Central Virginia’s Classic Rock station, a Class C3 FM with a signal covering the Lynchburg half of the Roanoke market, has been owned by regional licensee Todd P. Robinson‘s WVJT LLC since August 2012.
Now, Robinson is selling the station to a nationally known operator that’s also locally based.
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In recent months, the Jeff Andrulonis-led Colonial Radio Group has successfully shifted the focus of its media operations from the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and Western New York to the Carolinas.
Now, one of Colonial’s three FMs in South Carolina is being spun.
The buyer? It’s a Maryland licensee whose behind an Oldies operation heard on an AM and a trio of FM translators due northeast of Baltimore.
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The iHeartMedia Region Senior Vice President of Sales for the Kentucky-Indiana Metro has been selected to serve as Market President for its Indianapolis radio stations.
Earning the promotion is Kristy Beebe.
As Market President, Beebe will work closely with the programming, business and sales teams and oversee all of the station’s on-air and digital programming as well as create new revenue opportunities.
She will report to Earl Jones, President for iHeartMedia Kentucky-Indiana Metro.
Beebe will be based in Indianapolis.
“I am so excited for Kristy’s well-deserved promotion to Market President,” said Jones. “She has earned the opportunity to lead our Indianapolis market. Kristy has been an incredible sales leader, coach, and major contributor to the success of iHeartMedia Kentucky-Indiana Metro.”
Beebe has held various sales leadership positions throughout her career, including Local Sales Manager and General Sales Manager for iHeartMedia Toledo and iHeartMedia Louisville. She began her career in sales at iHeartMedia in her hometown of Toledo, Ohio and is a graduate of Lourdes University.
“I am so thankful to Earl Jones and the iHeartMedia team for this new leadership opportunity,” said Beebe. “I am ready to lead the Indianapolis team to new heights as we work together to provide unmatched service to our listeners, advertisers and the community.”
On Sept. 17, 2019, East Arkansas Broadcasters (EAB) — the radio broadcasting company owned by Bobby Caldwell — agreed to a transaction that would bring a local newspaper back to life.
There’s just one problem: His plan to purchase the Stuttgart Daily Leader in Stuttgart, Ark., and resume daily print publications at present runs afoul of media cross-ownership rules that the FCC rewrote, but were remanded by the Third Circuit federal court of appeals.
With the Supreme Court considering whether to uphold or toss the Third Circuit decision, Caldwell has moved forward with another deal — one that doesn’t involve cross-media concerns.
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It was developed to help entertainment providers improve content discovery and viewership KPIs on their platforms.
Introducing “Personalized Imagery,” a Gracenote platform the Nielsen-owned entity says brings linear and streaming TV providers the ability to display program images capturing different aspects of a TV show or movie based on viewer consumption.
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BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Sinclair Broadcast Group‘s broadcast TV stations will now be using air chain technology that comes courtesy of a South Korean software company expressly designed to assist the company as it deploys NEXTGEN TV across the U.S.
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Frequency control remains one of the biggest pain points in TV advertising.
Now, three major broadcast TV station owners are addressing this issue. It involves the use of a “full stack solution” — an infrastructure-as-a-service adtech platform designed to increase local reach.
Consider it a programmatic vitamin now in place at FOX Television Stations, properties owned by The E.W. Scripps Co. and at TEGNA TV stations, courtesy of MadHive.
FOX, Scripps and TEGNA are now tapping MadHive’s full stack solution to address this problem.
MadHive’s platform has incorporated tools for fraud detection, attribution, audience based-buying and delivery guarantees. Now, MadHive is offering the clients its “Audience Forecaster” platform.
The company says it can help the TV station owners in measure and control frequency across providers and DMAs.
There’s also the lingering issue of transparency for OTT and Connected TV, areas where broadcast TV companies are growing thanks to the availability of local news programming through station apps and platforms including Haystack TV and NewsOn.
MadHive CEO Adam Helfgott says, “The concept of delivery guarantees is a longstanding tradition in the world of linear, but delivery can be difficult to predict in the programmatic landscape. Developing an accurate forecasting methodology involves building a robust technical infrastructure capable of ingesting, organizing, and optimizing billions of signals.”
