory license terms. Our team repeatedly sought to resolve this issue directly with Pandora, but Pandora has refused to correct their reporting or royalty payments. The MLC is the only entity that has the statutory authority under the Music Modernization Act to take legal steps to enforce the obligations of streaming services. We have brought this action to ensure that our Members receive all the mechanical royalties they are due in connection with the use of their songs by Pandora on the Pandora Free service.”

The MLC was appointed by the Register of Copyrights to administer the blanket license and is the only entity authorized to collect and distribute the license royalties and enforce the license obligations on behalf of rightsholders.