A Tampa Bay-based live event broadcast production firm and its streaming-for-broadcast tech subsidiary are teaming with a veteran WFTS-28 news anchor by having her newly launched business handle all local marketing and PR services.
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Total Traffic & Weather Network (TTWN), the iHeartMedia-owned provider of traffic, weather, news and sports content, has signed a new partnership agreement with “the world’s largest road-facing camera network.”
That’s Vizzion, and the new pact ensures its visual transit coverage reaches TTWN broadcast partners without cessation of service.
Vizzion’s nationwide aggregated traffic camera network encompasses imagery and live-feeds for use in traffic and weather reports.
The live look-ins are used by TTWN traffic reporters in more than 120 U.S. markets.
“Live imagery acts as a visually appealing add-on to the high-definition maps and graphics available through TTWN’s traffic presentation systems,” said Sean Beaudoin, Account Manager for Vizzion. “It’s important for broadcasters to deliver the most accurate data to their viewers, and the combination of TTWN’s hand-collected, real-time traffic and weather partnered with Vizzion’s 35,000 US-wide cameras makes for engaging and informative reporting.”
Michael Panarello, Vice President of TV Affiliate Sales and Operations for Total Traffic & Weather Network, added, “Live video enhances traffic storytelling. TTWN partners with Vizzion to give presenters the video content they need to create compelling, solutions-based reports showing viewers and digital users the real-time impact of incidents, congestion and weather on commute times.”
Publicly traded radio and television broadcasting companies on Tuesday saw a flurry of highly divergent activity on Wall Street.
Meredith Corp., Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entercom were among the key gainers.
The decliners range from Saga Communications to Disney and Cumulus Media.
One of the stations is a Class B AM with an FM translator. The other is a Class D AM, also with an FM translator. They serve an area to the west of metropolitan Cleveland, and for fifty years had been associated with the Wilber family.
That’s no longer the case.
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On November 5, 2020, Meredith Corp. revealed that it had propelled strongly into the first quarter of 2021. On February 4, the multimedia company with a local TV station group sat it enjoyed a strong fiscal Q2 2021 boost for those properties thanks to a political dollar windfall.
Do investors believe the fiscal Q3 for Meredith will be even bigger, given the company’s Tuesday stock performance?
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There are likely a lot of things on the slate of state broadcasters’ associations as it pertains to the key concerns of their member broadcast media owners and operators. Perhaps the biggest issue are the priorities a SBA has with the new Congress.
What can one SBA leader say about the early indications from Capitol Hill on what’s in store for radio and TV in your state? Justin Sasso, President/CEO of the Colorado Broadcasters Association, shares his observations on what’s been happening in his state — and much more — in a wide-ranging conversation exclusively found in this 100th episode of the RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by Dot.FM.
It may seem obvious that corporations in the broadcasting field need to keep their records in order and up to date.
According to communications law experts John A. Knab and Erwin G. Krasnow, it is not only surprising how many fail in this enterprise, but also how much it ends up costing them.
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The “only programming network dedicated to the active adventure lifestyle in the United States” is saying goodbye to a low-power analog TV station it owns in the Reno, Nevada DMA.
The buyer? The entity that now controls the brand associated with this over-the-air station that in 2003 successfully won a carriage complaint in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., against Charter Communications.
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On Monday (3/2), RBR+TVBR learned that The E.W. Scripps Co. had added their digital multicast networks onto stations it has obtained through its blockbuster acquisition of ION Media.
While this immediately created a doubling up of clearance for certain networks, it is now known that it’s only temporary.
Scripps is launching two new national TV networks as the company says it continues to capitalize on its position “as a full-scale national television company.”
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BOCA RATON, FLA. — She currently serves as Regional President of Entercom Communications‘ Gainesville, Fla.; Memphis; Miami; and Orlando markets, where she has served as Market Manager.
With Orlando’s “105.9 Sunny FM” a ratings monster, that success has led Entercom to give this local leader more duties by tacking on Market Manager responsibilities for South Florida.
At the same time, Entercom is welcoming a new SVP/Market Manager for its six Boston stations.
In the Sunshine State, Claudia Menegus is taking on more responsibilities, as she will now also oversee Entercom’s Miami-Fort Lauderdale cluster.
The stations are comprised of former Beasley Media Group (later, CBS Radio) and Lincoln Financial Media properties: Adult Contemporary WLYF-FM, Classic Hits WMXJ-FM “102.7 The Beach,” Alternative WSFS-FM “104.3 The Shark,” Sports twins WQAM-AM 560 “The Joe” and WAXY-AM 790 “The Ticket,” Rhythmic Top 40 WPOW-FM “Power 96,” and Country WKIS-FM.
“I look forward to leading our Miami market and its seven premier brands,” said Menegus, who has been overseeing Entercom/Miami on an interim basis since Keriann Worley resigned in late October 2020 as SVP/Market Manager. “Collectively, these stations and our talent embody the local spirit of Miami, giving listeners a home for entertainment and information each and every day. I’m proud to have the opportunity to work with these brands and our talented Miami team, reimagining new possibilities and connecting with our consumers and community.”
Worley had been overseeing Entercom/Miami since November 2017, and was Director of Sales for stations Beasley had spun to CBS Radio and were added to the Entercom family upon the completion of the two companies’ tax-free merger.
Menegus is a 22-year broadcast veteran, with 18 of those years spent at CBS Radio. During her tenure with CBS Radio, Menegus spent 14 years in various roles in the Baltimore market. Menegus also developed the CBS Radio Baltimore Marketing Group, a vehicle to expand non-traditional platforms, venue sponsorships, and sports marketing with Baltimore Ravens players, providing exclusive sponsorship programs and raising awareness for their foundations. In 2014, she was appointed as Director of Integrated Marketing for CBS Radio Corporate overseeing the Events and Experiences Division in 15 markets. Menegus began her career with Infinity Broadcasting in Tampa, which later merged with CBS Radio.
Meanwhile, Entercom/Boston Regional President Mark Hannon is welcoming Tim Clarke, an Asian American, as SVP/Market Manager.
Clarke, who as of March 15 will oversee Classic Hits WBGB-FM “Big 103,” AC WMJX-FM “Magic 106.7,” Hot AC WWBX-FM “Mix 104.1,” and Sports WEEI-AM & FM and WVEI-AM, joins Entercom after previously serving as VP of Content and Audience for Cox Media Group (CMG).
In this role, he oversaw all content, programming, marketing and digital audience strategies for the company’s radio properties.
Prior to that, Clarke was Senior Director of Digital Audience, where he was responsible for digital content, audience and product strategy for CMG’s radio stations.
At Cox Media Group, Clarke also held the roles of Director of Branding and Programming for WPOI-FM “Hot 101.5” in Tampa and served as Director of Social Media for all six of CMG’s Tampa properties. Previously, he served as Program Director at CMG’s Top 40 WAPE-FM in Jacksonville and as Music Director for CMG’s Top 40 sibling on Long Island in New York, WBLI-FM.
In the nation’s fourth-largest radio market, Camarillo, Calif.-based Salem Media Group owns and operates three AM radio stations — two of which offer secular programming.
Soon, two more AMs will be added to the mix. And, it is a safe bet the stations will retain their religious focus.
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Circle City Broadcasting has gained notice across the U.S. thanks to its owner, African American owner and CEO DuJuan McCoy. Its two stations include the CW Network affiliate serving Indianapolis.
Now, that station has figured out how to close-caption its content while being budget-minded in its selection process. In the end, WISH-8 went with ENCO.
As such, the station has begun to use the automated enCaption4 system from ENCO to meet its both its scheduled and late-breaking captioning needs.
Prior to adopting enCaption4, all of WISH-8’s closed captioning was done by human transcribers through a service company that would dial in to the station’s caption encoders. The huge amount of local news content WISH-TV produces – up to 12 hours per day – required a lot of dial-ins. With the rates charged by such services, the broadcaster’s captioning costs were very high.
“Our main goal wasn’t necessarily to save money, but more importantly to allow us to caption a greater majority of our content in a more cost-effective manner,” said Mike Selby, a staff engineer at WISH-8.
Selby had looked at automated speech-to-text technologies around eight years earlier but didn’t consider their accuracy good enough at the time. WISH-8 Chief Engineer Glenn Edwards kept following automated captioning technology. After reading a favorable review of ENCO’s enCaption4 system, the station took a closer look.
“We saw that enCaption4 would allow us to caption more of our programs for less money than we were paying for dial-in captioning, so we requested a demo unit for a trial,” Selby said. “It worked right out of the box and we were impressed with its accuracy.”
The station first used enCaption4 on the locally produced TV version of nationally syndicated radio program The Bob & Tom Show. It started airing on WNDY in October. Since then, they have expanded their use of enCaption4 across both WISH and co-owned sibling WNDY-23 in Indianapolis.
ENCO’s enCaption4 REST API gave WISH-8 the flexibility to set up their captioning operations exactly the way they desired and the ability to control enCaption4 through their own custom software.
“Our IT developer created an application that runs on a Raspberry Pi platform and enables us to easily start and stop the captioning process,” Selby said. “Our homebrew software also uses GPIOs on the Raspberry Pi to trigger the switching of our AJA KUMO router to the desired SDI source for our enCaption4 system, and to connect enCaption4 to the appropriate downstream caption encoder. In this manner, we can use our single enCaption4 system on our choice of the WISH, WNDY or control room signals.”
Most significantly, enCaption4 has enabled the broadcaster to expand its closed captioning to nearly all of its content.
“Having a machine that can handle all of our captioning needs is like a dream come true,” Selby said. “I’m impressed with how far the technology has come over the years. We had long hoped that someone would offer speech-to-text capabilities that work accurately enough for our on-air needs, so we could just hit a button and have it work.”
— Brian Galante
CALGARY — A new Subaru commercial by production company OPC, shot on a secluded mountainside in Banff National Park to the northwest of this Alberta, Canada, metropolis, was brought to life thanks to a “game-changing” CellSat connectivity service, a blended cellular and Ku-band IP satellite product expressly designed for remote broadcasting, communication and collaboration.
To bypass the logistical and financial challenges presented by limited cellular connectivity in remote shooting locations and the set-up and use of traditional satellite technology, B2B integrated connectivity company First Mile Technologies set up a flexible, portable workflow based around the Dejero CellSat service that not only delivered connectivity to and from set by dynamically blending cellular and satellite connections, but also allowed the team to collaborate in real-time, without interruption, using live streaming video from a set that would previously have been too remote to connect to.
“CellSat service streamlined every single aspect of critical communication and feedback for this job, by delivering resilient connectivity from a remote mountainside where usually the delivery of only a handful of stills would have been possible,” said Brandon Cooper, president, film and new media at First Mile Technologies. “This time, with Dejero CellSat, the team on set was able to receive real-time feedback, approvals, and general collaboration which isn’t normally feasible or affordable in extreme locations like this one. This type of technology is a revolution for the film and commercial production industry, allowing us to take things to the next level in terms of where we can film, at what cost, and the reliability and speeds at which we will be able to transfer video and data over a mix of cellular and satellite.”
During the shooting of this Subaru commercial, which included dynamic shots of driving, skiing and other active footage against the backdrop of the Canadian Rockies, First Mile Technologies set up an infrastructure that transported the camera feed from a Dejero EnGo mobile transmitter over the Dejero CellSat service to a Dejero WayPoint receiver at headquarters, where the stream was then sent to various platforms, including Zoom and First Mile’s own Web RTC platform for real-time, virtual collaboration.
In addition, Dejero CellSat provided enough bandwidth to support VoIP phone connectivity for the six people on set in Banff.
CellSat uses Dejero’s patented Smart Blending Technology which blends cellular connectivity from multiple mobile network providers with Ku-band IP satellite connectivity from Intelsat — delivering the bandwidth needed to transmit broadcast-quality video in real time. The CellSat service can be accessed from virtually anywhere in the United States and Canada.
“The use of the Dejero package, including CellSat and EnGo, was an integral solution for a remote Subaru commercial in the Canadian Rockies,” said John Scarth, line producer at OPC. “From a snow covered mountain top we were able to stream live to our offsite client with a low latency and rock solid connection. This technology allowed us to have a real time conversation with our client and work as though they were on set with us. With streaming becoming a key part of production, the Dejero platform is a turnkey solution for production in any environment.”
Faith Newton reported on this story from Calgary. Editing by Adam R Jacobson in Boca Raton, Fla.
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